30: Narcissism & Loving The People Who Love Themselves

the author of more than one hundred scientific articles. His books include The Handbook of Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Theoretical Approaches, Empirical Findings and Treatments. That was the title of one book. Another book is The Narcissism Epidemic Living in the Age of Entitlement and he wrote that with Gene Twenge and When You Love a Man who Loves Himself How to deal with a One way relationship. His work on narcissism has appeared in USA Today, Time, in

The New York Times. Doctor Campbell's also made numerous radio and television appearances, including The Today Show and NPR is All Things Considered. Thank you so much for being on the show today. Hey, thanks for having me. I you know, I came across her work when I was writing an article, working in an article for Psychology Today on how to spot a narcissist. And you know, I really enjoyed your book When You Love a Man who Loves Himself. It was funny. It was a funny book and very elucidating.

So thanks for the work you're doing on narcisism. I thought we could talk about first of all, why do you get interested in this topic? Why this topic out of all the topics in psychology you could have studied. Yeah, yeah, a few reasons. And I know I've thought about this so much. I don't even know if it's cure anymore. But I started out to study in the South and self enhancement basically, people make themselves look and feel good. And that was the idea, was everybody self enhances And then,

you know, I just had a chance. I started looking at narcissism in one study and I was like, Wow, not everybody spends their time self enhancing. A few people do, and they, you know, they make the averages high, but it's really, you know, it's people narcissistic are doing it. And part of it was I always wanted to study

the non self, you know. I was kind of love Buddhism as a kid and Taoism, and I couldn't figure out how to do that, so I ended up going the opposite direction and studying the so the outlandish aspects of the self. Yeah, and it's fun, right, I mean, it's a fun topic to study it. You know, it's I'm kind of like the Ebola guy. You know, it's just you start studying something and wow, the world just goes to hell and they call you. So I think I got lucky and it was interesting and it's been fun.

Well yeah, and narcissists are fun too at first, right, yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, I've done some work on straight up entitlement and I never found it that exciting because I don't really like playing and titled people. They I don't like them. But people narcissistic are often fun to be around. They're fun to hang out with, they make great they're great entertainment value. They can be good colleagues in some ways and and bad in some

ways too, but they're they're interesting. Yeah, So what is the difference between clinical narcissism and subclinical narcissism, And can you call people who score high in subclinical narsism like in everyday population, can you call them narcissisms? Yeah, I think it's you know, there's no there's no secret team who makes up the rules on this. You know, the

first question is Narcissism is a trade. You know, it's a trade that involves for anbiosity and a lack of empathy and these these interesting you know, self regulation strategies or games people play to make them look good and you know, bragging and showing off at attention seeking, and that ranges across a continuum where most people in the middle,

and then there's some people at the extremes. And if you're at the very high level of narcissism, and you sort of get stuck in that pattern of behavior, if you're you know, if you're showing off on stage and then you come home and you're showing off to your kids. You know, you can't have a conversation with your wife because you keep having to talk about how great you are, and it starts damaging your life. It can be a disorder, but beyond the damage, it causes. There's no real difference

between what's sort of subclinical and clinical. It's really just a matter of extremes and inflexibility of the trade, just like all personality disorders really in terms of the names. You know, you can call people high in narcissism or you can call them narcissists, and that just means somebody high on the normal continuum. It doesn't mean somebody who's been diagnosed to having a personality disorder, just the same way you call people introverts, people who are somewhat you know,

high in introversion, but doesn't mean they're pathologically introverted. But it gets confusing, and people use the term narcissists to describe people with MPD, and then they think you're being pejorative when you use it. So it does get confusing out there, it does, and people I feel like people throw the term narcissism around like they say, oh, you're such a narcissist. Yeah, let me ask you something. You know, I know some people who accuse other people narcissists themselves.

