Narcissists: Are We Surrounded?

The internet tells us that narcissists are everywhere — and that the problem is only getting worse. It’s like narcissism is oozing out of our celebrities, politicians, partners, parents, maybe even ourselves?? So today, we’re taking a long look in the mirror to find out: are we all a bunch of narcissists? And what should we do if we think someone in our life is a narcissist? We find out by talking to a real narcissist, Lee Hammock of the social media platform “The Self Aware Narcissist” as well as psychologists Prof. W. Keith Campbell, Prof. Kali Trzesniewski, and Dr. Craig Malkin. We want to hear your ideas for new episodes of Science Vs! Tell us via: Instagram at science_vs X at @sciencevs Bluesky at sciencevs Email at [email protected] Voicemail at +1(774) 481-1238‬ This episode does mention depression. Here are some crisis hotlines: United States: US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Dial 988 (Online chat available); US Crisis Text Line Text “HOME” to 741741 Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14 (Online chat available) Canada: Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention (See link for phone numbers listed by province) United Kingdom: Samaritans 116 123 (UK and ROI) Full list of international hotlines here Find our transcript here: https://bit.ly/ScienceVsNarcissism In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Lee’s Ratatouille Moment (07:06) The Narcissism Test (15:53) Are We In a Narcissism Epidemic? (25:41) It Kind of Sucks to be a Narcissist (31:55) Narcissists in Therapy (35:11) How to Deal With a Narcissist in Your Life This episode was produced by Rose Rimler, with help from Wendy Zukerman, Michelle Dang, Meryl Horn, and Ekedi Fausther-Keeys. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Mix and sound design by Sam Bair. Fact checking by Erica Akiko Howard. Music written by Peter Leonard, Emma Munger, So Wylie, Bumi Hidaka, and Bobby Lord. Thanks to all the researchers we spoke to for this episode, including Dr. Igor Weinberg, Dr. April Ilkmen, Dr. Jennifer Gerlach, Dr. Betsy Edershile, Prof. Brad Bushman, Prof. Brent Donnellan, Prof. Chris Barry, Dr. Glenn Geher, and Winkie Ma. Special thanks to Rachel Humphries for editing help. And big thanks to everyone who helped us this season! Jack Weinstein, Hunter, Chris Suter, Oscar, Elise, Dylan, the Zukerman family and Joseph Lavelle Willson. Science Vs is a Spotify Studios Original. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Wendy Zukerman?

  Hi, I'm Wendy Zukerman and you're listening to Science Versus. Today is our last episode before we go on a little break to work on new episodes, which means that if you have an idea for us, something you want us to versus, we would absolutely love to hear it. There's an email, a phone number, if you're in the US, there's social media accounts. It's all in the show notes, so just have a look at the show notes, get in touch with us and tell us your great Science Versus idea. We always love hearing from you. Okay, but now it's time to start the show.

• 0:36Wendy Zukerman?

  This is the show that pits facts against inflated egos.

• 0:45Wendy Zukerman?

  Today, we are talking about narcissism. So of course, I've invited senior producer Rose Rimler to tell me all about it.

• 0:55Speaker 01

  Hey!

• 0:55Wendy Zukerman?

  Well, because you did the research.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  Fair enough. I have been doing the research. And you know, what I quickly realized diving into all this is that on the internet, there's all these caricatures of what a narcissist is. But the reality is a lot more complicated and actually a lot more interesting. So to start, I want you to meet someone. This person is an actual narcissist.

• 1:20Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  He's a social media influencer.

• 1:23Wendy Zukerman?

  Touche, that job sounds very appropriate.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  Could you start by introducing yourself to our audience?

• 1:29Speaker 02

  Hey, everybody, my name is Lee Hammock. I am a clinically diagnosed narcissist. One of my monikers has become like the self-aware narcissist.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  And Lee wasn't always self-aware about this, but something happened about eight years ago that changed his whole world.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  So Lee is a dad, and on this particular day, he was home alone with his six-month-old son. The baby was crying and Lee was feeling really annoyed that the baby was fussing while he was trying to get some of his own work done. And he found himself raising his voice at the baby. And then his wife walked in, heard this, and she's like, "What the hell? You're yelling at an infant." And they got in a huge fight about it.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  So I told her to get the hell out. And of course, she's like, OK, I'm leaving. And on the way out the door, she said, you know what? It's so damn hard living with a narcissist.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  She said that kind of like tossed over her shoulder as she walked out the door?

• 2:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was a super insult. It's so damn hard living with a narcissist, slammed the door. I was just like, wait, what?

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Because he's like, why would she say that?

• 2:31Wendy Zukerman?

  Right.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  Why did she call me that? So I'd sit down on the bed and I'm, you know, don't angry Google. I was angry Googling.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  So I typed in narcissist in Google and it said, did you mean narcissistic personality disorder?

• 2:45Speaker 01

  That is the medical term for someone who is diagnosed as a narcissist.

