Key Points
Listening to yourself while you talk can reveal your narcissism.
Studies show that narcissism manifests itself in conversations through behaviors such as belittling others and monopolizing conversation time.
There is evidence that people who are high in narcissism also show signs of addictive smartphone use.
It has become very common to use psychological principles to try to identify who is a narcissist. Since this is not a flattering term at all, it is very difficult to take an honest look at yourself to see if the term applies to you.
A non-intentional narcissist is someone who acts in selfish, self-centered ways without having any insight into the source of these behaviors as they come from within their personality. One very obvious way to gain this understanding is by listening to yourself while you talk. In conversation, people send signals to others about the inner workings of their minds. These same signals can be helpful to you if you know how to listen for your contributions to conversations.
Research on Conversational Narcissism
Long before narcissism became a widely used term in the general vernacular, Anita Vangelisti, a professor of communication studies at the University of Iowa (now at the University of Texas), and her colleagues (1990) conducted an insightful study of what they called “conversational narcissism.”
According to these authors, “conversational narcissism is characterized by an intense focus on the self in conversation, to the exclusion of appropriate concerns for the other” (p. 251). In a series of studies with college samples, Vangelisti and her colleagues began by identifying behaviors that a narcissistic speaker might exhibit, and simply asked participants to list as many behaviors as they could remember that fit the definition.
After compiling these responses into a “behavior-based taxonomy,” the research team moved on to ask another group of 32 couples to participate in a role-playing game in which one person was instructed to act like a conversational narcissist and the other person was not. The behaviors were coded into four broad categories self-importance, exploitation, exhibitionism, and interpersonal relationships. Participants rated themselves and each other, and the researchers used videotaped conversations on a similar set of ratings. Here are the four categories, along with examples of the most common forms of each, developed by the research team:
Self-importance:
Outshining others
Questions that demonstrate superior knowledge
Belittling others
Exploitation:
Changing responses that refocus attention on the self
“I” statements
Taking longer to talk
Showing off
Exaggerated hand/body movements
Exaggerated facial expressions
Higher pitch of voice
Touching the other
Interpersonal relationships:
Not paying attention when the other person is talking
Looking over the other person’s shoulder (as if you were listening to another conversation)
Poor listening
Not asking the other person questions
This list provides an excellent behavioral way to turn the mirror back on yourself as you analyze your conversations. Listen to yourself talk and ask yourself how many of these behaviors are typical of you. For example, when someone tells you where they’re from, do you say, “I went on vacation,” rather than finding out more about how the person got to where they live now? Similarly, if someone tells you about their profession, do you say, “I wanted to be in that profession one day,” or do you ask them how much they like that profession? These are common ways narcissists steer the conversation toward themselves rather than their conversation partner.
Related : Surprising Reasons Why Narcissists Like Conspiracy Theories
The next study in Vangelisti et al.’s investigation offers another set of guidelines you can use to evaluate your conversations. The third study in the series examined the behaviors people use in conversations with narcissists to try to cope with the discomfort they feel when this happens. Again, by turning this around on yourself, by examining the behaviors of the people you’re talking to, you may be able to gain more insight into your unintentional narcissism.
ConversationalTactics That Combat Narcissism in Others
People who talk to people who are behaving in a narcissistic manner exhibit the following sets of behaviors, according to Vangelisti and her colleagues: Strategies include active and passive responses:
Active strategies:
Confront the speaker, either using sarcasm (“The conversation is going this way again”) or explicitly calling the speaker out
Switch the topic to yourself or another topic entirely
Keep the conversation going (“Look them directly in the eye and speak in a direct, meaningful tone”)
Engage someone else in the conversation
Passive strategies:
Low response (by looking away)
Showing disinterest
Goodbye (“Making up bad excuses to leave”)
Put yourself in a mental state so you don’t get upset
Listen or pretend to listen until they run out of steam
Ignore them by not answering questions or laughing at jokes
Simply avoid the person
Additional studies in Vangelista et al.’s investigation have continued to examine whether conversational narcissism is relevant (it can be) and how it develops throughout the participants’ relationship. But for your purposes, the findings provide fairly straightforward guidelines that you can use to examine your conversational narcissism.
Problematic Smartphone Use
Conversational narcissism is not, of course, limited to face-to-face interactions. What Zaheer Hussain and colleagues from the University of Derby (2017) call “problematic smartphone use” becomes a breeding ground for the conversational narcissist to take on a dominant role in online conversations and activities. You can, therefore, look at how you use your mobile phone as an additional clue to your unintentional narcissism. As Hussain et al. note, there is ample evidence to suggest that people high in narcissism show signs of addictive smartphone use.
In an online study of 871 smartphone users (average age 25), most of whom used their smartphones to browse Facebook and other social media sites, higher narcissism scores were positive predictors of the type of smartphone use the authors considered problematic. Smartphone users also had lower levels of personality traits related to conscientiousness and emotional stability.
To see if you’re a problematic smartphone user, see how much you agree with these statements: “I’m distracted by my smartphone,” “I use my smartphone to escape or relieve a negative mood,” and “I’ve jeopardized or lost an important relationship, job, or educational opportunity because of my smartphone use.” The British authors also note that narcissism alone may not fully predict smartphone use, but that anxiety also plays a role.
By putting the results of the two studies together, we can now understand how your unintentional narcissism might show up in your mobile phone use as well as in your everyday conversations. Narcissism may lead you to constantly call or text others, post-self-centered Facebook posts, and initiate long phone conversations in which you are the speaker. Using the findings of Vangelista et al.’s study, you can also ask yourself how others seem to respond to you. Do they dislike or comment on your posts? Do they seem to want to end the call as quickly as possible? Do you pause long enough in your conversations to hear their responses? If so, do these responses indicate active or passive coping strategies for your narcissistic dominance of the conversation? Fortunately, with the behavioral approach advocated by the Communication Studies Research Team, you don’t need to take a personality test and assess yourself to see if you’ve inadvertently acquired the traits of a conversational narcissist. Just listen to yourself, see how others respond to you, and then assess how people respond to your excessive, self-centered Facebook use. Enlist the support of a friend or family member to see if you’re improving on these behaviors. As you reject unintentional narcissism, the satisfaction that comes from mutually rewarding relationships will gain strength.
