How Do You Identify a Narcissist?

MAUGHAN: Sounds riveting.

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DUCKWORTH: I’m Angela Duckworth.

MAUGHAN: I’m Mike Maughan.

DUCKWORTH + MAUGHAN: And you’re listening to No Stupid Questions.

Today on the show: What does it mean to be a narcissist, really?

MAUGHAN: I’m so tired of just thinking about myself all the time.

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DUCKWORTH: Mike, we have an email from Aditi, and I’m going to read it to you. You ready?

MAUGHAN: Yes, I am.

DUCKWORTH: All right. “Dear Angela and Mike, is narcissism a range? I was wondering what percentage of people are truly so narcissistic that it has a negative impact on people? How do we identify them? What would be an effective solution to minimize their possible negative impact on society? Regards, Aditi.”

MAUGHAN: Well, I love Aditi’s question. I mean, narcissism gets its name, of course, from Narcissus, who’s a character in Greek mythology who goes to — I think it’s a lake or a pond and sees his own reflection, and falls so in love with himself that he will neither eat, nor drink, nor move until he can be with this reflection who he loves so much and ultimately dies, right?

DUCKWORTH: Yeah, is so captivated he is rooted to the spot. You remember how the myth ends, right?

MAUGHAN: Well, I thought he just dies, because he’s just so infatuated with himself. But remind me. 

DUCKWORTH: So, I don’t remember probably all the details of the myth, but what I recall is that he catches this reflection of himself. This is, of course, before mirrors. You know, he’s rooted there to the spot. And then, dies and the flower, narcissus, actually springs up in the place where he — because, you know, narcissus is a flower, right? And it is very beautiful. But the, the idea of narcissism and our own reflection —  I mean, Jason was, um, telling me that in the “old days,” you know, before mirrors became commonplace, there was a time where the common practice was, if you did have a mirror, you would cover it with cloth for most of the day. Yeah. And I think there was this kind of idea that, like, it could be a dangerous thing to be looking at yourself all the time. I have to say the only person I’ve heard this cloth over the mirror in old houses from is Jason Duckworth, so I’d have to fact check that, but yeah, narcissism has a very long history.

MAUGHAN: What’s interesting right now though is that there tends to be, it looks like, a rise in at least familiarity with narcissism, or the idea of who’s a narcissist and what it is. Look, during the presidential election in 2016 — in 2016, when Donald Trump was running against Hillary Clinton, it did spark a discussion about narcissism. And Google Trends data — so Google Trends will just show you what people are searching on Google — web searches for “narcissism” skyrocketed between September of 2016 and January of 2017, which is that period when Trump was elected and took office. Interestingly, the hashtag “narcissistic abuse” has more than 1.4 million posts on Instagram right now. June 1st is now World Narcissistic Abuse Awareness Day. 

DUCKWORTH: Wait, “narcissistic abuse.” What is that?

MAUGHAN: Narcissistic abuse, to be clear, is not a clinical term here. It’s more of a colloquial thing that people talk about, but it’s how people are able to express on social media, or in other ways, the impacts that they have felt in their lives from individuals displaying narcissistic behavior. I mean, I think I may have shared with you before — I spent years working with someone who was a horrible narcissist, but I didn’t have the language for it.

DUCKWORTH: Wait, you had a co-worker who you felt was — I mean, we could talk about whether they would qualify for a diagnosis, but was a narcissist.

MAUGHAN: And I’ll admit that for years I couldn’t place it. I knew it was a massively negative relationship. I knew it was having negative impacts on not just me, but people all around. But it wasn’t until a different person came in and said, “Well, you know that so-and-so is a clinical narcissist.” Now, whether they are clinical or not, it suddenly turned a light on in my mind. And I was able to view all of this past bad behavior in a way that helped me understand. I mean, Brené Brown has given the, again, colloquial definition that for me helped understand it. She said, “Narcissism is the shame-based fear of being ordinary.” I mean, she nailed it for that one person. I’m sure there are better and more accurate definitions, but this idea: “a shame-based fear of being ordinary,” so, you had to exercise grandiosity and charm and all these things in a way that —

DUCKWORTH: Because deep down, you were just afraid.