• 2:49Wendy Zukerman?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:50Speaker 02

  I didn't, I didn't mean that, but you know, let's, I'm, I'm, I'm seemingly, I got, I got time on my hands now. So let's go down the rabbit hole. So I clicked on it and literally it was like, boom. And I started reading the signs and the symptoms and things like that. And it just, I was like, oh damn.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  It was really a huge moment for him because he's reading all these descriptions of what makes a narcissist, at least according to Dr. Google.

• 3:17Wendy Zukerman?

  Right.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  And he's nodding along. So it's like, you think you're special, which he definitely does think that. He's always believed he was destined for greatness. Another one is you are preoccupied with yourself. Yep, he keeps reading, lack of empathy. That one definitely felt right. Was there an example that flashed in your mind? You're like, oh, that was the time when I was being unempathetic.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Ratatouille. So there's a scene in Ratatouille at the end when like the food critic eats the Ratatouille and it took him back to his childhood.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  That's what happened to me when she said that, like when I started looking up narcissism and a lack of empathy. It took me back to my childhood when I was like in first or second grade.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  He was on the playground in school. He was watching this kid named Tony climbing on a jungle gym. And he saw that Tony was gonna try to hang upside down by his legs. And he had a bad feeling about this. He didn't think Tony was strong enough to go upside down. So he told Tony to stop.

• 4:11Wendy Zukerman?

  Mm hmm.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  But Tony did it anyway.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Didn't listen. Bam, he falls, snaps his arm. And everybody's like, oh my goodness, Tony's hurt. I'm screaming, so I'm angry at Tony now. I don't care that he's hurt. You know, I'm angry as hell, mad, I'm crying angry.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  What were you thinking as a kid when he broke his arm?

• 4:28Speaker 02

  That he, he, he, he had inconvenienced me. Because now we all had to go inside and now this is the time we get to go outside and play. Now we have to go inside because you made a decision not to listen to me.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  Little Kid Lee was so angry and upset in this moment that he actually remembers the teacher looking at him and saying, "What's wrong with you?" And at the time, of course, he didn't know. But as an adult, on this day in his bedroom after the fight with his wife, he's like, "Wait, now I know."

• 4:57Speaker 02

  And I was like, "Damn, wow." This is it. I remember texting my wife. I was like, "You're right. I am a narcissist."

• 5:03Speaker 01

  Really?

• 5:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, that night. Yeah, that night. I was like, "You're right. I looked it up. I am a narcissist." I was like, "You, you are 100% on it."

• 5:13Speaker 01

  And now, today, as an influencer, Lee talks a lot about narcissists like him and how to live with them, deal with them. And he's part of this huge trend where people cannot stop talking about narcissists. There are even people saying that we're in a narcissism epidemic. And I'm hearing about narcissists just like coming out of the woodwork. You know, our bosses, our parents, celebrities.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  Let's turn to Nick Cannon, who says he needs help after being diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder.

• 5:43Speaker 04

  There is a self-importance in me. I believe I am not ordinary.

• 5:47Speaker 05

  One in six people are narcissistic.

• 5:50Speaker 06

  The rates of narcissism are rising. In Trump, you literally have the most narcissistic person I think anyone can name in our lifetime.

• 5:59Speaker 07

  He is a consummate narcissist. How do you deal with these people? How do you live with these people?

• 6:07Speaker 01

  It's even become like something that comedians joke about. I don't know what narcissist means, but if it's about me, it's gotta be good.

• 6:15Speaker 06

  Yeah, we're in an epidemic of narcissism. We should be raising awareness. Should be like, "Wear a little mirror for narcissist day."

• 6:23Speaker 01

  I mean, today. Today is narcissist day for us, right? Yeah, so let's, we'll put on our little mirrors. Because today on the show, we're gonna find out what's really going on here. Is the world truly overrun with narcissists?

• 6:37Wendy Zukerman?

  Are they hosting science podcasts? Beloved science podcasts.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  How do you know if you're one, or your boss or partner's one? And if you're stuck with a narcissist in your life, like, what do you do about it?

• 6:52Wendy Zukerman?

  Science vs. Narcissism is coming up just after the break.

• 7:07Wendy Zukerman?

  Welcome back. Today on the show narcissism. It is blowing up right now. We're going to dive into the science of it. And we're here with senior producer Rose Rimler. All right, Rose, question number one. Is the world overrun with narcissists?

• 7:24Speaker 01

  So people tend to throw around the word narcissism pretty willy nilly. But first you have to know that there is some different types here. So there's pathological narcissism. That's a trait where people constantly put themselves and their own needs above other people and their needs. And it's often associated with this lack of empathy. If that describes you, you could get diagnosed potentially with narcissistic personality disorder. And Lee actually did get that diagnosis.

• 7:51Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, wow. From that argument that his wife just sort of threw out, you're a narcissist. But she was absolutely right.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And we are going to get more into the details of that later in the episode. But there's also what's considered basically normal narcissism. Where, you know, you're like a little focused on yourself. You're quite confident, maybe to the point of being arrogant. Maybe sometimes you think you're better than other people.

• 8:15Wendy Zukerman?

