the main points
People who are high in narcissism are not very popular once you get to know them well, yet they are often very successful.
New research shows the two conditions behind this paradox in a narcissist’s success.
Breaking away from the grip of a narcissist may simply be a matter of realizing that you don’t need them to make your life better.
When you think of a narcissist’s interpersonal skills, you probably don’t imagine them being particularly good in the interpersonal department. Maybe you have an acquaintance you see around town whose selfish traits keep rubbing you the wrong way. Today, they stop chatting with you and manage to “insert” into the conversation the fact that they just got a promotion at work. You wonder how such an annoying and undesirable person could have the ability to make such a positive impression on the powers that be.
Most of the time, people high in narcissism don’t have much luck in their relationships, at least according to research on the long-term prospects of their ability to keep a partner after the initial glow wears off. However, in other areas of life, they can become very successful, like your acquaintances, even move up the career ladder.
The paradox of the narcissist’s success
According to Erica Xu and colleagues from Hong Kong Baptist University (2022), although narcissism is generally viewed as a “social problem,” people with this trait are also “portrayed as having charm that attracts people.” Paradoxically, they can “possess the ability to mysteriously inspire and influence people,” leading them to become “leaders across different sectors of society, throughout the world and throughout history”
Turning to understanding what paradoxically makes narcissists popular, Shaw et al. It was suggested that the first component involves energy dependence. If other people depend on an individual, that individual is more likely to gain social acceptance. If you need this person to achieve your own goals, you will likely want to include this person in your group.
The second factor in understanding a narcissist’s popularity, according to researchers, is experience. A person who is truly good at his or her job not only helps ensure the success of the group, but can also “provide valuable knowledge, skills, and resources to other team members”.
Think of a person who, despite being extremely narcissistic, is extremely helpful in his ability to teach you a skill you want to acquire. Maybe you’re taking a class to hone your skills in your favorite hobby. The teacher’s constant self-aggrandizing comments irritate you to no end, but it’s clear that they have tremendous experience in this particular field. As it turns out, you go so far as to invite the teacher to lunch with you and your fellow students just so you can pick their brains that much more.
Manipulating two pieces of the narcissism paradox
Researchers in Hong Kong say that narcissists who are able to exercise power over others are the ones who have this high level of desirable experience. The combination of experience and reliance on authority, as Shaw et al. Maintaining it can overcome the normal aversion people feel toward individuals who constantly demand admiration and attention.
Across two field studies, Xu and her collaborators conducted time-lagged studies, one month apart, using teams of employees in two different call centers located in China. Work groups in these organizations completed both self-report measures of their own levels of narcissism as well as trait assessments of their work group members. Each work group member rated the other’s expertise in aspects of the job required for competency. Participants also completed measures of their interdependence on each other with items such as “Members of our group ‘sink or swim’ together.” In the first study, ostracism was used as the dependent measure; The second study expanded the outcome measures to include social integration and popularity.
. When you think about this statement, you are very likely to agree with it based on your own reflections regarding the personalities of certain political leaders.
Shaw and her colleagues decided to delve into this paradoxical state by devising two studies that would allow them to disentangle the factors that could lead at least some narcissists to avoid the taint of their unpleasant personality traits and gain this mysterious power.
As a theoretical background for the research, researchers in Hong Kong do not rely on a deep psychodynamic orientation, but instead rely on the so-called social constructivist vie
Turning to understanding what paradoxically makes narcissists popular, Shaw et al. It was suggested that the first component involves energy dependence. If other people depend on an individual, that individual is more likely to gain social acceptance. If you need this person to achieve your own goals, you will likely want to include this person in your group.
The second factor in understanding a narcissist’s popularity, according to researchers, is experience. A person who is truly good at his or her job not only helps ensure the success of the group, but can also “provide valuable knowledge, skills, and resources to other team members”.
Think of a person who, despite being extremely narcissistic, is extremely helpful in his ability to teach you a skill you want to acquire. Maybe you’re taking a class to hone your skills in your favorite hobby. The teacher’s constant self-aggrandizing comments irritate you to no end, but it’s clear that they have tremendous experience in this particular field. As it turns out, you go so far as to invite the teacher to lunch with you and your fellow students just so you can pick their brains that much more.
Manipulating two pieces of the narcissism paradox
Researchers in Hong Kong say that narcissists who are able to exercise power over others are the ones who have this high level of desirable experience. The combination of experience and reliance on authority, as Shaw et al. Maintaining it can overcome the normal aversion people feel toward individuals who constantly demand admiration and attention.
Across two field studies, Xu and her collaborators conducted time-lagged studies, one month apart, using teams of employees in two different call centers located in China. Work groups in these organizations completed both self-report measures of their own levels of narcissism as well as trait assessments of their work group members. Each work group member rated the other’s expertise in aspects of the job required for competency. Participants also completed measures of their interdependence on each other with items such as “Members of our group ‘sink or swim’ together.” In the first study, ostracism was used as the dependent measure; The second study expanded the outcome measures to include social integration and popularity.
The advantage of this field method was that the research team could obtain all but the narcissism scores using ratings given by work group members to each other. For example, on the ostracism scale, participants rated their groupmates on items such as “At work, I treated [X] as if he wasn’t there.” Each group member received their own ostracism score based on the average of the ratings given by everyone. Likewise, in the popularity rating, group members rated each other with items such as “This person is looked down upon.”
Turning to the results, as the authors expected, experience and group goal interdependence combined to influence the popularity and inclusion of participants who differed in narcissism. Individuals high in narcissism who were perceived as expert in their job tasks were able to overcome the negative influence of their personalities on both inclusion and exclusion. As the authors put it, “For front-line employees, having a narcissistic personality may not be a disadvantage” (p. 795).
How to break away from the strong grip of narcissists
It is clear, then, that people high in narcissism can find ways to flatter and control others despite their tendency to be insufferable. As long as they have the skills that others want and need, they will climb any ladder put in front of them. Thinking back on your knowledge of his recent job promotion, you can now understand how the qualities that would normally lead this person to social isolation made him invaluable to his organization. In fact, when you also think about that teacher, don’t you need to know what they know about the driving force behind your willingness to put up with their arrogance?
A social constructionist approach to personality becomes useful not only as a theoretical model but also as a means of understanding some of the more confusing features of narcissistic dominance. They are clearly doing something right about gaining experience, but they are also able to exploit those skills in a way that creates a need in others to know what they know. Without this combination, the Hong Kong study shows, the narcissist remains isolated and unpopular.
Bottom line, when it comes to dealing with a narcissist, these findings provide you with some answers as well as strategies. If you can take what you need from that person’s toolkit without being taken advantage of, you can gain vital skills without being drawn into their unsavory power games.