MAUGHAN: — put other people down. Yeah, I think so. But tell me, what does the psychological literature say on it?

DUCKWORTH: So, this question is asking, first of all, like, what is it? And is it a range? Or is it just, like, you are or you’re not?

MAUGHAN: I’m going to go firmly on the range side, right?

DUCKWORTH: You know, there aren’t many things in psychology that are not ranges. Like, for example, ADHD, which people sometimes say, like, “I have it or I don’t.” But that’s also a continuum. And even things like schizophrenia, actually, it turns out, you can be a little, or moderate or, like extremely schizophrenic. So, almost everything that I can even think of in psychology is a range. So, if you’re ever on a final exam and the choices are, “Is it a range or is it, like, a categorical thing that you are or you aren’t?” On balance, guessing that it’s a range is a pretty good, educated guess. And that is true for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. But for any psychopathology, there are these, kind of, clinical cutoffs, where, like, you have to reach a certain degree of severity. And for clinical disorders, in general, I believe also that it has to be dysfunctional in some way. 

MAUGHAN: And what does that mean?

DUCKWORTH: You know, I think there’s some judgment there. Very often, like, for example when it comes to depression or anxiety, there are these, like, checklists of symptoms: trouble sleeping, trouble eating, thoughts that you, you know, can’t control, or whatever. Like, there’s actually this, like, book, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. It’s abbreviated to, like, the D.S.M., and it’s used by psychologists and psychiatrists. It’s also used by insurance companies for reimbursement. You know, you have to have criteria to say, like, “Oh yes, this person is clinically depressed and therefore, like, they qualify for a certain kind of treatment that should be reimbursed.” So, in the D.S.M., at the end of these checklists, there is, I think always and certainly almost always, a criterion that is basically,  you know, “causing dysfunctionality in life, and work, and so forth.” Like, yeah, you have all these symptoms, but also now this is impairing your life, like, your personal relationships, your physical health, your work. But I think with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, one wrinkle might be that it’s causing dysfunction for other people.

MAUGHAN: Right. I think anyone who’s on the extreme, or even close to the edge on narcissism, is causing massive issues for other people.

DUCKWORTH: When you look at the formal diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder — like, what it really is, because there’s a lot of debate about whether it is what people stereotypically think of as narcissism, like in social media or whatever. But the prevalence estimates, meaning like, you know, how many people in the general population would have ever qualified for this diagnosis, it is low single digits. Estimates range from 0 percent — I mean, obviously, close to 0 — to 5 percent in the general population. You know, for example, rates of depression, and anxiety, and many other things are way higher than Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

MAUGHAN: And that’s what I think is actually somewhat interesting in the common parlance using the word “narcissist” right now. Some are saying we’re using the word too loosely, and it’s losing its power because it just means everything nowadays.  

DUCKWORTH: Well, look, what we immediately think of when we think of a narcissist — which is this, kind of, like, grandiosity, excessive self-esteem, just, like, thinking you are the cat’s pajamas. I don’t know where that expression came from, it’s adorable,  but it makes no sense. But anyway, you know, having this, like, exceedingly high sense of self-esteem, one could argue, like, that’s the stereotype. And then, low regard and low empathy for other people. That is what everyone thinks of as narcissism. But what clinical psychologists would say is there are two forms. So, I’m going to read to you from an article that was published in 2015. It’s called “Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Diagnostic and Clinical Challenges.”

MAUGHAN: Sounds riveting.