  Uh huh. And so to science, there is this distinction. There's a personality disorder narcissism and then just regular old garden variety narcissism.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, and there's a spectrum. When it comes to the garden variety narcissism, that's usually what scientists or the media are talking about when they talk about a narcissism epidemic. This question of whether lots of us are moving farther and farther up this narcissism spectrum.

• 8:40Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay. So are we?

• 8:44Speaker 01

  So to answer that, we got to go back to where this all started. We are going back to the late 90s, early 2000s.

• 8:52Speaker 07

  Okay, so this is the historical, holy smokes. Just let me get my history face on.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  That is W. Keith Campbell. He's a professor of psychology at the University of Georgia. But back then, he was a postdoc at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, along with another social scientist named Jean Twenge.

• 9:12Speaker 07

  We were in a basement office. They shoved three of us in there. We had a little bit of light that came through the Cleveland window. We had cut into the basement and we'd talk in our swivel chairs.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  And a lot of what they were talking about was how the culture seemed to be changing.

• 9:30Speaker 07

  We were in a period culturally in about 2000 that was just the most over-the-top self-promotional kind of culture you could imagine with the reality television show culture and other things along those lines. So it was just a very, it was kind of a very in-your-face cultural moment.

• 9:50Wendy Zukerman?

  Yeah, I mean, I remember it well, but I don't think we've moved away from the cultural moment of self-promotion.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  I know, but I think right around then, a lot of people see that as an inflection point for certain things like reality TV. So Survivor debuted in 2000. Right around there is when American Idol started, America's Next Top Model. It's like fame, fame, fame, being on TV, being special. So Keith and Jean were like, something's changing here. And it seems like people are changing in some fundamental way.

• 10:26Wendy Zukerman?

  Interesting.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  So they really wanted to find this out, and they really wanted to get some data behind this idea. They were becoming more narcissistic.

• 10:32Wendy Zukerman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  And luckily, there is this test that measures some narcissistic traits. It's called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. And what it's meant to do is to measure these grandiose narcissistic traits, basically how great you think you are.

• 10:48Wendy Zukerman?

  Can we take it? Can I take it?

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:51Wendy Zukerman?

  Gosh, when I just said, can I take it? I was like, is that a sign that I'm a narcissist?

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Don't you want me to take it too?

• 10:57Wendy Zukerman?

  How special I am on the narcissism scale.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Before we take it, do you have any, do you have any guesses? How will, who will have be higher on the narcissism scale?

• 11:08Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, I am totally gonna be more of a narcissist than you are. There's no doubt in my mind.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  You never know, you never know. Okay, so the instructions are to read each pair of statements below and place an X by the one that comes closest to describing your feelings and beliefs about yourself. You may feel that neither statement describes you well, but pick the one that comes closest.

• 11:28Wendy Zukerman?

  It's like a BuzzFeed quiz, where just a photo of Senator Palpatine is gonna show up on the screen.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  It's not the nerd personality index.

• 11:38Wendy Zukerman?

  Lack of empathy, Rose.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  Okay, let me put the link in the chat.

• 11:46Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in. Okay. All right, I'll read the first part. Um, I have a natural talent for influencing people. I am not good at influencing people.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Hmm, I'm gonna say not good.

• 12:01Wendy Zukerman?

  I'm gonna say I have a natural talent.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. The thought of ruling the world frightens the hell out of me versus if I ruled the world, it would be a better place. I think about this a lot. It's, it's number two. If I ruled, if I ruled the world, it would be a better place.

• 12:16Wendy Zukerman?

  Yeah, yeah, it's, it's not a hard bar right now, is it? I mean.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  I am no better or no worse than most people, or I think I am a special person.

• 12:27Wendy Zukerman?

  I really like to be the center of attention. It makes me uncomfortable to be the center of attention.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  I just wanna be reasonably happy, or I want to amount to something in the eyes of the world.

• 12:37Wendy Zukerman?

  Everybody likes to hear my stories. Sometimes I tell good stories.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel confident in this one. The other day I was, I told someone this story. I was like, oh, the other, the other day I had, I ate a bunch of pineapple. It was really sweet. And then I had a bagel, and the bagel was really sour in comparison to the pineapple. It was like, great story.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  So that is a sometimes good storyteller.

• 13:04Wendy Zukerman?

  I actually think everybody likes to hear my stories.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. People sometimes believe what I tell them, or I can make anybody believe anything I want them to.

• 13:14Wendy Zukerman?

  I wish, I wish, right? Oh, my gosh. Wouldn't the world be a better place? If everyone believed everything we said on Science vs.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Give her a point on the narcissism scale for that.

• 13:32Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay, okay. So before you reveal how narcissistic we are, tell me, what is the average on this test?

• 13:42Speaker 01

  So when they have used this test in sort of a general sample, just so you know, is in college students. That's kind of how it's been normed.

• 13:50Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  The average score is about 15.

• 13:54Wendy Zukerman?

  15.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Do you want to hear about standard deviation?

• 13:56Wendy Zukerman?

  I do want to hear about standard deviations, yes.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  That's about seven points on either side. So, you know, eight to 22. So that's like, you're in like the middle chunk of the population.