I know this are very narcissistic sometimes, is there have you ever studied that phenomenon, like, for instance, you know, like you know, I've noticed, like I've seen some people say, oh, my ex husband is such a narcissist. He never paid attention to my needs. He only cared about himself. But the more I get to know that person, I'm like, oh, you know, maybe I should tell that person they're kind of you know, they want it all to be about themselves. Actually,

do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely, there hasn't been there. It hasn't been a lot of research directly on that. And in fact, I can think of like little correlations here and there. But to that point, you know, what we find in relationships tends to be people who narcissistic end up at least there's some some to some extent with other people who are narcissistic. So there's some

come awfully or some matching in relationships. And you can see how that would be a problem because if we both want their needs met, it's not going to work too well. Exactly, Yeah, no, that's exactly right. Let's you know probably what's going on there. And I want to be quite not saying that everyone that some people are generally with a narcissistic partner, and they themselves may be

the most have be very humble, you know. So I'm not talking about all people, but I've noticed this sometimes I've noticed this, and I'm like, you know, I think, I like, I think you're both actually a little narcissis, like quite narcissistic. Yeah, it happens. I think when most of the damage gets done is when you have certain needs narcissistic somebody who's not and they have two very

different you know, personal styles and different things. They want a relationship, and I think that's where people can get really hurt. Two people are narcissistic, you know, that are sort of shallow, materialistic and look good together and go to parties together. I think that that can work a little better, at least for a while. Some pattern I noticed a lot is the really caring, compassionate, like caretaker kind of person kind of again take advantage of by

the narcissist. Do you see that ever in your research. We haven't really found it pop out in research. It's the you know, it's the doormat model or the forgetting the term from from transactional psychology, but it's the it's the idea that you have this somebody who's a caretaker, somebody's you know, co dependent, I guess would be the term. We haven't, Like I said, we haven't really found that in research, but I know it exists. I just don't think it's big enough to pop out in correlations but

I certainly heard that from people. Yeah, so, yeah, I find out these matches in relationships fascinating. Now. You so you think, like, like the core aspect of narcisism, is it the entitlement aspect? I think so. I think there's a bunch of us and we argue about this and discuss it, and I think there's this core. There's this core piece of antagonism, entitlement, and grandiosity that all sort of you know, load together in some way. That seems

to be the core. And then for them with grandiose and narcissism, you get a lot of extraversion and dominance and aggressiveness, and this is what you see in the leaders who are very narcissistic. And then for the more vulnerable form, you get a lot of neuroticism and insecurity that goes with that entitlement. And that's the more vulnerable

form that you often see in clinical settings. The vulnerable form is really interesting because it can go undetected and it can be masked as introversion or sensitivity hot right, it can be masked by lots of other things, whereas grandiose narcissists are like out there. Yeah, you know, we've done studies where you ask people can identify narcissism either from you know, watching a person talk, or just from

your Facebook page or from your selfies or whatever. And grandiose narcissism, that sort of extroverted form people do see, and they and they like often in the vulnerable form, they don't really see until you know, some time has passed. And that's why it's sometimes called covert narcissism. It's it's hidden and you might think it's shyness or introversion, and then it turns out, well, there's some grandiosid in there too, in a real strong sense of entitlement. Yeah. I find

that covert narcissism is so interesting. I think a lot of these school rampage shooters, I think they have covit narcissism. And I think that that's no one's really written an article. Just maybe we should write an article about that, because I think that that hit the nails in the head, hits you absolutely. I wouldn't through. I'm teaching a seminar narcissism this year, and I just went through a bunch

of the manifestos that, especially that case it's Barbera. But many of these cases the last case with the TV reporter, and you often have people who seem shy and and somewhat passive with these very grandiose ideas, but they just can't seem to function in the normal world. In the Santa Barbera case that you know, this this kid asks that one person and gets rejected, and then he decides, you know, all women should be eliminated. I mean, it's

that incredible vulnerability but also incredible narcissism. Yeah, absolutely, so, you know, I wonder how that can be diagnosed or detected. Manifesto, Man, anybody who writes a manifesto, it just ends, well, that's what of my girls can live by. So tell me about some of the hot topics in the science of narcissism field right now. What are some of the threat

you're most excited by and what are we finding. Well, I think, you know, one issue that's been ongoing and it really isn't resolved, but I almost think we're making a little progress is just defining narcissism in terms of you know, the clinical or psychiatric community. So in that, you know, in the DSM five, I don't know how familiar are with this, but there ended up being oh perfect, yeah,