DUCKWORTH: You know what? I saw that title and I was like, “Eh.” But then I started reading it and it’s actually fascinating, because narcissism is fascinating! So, what the authors say is that: “Individuals with Narcissistic Personality Disorder may be grandiose or self-loathing. They may be extroverted or socially isolated, captains of industry or unable to maintain steady employment, model citizens or prone to antisocial activities.” And so, I want to say that the grandiose form of narcissism is what is stereotyped. And the vulnerable form of narcissism, is less well-known. That actually is characterized by having low and fragile self-esteem. So, there are these two subtypes, but the way you get these two subtypes, it is now thought, is that there are, like, three underlying ingredients or elements. And in different combinations, they give rise to these two subtypes. So, basically, the thing that these two subtypes, you know, grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, have in common is something called antagonism. Let me read to you from an article called “Narcissism Today: What We Know and What We Need to Learn.” And the idea of antagonism, which is common to both forms of narcissism, is, in the words of these authors, “rivalry, entitlement.” Individuals high in antagonism tend to be “arrogant, callous, deceitful, entitled, exploitative, cynical,” Your victories are their losses. Your advantages are their disadvantages.” It’s this, like, excessive comparison in a very zero-sum way with other people. But if you ask, you know, well, what is really grandiose narcissism, the kind of, that we usually think of? Like, well, what else is there other than antagonism? The other ingredient is what psychologists call “agentic extraversion.” So, let me, again, read from this paper on what we now think about narcissism. So, “agentic extraversion: … it is more adaptive, i.e., causes the narcissistic individual fewer interpersonal problems, and it is associated with assertiveness, leadership, high self-esteem, and a … tendency to be proactive rather than reactive and to be motivated by reward more than punishment. Agentic extraversion uniquely characterizes grandiose narcissism.” And when I read that, I was like, “Oh, wait, that doesn’t sound so bad.” And actually one of the items used to assess this element of grandiose narcissism is, “I aspire to greatness.” And when I read that item, you know, I thought about grit, and I thought about, you know, the people that I study and it’s like, “Oh yes, they 100 percent aspire to greatness.” So, so, grandiose narcissism, which is one of the subtypes, is the combination of agentic extraversion with an antagonistic view. But I do want to tell you about vulnerable narcissism, because when I dug into this a little bit, it was news to me. I had never even heard of vulnerable narcissism. Maybe that’s what Brené Brown is talking about, like, this “shame-based fear,” but have you come across this at all?

MAUGHAN: And just to clarify on the Brené, it was the “shame-based fear of being ordinary,” right? Like, I can’t be ordinary, so I have to continually show how grandiose I am, that I’m better than everyone, right? But no, I’ve never seen anything on the vulnerable side of it. So, teach me.

DUCKWORTH: So, the vulnerable narcissist not only has this, you know, antagonistic view, but they also have what’s called “narcissistic neuroticism.” And again, let me read to you from this 2015 article, because I think the clinicians who have thought long and hard about, you know, what narcissism really is put it best. “The vulnerable,” quote, “fragile,” unquote, “or thin-skinned, covert subtype is inhibited, manifestly distressed, hypersensitive to the evaluation of others, while chronically envious and evaluating themselves in relation to others. Interpersonally, these individuals are often shy, outwardly self-effacing, and hypersensitive to slights, while harboring, perhaps, secret grandiosity.” So, both types of narcissism are self-absorbed, both are very comparative, but you can see this almost, like, mirror image in vulnerability. Research suggests that the vulnerable subtype of narcissism is associated with low self-esteem, whereas the grandiose form is associated with high self-esteem. So I, too, see the throughline here as being this, like, antagonism. And also, think about that myth of Narcissus — there’s something wrong with how you are thinking about yourself too much. Like, this deep self-absorption. Because healthy self-esteem, I think psychologists would agree, is a fundamental positive thing, right? Like, self-esteem is good to have. 

MAUGHAN: Right. What’s interesting is some of these traits that we’re saying are in a narcissist have their positive place, right? If you think about it in terms of a strong leader who’s going to take big, bold risks, make decisions, you have to have some element of belief that you are the right person to take the job. You are the one who should run for president.

DUCKWORTH: I’d say it’s true of agentic extraversion, right? Sorry for all the terminology. I did not make up these terms. But that agentic extraversion ingredient, I think you’re right about that. Like, awesome, you want to be great. But you don’t need to have antagonism to be a leader. There doesn’t have to be a loser for you to be a winner. Like, I think if this grandiose narcissism reveals anything, it’s that, that element of, “I want to be awesome,” can be very dangerous when you think of life as a zero-sum game.