• 14:08Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay, got it.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Less than eight, you're really on a tail end of like, you're kind of a shrinking violet.

• 14:14Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  More than 22, you're getting up there in your narcissistic traits.

• 14:20Wendy Zukerman?

  All right, how did we do?

• 14:21Speaker 01

  You got 17.

• 14:23Wendy Zukerman?

  Ooh.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  And I got 10.

• 14:25Wendy Zukerman?

  Ooh, okay. So we're in, we're both normal.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  You're a little higher up than normal.

• 14:32Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay, okay.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Also, I just have to tell you this, Wendy. I found this paper published by Dr. Drew from Love Line. Do you know him?

• 14:40Wendy Zukerman?

  No, no, I don't.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. It was this radio show where they answered sex questions. It was like big in the 2000s. They always had celebrity guests come on. And it turns out, this whole time, Dr. Drew was giving the NPI to celebrities that came onto the show. And he published a paper to see like, are celebrities more narcissistic than other people? Which kind of celebrity is the most narcissistic?

• 15:03Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  And just for fun, I'll tell you that they found the celebrity that had the highest score was...

• 15:10Wendy Zukerman?

  Radio hosts.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Reality TV stars.

• 15:14Wendy Zukerman?

  Reality, of course, reality TV stars, yeah.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Reality TV stars got on average 19.5, which is so funny because that is like part of what kicked this all off for Keith and Jean.

• 15:24Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay, so with all that in mind... That 19 is a reality TV star from the 2000s. 15 is punked exactly normal. So I'm exactly in between the average person and a reality star. You know what? Science podcast host.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  That fits.

• 15:45Wendy Zukerman?

  That feels exactly where I belong.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, checks out. I mean, that's, that seems like just narcissistic enough. But to take this all back to Keith and Jean sitting in their basement.

• 15:57Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, yeah, that's, that's why we did this. I've, I have completely forgotten about Keith and Jean, by the way.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the whole point. That's why we took this test.

• 16:05Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes, of course.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  So the scientists think that people are getting more narcissistic, right? And so what they do is they find all these studies where people have taken this test. So they were able to find data on more than 16,000 college students taking this personality test between 1979 and 2006. So then they crunched the numbers and they found that on average narcissism seemed to be going up.

• 16:30Speaker 07

  Yeah, we'd found an increase in narcissism. And I looked at the data about 25 different times to make sure. And that's what we found.

• 16:39Wendy Zukerman?

  Those traits.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Those traits.

• 16:40Wendy Zukerman?

  You see more and more Wendy's, less and less roses.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess you could say that. And not only that, Keith and Jean also looked at all the stuff that was going on in the culture. So besides the reality TV stuff, stuff that they thought was evidence of people getting more narcissistic. So they pointed out that more people are getting cosmetic surgery. Parents have begun giving their children more unique names. And so they concluded, we are in a narcissism epidemic. Jean Twenge published a book called Generation Me. And all of this just blew up. It became huge. There was a ton of media attention on this. This particular group of young people heard a lot of things growing up, like believe in yourself. Everybody thinks they're going to be a reality star by posting their, their. Their selfie online, their video online.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  A generation more narcissistic, materialistic, naively entitled. Do you remember this?

• 17:35Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes, I remember. I remember all of this.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:38Wendy Zukerman?

  And it felt, I have to say, it felt very

• 17:43Wendy Zukerman?

  old man yelling at clouds to

• 17:47Wendy Zukerman?

  recall a meme that was probably around back then. That was as someone who was a young science journalist hustling her way to success.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Hustling her way up the narcissism spectrum.

• 18:01Wendy Zukerman?

  Exactly. But a lot of the talk did feel like kids these days.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:07Wendy Zukerman?

  I was just seeing a pattern of criticizing the younger generation as opposed to necessarily a pattern around a narcissism epidemic.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Well, OK, what you just said is exactly what this other academic I spoke to felt like at the time, too. Her name is Colleen Treznevsky. She's another psychologist. She's currently a professor at the University of California, Davis. So when she first saw this paper, back when it came out, it made her really uneasy for a lot of the reasons you just said. This idea of, you know, everybody is increasing in narcissism and like this generation is just going to end up in an awful place because they can't take criticism and they're all just full of themselves, out for themselves, and don't care about anyone else. Those are quite strong statements to be making. That leads to these stereotypes like, oh, yeah, there you are. There's that lazy youth again.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  So Colleen, I mean, at this time, she, because she was, you know, a little skeptical, but, you know, also just like, if this is true, we need good, we need a lot of data behind it. Because we are so prone to this confirmation bias, where we think the younger generation sucks. So she found this other dataset. It's called Monitoring the Future. And they survey high school seniors every year. They've been doing it since the mid 70s. It's not the NPI, but they do ask questions about things like, how do you see yourself compared to others? How satisfied are you with yourself? How competent are you? So questions that could be related to an inflated ego.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  So she and her co-author looked at students' answers to those questions between 1976 and 2006.

• 19:47Wendy Zukerman?

  And what did they see?