I know most of us do. Yeah, you end up with two definite you know, there's two definitions of narcissism in there, and they still sort of jam this this grandiose and vulnerable piece together within a single construct and no one they just haven't torn it apart. And I think we're making some progress. We're going to get some sort of agreement on Okay, here's this grandiose form, here's this vulnerable form, here's what makes them similar, here's what

makes them different. So that that's one ongoing debate. And then the other thing I find really interesting is, you know, it is looking in the social media and sort of broadly in the you know, the virtual world, and how narcissism is going to come out or has come out in that space. And that's personally what I find really interesting. Yeah,

what do you mean by the virtual like role playing games? Yeah, I mean we started setting geeks, you know, sort of broadly defined people who do live action role play and coseplay and aiming and looked at narcissism. There people are starting to look at selfies and narcissism to see how it comes out and that so that whole space is an interesting way to I find it interesting. At least I'm learning a lot about it. Do people do narciss grow up? Ever? Like I do? Think there's a developmental process.

And if you think about it from an evolutionary perspective, you know, in terms of just short term mating or whatever, you know that eighteen to twenty four would be prime narcissism time. And I mean, I think at eighteen was the smartest I've ever been, and it's been downhill ever since, or at least in terms of my confidence of what I've known. So I think a lot of us, you know, you know, have some high level of narcissism is as sort of young adults. Narcissism is same thing as confidence. No,

I think it's more over confidence. But but they go together, Okay, narcissism you get very high levels of confidence, and in fact so high that they're wrong. You can you can know things that aren't true. You know, you think, you admit to knowing things that aren't real. You don't learn from mistakes, so you do get some real overconfidence with narcissism. But it's not good to be too to have too much humility either. No, it's in narcissism. It's a trade off.

And you know, you think of the system. If you're in a system where there's no comp sequence to failure, narcissism would work really well. If you're in a system where there's a bigger risk of failure, you you know, narcissism doesn't work so well, right, Like so reality TV, you know there, I think there are a couple of narcissists in that world, a couple of them. Now, I mean the data on that are fascinating because you find you know that study two Pinsky did probably a decade ago,

mentioned him. Yeah, it's great with Mark Young, they found the high levels of NPI scores and narcissistic personality into toy scores and reality television. There's been some interesting work on fame and narcissism, and it's obviously a real attraction to people narcissistic. I mean, fame is a great way to expressed narcissism, so it just works in that space. Yeah,

I find that the fame thing like interesting. A lot of people, there's like this cover narcissism thing where it's like, you know, they don't they so desperately want the fame, but they want so we don't want to like be seen as someone who wants the fame, like the tortured artist. I've been real at about David Foster Wallace and you know, you know, you know, all those interviews and everything, and he's like he's like, I really really want it, but I really would I would hate to be seen as

the one who really really wants it. So there's is there. Is it possibly a neurotic vulnerable narcissist? Yes, absolutely, I mean that's part of it though. Is that high level of neuroticism, Yeah for sure. And I know, you know creativity feel better than I do, but you know, that's that's something we see and with some of the data we have on creativity is high levels of vulnerable narcissism. It's that sort of narcissism with neuroticism that seems to

be linked to some creativity. Wow. Yeah, I wonder if any Woody Allen going on there as well. Yeah. Yeah, he's a good example. I mean I don't know him obviously, and I but you know, he plays a very that very sort of vulnerable narcissistic, neurotic character all the time. You know, he's in the center of everything, but he kind of neurotic and outshocks about it. Isn't like just

neuroticism the trait if you're too high in that. I've read somewhere that that actually is indicates selfishness is a selfish trait because you're so obsessed with your self and how you're being perceived. That isn't that in itself in a way selfish? I don't know, what do you know. I don't think anybody's resolved, but there's idea. You know, depression, you see a lot of self focus and anxiety. You see a lot of self focus, even extreme self focus.