MAUGHAN: Yes. All I’m saying is let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Some of these traits, when decoupled from the negative ones, are actually pretty powerful.

DUCKWORTH: Yeah, just that one, by the way. I don’t think there’s a whole lot to say in defense of antagonism or narcissistic neuroticism. But Mike, I know you and I would love to hear our listeners’ thoughts on narcissism. Do you think that you have a narcissist in your life? If so, how do you deal with them? Record a voice memo in a quiet place with your mouth close to the phone and email us at NSQ@freakonomics.com. Maybe we’ll play it on a future episode of the show. Also, if you are as obsessed with this podcast as narcissists are obsessed with themselves, the very best thing you can do is to tell a friend about it. You can also spread the word on social media or leave a review in your favorite podcast app. 

Still to come on No Stupid Questions: Does narcissism fade or intensify with time?

MAUGHAN: Wait, peak narcissism is when you’re eight years old?

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Now, back to Mike and Angela’s conversation about narcissism.

MAUGHAN: Are you familiar with the “myth of Cincinnatus”?

DUCKWORTH: Uh, no. Is that, like, a Greek myth?

MAUGHAN: So, Cincinnati is named after Cincinnatus. He’s a Roman figure in antiquity. I don’t remember the years.

DUCKWORTH: Not — like Narcissus didn’t exist. 

MAUGHAN: He’s an actual person who’s been mythologized. So, he was celebrated for being this humble leader who just focused on civic duty. And according to legend,   he’s out plowing his fields when he gets this call to come serve as the ruler during this epic crisis in Rome. So, he successfully comes in, he defends Rome, and then he promptly resigns and goes right back to the farm to plow his fields. And so, Cincinnatus is often talked about in politics, where — the way people often use it now is, like, “Well, I didn’t want to run for president, but I felt a calling from my country.” Or, “I’m doing this for the future of my grandchildren.” Right? It’s like, “I don’t want this, but I’m doing it on behalf of others.” What I think is interesting today is that, instead, it’s, like, “I want to be president because I’m dang good at what I do and I’m the best person for the job.” Whereas historically, it’s been, “I’m doing this to serve.”

DUCKWORTH: Well, let’s talk about change in narcissism. So, yeah, there is this clinical diagnosis. To meet full criteria is quite rare, but there’s a range, and all of us are somewhere on that range, just like for any other personality trait. And one way of thinking about change is to think about how there are ebbs and flows in narcissism in the population, depending on culture. You’re alluding to that, right? Like, well, maybe there is more, at least brazen embracing of, like, one’s own ego, and being okay with that being the primary motive for you to seek office or have power. So, when I think of generational change, the person who really leaps to mind always is Jean Twenge. So, Jean Twenge is a psychologist. She’s very well known for doing these generational studies. So, whenever there’s a questionnaire — like, for narcissism, the leading questionnaire is the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, and it’s been around for a while. And Jean Twenge analyzed data that begins in 1982. So, she has college students who have taken the questionnaire in the early ‘80s, through the mid-’80s, college students in the ‘90s, and then college students in the early aughts, and then on, and on. It’s kind of like a, you know, instant cultural study across generations. One of her most famous findings was the conclusion that we are becoming more narcissistic as a society, particularly in the United States.  

MAUGHAN: Which isn’t shocking.

DUCKWORTH: Do you think that we are?

MAUGHAN: Well, yes. I think so, I, I think part of it though is — maybe going along with this idea of the death, if you will, of the myth of Cincinnatus — maybe we’re not becoming more narcissistic. We just don’t feel the need to hide it anymore?

DUCKWORTH: Which would affect how people answer questionnaires, by the way.  

MAUGHAN: For sure. I will say, one of the periods of my life that I was maybe least happy was when I was applying to business school, because for a period of months, you’re only focused on yourself. You’re writing all of these essays about how great I am, and I’m just thinking about stories of things that I’ve done, or getting my resumé up, or getting people to write letters of recommendation about me. And I remember saying to a friend, “I can’t wait for this to be over, because I’m so tired of just thinking about myself all the time.”