• 19:50Speaker 01

  They saw no narcissism epidemic. Yeah, so we found that

• 19:55Wendy Zukerman?

  But most things didn't change. Oh.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, the, the high school seniors in 1976 were just as likely to say like, I'm not that special or I'm kind of special as the high school seniors in 2006.

• 20:10Wendy Zukerman?

  Hmm.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  So she didn't find any evidence in this data of, of kids really changing.

• 20:16Wendy Zukerman?

  Interesting.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  And so basically, ever since, there's been back and forth in the literature about what was actually going on over this time period.

• 20:23Wendy Zukerman?

  Yeah.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Fast forwarding, what's really interesting is about what's happening today. Scientists have kept doing these analyses since this.

• 20:33Wendy Zukerman?

  Yeah.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  That, you know, that data was up to 2006. It's 2024.

• 20:36Wendy Zukerman?

  Yeah.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  And so we do have newer studies where they've done something similar, looking at newer crops of college kids.

• 20:43Wendy Zukerman?

  Right.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  And actually, what they're seeing now is that narcissism has been going down.

• 20:49Wendy Zukerman?

  Wow.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Even Keith, who was on Team Narcissism Epidemic, remember?

• 20:53Wendy Zukerman?

  Yeah.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  He was like, yeah, it's going down, at least what the NPI can measure, that grandiose narcissism.

• 20:59Speaker 07

  I mean, right now, what it looks like is that grandiose narcissism is going down.

• 21:06Wendy Zukerman?

  Whoa. Huh. Huh. So what is, what do these researchers make of that?

• 21:15Speaker 01

  So the debate here, I mean, it's, it's funny. At this point, lots of scientists seem to agree. And it's not just Colly, it's not just Keith, but also like, there's a, there's another group and from the University of Vienna, they just put out this big meta-analysis. All these different researchers in this space agree that there is currently no evidence that narcissism is up compared to a few decades ago. If there's a controversy, it's whether there was a bump for a while.

• 21:41Wendy Zukerman?

  Hmm. So maybe there was something about that inflection point, reality TV coming online.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Well, it's hard to say because not everybody agrees that there was this bump. That's still controversial. And, and Keith now says like, look, at this point, it's an archaeological question because it's over.

• 22:05Wendy Zukerman?

  So we are not in a narcissism epidemic. We may never have been.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. But so far, what we've been talking about is this test that nerds use to measure, you know, kind of normal levels of narcissism. We haven't been talking about pathological narcissism, which is what Lee has.

• 22:25Wendy Zukerman?

  Right.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  And people with this can be really self-centered, hurtful, manipulative. And so after the break, we are going to turn back to that darker type of narcissism to talk about what's going on in their heads. And if you've got someone like this in your life, how can you deal with them?

• 22:43Wendy Zukerman?

  Ooh, coming up.

• 22:53Wendy Zukerman?

  Today's AI Bytes is presented by Google Gemini. For anyone new to Gemini, it's an AI assistant you can have real conversations with. Whether you want to brainstorm something or prep for a presentation or interview, Gemini might help you do it faster. You can download the Gemini app for free on iOS or Android. Must be 18 plus to use Gemini Live. Dr. Sarah Webb at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne uses artificial intelligence to help us understand the stars, and in particular, flare stars.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, flare stars are stars that release bits of energy that spew out into space. And they release enormous, enormous amounts of energy that could power whole cities for millions of years in theory, if you were to be able to harness it.

• 23:40Wendy Zukerman?

  Wow.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  And it's really cool.

• 23:41Wendy Zukerman?

  And so you recently wrote a machine learning algorithm using AI to help us understand these flares better. Tell me about it.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. One of my favorites that I've written recently was actually a clustering algorithm. It's almost like pattern recognition. And then analogy might be if you're...

• 24:00Speaker 06

  Playing with a deck of cards and you're trying to find all of the cards that have the heart suit. You're trying to put all of them together, all of the spades, you're trying to put all of them together. You're trying to find the like with the like.

• 24:12Wendy Zukerman?

  And so what, did you discover something fun through the clustering?

• 24:16Speaker 06

  We did. So we discovered really fast flare stars, some of the fastest flare stars in our galaxy. And it was possible thanks to AI helping us sift through the data.

• 24:25Wendy Zukerman?

  If you didn't have the power of AI, like if we were in the-

• 24:29Speaker 06

  Dark ages.

• 24:30Wendy Zukerman?

  Not even like 10 years ago. How long would it have taken you to cluster all of those?

• 24:36Speaker 06

  I did the math on that. I would still be sitting at a desk 88 years later, minimum.

• 24:42Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, you're kidding me?

• 24:44Speaker 06

  No. Isn't that insane?

• 24:46Wendy Zukerman?

  88 years later? And how fast were you able to do that? Because you used machine learning.

• 24:50Speaker 06

  They used machine learning. The actual clustering itself took minutes and then it took months of my time to look through and analyze everything. But the actual computer doing the hard work for me was minutes.

• 25:02Wendy Zukerman?

  So now you have time for podcasting.

• 25:04Speaker 06

  Now I have time, I know. Isn't it wonderful?