Some people have argued that some version of vulnerable self focus, vulnerable narcissism, is at the core of a lot of disorders. Yeah. I don't know, but I see what they're getting at. As you distance yourself in the world, you become so focused on yourself, your own problems. You sort of isolate yourself from the world, and you think you're such a big deal that you know, your life is that important

you should be upset about it, right exactly. And I think a big thing for people who are suffering from anxiety issues as well is when they get outside their own head and like help others and then they see a reduction. That's what we find in the field of positive psychology, having gratitude and stuff. So yeah, I think that's you know, I think there's something too that I was like that old research from you know, the Battle of Britain where people you know, were being bombed by

the by the Nazis. Sort of psychological disorders went way down during that time, you know, just you got some real problems to worry about, so you kind of think about yourself the work last. Yeah, for sure. So are you where are you on the narcissism scale. I'm sure you've taken it, taken your own death. Yeah, you know, it's hard to take it yourself. I'm actually pretty low

in terms of I try to be low. But you know, like every academic you get me in certain areasm just an arrogant sob Yeah, you're only I mean there's there's a little bit of narcissism and everyone right, Yeah, there's a fundamental it's a fundamental human kind of motive for self enhancement of the self esteem, right right, And you know, and you try to use it. I mean, this is my in my head. This is a metaphor I see, which never works. But I think it's ego. It's almost

like riding a dolphin. You just grab the thing, you ride it a little bit when you need it, let it go when you don't. And the hard part is to know when to take to use it. No one not to. But I find trying to be willing to do things rather than being super confident works better for me, at least. I don't know if that makes sense. But whenever I do, I, you know, public stuff, and I tend to just go for it, but I tend not to go I'm going to kill it. S not so

you don't. You don't walk with swagger. I don't have a lot of swagger. Now you could. Swagger works for some people. It's just not my not my thing, not your style. Yeah, okay, fair enough, fair enough. But you you know, so you study them like an anthropologist studies a different species or you know. Uh, I don't think. I don't think for me. I went into it for

the sort of the classic me search. I wasn't trying to figure out my own right, Yeah, I got issues that just doesn't seem to be my big one, that wasn't your big one. No, So narcissm is a double edged sword. And I was wondering, wondering if you could tell me a little bit about your new model of the emerging zone and the other zone. Yeah. Well, you know, this is something my wife and I talked about a lot. But you know, I try to think about things not

just in terms of personality. Traits and trades are great, but I try to think of them as in sort of dynamic terms. And the way most people think about narcissism in terms of a dynamic is self enhancement, which is you do things to make yourself look good to get attention, and then you feel good and you just keep doing that as long as it works, it's great. And so that dynamic is really well established. But the other thing, you know, we started thinking about was how

does this change over time? Because often what you find with narcissism, So the leadership example, I think is really interesting. People are narcissistic rise to leadership really well. People look up to them they like them. People are narcisstic who want to be leaders, they become leaders. Do vulnerable narcisists become leader? Now this is this is grandiose. Here, grandiose vulnerable narcissists in the basement and fantasize about it and

play video games. But the grandiose ones are you know, actually out there doing it and it works and then you know, you hire them and then they turn out to be sort of risk taking and self centered and sometimes it's great and sometimes it's an absolute disaster, but whatever happens, they end up on the feet and go

do it again. And so there's this this idea was you know, this emerging zone sort of in the first impressions of people, and you know, when you're you know, when you start dating somebody, when you know, elect somebody to office, or choose somebody as a leader, any of these initial phases of a relationship. People in narissistic tend to do really well. By that, I mean grandiose narcissism, and over time it tends to fall apart. That's this

more enduring zone. And so the trick is, if you're narcissistic, always be you know, always be closing always be emerging always and politician, you know politicians. I think it was Jimmy Carter Firs who's talked about the permanent campaign. So you know, you run for president, you never stop campaigning, right, because you're real if you're narcissistic, you're really good at the campaigning part. You're not so good at the actual