DUCKWORTH: Well, maybe this study that I’ll tell you about from Jean Twenge — and I should say there’s a graduate researcher, at least at the time, Cooper McAllister, who was also a co-author — I mean, maybe it will say something about focus on self. So, what Jean has found is that beginning from the early ‘80s, all the way up through I want to say, like, around 2008 — like, what I guess is now called the Great Recession, you find an upward trend, meaning that the scores on this Narcissistic Personality Index on average trended upward, that each successive generation was more likely to score higher in the trait of narcissism. I think Jean may have coined the term “Generation Me.” But then, and here’s the plot twist, really interesting, what she finds using the exact same techniques, looking at data since the Great Recession, is a decline in scores on the Narcissistic Personality Index. 

MAUGHAN: Really? 

DUCKWORTH: Yeah, like, actually a steeper decline than there was an incline. In the summary of this paper, she says that the decline in Narcissistic Personality Inventory scores during and after the recession took narcissism back to their original levels in the 1980s and ‘90s.

MAUGHAN: I mean, I think it takes something like a societal shift, which you could say the Great Recession was, to reset expectations of individuals and maybe even a society to create that massive change, right?

DUCKWORTH: Yeah, so, what is your speculation? Because, you know, by the way, it’s all correlational data. And there are many scientists who hate this kind of research because, you know, you can just have a really long dinner party conversation about all the reasons why there are these trends, because it’s not an experiment, right? So, there are, like, so many things going on that could account for it. Nevertheless, I think it’s very important data. So, what are your intuitions about why narcissism may have risen and then fallen during this later period?

MAUGHAN: My mind immediately goes to the mortgage lenders. Michael Lewis writes about this in The Big Short. You have all of these individuals who think that they are the king or the queen of their castle who are just crushing it. And, “I am the greatest, I, I, I, I.” And they think that they can do anything.

DUCKWORTH: Titans of the universe. 

MAUGHAN: And then, when the market and the global economy goes through this massive recession, we stop thinking about ourselves individually and how great we are and instead have to look collectively. It’s almost like when things are going well, I want to take credit. And when things are going  poorly, it’s like, “It’s everyone’s situation.”

DUCKWORTH: Your attention maybe goes outward instead of inward.

MAUGHAN: Yeah, and so now it’s less about me and thus narcissism dies and it’s more, “We’re in this collective thing together.”

DUCKWORTH: Well, nobody knows, but that is absolutely the explanation that is put forth in this study. The gist is that when the economy is doing great —

MAUGHAN: Oh, so they say it’s based on the economy itself.

DUCKWORTH: Well, they’re just speculating, just like you were. Yeah, but no, it’s very consistent with what you were saying. It’s like, you know, the times are good. You think that you’re doing great as an individual. Like, “I’m amazing.” The article also talks about, like, a sense of entitlement and this antagonism that we were talking about a moment ago, this, kind of, like, “I’m doing great relative to you.” There’s something about these times of economic growth and prosperity that incline one to think that way more, on average — not everybody, obviously, but a cultural trend. And then, in times of economic decline, times where people are really suffering, that might lead you to be more communal, right? Your attention is going outward. I don’t know whether this has been tested, or even how you would test it, but let me just suggest another explanation for things that changed around that time in history. And again, I’m going to reference Jean Twenge, because she’s more recently been known for thinking about social media. A lot of her research is cited in this New York Times bestselling book, The Anxious Generation, by NYU professor Jon Haidt. You’ve probably heard of this book, right?

MAUGHAN: Of course — I mean, I feel like it comes up in conversation all the time.