• 25:07Wendy Zukerman?

  That's amazing. Today's AI Bytes was presented by Google Gemini. Using Gemini is as easy as having a conversation. You can interrupt it, add details, ask follow-up questions, and Gemini will adapt to you in real time. But the best way to learn about Gemini is to try it. Download the Gemini app for iOS and Android today. Must be 18 plus to use Gemini Live.

• 25:41Wendy Zukerman?

  Welcome back. Today on the show, narcissists, we're wearing our little mirrors to spend a day focusing on them, which they would love, wouldn't they, Rose? So where do we go next?

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we're moving to this pathological narcissism that goes way beyond us just kind of being our most arrogant selves. And I talked about this with psychologist and narcissism specialist Craig Malkin.

• 26:08Speaker 06

  Really, the core of pathological narcissism is this drive to feel special.

• 26:13Wendy Zukerman?

  Feel special.

• 26:15Speaker 06

  It's sort of an addictive compulsive need to turn to that feeling of feeling special at the expense of everything else.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  It's about being so self-centered, so consistently, that it actually interferes with your relationships, your ability to work, and can translate into some really crappy behaviors. Craig calls them the triple E.

• 26:39Speaker 06

  Exploitation, which is doing whatever it takes to feel special, no matter the cost to others. Entitlement, which is acting as if the world should bend to our will because we're so special. And empathy impairments, that's getting so caught up in that need to feel special that you lose sight of the needs and feelings of others. That, triple E, explains all of the worst behaviors in narcissistic personality disorder.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  So, to be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, the DSM, which is like the psychological bible, says you need to display a pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy.

• 27:22Speaker 06

  All right, this is somebody who's so focused on themselves that they wreak havoc in relationships. It's pervasive.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  And this disorder, it's not super common. It's estimated that in the US, maybe 1% of the population has NPD.

• 27:37Wendy Zukerman?

  1%.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  So, to go back to Lee, who we heard from at the start of the show, this was the guy that had this big fight with his wife after he yelled at the baby and he got diagnosed with this.

• 27:46Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  He told me that this desire to feel really special and important is a major thing that has driven him for years.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  Kind of like, uh, the movie, I always get the kid's movie references. Like, when I watched the movie Coco, I always wanted to end up on the affrenda, not just buried and gone and just forgot about. You want to be remembered as somebody who changed the trajectory of your family. You want to have the portrait of yourself in the, in the family house, right? Well, that's, yeah, that's Grandpa Lee right there. He changed the trajectory of the family right here. What more can I do to leave my mark on the world? What more can I do to, so I'm just not a normal person? Normalcy being average is, it's like painful, it's like death, it's almost like dying. I want my tombstone to be a statue.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  That's a hard mark to hit. And so it turns out that this drive to feel special doesn't always feel good. So one thing that might surprise people is that a lot of narcissists are not happy people.

• 28:43Wendy Zukerman?

  Hmm, that is surprising. It is, because I guess there is this assumption that if you were a person in the world that lacked empathy, that didn't give a about anyone else, you could just do whatever you wanted. And that, that somehow makes you-

• 29:00Speaker 01

  That sounds kind of freeing.

• 29:01Wendy Zukerman?

  Right, exactly, exactly. But that's not, that's not what we find?

• 29:05Speaker 01

  No, I mean, one study found that a third of people with NPD have major depressive disorder, a fifth have generalized anxiety disorder, which is much higher than the general population.

• 29:17Wendy Zukerman?

  Yeah, that, that really is surprising. I mean, it's just not how you picture a narcissist, I don't think.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's the case, and it's actually something that Lee can really relate to, because he's also been diagnosed with depression and anxiety alongside NPD.

• 29:30Wendy Zukerman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  And, and a thing that Lee told me that really helped me see why you'd be so miserable as a narcissist is that his ego really can't handle any criticism. This is pretty common with this disorder, by the way, being very sensitive to any criticism. And so when this happens to Lee, it just eats and eats at him.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  Criticism feels like a, like a truly, like a wound, like it just doesn't go away. It's just like, sometimes it gets healed up, it's kind of like a scar, right? It gets healed up, but sometimes it'll randomly just burst open. Like, literally, stuff that I forgot about will pop into my head that somebody said to me in the club when I was 21 years old. And it'll hurt my feelings now. I'm like, ah. But it's hard, it's so hard just to kind of let stuff go.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  And so he's always on the lookout for his ego getting dinged and like preemptively getting ready to fight.

• 30:24Speaker 02

  Like when I first meet people, always try to find a way to take them down, just in case. If it's not physical violence, of course, it might be like, hmm, what is it about you can I hurt your feelings with? Just in case you're gonna hurt my feelings. How can I hurt your feelings?

• 30:36Speaker 01

  You're looking for weaknesses in case you need to exploit them later?

• 30:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, just in case, yeah, just in case, just in case. It's just in case they insult me or joke on me. How can I joke on you back to hurt your feelings or get the attention back on you? Because that's how my mind works. It's always like attacking and vengeance.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  This is a pretty miserable way to live.

• 30:53Wendy Zukerman?