leadership part. Right. So that's the idea is sort of you know, look at how the time course of the relationship with narcissists this effected, and now people narcissistic can all be in those dating. You know, they're really good at dating, so how can they keep dating? They're really good at becoming leaders, don't they can they keep you know, running for leadership rather than actually leading, Not if that made any sense at all, but that that was sort of the idea of it was, you know, what's the

zone where narcissism really does well? Great? Do you are you strike shocked at all that Trump is starting to slide in the ratings? I think it's I think it's a I think Trump is going to do well and he's I don't. Yeah, wouldn't that kind I think your theory? No, because I think you know, first of all the way we do campaigns here is they're just reality TV that no one believes. We're an interesting case right now because

the country has so little trust. We have so little trust in politicians that what they say doesn't really matter. We don't really trust them and we shouldn't. And when you have a situation like that, sort of an unstable place where people need trust, you need a strong leader.

That's what people gravitate to in these things. And Trump comes across as confident, he comes across as a narcissistic, but he's also often seen as very honest because he says, yeah, you know, I pay off politicians and I'm an egomaniac, and or at least he says, I have a strong ego. And I think his honesty makes people trust him more than anybody else, So it should work, okay. And I think the slide versus Ben Carson, I don't know. I think people go for the they'll go for the ego.

I mean that they the outward ego and the charisma and the and the surgency. That's fascinating. What do you think it's it's outside the box prediction. But well, why don't why don't people go for reasonableness. I think we have a political system where I mean, we've looked at trust. I mean, you know, trust is about the lowest it's ever been in this country. You know, we've looked at this with some of the general social survey data other data.

When you don't trust anybody, reasonableness doesn't matter. Okay, what can they say? They're like, I'm reasonable, Like I don't believe you. But let's move out of the politic politics realm for a second. Why are nurses so attractive at the least at first blush? What is it that they have? I think it's those you know, what you'd broadly described as agentic traits confidence, swagger, extraversion, activity level dynamism. I mean,

these are all things we found very attractive in people. Okay, and they've got them so that it works in the in the short term, okay. So and then there and you found it in relationships. There's a magic mark, like a nine month mark, right, yeah, that's the coin. Pardon when there's a steep to coin. Yeah, that's so. I mean I've used this, you know, I talk about it as the chocolate cake model often, which is that when you you know, if somebody gives the choice between eating

chocolate cake and eating broccoli. You go for the chocolate cake, and you feel really good for like twenty minutes, and then you just crash. You get a sugar crash, and then you hate yourself reading the chocolate cake, and then you get depressed. And the next day you wake up instead because you want the chocolate cake at of broccoli, and you go for the chocolate cake again. And so we're sort of drawn to these things that give us

the short term rewards. And even if the crash is pretty extreme, and if you broccoli, you don't feel good, you don't get a big buzz, but thirty minutes or forty minutes later, you go, you know, I'm a good bird and I'm healthy. I really like who I am. Yes, I had propt me for dinner. I feel great. You feel good, right, You're like, I'm ade, I take care of myself. You know, I'm ready to have some chocolate now, right, But you don't get the buzz from the ice cream.

I'm going to have you know after this interview. And so what you see in the relationships is people are you know, debutople and narcissistic, and they're really the relationships are very exciting at first because narcissists have all these traits that make them good at mating. So they have all these you know, these early excitement things and they're fun. And then over time in the relationship, when you're supposed to get those more more caring communal traits come in.

