The Psychology Of Narcissism - Professor W Keith Campbell - #278

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, wonderful people. Welcome back. My guest today is Keith Campbell. He's a professor of psychology at the University of Georgia's Franklin College and an author. He specializes in narcissism, which is a word that everyone throws around now in 21st century with smartphones and selfies and social media. What does it actually mean? What's the psychology of it? How do you study it? So today, expect to learn what the dark triad is, or how narcissists and psychopaths are linked, what social media's influence has been on the uptake of narcissism, why you might want to increase narcissistic tendencies and much more. We get into a ton of other stuff. I've been talking a lot about the men's rights, red pill movement. We get into some of that today and some wider things to do with what it means to lead a meaningful life. Keith's a really, really interesting fella. If you enjoy the episode and you want to buy his book, as always, it is linked in the show notes below. And if you use that link to go and buy anything by any of the authors, you'll be supporting this podcast at no extra cost to yourself, just an extra cost to Amazon, which is brilliant. In other news, this episode of the podcast is brought to you by Nature's Fix. Nature's Fix are where I go for my specialist supplements if I want to get some 5-HTP to improve my sleep and act as a serotonin precursor, if I need to get some curcumin, which I used heavily during my Achilles recovery, if I want to go and get myself some collagen protein or any of the other slightly more complex, slightly more involved in technical products, including the Adrenal Cocktail from Jigsaw Health, which I use every single morning and their Mag Soothe, which I use every single night before I go to bed. All of that is available at naturesfix.co.uk/modernwisdom. You can see all the products I use and recommend. And the code MODERNWISDOM gets you 10% off all LipoLife and Jigsaw Health products. That's naturesfix.co.uk/modernwisdom and use the code MODERNWISDOM for 10% off everything. There is some stuff on there, which is so awesome. Really hard to get hold of in the UK. Assistance for sleep, assistance for waking, some specialist types of protein powders, and a ton of other things that I've really found are very useful and you can see everything, naturesfix.co.uk/modernwisdom. But for now, it's time to learn about narcissism with Professor Keith Campbell.
Talking about narcissism today, a word that gets thrown around quite a lot. What is the correct definition of it, and how does it manifest?

**W Keith Campbell** (2:48)
Well, you're right, the terms used a lot. The most basic sort of foundational definition is somebody who has a very positive view of him or herself, a lack of empathy, and the need for admiration. So that's like, in a nutshell, when you talk about narcissism, you're usually talking about a positive self-view, you think you're better than other people, you have some challenges with forming close, caring, empathetic relationships with people, and you need people around to boost you up, to bolster you, to admire you, to give you a positive attention, etc. So that's the general term. When people are using it in the street, they're often using it in a bit of a pejorative way to describe an ex-boyfriend, or an ex-boss, or whatever.
So people don't really use it technically right. But then when you get into the psychology and the science part, you can break it down farther into really three different definitions of narcissism. The one we're probably most familiar with is the personality trait. When I say trait, I mean that this is something we all vary on. There's a continuum. Some are more narcissistic, some less, most people around the middle. There's a trait called grandiose narcissism, which is this sort of sense of self-importance and a sense of entitlement, but with grandiose narcissism, what you see is some energy and maybe charisma, sometimes charm and drive and ambition. So the more grandiose narcissist folks you meet are the ones that end up in politics or in leadership because they have this drive and ambition, and they're often very likable people when you first meet them. And you don't see the dark or more toxic side of narcissism until later on. There's another form of narcissism which is less familiar to most of us, but it's one you see more with counselors and clinicians and, you know, in the mental health world is what we call vulnerable narcissism. So these are people that have the same sense of entitlement, but rather than be more ambitious and energized, they're a little more nervous, have low self-esteem, a little more introverted, sometimes called covert narcissists or basement narcissists or in the closet narcissists, because you have, and so you have a fantasy about being successful, but there's not really energy or drive to make that real. So, and so you can imagine if you think you're great and you're not out there engaging with the world, you have a tendency for depression and anxiety and loneliness because you're not getting what you need. So the more vulnerable folks end up in the clinical settings more. And then to make it even more confusing, there's a clinical or psychiatric disorder known as Narcissistic Personality Disorder, NPD. And this is an extreme form of narcissism that's grandiose and a little vulnerable. And what happens is your narcissism gets so extreme, it impairs you in life. It either destroys your relationships because you can't have loving relationships with people, or it ruins your work because you take too many risks or you're a terrible boss, so you can't listen to people or whatever. And then it becomes a disorder, but that's relatively rare. Where the confusion comes in is people say you're a narcissist and you're like, what do you mean? Do you mean I'm kind of a cool dude who's got a lot of girlfriends, or do you mean I'm kind of a loser at my mom's home on the internet trolling people trying to get attention, or do you mean I'm somebody with a clinical disorder who should see a psychiatrist and be treated? And so that's where a lot of confusion comes in is the different definitions that are associated with narcissism.