  Yeah. And hearing that, I could really see how narcissism can manifest as anxiety. Because you just have these ruminating thoughts of anger over and over again.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  And that's not all. I mean, there's a review paper that found that they often suffer from feelings of meaninglessness. They're very critical of themselves and they struggle to express their emotions.

• 31:22Wendy Zukerman?

  So is there a way to help them? Because this feels like it's kind of the worst of both worlds. No one is happy. The people around them aren't happy. They're not happy. Can we do anything about it?

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, so Lee, of course, had that question right after he had his moment of revelation. Because like the next thing he Googled was like cure for narcissistic personality disorder, right? And the results were disappointing.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  None. There's no medicine. There's no pills, anything like that to take. There's no cure. Go to therapy. So I was just like, oh, well, I guess I have to go to therapy.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  So that's the treatment we have. Therapy. Talk therapy. Therapists might do things like try to help their patient be more aware of triggers that lead to narcissistic actions. One paper described what you can do as a therapist is move a patient from me mode to we mode.

• 32:14Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay, I mean, did Lee end up trying therapy?

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, he did start therapy. It was several months after the big fight with his wife. And when he went to see this therapist.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  She was like, okay, so what are you doing here at 32 years old?

• 32:30Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 32:32Speaker 02

  Now I just start crying, because I know what to say. I was just like, literally, just start crying, yeah.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  Uh huh. Was that unusual for you, crying?

• 32:38Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, it was that, yeah.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Did she ask you why you're crying?

• 32:42Speaker 02

  I was like, I feel like I don't have any emotions. I was like, I just feel like I'm empty inside. And I start crying. She's like, no, you know, you're crying, so you, there's something there, you know? There's, there's something in there. You're definitely crying, so there's something in there. It's just, there's something blocking it. We gotta figure out a way to kind of lower down the gates. She's kind of described it like a castle. You gotta figure out a way to lower down the gates. Because you can't walk around, just like sealed up all the time.

• 33:08Wendy Zukerman?

  And did he, was he able to lower the gates?

• 33:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, there is no magical transformation. He says he's still a narcissist. But over the years, it has helped him learn to put some space between his thoughts and his actions.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  My very first thought is typically the narcissistic reaction. It really, really is. It's kind of like, pow. And it's, the first thought is probably gonna be self-serving, super defensive and egotistical, whatever it is. So I have to take my time to respond now. So I take a deep breath, like, okay.

• 33:39Speaker 02

  I have to ask myself, is that narcissism, or is this normal? It's kind of like, I have dual thoughts now. I have competing thoughts. It's kind of like, it's opened a whole new door up and there's somebody else living up here. And they're just like, sitting in a room, like, my brain is like, there's a narcissistic part of me and a non-narcissist part of me. They're like, sitting in the living room, arguing, you know?

• 33:59Speaker 01

  All day long?

• 34:01Speaker 02

  All day long. Yeah. There's no, I, I, I don't, I don't find very much peace.

• 34:05Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, that's, that's so interesting how Lee talks about it. That therapy has allowed him to, to see a different way of thinking, that the, you know, quote unquote, what he says, "normal" way of thinking, but he's still a narcissist. Um, but, but that, I mean, just that step seems like it's been helpful to him. I mean, do we have any data on other people with narcissism? Like, what's the chance? If a narcissist goes to therapy, they will change.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  We really tried to run this down, but it's very hard to put numbers around it because there are no trials exclusively on people with NPD.

• 34:45Wendy Zukerman?

  Hmm, annoying.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and psychologists have said that people with NPD tend to drop out of therapy. So maybe that's one reason we don't have these. But we do have some evidence that is promising and people who do stick it out. There are some case studies showing that people with NPD can improve after two and a half to five years of therapy. And a lot of therapists that I talked to told me the same thing, that they have helped people with this disorder.

• 35:11Wendy Zukerman?

  Hmm, so that is how narcissists can help themselves. But on the flip side, I mean, if you are living with a narcissist who's perhaps not working on themselves in the way that Lee is, what can you do?

• 35:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, so this question of how do you deal with a narcissist in your life is something that Craig, our psychologist from earlier, he specializes in.

• 35:37Wendy Zukerman?

  Hmm.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  He sees a lot of people who come to therapy. Oftentimes, they come in trying to figure out if someone in their life is a narcissist and then what should they be doing about it? And his number one tip is to not focus so much on the other person's diagnosis, but to figure out whether or not the relationship is working for you.

• 35:59Speaker 06

  The one thing people don't do that I often help them get to is just to be in touch with the questions like, am I safe in this relationship emotionally, physically? Do I like how I'm being treated regardless of where it comes from in this person?

• 36:16Wendy Zukerman?

  If you decide, I mean, I do like this person, but god, they've got some crappy traits that I'd like them not to have. Can you do anything about that or you just have to take them as they come?

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Right, so if you do decide the relationship is worth working on, you want to stay, or let's say it's like a relative or a boss, Craig has a few strategies.

• 36:36Wendy Zukerman?

  Right.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  They're based on this observation that you can actually boost empathy in people with narcissism. There's a body of research on this.

