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basics
What is narcissism?
Find a therapist who understands narcissism
A common belief about narcissists is that a person with this abhorrent set of traits is locked into a fixed, unchanging pattern that will continue throughout their life. You may be close to someone who you consider to have narcissistic traits, either through a close relationship, at work, or among your circle of friends. You think this individual checks all the narcissistic boxes, from lack of empathy to grandiosity. Perhaps this is a young person who has recently become your husband. To your anger, family gatherings are now affected by the way this person monopolizes the conversation and makes strange demands for attention. Will this be the fate of all future meetings?
According to a new study by Unique Wetzel of the University of Mannheim/University of Vienna and her American colleagues, there may be reason for optimism, even about this pesky pair. Pointing to complaints against “today’s youth” as being more narcissistic than youth of previous generations, Wetzel et al. It has been suggested that youth is generally associated with narcissism, making the current twenties no different from the twenties of past decades. The authors suggest that as you age, the ability to turn off the lights on yourself and pay more attention to the needs of others increases.
Previous studies by the authors and their colleagues have supported the claim that narcissism is no more prevalent among young people today than in previous generations. However, no one has actually followed the trajectory of narcissism over the years from youth to middle adulthood in the same people. Previous studies have compared scores of narcissism in different groups, but they have not followed individuals over time to see what happens to their scores when they reach middle adulthood. This time, international researchers actually followed the same people through the key years from 18 to 41. Comparisons of their results across a 23-year period would make it possible to address not only the idea that young people now are not more narcissistic. than those who were in the past, but also that young people become less narcissistic over time.
Recognizing that personality development does not occur in a vacuum, Wetzel and her colleagues also studied the ways in which people’s narcissism changed depending on where they started their adult lives. They may start jobs that suit their personality, such as an extrovert who goes into marketing. However, once they reach those jobs, they are more influenced by working conditions. With regard to relationships, similarly, people choose partners based at least in part on interpersonal compatibility. Once in a relationship, each person is influenced by the other’s personality. When it comes to starting a family, all other things being equal, personality will also influence the life choices people make which will then influence personality development.
With this conceptual background in mind, the authors added important life events to their analysis of changes in narcissism over the course of early adulthood. In other words, will people change based on their early life choices? The data came from a longitudinal study that began at UC Berkeley in 1992. The original sample was then followed from then until a subsequent test in 2013-2016. The researchers measured narcissism at the beginning and end points of the study, making a 23-year follow-up comparison possible.
At the beginning of the study, 519 students (slightly more than half of whom were female) completed the narcissism scale, and after 23 years of follow-up, the authors received usable data from 237 graduate students on the same measure. The 32-item Narcissism Inventory was analyzed into three levels: vanity (“I like to look at myself in the mirror”), leadership (“people always seem to acknowledge my authority”), and entitlement (“I will never be satisfied until I get everything I deserve “). To measure life events, Wetzel et al. Participants were asked to indicate which of 17 life events had happened to them (getting married, starting a new job, experiencing a serious illness or injury). For those events they experienced, participants also rated their affect ranging from “very positive” to “very negative.”
Take a moment now and think about which life events you would place at the forefront of your personal history, and how you would evaluate your experience of those events. It is very likely that if you had passed early adulthood, you would have started a new job and it is quite likely that you would have made some sort of career change. If so, what effect does it have on you? More importantly, from the researchers’ point of view, what is the nature of this career change? Was it a promotion or a demotion?
To capture the specific nature of job-related events, the authors also evaluated participants’ 41-year-old job titles in terms of their status, salary, and supervisory responsibilities. Participants also rated their level of satisfaction. The jobs themselves were also categorized in terms of personality traits such as “traditional” (e.g. accountant) and “social” (e.g. teacher). Now think about the type of job you have and whether you think it generally matches your personality. Do you feel satisfied in your work?
In the area of relationships, participants also rated their satisfaction as well as how many children they had and how long they had been married (if applicable). Again, think about your own relationship situation: Would you agree with one of the items researchers use that says “My relationship is close to ideal”?
Finally, participants provided health-related data, including their self-rated health, frequency of hospital visits, body mass index, and general feelings of life satisfaction and well-being.
Related : 7 Mistaken Assumptions About Narcissists
As you can see, this was a comprehensive look into the lives of the study participants, providing an in-depth glimpse into them as they entered their 40s. Overall, returning to the original question, there was a significant decrease in narcissism scores over time, particularly on the entitlement dimension. It is clear, from this finding alone, that as the authors predicted, narcissism peaks in early adulthood. As people move from their 20s to their 30s, in other words, they learn that the world doesn’t really exist to serve them.
The next piece of the narcissism puzzle involves the relationship between life events and personality change. As you might expect, people who reached supervisory positions began their journeys as adults higher in narcissism, and then, once they held the fate of others in their hands, they remained higher in the leadership dimension of narcissism.
Perhaps also surprisingly, those with high egos had fewer children and were more likely to divorce by their 40s. Conversely, and perhaps not surprising to anyone who is a parent, the greatest declines in vanity occurred for people who were in an intimate relationship and those who had children. Apparently, even arrogant narcissists can become somewhat more humble in response to the demands of child-rearing.
Vanity had its positive attributes: Those who scored higher on vanity in college were healthier than their age-matched peers who were less focused on appearance. Over time, although their relationships may have suffered, the eternal absurdity was not damaged. As the authors put it, “Perceptions of failure may lead people to focus on those aspects of themselves that can be acted upon. After each setback, people may expend energy into their physical appearance in an attempt to obtain a positive outcome in areas such as relationships and health.”
Returning to the case of your young narcissistic relative, Wetzel et al. The results do suggest that over time, this person may be able to adapt to the rhythms of the ways your family interacts. Your spouse’s narcissism may dissolve further if children come into the picture or a job change occurs that brings this person back to a more realistic self-evaluation.
