Why is narcissism an epidemic

In line with this, we found no significant differences in any study measures between individuals who grew up in East or West Germany. Participants in the middle age cohort 6—18 years old in grew up either in collectivistic East Germany or individualistic West Germany.

Grandiose narcissism and vulnerable narcissism scores were higher in individuals from West Germany compared to East Germany in this age group. Interestingly, individuals raised in West Germany scored higher on three grandiose subscales of the PNI: EXP interpersonal manipulativeness , GF compensatory fantasies of success and recognition , and ER anger in response to unmet expectations that they feel entitled to.

These observations are in line with previous studies arguing that grandiose but not necessarily vulnerable narcissism has increased in Western societies [ 63 ]. Furthermore, our study sample may represent non-clinical individuals, which may explain why no significant differences were observed in two of the three vulnerable PNI subscales in the middle age cohort. There is previously published data showing that vulnerable aspects of the PNI are more strongly associated with psychopathology than grandiose facets [ 13 , 84 ].

Moreover, grandiose aspects of the PNI are associated with tendencies to view oneself as active and energetic and one's life as exciting [ 84 ]. Increased grandiose narcissism in middle-aged individuals from West Germany may be explained by social learning theory [ 85 ]. Overvaluation of children by their parents has previously been hypothesized as the origin of narcissism in children in individualistic societies [ 85 ]. In a prospective study, Brummelman and colleagues confirmed preliminary data [ 86 ] that parental overvaluation predicted narcissism in the child later in life [ 87 ].

It remains to be confirmed whether differences in parental overvaluation existed between the former East and West Germany. Moreover, the work by Bianchi argues that narcissistic self-focus may be viable during economic prosperous times and tempered by economic recession [ 54 ]. Individuals from GDR who came of age during the reunion of Germany faced tumultuous economic times including the loss of job perspectives e.

Moreover, East German wages and pensions continue to be below the West German wage level since unification [ 88 ]. Middle-aged individuals from East Germany may score lower on narcissism as they experience lower economic prosperity compared to middle-aged individuals from West Germany. Finally, data from an internet sample from China assessing sociodemographic factors related to grandiose narcissism NPI might help to explain differences in the middle age cohort in our study [ 48 ].

The authors found higher socioeconomic status, offspring of one child families compared to multiple children, living in urban area compared to rural area positively related to grandiose narcissism [ 48 ].

Up from the mid-seventies East Germany had higher birth-rates compared to West-Germany [ 89 ]. Lower socio-economic status in East-Germany compared to West-Germany has already been described and continues to exist [ 88 ]. Grandiose narcissism measured with the PNI-G was higher in participants who grew up in West Germany than East Germany in the oldest age cohort, but no significant differences were detected in grandiose narcissism measured with the NPI.

Prior data has shown that grandiose narcissism measured with the NPI is widely captured by the exploitative EXP subscale of the PNI grandiosity scales which reflects a manipulative interpersonal orientation [ 91 ]. In the current study, the exploitative PNI subscale had highest correlation with the NPI score and was by trend higher in the oldest age cohort who grew up in West Germany than East Germany. This discrepancy in grandiose narcissism between the middle and oldest age group may be because narcissism decreases with age [ 92 ].

Older individuals have lower narcissism scores [ 49 , 50 ] and are less susceptible to personality disorders than younger subjects [ 93 ]. Individuals from the oldest age group were in their fifties at the time of the study and may have felt an increased sense of empowerment, security, personal growth, and success than younger participants [ 94 ].

NPI-assessed grandiose narcissism may be more resistant to change throughout life because of its beneficial aspects. Furthermore, some of the mentioned factors valid for the middle age cohort might be less relevant or not applicable for the oldest age cohort, e.

Our finding that self-esteem was higher in individuals from East Germany contradicts previous reports that individuals from more collectivistic East Asian countries have lower self-esteem than individuals from Western cultures [ 43 — 47 ].

We conclude that these earlier findings may not apply to East and West Germany. Furthermore, the assumption that individuals from collectivistic East Asian countries have lower self-esteem than individuals from Western cultures has been stressed by theoretical considerations and empirical data. Sedikides and colleagues argue that one cannot conclude that the level of self-esteem is weaker in East Asian individuals compared to Western individuals [ 95 ].

