so let me ask you another question here why don't you flesh out for us a little bit based on your experience in the lab and otherwise um the the nature of narcissism exactly what you've been studying what are these people like and how do you identify them yeah I mean it's it's a little complicated because the term narcissism um we think about it as both a personality trait you know an individual difference and what we mean by a trait is somebody's you know thoughts feelings and behavor avors are consistent across time and situation so somebody acts the way in one situation they act the way in another situation they'll probably act the same way in six months and in terms of narcissism um we find that in the personality uh world there's sort of two different flavors or two different forms of narcissism what most of us are talking about is this more grandiose form this you know as you said disagreeable extroverts so people that are self-centered uh have a sense of superiority have a sense of entitlement but are also assertive agentic maybe charismatic extroverted driven um so that combination of grandiosity is what you see in your classic ex-boyfriend your politician your celebrity that's that profile and then there's the more vulnerable form of narcissism which people don't talk about as much where you have that antagonism but you also have things like Envy comes out a lot more with vulnerable narcissism and you see a lot of Envy right now and then you also get a lot of neuroticism so people who are vulnerable narcissists appear more uh they might appear depressed or anxious and then you kind of get to know them and you're like wait you're kind of self-centered too you kind of think people don't so they're kind of the more passive narcissists now is that is that the axis okay so is the fundamental axis of discrimination there trait neuroticism like if you take your extroverted disagreeable unconscientious person let's say so the real kind of narcissist that's bordering on psychopathy and then you break them into two types you'd have the low neuroticism Fearless movie uh villain type of implacable predatory narcissist but then you could flip that and you could say well what about the people who are really high in neuroticism well they can be just as narcissistic as you pointed out but they're going to be depressed and anxious claim victimization they're going to use their suffering as a means of manipulating people like is it neuroticism that's the distinguisher between vulnerable and grandiose narcissism the neuroticism and also you'll see lower extraversion with more vulnerable narcissism so the extraversion won't be as high and the neuroticism will be higher so it's driven more it's more it's more of a defensive structure I don't want people to criticize it's you know sometimes called thin skin narcissism I'm looking for people trying to criticize me whereas people are more grandiose are like I'm looking for an opportunity to shine hey there's a there's a camera you know here's a microphone awesome um so it's a little different it's like approach versus avoidance orientation and of course some people have characteristics of both um but those that that's the main distinction that we've seen in the literature and that took about 20 years to sort out it sounds crazy but because of the history because what happened historically is the clinicians who were seeing narcissism were often seeing more vulnerability the people who were studying narcissism in the world of leadership we're seeing much more grandiosity sort of like studying criminals or the criminal people or they in the OR in criminality they's seen more grandiosity um and so you ended up with sort of two theories coming together and then on and then there's the issue of what's a personality disorder and that's typ when you take that narcissism and it in a narcissistic personality disorder is grandiose but also has elements of vulnerability in it and you make it extreme and then inflexible so one of the Challen you know if I'm narcissistic on stage that's fine but if I go home and I'm that way with my kids I'm that way with my wife I'm going to have problems so when your personality becomes inflexible uh then you get the impairment you ruin your relationships you you you take too big of risks at work you're too self-centered to learn from your mistakes so you're overconfident you make Bad Business decisions uh whatever the case is you have that sort of impairment and that's where you start talking about a personality disorder people with a personality disorder that it's the extreme narcissism sometimes there's some trauma something going on in childhood that maybe makes it more fixed but generally it's just the extreme with impairment um and then people have noticed some other kinds of narcissism sometimes people talk about communal narcissism which are people that take uh the enhancements more like I'm the best friend ever um I'm the most moral person ever so it's a more moralistic face on narcissism sometimes in the clinical World they'll talk about malignant narcissism as a specifier so it's I'm narcissistic but I'm also sort of sadistic and pathological and mean so there's that that kind of Darker face of narcissism so you can move this around in different ways but typically it's that combination of you know that disagreeable extrovert personality and then what you're doing is that self-regulation is about gaining positive attention and avoiding negative attention so gaining attention gaining status gaining power America's Health Care system is lacking in any real care insurance companies regularly deny Progressive treatment options primary care physicians refuse to order comprehensive lab work and the standards of care lag years behind the leading research that's where meric health comes in mer Health represents a paradigm shift in how we approach medicine the Premier Health optimization platform meric Health empowers you to 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yeah okay so so well we should also point out something that's that's worth thinking about for people too with regards to being self centered you know it's it's it's kind of an odd linguistic formulation and there's an inaccuracy in it that's actually dangerous because the narcissists aren't so much self-centered as they are whim centered right and that that goes along with the immaturity because if you were treating yourself properly you're playing the long game you're trying to regulate your social relationships your your marriage your your relationship with your children you're not going to be selfish but that what that means more specifically more more more precisely is that you're not going to sacrifice the future or other people around you to the immediate gratification of your motivational or emotional states right and so the self it's that because the the narcissistic type isn't exactly selfish not in a productive way because they're they're they don't do well across time what they are are prisoners of their own whims and that speaks to the immaturity as well because like a 2-year-old is a creature of whim I mean there's a developmental trajectory towards exploration and integration but fundamentally 2-year-olds aren't social and they want what they want right now or it's tantrum time and and kids are more or less like that some are very tantrum prone and some much less so but that's still part and parcel being a two-year-old but that that selfishness that goes along with narcissism isn't really care for yourself it's subjugation to your own immature whims right it's just not a produ it's not like the narcissist's benefit not really I I like that you're pushing back on that term because you're you're correcting that that it isn't self-centered like you know what I really care about myself and what's best for me in the next 20 years and I have a vision and I'm pursuing that Vision aggressively it's like oh here's an opportunity for status I'm going to take it oh there's a cute woman my wife's not going to find out about this it's much more hedonistic it's much more immediate action which is why when we were talking about conscientiousness as being a buffer to this I mean that's why it's important um as I usually tell my students uh Hedonism is a terrible way to be happy if you do what makes you happy in the moment all the time you're guaranteed to be depressed and ruin your life I mean so yes this by self-centered it's much more whim centered it might be that the Cardinal elements of of narcissism are disagreeableness let's say extraversion low conscientiousness when it gets really pathological but that that shortterm Orient short-term pleasure orientation is a crucial element of it I think right and that would be the hedonistic element and I don't think you get really you certainly don't get the malignant narcissistic or the criminal narcissistic type without including that Hedonism and that would be something like short-term mating strategy uh live for the day Hedonism that's that's part parcel of that and I do think that that's really equivalent to something like lack of cortical maturation right because it's the default condition of the typical 2-year-old but now there's another element of this that's cool too so you know in the uh linguistic analysis that established the big five there were all sorts of trait descriptors of negative emotion that loaded powerfully on neuroticism right one of those this is so cool is self-consciousness which is actually a fast in the Neo system and this is something that's also extremely worth thinking about relationship to selfishness because you might think well I'm concerned with myself and that's going to make me happy it's like no self-consciousness is indistinguishable from negative emotion and so it's so interesting a because what it implies is that it isn't that there's a causal connection between being obsessed with yourself and being miserable it's that they're actually the same thing [Music]