In the Footsteps of Narcissism

Narcissism is a personality trait consisting of excessive self-love and inflated self-esteem — grandiosity that in most cases does not correspond to reality. The term comes from the Greek myth of Narcissus, a handsome young man who preferred to admire his own reflection in the waters of a stream and rejected the love of the nymph Echo. As punishment, he was doomed to fall in love with his own reflection and eventually turned into a flower named after him. A person suffering from narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by the following symptoms:

• Exaggerates their own importance.
• Is preoccupied with fantasies about their own success, power, beauty, intelligence, or ideal romance.
• Believes themselves to be a special and unique individual who can be understood only by other equally special people.
• Seeks constant attention and admiration from others.
• Has unreasonable expectations of special treatment.
• Uses others to achieve their goals.
• Devalues the emotions of other people, suffers from a lack of empathy.
• Envies others or believes that other people envy him/her.
• Demonstrates arrogant behavior and attitude.
• Constantly talks about themselves.
• Believes that no one should question his/her motives and that all requests must be obeyed without question.
• Has difficulty tolerating criticism or rejection.

For the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-5, the patient must have a general pattern of superiority, significance (both in imagination and in behavior), a need for admiration, and lack of empathy. At least five of the following nine traits must be identified:

• The patient is excessively absorbed with the idea of their own importance and significance.
• Their thoughts are dominated by fantasies about their own beauty, success, and power.
• The person considers themselves “special” and associates with other “special” people.
• A constant need for admiration.
• Believes they deserve more rights than others and special treatment.
• Manipulates and uses others.
• Envies others.
• Lacks empathy and the ability to recognize and feel the emotions and needs of other people.
• Behaves arrogantly and haughtily.

Narcissism has been found to be associated with physiological brain features, including evidence that people suffering from narcissistic personality disorder have, on average, a lower volume of gray matter in the left anterior insular cortex — a brain region associated with empathy, emotional regulation, compassion, and cognitive functioning. According to our data, this brain area is associated with white questimity (Qi), which is reduced in subjects with narcissism. At the same time, Qe (black, extraverted questimity, more associated with the right-hemisphere insular cortex) is, on the contrary, increased in them.

To obtain the socionic profiles of narcissism, we used the following set of questionnaire items, with known socionic profiles, from V. Talanov’s questionnaires (after each item the coefficient of linear correlation is indicated between its type profile and the profile of the integral trait averaged across all items in the set):

