Narcissistic Stereotypes

What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder? Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a mental disorder where someone has an exaggerated sense of their own presence, a need for constant admiration from others and they also have a lack of empathy for anyone (Mayo Clinic). A couple questions I have include: How does social media effect society? How does social media have an effect on someone diagnosed with NPD, What are ways you can help someone with NPD, and what are some ways we can conclude that someone may have NPD on social networking sites? Social media is what’s hot right now and someone diagnosed with NPD will only get wrapped up in its web and will be negatively impacted by it. The main focus of my research to further my knowledge includes: The risk factors social media have on someone diagnosed with NPD, signs on social media of someone who may have NPD, and so on.

Millenials enjoy having a good self image, but more importantly, being accepted by society. These people use Facebook, and other social media sites, to look important and gain self-esteem by getting as many likes as possible on a photo. These photos posted could create an unrealistic portrait of that person, argues Soraya Mehdizadeh, but could this also be a way for people to express their identity, counters Alex Lambert? Soraya Mehdizadeh and Alex Lambert argue their reasons for why or why not social media may be narcissistic. It is a controversial subject because it can be hard to tell if this so called narcissism is a social norm now or if it is simply narcissism in itself. It is under psychological discussion because some psychologists argue it could be a disorder due to the fact that some people may be obsessed with social media and promoting a positive self image, so others think highly of them. Throughout the articles, the pros and cons of social media are weighted, and it seems that social media facilitates narcissisms because millenial’s are so prone to using it and older people only use it to keep connections with friends.

Recent studies compared teenagers from past generations to those of recent generations and the findings suggest that there is in fact a rise in narcissism among the adolescence in today society. However, what is behind this rising trend? According to some, they believe it can be attributed to the ever-connected world we live. Then there are others who theorize the coddling of the latest generations is perhaps the reason behind the increase of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Whatever the cause these cohorts and their offspring are in fact appearing more self-absorbed, remorseless and narcissistic then ever before.

Merryman voices “A recent study found if parents thought failure was debilitating, their kids adopted that perspective” (Merryman). It is the parent’s job to teach their children how to accept participation awards correctly. That losing is not that bad. Merryman goes on saying “If parents believed overcoming failure and mistakes make you stronger, then their children believed it, too” (Merryman). That statement pressures the idea that whatever the parent’s opinion on the matter is transferred to the kid. That kid will go on to work harder and not need the participation trophies to be an objective. The success of the children depends on the

Walking into a beauty pageant you may hear moms say something like, “Fix your hair and makeup, stand up straight, smile pretty, and copy everything I do”. Pageant moms are prime examples of narcissistic parent’s living vicariously through their children. Unfortunately, many activities, such as beauty pageants, are the parent’s decision rather than the child’s. Although the child may not enjoy what they're doing, expressing their feelings often causes little to no change with a narcissistic parent. This often causes the child to become codependent, making them feel it's necessary to put others needs before their own and feeling the need please their parent in exchange for validation. “Control over someone else is the ultimate jackpot every narcissist works so hard to win” (Meyers). Narcissistic people thrive off of relationships where everything is adjusted to fit their needs. They tend to be entitled, brag about about their achievements, fish for compliments, and always feel a need to be the center of attention (Rosenberg). Egotistical people often show jealously towards their child’s growing independence and believe that their child is there to fulfill their wishes instead of his or her own wants and needs (Meyers). It’s estimated that up to 6% of the US population has narcissistic personality disorder (Johnson). While about, “96 Percent of Americans Suffer from Codependency” (Kaminer). While narcissistic parenting is shown to be a main cause codependency, they go hand to

Participation trophies are a way to fool parents into thinking that they are protecting their kids. “It’s affirmation that our kids are as wonderful as we think they are” (Armour). When really all that is being done is postponing the child from experiencing failure. The longer we shield kids from experiencing loss or failure the worse they will react to it when they experience it, but yet parents will try their best to postpone it as long as possible. They want every child to receive the same amount of recognition and complain if their child does not. This not only affects the child, but affects the businesses involving these younger kids. If a business like a basketball camp gives out trophies for different skill building competitions for example, and a child does not receive any rewards. The parent will not send their child back for the fear that not receiving a trophy will ruin their child’s childhood. This can ruin the business’s income and what they can do in their camp based on the number of people that decide to come back

In the article “Losing is Good for You”, Ashely Merryman claims that children should not be given awards for something not worth an award such as participation. She states that our youth should not be put under the illusion that winning is as easy as one, two, three. Based on her information, receiving an achievement should be earned instead of given. She stresses the fact that constant praise and awards for possible effortless doings will result in a mindset that believes that putting effort into something will not matter in the end because of the expected praise. With that being said, she believes that constant awarding will lead to underachievement and poor problem-solving skills.