DUCKWORTH: So, this thesis that Jon Haidt advances in The Anxious Generation is that the young people today, think Gen Z essentially, like, they grew up in a completely different environment than he grew up in, than I grew up in, than our parents grew up in, and the big change is social media, this technological invention. And I don’t know the exact birth date of Facebook, which was like the OG social media platform. Obviously, there’s now, like, TikTok, and there’s Instagram, and there’s Snapchat. But we do know that those things did not exist in the ‘70s and ‘80s. And the book, The Anxious Generation, says that increases in social media have led to increases in anxiety. It’s very possible that this decrease in narcissistic personality traits is really about a decrease in self-esteem.

MAUGHAN: I would have thought it was the opposite. This is where I was trying to figure out where you were going, because I would have thought the rise of social media led to a rise in narcissism, because everybody wants to be an influencer. And you’re saying that it’s having an opposite effect. I would not have guessed that.

DUCKWORTH: I find this all so confusing. I, like a lot of people, you know, wanted to know what Jon Haidt — who by the way, I think I met him even before I went to graduate school, so he was maybe one of the very first psychologists that I met. I’ve been interested to understand what he’s saying about social media, because he’s a really accomplished, prominent social psychologist. But at the same time, I was talking to other people who are more expert in adolescent mental health, and they were arguing literally the exact opposite that he was arguing. They were like, “There’s almost no effect of social media on mental health and there’s a lot of evidence that it’s good for, you know, many teenagers.” You know, it’s so complicated. And what I really think is that we need more research. I know we’re digressing a bit from this original question about narcissism, but to the extent that there is a relationship between social media and narcissism, I do think it’s worth thinking about. And absolutely given that Narcissistic Personality Inventory scores have dropped, not increased, since the birth of social media — which again, might be a coincidence. So, yeah, you know, the scientific jury is out. Mike, I want to turn to one last piece of scientific evidence, as we come to the end of this conversation on narcissism. And that’s a different kind of change. And here I get to be positive, because there’s change across the lifespan.

MAUGHAN: Across a human’s lifespan?

DUCKWORTH: Yeah, across one human’s lifespan, right? So, now I’m not talking about, like, growing up in the ‘60s compared to growing up in the ‘80s. I’m talking about, you know, Mike when he’s 20, Mike when he’s 30, Mike when he’s 40. So, that’s a very different way of thinking about change. And I wondered if you might share with me about how old the narcissist that you used to work with was.

MAUGHAN: When I worked with him, the individual was in his 30s.

DUCKWORTH: Okay, well, they’re older now. So, there was recently a meta-analysis — meaning, like, you take all the data that have been collected and you kind of average together what’s been found. And in this meta-analysis of narcissism across the lifespan, it’s very clear that narcissism decreases from as early as you can measure it, like as early as you’re able to read and respond to questionnaires. I think they actually start at eight, which has got to be the very, very low end, not a lot of data there. But the linear trend is downward, all the way across to age 77, which is, I think, the span. 

MAUGHAN: Wait, peak narcissism is when you’re eight years old?

DUCKWORTH: Well, I will say that it’s a linear trend, so I guess so. But I will also just say that there’s got to be scant data at the young end because I never give questionnaires, honestly, to kids who are, like, younger than 12 or 13 at the lowest.

MAUGHAN: Right, you’re not even sure how to answer.

DUCKWORTH: Well, they’re very — uh, I don’t want to be too confusing here. They’re very egocentric in that, like, they don’t actually make comparisons with others in the same way that the older among us do, right? Like, you ask a nine or 10-year-old how messy they are, they’re, like, just not thinking about things the way that, like, when you ask a 16-year-old, they’re thinking about how messy they are relative to other people. So, that’s a bit of a footnote. But essentially, if you consider narcissism to be not a great thing, which it’s not a great thing, the good news is that these linear declines suggest that maybe that narcissist that you used to work with is a little less narcissistic, at least a little bit, than they were then.

MAUGHAN: Right. I’d love to go back to Aditi’s question and just say what I would tell myself, if I could go back and tell myself how I should have dealt with the narcissist in my own life. Because she says, “What would be an effective solution to minimize their possible negative impact on society?” I don’t know that I, or any of us, can answer necessarily how to reduce a person’s impact on society, but I will say, I wish I could go back to myself all those years ago —

DUCKWORTH: Yeah, what would you do?