They argue that the desire for self-esteem is pancultural i. They propose that more refined theoretical formulations and self-report instruments with a high cross cultural sensitivity are needed to better understand within-culture variations in self-esteem including differences between East-Asian cultures, Latino and Middle-Eastern cultures and other Eastern countries.

Furthermore, teaching children individualistic virtues may contribute to lower self-esteem. According to Tafarodi and Walters, individualistic societies promote achievement-dependent self-esteem [ 96 ], i.

In line with this, narcissists perform better when self-enhancement opportunity is high rather than low, while the performance of participants with low narcissism is relatively unaffected by self-enhancement opportunity [ 97 ].

Individuals who grew up in West Germany may have lower, achievement-dependent self-esteem i. In contrast, collectivistic societies are directed toward maintaining social harmony [ 42 ].

Individuals who grew up in East Germany may experience higher self-esteem, because it appears to be more independent from achievements and social comparisons. It is possible that child-perceived parental warmth was more prominent in former East Germany compared with former West Germany.

The strengths of this study are the large sample size and the combined assessment of grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism, and self-esteem. Most importantly, this study takes advantage of the natural experiment [ 69 , 70 ] created by the German division and reunification. In this setting, participants share important characteristics such as language , but are distinct in others such as sociocultural education.

Our findings have advanced our understanding of the sociocultural mechanisms underlying individual differences in narcissism. However, there are some methodological limitations to our study that could be addressed by future research. First, our study is based on associations, and conclusions about causal effects should be tested using longitudinal designs. Second, our methods for assessing narcissism and self-esteem were based on self-reports, which have limited value for assessing personality [ 98 ].

In future studies, negative behaviors associated with narcissism in real life situations should be compared between individuals raised in the former East and West Germany [ 99 — ]. Third, we cannot determine whether our participants answered the online questionnaire honestly. This criticism also applies to offline questionnaires; therefore peer reports or naturalistic observation methods might represent a better approach towards investigating the interpersonal behavior of narcissists [ , ].

Future studies may use paper pencil tests and more conventional sampling methods. Fourth, we cannot exclude confounding differences between the East German and West German cohorts. Individuals who grew up in the former East Germany experienced a transition from a collectivistic communist society to an individualistic society, which may have affected their narcissism and self-esteem. Moderating variables, such as differences in parenting styles should be investigated in future studies [ 87 ].

In summary, our study provides preliminary evidence that sociocultural factors contribute to differences in narcissism. Although we cannot pinpoint any causal relationships, we believe that our study sheds further light on sociological trends and justifies further investigation into the alleged narcissism epidemic.

We wish to thank Dr. Ramzi Fatfouta and three unknown reviewers for their valuable comments. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. PLoS One. Published online Jan Tzen-Yuh Chiang, Editor. Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Received Nov 14; Accepted Nov 4. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

This article has been corrected. See PLoS One. This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. S2 Table: Correlations of all variables. S1 File: Ethics statement. Abstract Narcissism scores are higher in individualistic cultures compared with more collectivistic cultures. Introduction Are modern capitalistic cultures nurturing narcissism? Sociocultural environments and narcissism The development of personality traits is closely related to the cultural environment [ 32 — 35 ].

The effect of age on narcissism Past research indicates that narcissism decreases with age. Rationale of the present study Cultural transformation towards more individualistic values in Western societies has been blamed for the rise in narcissism [ 34 , 63 ].

Aims and hypotheses Main effect for group The aim of the current study was to compare grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism and self-esteem between individuals who grew up in former East and West Germany.

Main effect for age cohort Learning environments can shape personality [ 74 — 76 ]; therefore we used trichotomized age cohorts to analyze narcissism and self-esteem. Measures Grandiose narcissism NPI We used a item version of the NPI [ 77 ], which is the most widely used self-report measure of narcissism [ 7 , 8 , 78 , 79 ]. Grandiose and vulnerable narcissism PNI We used the German version of the PNI [ 13 , 18 ], which contains 54 items for measuring grandiose and vulnerable narcissism.