The article Do Kids Get off Easy? discusses the ongoing debate between parents and the teachers, coaches, and other authority figures of their children’s lives about how often kids should get rewarded. Nowadays, many kids are rewarded for just showing up and participating. It’s not about who wins or loses, but it’s about putting in effort and trying their best. The article shows the opinion of some parents by stating “… its assumed that the best way to get children ready for the miserable ‘real world’ that awaits them is to make sure they have plenty of miserable experiences while they’re young.” A result of this type of reward system leads to a child growing up with “conditional regard” and “the development of a fragile, contingent and unstable

When children receive participation trophies they are praised for their efforts rather than the work towards their mistakes. Children will not be fully prepared for the future by allowing them to receive trophies, the children begin to think that all they have to do for a reward is to show up and not put any effort. For example, “In college, those who’ve grown up receiving endless awards do the requisite work, but don’t see the need to do it well” (NY Times). These college kids have many trophies and they received them mainly for being in the activity or club that they participated in. The effect of all the trophies given were that the college students do not complete their assignment and job to the fullest. They stay at a level where it is

They have been blamed for children not working hard to receive a prize for their hard work on the playing field because children know no matter how much effort they put into the sport there will always be a reward. Sports are a great example of earning things for hard work. The children participating in sports need to work hard then be rewarded. “The hard work shows the children how to build a work ethic and it also teaches them that later in life they’ll receive a prize for their hard work” (Jacobi). Building a work ethic is important at a young age, it sculpts the children into the people they are supposed to be in the future. The real world is difficult. Children need to know, they have to work hard and strive for greatness to be successful. The children need to understand that success will help them in the long run. Participation rewards give children a different outlook of the real world. In everyday life, you work hard to pay bills, and to support your family. In your childhood is when you learn that hard work pays off, “It's understood that parents want their children to succeed, and feel as if they won, but children need to learn that in life things have to be earned and not handed to them” (Johnston). Personally, there should always be a winner or a loser, because when you lose you will work harder to win the next time. Competition in all sports

Can the excessive use of social media, specifically Facebook, be seen as a form of narcissism? Editors Edwin E. Gantt and Brent Slife of Brigham Young University present two opposing opinions to explore this topic in their presentation, “Is Excessive Use of Social Media a Form of Narcissism?”. Could the oversharing, “duck face”, and look at me virtual world be a way to reach out to each other or just a shallow attempt at self-validation? Each article expresses the author’s views, and research on the subject.

The article I chose for this critique was “Narcissism and Social Networking Web Sites” written by Laura E. Buffardi and W. Keith Campbell from the University of Georgia. This article is based on an experiment that was taken place to prove whether others could perceive a narcissistic individual as a narcissist through observing their social media sites. This experiment was a correlational type of study. The experimenters’ goal was to analyze whether there was any correlation or connection between the web page owner being a narcissist and the type of content they had on their profile.

Throughout the years, numerous of researches are conducted to see the connections between social media (namely, Facebook) and narcissism. University of Michigan conducted a research to find the relationship between social media and narcissism. For the first part of the study, the researchers recruited approximately around 486 college undergraduate students with the median age of 19. Meanwhile, 93 adults, mostly white females, with an age mean of 35 years old, were asked by the researchers to complete an online survey for the second part of the study. Participants have to answer questions about their social media use and a personality assessment to measure their level of narcissism (Swanbrow, 2013). Based on the results obtained, Facebook users that scores higher on the personality test tend to have more friends, tag themselves more often in photos posted and update their status more often (Firestone, 2012,

Social networking has risen in popularity throughout the last twenty years and in effect narcissistic behavior has increased within society(particularly America's society) since the 1980's(Jayson 1). Studies show that the greater an individual is inclined to narcissistic behavior; there is a resulting increase in their online social networking activity(Mehdizadeh 357). Social networking sites or “SNSs” are defined as: “A web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system”(Boyd, Ellison 1).

Narcissism is often perceived as any other disorder, employing too much of something; committing excessive amount of time on the internet. However, narcissism disorder is not merely a problem of unmoderated usage, rather it’s the illusion of perceiving reality in false lens architected by vanity and superficial relationships over social media. In Dr. L.D Rosen publication titled Is Facebook creating iDisorders? The link between clinical symptoms of psychiatric disorders and technology use, attitudes and anxiety, Rosen stated “younger generations… born in the 1990s…show a strong urge to report their activities and believe that their social media audience cares about them, two symptoms central to the diagnostic criteria of narcissistic personality disorder” (Rosen 1244). Rosen statement offers a new insight to the effects of extreme social media behaviors on narcissism. Through her work as a social psychologist, Rosen has discovered surprising new information about social disorder. Instead of seeing technology itself as the problem, Rosen thinks, the problem is located "in the relationship between what takes place on screen and off in someone’s ability to shift frames or genres (Rosen 1243)." Rosen