MAUGHAN: — and tell myself that it’s not worth spending one minute with someone that toxic and that narcissistic. And you don’t have to go through that. Either get out of the situation, if possible, or get away from that relationship. I think I thought I had to endure it, and I had to just deal with it.

DUCKWORTH: You were probably thinking, like, “What can I do?”

MAUGHAN: Right, and I wish I had told myself, “In fact, don’t do anything about this. Don’t try to fix the situation. Don’t try to fix the relationship. Don’t try to power through.”

DUCKWORTH: “Don’t try to bring out their non-narcissistic self. Just leave.”

MAUGHAN: Yes. In every way, yes.

DUCKWORTH: Look, I want to say something else about this meta-analysis. So, you look at this graph and you’re like, “Oh, narcissism goes down some, like, over life, and it’s a downward linear trend.” You’re like, “Yay, people become less narcissistic.” I think you also didn’t want to wait around ‘till the guy was like, 65, when he would be —

MAUGHAN: Well, also, if they started at 100 and their linear trend is down and ends at 80 —

DUCKWORTH: Well, okay. This is the thing I wanted to say about this meta-analysis. The meta-analysis also found that this is a  fairly stable trait. So the rank ordering, meaning, like, if you line everyone up and you’re like, “most to least narcissistic,” and you line them up again 20 or 30 years later, you get, you know, a very similar rank ordering. So, even though the average levels are dropping, there’s a lot of stability like there is for other traits. And so, yeah, if you have somebody who’s really narcissistic, unfortunately, in your life space, you can make a good educated guess that they’re going to continue to be relatively narcissistic for a very long time. I mean, that’s why it’s called a personality disorder. You know, there are many forms of psychopathology that have an acute time course. It’s like, you know, you have an episode of depression, for example. But personality disorders are chronic. And so, in answer to Aditi’s question — well, you gave an answer, which is leave. As you know, I’m a big fan of changing the situation. So, 100 percent agree with you. But you can’t leave society. So, like, what do you do when political candidates or whoever are narcissistic? I went and looked in this 2015 article that I’ve been quoting occasionally in this conversation. This is, like, the clinical perspective on Narcissistic Personality Disorder and its treatment. And I went and looked at what they recommend to clinicians for treating clinically-diagnosed individuals with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. And this is incredibly depressing. It’s, like, “Well, try to use words like, ‘as you said earlier,’ to, like, help the narcissist share your perspective. Like, try to be nonjudgmental and maintain an inquisitive stance.” And I was just, like, imagining being a clinician who had to see people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder all day. And I was like, “Oh my gosh.” So, I don’t think we have an answer for Aditi. I don’t think these clinical recommendations give you much of a solution. I don’t think your personal recommendation helps us at a society level. But maybe at least naming the fact that this is a problem — I don’t know if it’s a solution, but seems like a step forward.

MAUGHAN: Maybe the idea is: the more informed we are, the better we’ll be able to face the situation. And that’s where, as they say, knowledge is power.

Coming up after the break: a fact-check of today’s episode and stories from our NSQ listeners.

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And now, here’s a fact-check of today’s conversation:

Angela says that the myth of Narcissus predates the invention of mirrors. However, the earliest known manufactured mirrors, found in modern day Turkey, date back 8,000 years — much earlier than Ancient Greece — and were made with volcanic glass. Mirrors were also used throughout antiquity. We see evidence of this in depictions of people gazing at hand mirrors found on ancient Greek pottery.

Angela is also slightly incorrect about the history of covered mirrors. The practice, which has been documented across many cultures, has long been associated with mourning. Many Jewish people still practice the tradition during shiva as a display of humility and to focus attention on the deceased.

Also, we should clarify that the subtypes of narcissism that Angela describes — grandiose and vulnerable — have been documented extensively in recent psychological research, but they are not differentiated in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. And some researchers argue that these two subtypes of narcissism should be broken down further.

