Humanity is chasing narcissists, but narcissists are faster.
Recent findings on those with narcissistic personalities reveal they do develop greater compassion with age — but they never quite shake their inflated sense of self-importance, based on psychological experts for BBC News.
“Clearly, some individuals may change more strongly, but generally, you wouldn’t expect someone you knew as a really narcissistic person to have completely modified while you meet them again after some years,” Dr. Ulrich Orth, from the University of Bern in Switzerland, told the outlet.
Orth’s recent study of over 37,000 people showed that those that were more narcissistic as children normally stayed that way throughout maturity, despite learning to compensate for his or her innate lack of empathy.
Narcissism is a highly common personality component referring to the standard of being highly self-absorbed. Experts agree that everybody exhibits narcissistic traits at times, however it’s those with the largest egos may very well be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Individuals with NPD operate with the elemental belief that they’re inherently superior to others — which might come off overtly as arrogance, selfishness and grandiosity — and use emotional manipulation and exploitation to get the admiration they crave.
“These consequences don’t only affect the person themselves, but additionally the wellbeing of people with whom they interact, equivalent to partners, children, friends, co-workers, and employees,” Orth explained.
Published this month within the journal Psychological Bulletin, the survey of 51 previous studies involving participants aged eight to 77 aimed to know whether wisdom and maturity had a positive impact on lifelong narcissists.
Researchers outlined three sorts of narcissists for the study: Agentic (superiority), antagonistic (envy) and neurotic (shame).
Generally, narcissism scores declined as participants aged. Despite growth, nonetheless, those that were more narcissistic than average than children remained greater than average as adults.
“This was true even across very long periods of time, which suggests that narcissism is a stable personality trait,” Orth said in a separate statement for the American Psychological Association.
Understanding how narcissists mature is critical to identifying interventions to assist mitigate their capability for harm.
“These findings have vital implications on condition that high levels of narcissism influence people’s lives in some ways,” Orth continued. “Each the lives of the narcissistic individuals themselves and, possibly much more, the lives of their families and friends.”
