Believing that no harm can come to you no matter what can lead you to fall victim to the myth of invincibility. There’s a reason why it’s said that “pride precedes the fall,” or that excessive pride or arrogance, often seen as a tragic flaw, can be your undoing. Once you convince yourself that you’re invincible, you fail to see yourself in an accurate or realistic light. Whatever flaws you’ve avoided dealing with can come back to haunt you. And if they’re serious enough, they can be your downfall.
We see plenty of examples in the media of celebrities and politicians who believe they can’t do harm. Most recently, Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton, who was given the nickname “Superman” ahead of Super Bowl 50, failed to live up to expectations when the big game came. While his team certainly would have been well prepared and ready to play, who knows how much the media hype would have affected him?
Anyone who enters a competitive situation convinced that they are invincible is likely to suffer a similar fate. Once you see yourself as the inevitable champion or victor, you fail to prepare yourself for the reality of what could end up being a very difficult situation. Imagine that you are going into a high-pressure meeting where you need to convince your boss to agree to a request, or to beat a coworker who is looking for the same great outcome. Instead of methodically going through the rationale for your approach in your mind, you ignore the details, thinking only about how great it would be to win. When your boss asks for those details, you are stumped, and your competitor wins.
Similarly, in relationships, invincibility leads you to ignore potential weaknesses in the way you and your partner manage difficulties. You may feel like you are the one who deserves special treatment and thus fail to engage in the kind of give-and-take that keeps relationships thriving.
Clearly, invincibility is a component of narcissism, since by definition, people high in narcissism are unable to see or acknowledge their own flaws. They believe they deserve the special attention they want everyone else to give them, so they make constant demands on their partners. Focused solely on themselves, they become unable to empathize with their partners, and they resist change when their partners seek to improve the quality of the relationship. Closed to their own contribution to the weaknesses in their relationship, they find themselves in trouble when their partners announce they are fed up and walk out the door.
The myth of unconquerability is related to the concept of personal narrative. Psychologist David Elkind coined the term to refer to the tendency of adolescents to engage in endless, self-centered fantasies. If you believe in a personal narrative, you see yourself as the hero or heroine of your life story, and you imagine that others see you that way as well. It is thus a direct result of early development. With experience and maturity, most individuals (other than narcissists) develop a more realistic and balanced view of their self-importance. Those who do not overcome their narrative tendencies are most at risk for the myth of unconquerability. Drew Single and colleagues at Northwestern University (2015) suggest that belief in personal narratives does not end in adolescence. Given that adolescence extends into what is now called “emerging adulthood” (ages 18 to 30), it is possible to see notions of unconquerability extending for years. Moreover, Facebook has the potential to bring personal myths to light for more people than ever before. Related to personal myth is the “imaginary audience,” the people you think are following you and evaluating your every move. If Facebook doesn’t exacerbate this problem, I don’t know what will.
Using this logic, Singel and his team predicted that heavy Facebook users would be more likely to believe in personal myths, in part because they feel like they’re constantly being followed by an imaginary audience (i.e., their Facebook friends). The Northwestern team also looked at “behavioral training,” or the tendency to put Facebook at the forefront of your actions. If you have a high level of behavioral training on Facebook, for example, you might think about how something on Facebook will develop before you even engage in the activity you’re going to post.
The team designed statements specifically to measure personal myths for teens, but they apply to all ages. These included statements like “I know I get away with a lot of the things that other kids get in trouble for” and “Even though I know that a lot of other people may not realize their goals and ambitions, I’m sure I will.” The audience’s imaginary statements included: “Imagine what everyone would think if I became famous”; “Imagine what everyone would think if I won a lot of money”; and “Imagine what everyone would think if I saved a friend from danger”.
The results showed that both behavioral training and the fictional audience proved, as expected, to play a role in the shift from Facebook use to greater endorsement of the personal narrative. This is because being on Facebook increases your awareness of others who may be watching and commenting on what you do. However, once the personal narrative takes hold, it can have a greater impact on your Facebook use. Analysis of the data also revealed that it can lead you to post more frequent updates, photos, and check-ins. However, for the majority of the sample, the personal narrative belief was not associated with riskier self-disclosure. As the authors conclude, “Once adolescents feel special and unique and experience the idea of a personal narrative, our results suggest that they no longer feel the need to engage in risky self-disclosure and instead engage in more frequent Facebook use, likely to stay active and visible on Facebook” (p. 34). The takeaway from this study: Even if you’re past your teen years, you probably carry at least some of this personal myth into your daily life, including your social media presence. No one has yet studied personal myths in adulthood, but if we’re to take a cue from Single et al.’s study, it seems that the heightened awareness we all have of our online presence due to social media can build feelings of invincibility. Staying in touch with your social media use can help you determine how much your myth is impacting your sense of self. By focusing on your actual accomplishments, rather than the ones you imagine you deserve, you’ll find that the myth can become a reality in your quest for fulfillment.