Later, Angela refers to Facebook as the “OG social media platform.” Facebook was founded in 2004 and became available to the public in 2006. Several other social networking platforms came earlier, including: MySpace and Hi5, which were founded 2003; Friendster, in 2002; LiveJournal, in 1999; and Six Degrees, in 1997.

One final note: Listeners who want to know more about Jean Twenge and Jonathan Haidt’s work on teenagers and social media might like to check out episode 602 of Freakonomics Radio, ‘Is Screen Time as Poisonous as We Think?’

That’s it for the fact-check.

Before we wrap today’s show, let’s hear some thoughts on last week’s episode about parents oversharing about their kids — both on and offline.

John RURY:  Hi, Angela and Mike. This is John Rury from Lawrence, Kansas. I think that many people would see this as a cultural phenomenon. As sort of an example of this, we were in Iceland last year, and made some friends, and were at the house of one of them, Peter, and uh his wife Efta mentioned that their son lived in Boston. It took us quite a while and many questions to finally ascertain that he was a Ph. D. student in mathematics at Harvard. Of course, for many Americans, this would be a point of great pride and among the first things that we would hear about this young man, but in Iceland this was not something that was a focal point at all. I think Annette Lareau at Penn would say that this is a status-affirming behavior among educated Americans. And of course, in places like Iceland and many other parts of the world, values are quite different and behavior is different accordingly.

Anonymous: Hi, Mike and Angela. I have a fairly mobile job that takes my family literally to different continents every few years. When my kids were little it was comforting to share my children’s lives on social media with family and also with friends that live similar lives, because they’re in a sense my tribe, my proverbial village that it takes to raise a child. It was a pleasure laughing together at my kids silliest moments, but also receiving their advice and words of wisdom, and also seeing kids grow up as well. Now, as my little ones are getting older, I’ve almost stopped “sharenting” completely at this point, but I do mourn that sense of virtual community that we used to have with these people that have pretty much seen our kids since birth. 

Anonymous: Hello Angela and Mike. I am firmly in the camp of not posting photos of my children online. Not only am I friends with many people I am loosely in contact with, I feel that our kids deserve the space and non-permanence to grow into their own and define who they are. Seeing posts from parents showcasing what their children are doing as a memory is one thing, but we all know the dopamine hit that parent is receiving when someone likes or comments that photo. To me, it turns into a cycle of posting children for psychological gain that the parent is receiving. Ultimately, we live in a world where everything is trying to steal our attention. Instead of posting about my children, I try my best to be as present and engaged by storing my phone away during family time. I believe my lack of sharing will allow my children to grow up in the anonymity they deserve. And should they choose to have a lively online presence in the future, it will be their choice, their voice, their perspective, not mine.

That was, respectively: John Rury and two listeners who would like to remain anonymous. Thanks to them and to everyone who shared their stories with us. And remember, we’d love to hear your thoughts on narcissism. Send a voice memo to NSQ@Freakonomics.com, and you might hear your voice on the show!

Coming up on No Stupid Questions: Are attention spans really shrinking?

DUCKWORTH: Do we now have an attention span of a gnat? Or a dog, like, “Squirrel. Squirrel!”

That’s coming up on No Stupid Questions.

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No Stupid Questions is part of the Freakonomics Radio Network, which also includes Freakonomics Radio, People I (Mostly) Admire, and The Economics of Everyday Things. All our shows are produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio. The senior producer of the show is me, Rebecca Lee Douglas, and Lyric Bowditch is our production associate. This episode was mixed by Greg Rippin with help from Jasmin Klinger and Eleanor Osborne. We had research assistance from Daniel Moritz-Rabson. Our theme song was composed by Luis Guerra. You can follow us on Twitter @NSQ_Show. And you can watch video clips of Mike and Angela at the Freakonomics Radio Network’s YouTube Shorts channel or on Freakonomics Radio’s TikTok page. To learn more, or to read episode transcripts, visit Freakonomics.com/NSQ. Thanks for listening!

MAUGHAN: Narciss — narcissist. That is such a hard word to say.

DUCKWORTH: I know. It’s a tongue twister.