Self-esteem The RSE [ 19 , 79 ] is a item self-report measure of global self-esteem. Results Descriptive statistics S1 Table presents the descriptive statistics and group differences between participants from East and West Germany across age classes. Age cohort effect To determine whether narcissism and self-esteem is different between individuals who grew up before or after the German unification, we performed a multivariate analysis of variance MANOVA according to age young vs.

Discussion This study takes advantage of the natural experiment [ 69 , 70 ] created by the division and reunification of Germany to examine whether political systems affect narcissism and self-esteem. Why were differences in narcissism predominant in the middle age cohort?

Youngest age cohort Personality traits emerge during childhood and adolescence and become more stable in adulthood [ 81 , 82 ]. Middle age cohort Participants in the middle age cohort 6—18 years old in grew up either in collectivistic East Germany or individualistic West Germany. Oldest age cohort Grandiose narcissism measured with the PNI-G was higher in participants who grew up in West Germany than East Germany in the oldest age cohort, but no significant differences were detected in grandiose narcissism measured with the NPI.

Why was self-esteem higher in participants from East Germany? Strengths and limitations The strengths of this study are the large sample size and the combined assessment of grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism, and self-esteem.

Conclusions In summary, our study provides preliminary evidence that sociocultural factors contribute to differences in narcissism. DOCX Click here for additional data file. S2 Table Correlations of all variables. TIF Click here for additional data file. S1 File Ethics statement. PDF Click here for additional data file. Acknowledgments We wish to thank Dr. Funding Statement The author s received no specific funding for this work. Data Availability Data cannot be made publicly available to protect patient confidentiality.

References 1. The narcissism epidemic: Living in the age of entitlement. Journal of Personality Assessment. Changes in pronoun use in American books and the rise of individualism, — Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. Increases in individualistic words and phrases in American books, — Tuning in to psychological change: Linguistic markers of psychological traits and emotions over time in popular U. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.

Uhls Y, Greenfield P. The rise of fame: An historical content analysis. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace. Raskin R, Terry H. A principal-components analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and further evidence of its construct validity.

Journal of personality and social psychology. A narcissistic personality inventory. Psychological Reports. Increases in positive self-views among high school students: Birth-cohort changes in anticipated performance, self-satisfaction, self-liking, and self-competence.

Psychological Science. Clinical Psychology Review. Journal of Research in Personality. Narcissism assessment in social—personality research: Does the association between narcissism and psychological health result from a confound with self-esteem? Initial construction and validation of the Pathological Narcissism Inventory. Psychological Assessment. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. A comparison of the criterion validity of popular measures of narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder via the use of expert ratings.

Grandiose and vulnerable narcissism: A nomological network analysis. Journal of Personality. Rosenberg M. Society and the adolescent self-image rev. Narcissism and the non-equivalence of self-esteem measures: A matter of dominance? Two replicable suppressor situations in personality research.

Multivariate Behavioral Research. Identifying the sources of self-esteem: The mixed medley of benevolence, merit, and bias. The rise in technology and the development of hugely popular social networking sites, such as Facebook, further changed the way we spend our free time and communicate.

Today, there are nearly m active Facebook users each day worldwide. Internet addiction is a new area of study in mental health and recent cross-sectional research shows that addiction to Facebook is strongly linked to narcissistic behaviour and low self-esteem. Treatment for narcissistic personality disorder exists and this includes pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy.

Meditation has also been shown to have positive effects on mental health. Further research, however, is needed on the effectiveness of various treatments. So what can we do about all this and how can we lead a happy and purposeful life?

One of the largest studies on happiness was conducted by a group of Harvard researchers who followed a large cohort of people over a period of 75 years. What they discovered — unsurprisingly — was that fame and money were not the secrets to happiness.

Maybe, just maybe, you might feel a little better — and boost your self-esteem. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Social media are an important part of the lives of hundreds of millions of users around the world.

If you are one of them, maintaining perspective is important. Do not let narcissists set your standards. You may be lagging far behind in the social media rat race because your NPI Narcissistic Personality Inventory score is not high enough.

The reason you may not have thousands of followers on Twitter and friends on Facebook is because you are normal. Normalcy is a benchmark any narcissist should aspire to achieve. Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic. Popular Latest. The Atlantic Crossword. Sign In Subscribe. Related Story. Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?