1. Close ones have sometimes reproached me for posing and egocentrism. 0.93
2. In which direction do you differ more often from the “average person”? – 1) Toward greater modesty 5) Toward greater self-satisfaction, satisfaction (and sometimes — ostentatiously) with my status and successes 0.94
3. I do not exclude that my character possesses (more than the average level) self-love and self-admiration. 0.91
4. The scariest thing for me would be to suddenly feel like an unnoticed gray mouse in society. 0.90
5. I feel jealous if in a company the general attention shifts from me to someone else. 0.90
6. I possess a strong gift of persuasion. 0.89
7. Often close ones reproach me for boasting (whether fairly or not — it does not matter). 0.90
8. I feel jealous of those who become the center of attention in a company of my friends. 0.89
9. As a rule, in a company I dominate others with my feelings and emotions. 0.89
10. I am often inclined to “show off” in public, deliberately demonstrating and slightly exaggerating my successes. 0.88
11. It is important for me to be in the center of attention, for all eyes and ears to be fixed on me. 0.89
12. I adore attracting to myself the attention, admiration, and amazement of others. 0.86
13. Sometimes I entertained myself by consciously exploiting others’ good attitude toward me. 0.83
14. I feel jealous of those who become the center of attention in the company of my close friends. 0.84
15. I like it when the attention of surrounding people is fixed on me. 0.85
16. I am interested in provoking people into some kind of actions. 0.83
17. I envy partners and begin to feel malice toward them if they are luckier than I am in a card game. 0.81
18. I like moving people like chess pieces. 0.81
19. I adore when I attract to myself the attention, admiration, and amazement of others. 0.83
20. I possess artistry and a certain ostentatious demonstrativeness of behavior, craving others’ admiration and reverence. 0.80
21. I strive for new impressions, love to be the center of attention and evoke admiration, and I am excellent at forming useful connections and using them. 0.81
22. I know how to manipulate people. 0.78
23. I like manipulating people, striving for power and glory. 0.77
24. I probably more than others like to evoke with my behavior admiration, amazement, reverence, sympathy — or at worst indignation — anything but indifference. 0.73
25. I will go toward a goal even over the heads of others. 0.69
26. I know how to manipulate in conversation the mood of my interlocutor at will. 0.67
27. I am kind, a great knower of people, and in general in many respects worthy of admiration despite my vague moral principles and impulsiveness. 0.67
28. I have a somewhat arrogant manner of holding myself; from the outside it may sometimes seem that I am portraying something, bragging, or “acting important.” 0.63
29. I more often mentally criticize others than myself. 0.61
30. As a rule, I am aware of my own importance, significance, authority. 0.63
31. I know how to flexibly manipulate relationships with other people, decreasing or increasing distance depending on the situation, as well as according to the “usefulness” of a business partner and his status in society. 0.59
32. I can sharply defend my interests when someone tries to deprive me of something. 0.61
33. I am confident and ambitious, do not tolerate arrogant or ironic attitudes toward me, and usually sincerely get angry when people argue or quarrel with me. 0.59
34. I often encounter envy toward my intellect and success. 0.58
35. I strive for my clothing and my belongings to be unique. 0.58
36. There are people who with their strict system of prohibitions and admonitions constantly try to knock down my pride and extinguish my radiance. 0.57
37. My mission is not to bring stability and peace but a cleansing storm. 0.57
38. I will be very upset if I am considered as simple and ordinary as everyone else. 0.55
39. A certain haughtiness is inherent to my character. 0.53
40. I seek contacts only with special, chosen people, as outstanding or gifted as I myself. 0.52
41. Almost always only those who envy me criticize me. 0.50
42. Sometimes I experience a feeling of warm self-love toward myself. 0.52
43. I often take offense and “slam the door” if my “crazy,” in the opinion of some, ideas are criticized. 0.53
44. My family critics or ill-wishers sometimes reproach me for allegedly compensating my ignorance with self-confidence. 0.46
45. Sometimes it is difficult for me to restrain my envy. 0.43
46. I am a person proud of my uniqueness and unrepeatability. 0.47
47. It is very important for me to constantly feel that another person perceives me as a unique individual. 0.45
48. It is typical for me not to accept criticism addressed to me and to try to get rid of people who question the expediency of my actions and the rationality of my decisions. 0.41
49. I am often overcome by envy toward someone. 0.36
50. There are people who often try to criticize me, but they almost always talk nonsense. 0.36
51. People can hardly count on my noticeable sympathy — I look down on them, and I do not care about them. 0.25
52. Being like everyone else, living like everyone else, doing only what everyone else does — this is extremely repugnant. 0.12
53. I am painfully sensitive to criticism. 0.10
54. In my youth I was very condescending and compassionately attentive to others, and at the same time very critical of myself. -0.39
55. If a person acted like everyone else, then he is not guilty even if he is condemned. -0.39
56. I sympathize with the homeless. -0.37
57. I am indifferent to both praise and criticism from others. -0.41
58. My key set of concepts: imagination, empathy, compassion, soul, traditions, commandments, duty, tact, self-sacrifice, neatness. -0.41
59. I am a completely non-envious person — if someone is lucky, that is only a fact and not a reason for envy. -0.42
60. Many of my actions are directed more toward helping others than my own interests. -0.47
61. My ability for self-criticism without emotional distress (with a “cold nose”) and for honest admission of mistakes is higher than that of other people. -0.55
62. Envy, envy toward someone — that is completely not mine and not about me. -0.54
63. My ability for self-criticism is above the average human level. -0.59
64. I like being like everyone else. -0.58
65. I do not react at all or react always only calmly and thoughtfully to sharp remarks addressed to me. -0.63
66. The key concepts for my character: compassion, morality, humility, conscientiousness, diligence, rejection of coercion, responsiveness, caring, condemnation of greed, humanism, imagination, self-sacrifice. -0.62
67. In almost everything I am a balanced person. -0.72
68. I am scrupulous in matters of decency, unobtrusive, but I always come to the aid of those who need it. -0.76
69. In moral terms I am more demanding of myself than of others. -0.78
70. I orient myself not toward achieving successes but toward protecting myself from failures. -0.79
71. I prefer to be unnoticed in a crowd. -0.80
72. I am always ready to help quietly and without self-advertising. -0.78
73. I easily imagine myself as an ordinary worker at a large enterprise. And why not? -0.82
74. I always live by the principle: do not interfere with others’ lives. -0.82
75. I do not like to come to the forefront in large groups; I usually feel awkward taking initiative. -0.84
76. I am ashamed of overly bright expressions of negative emotions. -0.84
77. In company I avoid coming to the forefront. -0.85
78. I have never sought and do not seek to speak before crowds; I prefer communication only within a circle of trusted acquaintances. -0.87
79. As a rule I let more energetic people, those who “rush into battle,” go ahead. -0.87
80. Envy and competition — this is clearly not mine. -0.88
81. Sometimes I feel helpless when I find myself in the center of a very emotional situation. -0.89
82. One must live quietly and invisibly. -0.90
83. I experience unpleasant anxiety every time I find myself at the center of public attention. -0.92
84. I do nothing “for show.” -0.91
85. Quiet but strong attachments to someone are characteristic of me. -0.93

Table 1. Socionic profiles of Narcissism (averaging profiles of 85 questionnaire questions)

As can be seen from the tables, the condition for narcissism is the simultaneous significant excess above the average of functions Fe, Se, Qe, and Ni, with simultaneous suppression of Si and Di. The typical profile of “ideal narcissism” is a mixture of the contributions of EIE and SEE. However, not only some EIEs and SEEs (and especially intermediate types between them) may possess sufficiently pronounced narcissistic traits. This is also possible for certain representatives of SLE, IEE, LIE, even ILE — if, with the corresponding leading peak of their type profile, their profiles are still “mixed”, namely if the functions Fe, Se, Qe, and Ni are simultaneously strengthened while Si and Di are suppressed.