Be Very Careful Whom You Call a Narcissist My Friend
Over the last few decades, I've noted a few folks have called me a narcissist, personally I think that is ridiculous, but not too surprising considering our low self-esteem society. Worse, the Facebook generations are proving to be quite problematic with their incessant need for self-validation. You'd think that, "it takes one to know one" would be a reasonable attribute here?
Apparently not, and there is a rather interesting theory I have on all this, namely, there is a difference between an earned ego, and a non-earned ego. Writing cool stuff about yourself on Facebook doesn't make for a solid ego, yes, let's talk shall we?
There is a very good research paper published in the Journal of Personality; Volume 62, Issue 1, pages 143-155, March 1994. The report is titled; "Narcissistic Illusions in Self-Evaluations of Intelligence and Attractiveness," by Marsha T Gabriel, Joseph W. Critelli and Julana S. Ee. In a study with 146 college university students, the research noted in the abstract that;
"Narcissism predicted both types of illusion for males and females; self-esteem predicted intelligence self-illusion for males. Both sexes overestimated their own intelligence, with males, but not females, also overestimating their attractiveness. Positive illusions for intelligence and attractiveness were correlated. Males showed greater positive illusions than females, with this effect at least partly attributable to observed gender differences in narcissism."
Since this deals with the intelligence of college students, and since we have a bit of grade inflation going on, and since they've done well in school to get to college, obviously they've been told they are smart and since they've gotten decent grades they now believe themselves to be of high intelligence, they do, but that doesn't make it so.
Indeed, it would be my theory that perhaps no one probably ever told them that cheating on tests in school or the ability to cram information into their memory mostly short and medium term has very little to do with actual intelligence. Chimpanzees are pretty good at memorizing where food has been placed for a few weeks at a time too, even better than humans in fact.
Those who exude self-confidence because they are good at something and know it, have an earned ego, those who think they are great for breathing the air and getting a certificate for showing up and participating have an unearned ego, and probably believe the world revolves around them, we all know it doesn't. This constant reinforcement of false belief, perhaps to get students to take out huge student loans to continue their education, is bound to lead to narcissism. Thankfully, I don't have these problems, how about you? Please consider all this and think on it.
Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Self Help Concepts. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net/