Those don't happen, and in fact that you get to the opposite. So you get the person you know, hitting on your friends, or you know, being dismissed, ave, dismissive or manipulative, or you know, telling you how to dress so you look good when you go out together, criticizing you, all sorts of negative things. You you know, you you wondered for a while what you did wrong to change the person, and then eventually you bail or he bails

to the front. Some of the younger or more attractive, I think she is, she too, But yeah, differences their main effects. You know, people are narcissistic are more likely to be men. But we don't find that many interaction effects in relationships. What does that mean to the everyday listener? You mean most people are just doing two way interactions in their car driving. Narcissistic men and narcissistic women are very similar in how they act, but men tend to

be more narcissistic. And I think, though I don't have any information about this, as women care a little more about the communal stuff, so they might have more negative effects. So I mean, I've talked to it, and this is purely anecdotal. A lot of guys are native narcissistic women dating not marriage. You know, younger guys and they're like, yeah, she was narcissistic, but she was hot, and they're like, okay,

well that that's fine then, right. And women, I think, you know, in the personal stuff, at least in dating the marriage. I've talked to plenty of men who've had narcissistic wives and it's been a real disaster. So it's I think maybe with men it's that higher level of commitment where you get a problem. Has anyone looked at sex differences in grandiose versus vulnerable narcissism? Yeah, and you don't find much of a difference in vulnerable. It's got more.

It's it's because you have much more neuroticism, and women tend to be more neurotic than men, so you don't really see the difference there you deal with the grandiose. I want to clarify what you're saying. You're saying you don't see many sex differences in vulnerable, but you see more of the sex differences in grandiose. Absolutely interesting, right, So I thought it might even be reversed though in vulnerable, like the word females are more or vulnerable narcists. I

don't know. Oh, and I think that would make sense because there are those you know, there are sex differences in neuroticism that are pretty substantial. I'm talking to averages here, you know. But no, there is a big meta analysis on it, and I don't think there are any differences

in vulnerable narcissism. Okay, very interesting. Okay, So I want to you know, wrap this interview because you've been so generous with your time, But could you get some practical tips for people, like on how to maybe spot a narciss and kind of avoid them if they want to or yeah, do you have any practical tips? Yeah, I mean the spotting of narcissist is such an it's a challenging question. Like I said that the covert or vulnerable forms are just hard to spot. Those are just I

don't have any great secret for that. With the grandiose types you see, you know, you see people who are a little more self promotional, a little more attention seeking, and you might get some hints at that to that high level of confidence. Unfortunately, you're probably going to find that attractive in people. So often when I find people I really like, I think, oh, that's a warning sign. I mean, that's how bad I am. When I find

leaders I like, I'm like a warning sign. I think one of the best things to do if you want to understand people is the best predictor of you know, behaviors, past behavior, and so look at their history and if they've been narcissistic in the past, if you've seen it with other relationships or in other leadership positions, they're probably going to keep doing the same thing. So I think that's part of the safest route to go rather than

using your gut. Great I thought another question. I want to ask you, what is the difference between narcissism and psychopathy. That's a great question. They're they're very they're very similar, and they and they have similar issues. And in narcissism sometimes we have this more vulnerable for and more grandiose, and in psychopathy they oft them of what they call maybe a factor one and a factor two that that are, you know, the factor two psychopathy is sort of like

vulnerable narcisism. But in general I think psychopathy has more impulsivity than narcissism. Does that people, you know, psychopathic can be narcissistic, but often more impulsive, and that's impulsivity is what gets them in trouble. Other than that, they're very very similar depending on which definition you you you look at, Some definitions of psychopathy really include narcissism. Is there this

whying element of psychopathy as well? That you know? I mean, because there's a there's the hair checklist, and yeah, I wonder like I'd love to go through every single item on the checklist with you and you tell me what is really narcissism and what's really narcissm and what uniquely psychopathy.

Let's do that someday. It's that impulsivity piece, though, if somebody, you know, somebody's an you know, psychopathic, you know, bunks you on the edge to steal your shoes because you want some of the narcissists gets a job, becomes your boss and then makes you give him your shoes in front of your girlfriend, so it's a self control that

seems to separate the two, right. Hey, hey man, I really appreciate you taking a time of chat with me today, and I recommend people check out your research and your book. Thank you so much. Oh, thanks for having me appreciate it. Scott, have a great one you too. All Right, thanks for listening to The Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just as an informative

and thought provoking as I did. If you don't like to read the show notes for this episode or here past episodes, you can go to the Psychology Podcast dot com.