Narcissism Describes the Character Trait of Self Love

Narcissism describes the character trait of self love.

The word is derived from a Greek myth. Narcissus was a handsome Greek youth who rejected the desperate advances of the nymph Echo. As punishment, he was doomed to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Unable to consummate his love, Narcissus pined away and changed into the flower that bears his name, the narcissus.

Freud believed that some narcissism is an essential part of all of us from birth and was the first to use the term in the reference to psychology.[1]

Andrew Morrison claims that, in adults, a reasonable amount of healthy narcissism allows the individual's perception of his needs to be balanced in relation to others[2].

In psychology and psychiatry, excessive narcissism is recognized as a severe personality dysfunction or personality disorder, most characteristically Narcissistic Personality Disorder, also referred to as NPD.

The terms "narcissism", "narcissistic" and "narcissist" are often used as pejoratives, denoting vanity, conceit, egotism or simple selfishness. Applied to a social group, it is sometimes used to denote elitism or an indifference to the plight of others.

Narcissistic Culture

Historian and social critic Christopher Lasch (1932--1994) described this topic in his book, "The Culture of Narcissism",[3] published in 1979.

He defines a narcissistic culture as one in which every activity and relationship is defined by the hedonistic need to acquire the symbols of spiritual wealth, this becoming the only expression of rigid, yet covert, social hierarchies. It is a culture where liberalism only exists in so far as it serves a consumer society, and even art, sex and religion lose their liberating power.

In such a society of constant competition, there can be no allies, and little transparency. The threats to acquisitions of social symbols are so numerous, varied and frequently incomprehensible, that defensiveness, as well as competitiveness, becomes a way of life. Any real sense of community is undermined -- or even destroyed -- to be replaced by virtual equivalents that strive, unsuccessfully, to synthesize a sense of community.

Contrary to Lasch, Bernard Stiegler argues in his book, Aimer, s'aimer, nous aimer: Du 11 septembre au 21 avril, that consumer capitalism is in fact destructive of what he calls primordial narcissism, without which it is not possible to extend love to others.[4]

It has also been claimed[citation needed] that narcissism is linked to other areas of relating such as sexual expression and promiscuity.

Narcissism in evolutionary psychology

The concept of narcissism is used in evolutionary psychology in relation to the mechanisms of assortative mating, or the non-random choice of a partner for purposes of procreation. An article published in 2005 by Alvarez summarizes the work in this field.

Evidence for assortative mating among humans is well established; humans mate assortatively regarding age, IQ, height, weight, nationality, educational and occupational level, physical and personality characters and family relatedness. In the "self seeking like" hypothesis, individuals unconsciously look for a mirror image of themselves in others, seeking criteria of beauty or reproductive fitness in the context of self-reference.

The study of Alvarez indicated that facial resemblance between couples was a strong driving force among the mechanisms of assortative mating: human couples resemble each other significantly more than would be expected from random pair formation. Since facial characteristics are known to be inherited, the "self seeking like" mechanism may enhance reproduction between genetically similar mates, favoring the stabilization of genes supporting social behavior, with no kin relationship among them. [5]

Heritability study with twins

Livesley et al. (1993) published a paper entitled Genetic and environmental contributions to dimensions of personality disorder, which concluded that narcissism, as measured by a standardized test, was a common inherited trait.

The study subjects were 175 volunteer twin pairs (90 identical, 85 fraternal) drawn from the general population. Each twin completed a questionnaire that assessed 18 dimensions of personality disorder. The authors estimated the heritability of each dimension of personality by standard methods, thus providing estimates of the relative contributions of genetic and environmental causation.

Of the 18 personality dimensions, narcissism was found to have the highest heritability (0.64), indicating that the concordance of this trait in the identical twins was significantly influenced by genetics. Of the other dimensions of personality, only four were found to have heritability coefficients of greater than 0.5: callousness, identity problems, oppositionality and social avoidance.

The study generally concluded that, in agreement with other studies, some personality factors have significantly high heritability coefficients, and there exists a continuum between normal and disordered personality. [6]

Medical narcissism

Medical narcissism is a term coined by John Banja in his book "Medical Errors and Medical Narcissism" [7][8].

Banja defines "Medical Narcissism" as the need of health professionals to preserve their self esteem leading to the compromise of error disclosure to patients.

In the book he explores the psychological, ethical and legal effects of medical errors and the extent to which a need to constantly assert their competence can cause otherwise capable, and even exceptional, professionals to fall into narcissistic traps.

He claims that: "...most health professionals (in fact, most professionals of any ilk) work on cultivating a self that exudes authority, control, knowledge, competence and respectability. It's the narcissist in us all--we dread appearing stupid or incompetent."

Celebrating Narcissism

Dandyism

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