Have we misunderstood narcissists?

Today, everyone and their mother is a narcissist. That’s the general consensus on social media, anyway, where even the slightest misgiving – not replying to texts, arriving 10 minutes late, or even, wearing odd socks! – is enough to diagnose someone with a controversial and potentially dangerous personality.

You might think I’m being hyperbolic but I’m not; take a look for yourself at the litany of videos on TikTok and Instagram listing different “signs the person you’re dating might be a narcissist”. A brief foray presents me with symptoms such as “he gets mad when people criticise him” (social media’s narcissists are almost always male, by the way), “he’s a perfectionist” and “he loves compliments”.

Don’t get me wrong, combined with other behavioural aspects, some of these things could well contribute to a narcissistic profile. But consuming them in short, quippy videos that are often under 30 seconds doesn’t provide the necessary context and nuance required to actually understand what constitutes narcissism. And even while some of these videos are compiled by legitimate psychologists who want to help victims of narcissistic abuse identify what is happening to them (personality disorders, which include narcissistic personality disorder, are woefully underdiagnosed), the majority are click-hungry charlatans looking for their next viral hit.

Despite this obsession with narcissism, it’s likely we don’t understand it as well as we think. That likelihood is crystallised by a recent study that uncovered a symptom of narcissism that is hardly ever discussed. According to a report published last week by the American Psychological Association (APA), narcissists are more likely to feel ostracised than other people. The research, which was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, was compiled after analysing data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, which is a long-term, nationally representative survey of roughly 22,000 households in Germany.

The researchers zoned in on 1,592 individuals who answered questions about narcissism and ostracism in 2015 and found that those with higher narcissism levels reported experiencing significantly more ostracism. “Feeling ostracised is a subjective experience based on the perception of social cues by the individual,” said lead author Christiane Büttner, PhD, of the University of Basel. “Some may be intentionally ostracised, while others may merely believe they are being excluded when that’s not the case. Our findings suggest that individuals with higher levels of narcissism are more sensitive to exclusion cues, leading them to perceive ostracism more frequently.”

It makes sense when you consider what narcissism actually is and how much it goes beyond the usual connotations of boastfulness, arrogance and self-obsession. The APA states that roughly 1 to 2 per cent of the US population has a narcissistic personality disorder, which it defines as “a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (sense of superiority in fantasy or behaviour), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and occurring in a variety of contexts”. People like this may have a sense of entitlement, it adds, as well as showing a lack of empathy and requiring excessive admiration.

Obviously they are a nightmare to date, so it’s understandable why so many social media videos fixate on the “warning signs” that your partner might be a narcissist. But this latest study shows us something else that few videos recognise, which is that a narcissist always believes him or herself to be the victim. Perceptions of being ostracised come from that aforementioned superiority: “If my friends aren’t replying to me, it means they’re intentionally leaving me out.” In actual fact, they are probably just busy and the lack of a reply probably has nothing to do with you. But the narcissist won’t grasp this because, put simply, their grandiosity puts them at the centre of everyone else’s decision-making processes.

The problem with misunderstanding narcissism is that we’re letting the actual narcissists off the hook. As the old adage goes: if everyone is a narcissist, is anyone? Pathologising ourselves and others is only going to hold us back, particularly in the context of romantic relationships, which is how so much of this is framed on social media. Perhaps we’re also at risk of conflating clinical narcissism with the narcissistic society within which we all operate. Few can deny that we’re more self-interested than ever before: Instagram has all of us behaving like we’re the stars of reality TV shows, regardless of whether we’re an influencer or an engineer. It doesn't help that we're rewarded for it; building a personal brand is now an integral part of many businesses outside of social media. But this has inevitably fostered a culture whereby we’re thinking about ourselves a lot more than we perhaps used to. We might not all be narcissists but we are certainly living in a world that is inherently more narcissistic.

I can understand the fixation we have with putting labels on people who frustrate us. To give something – or someone – a recognised name and definition can help us validate our own feelings and experiences. But we’re taking too many leaps, and hindering our social and romantic lives. A friend, for example, recently told me she’s stopped inviting another friend to meet up for dinner because he’s a “full-blown narcissist”. When I asked why she thought this, her only justification was that he was really ambitious and constantly talked about his career goals.

Finding someone annoying doesn’t make them a narcissist. Perhaps it’s time we let people off the hook a little and show a bit more compassion instead of always being so vehemently judgemental. Because while we might be rightly characterising certain people as narcissists, statistically, we’re probably getting it wrong most of the time. The worst thing about that is that we may also be failing to spot and deal with the actual clinical narcissists, whether that’s a friend, partner or – whisper it – ourselves.