• 36:44Wendy Zukerman?

  Hmm.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  And Craig has come up with some ways to basically exploit that. So the first thing is something he calls an empathy prompt. And this is basically in your conversation with this person about why you're unhappy with their behavior, you sort of set it up by priming the other person to feel empathy for you while you're giving them feedback in this really particular way that could get through to someone with narcissism. So he gave me an example. Say your partner is someone who can often act very dismissive of your ideas. You might want to say-

• 37:19Speaker 06

  Something like, sweetheart, you're the most important person in my life. And that's why it's so devastating when you dismiss my ideas out of hand. I just feel like somebody I love and care about really doesn't think much of me. It's just heartbreaking.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 37:38Speaker 06

  Right? Anybody who has a capacity for empathy at all, you know, that will melt them.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's like a gunpowder pact statement because it gives so much about how much you value them.

• 37:55Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  In addition to, this is what I'm not getting from you.

• 37:59Speaker 06

  Yes, exactly. So that's an empathy prompt.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Therapy bomb.

• 38:03Wendy Zukerman?

  Rose, it sounds like you just had a revelation. Is there someone you want to try this on?

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Maybe. Wendy, because you love being the center of attention and you, people always love your stories.

• 38:21Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay, okay. What else? What other tips did Craig have?

• 38:26Speaker 01

  Craig had different strategies for like how stubbornly narcissistic people are. So for someone that's like maybe not going to melt from the empathy prompt, what he suggests is this thing called catching good. So here's what he means by that.

• 38:42Speaker 06

  There's gonna be moments where they say something thoughtful or kind, caring, where they appreciate you. You want to catch those.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  He's like, say you think you have a narcissistic boss. But one day they do like one nice thing. Maybe they take you out for lunch. They listen to an idea that you had. You can tell them.

• 39:04Speaker 06

  Yeah, I so appreciate that you invited me to lunch. I just feel so much more motivated to get to the finish line on tasks. So I really want to thank you for that.

• 39:16Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, that's great. That's great. You know what really stands out here is the advice that you don't tell your boss, that makes me feel great. Thanks. Instead, tell them you're now more motivated to get your work done. Because the idea is that your narcissistic boss cares about your work. They don't care about your feelings.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Yes, he ties it to like, here's the outcome that will benefit you.

• 39:45Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  So if that doesn't work and the empathy prompts don't work and you can't, you know, this person's still in your life. There is one last strategy that's I think we're talking about. And especially because this is something that the internet loves talking about. And this is called gray rocking.

• 40:01Wendy Zukerman?

  Gray rocking.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  So this is the idea that like, if you're in a fight with a narcissist, you basically become so still and so boring and quiet that you are acting like a gray rock.

• 40:15Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh.

• 40:16Speaker 06

  It doesn't give them anything to fight with. Gray rock is simply when you respond or interact, you're not emotionally engaged. You're flat. You're not really offering anything.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  We don't really have science here, but Craig says this is a tactic that people have found useful. The key is that you give the other person as little ammunition as possible.

• 40:39Speaker 06

  The mistake people make is explaining themselves or defending. And now you've now you really get things going. Because the more narcissistic someone is, the more they're gonna have to say in response to that. So the last thing you want to do is invite more answers or more reactions.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, these are sort of helpful suggestions, but.

• 41:00Wendy Zukerman?

  If I was employing these in a relationship I could get out of, it would really make me question whether that was the best option.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, Craig was definitely like, that is something worth considering. And he also really wanted to relay to people that if you feel unsafe in your relationship, your priorities should not be on using these techniques to improve communication. It should be on making sure you're safe.

• 41:24Wendy Zukerman?

  Yep, absolutely. So I guess the takeaways of this episode are that narcissists are among us. There may not be as many of them out there as the internet would have you believe, but they are among us.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:43Wendy Zukerman?

  And there are some ways that you can try to deal with them. Maybe not so science-backed, but hopefully these tips are helpful. And if you are the narcissist, or think that you are, going to therapy is a good idea. Rose, how are you walking around the world differently after researching this episode?

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Well, it's just been a good reminder that when we start to focus on ourselves too much, it can be harmful and it can actually like make you less happy. And it makes me really want to catch those moments where I'm doing that, where I'm like really spinning around about myself, my own legacy, or what people think of me, noting when that's actually, to a point where it's not helpful, it's making me less happy than I would be otherwise. I think that's a takeaway that even someone who's scored low on the narcissism spectrum, not to brag, can take away.

• 42:42Wendy Zukerman?

  It's like especially low, I would say, extraordinarily low, I would say.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Even me can benefit from thinking about narcissism.

• 42:52Wendy Zukerman?

  Thanks, Rose.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Thanks, Wendy.

• 42:55Wendy Zukerman?

  All right, since this is the last episode for the year, we're going to be back in the new year, have a short break and work on new episodes. We thought we'd bring in the whole team for a citations extravaganza. Hi, Ron. Hi. Whoa, look who's into the room, it's crazy. How many citations are in this week's episode? Forty-nine. Forty-nine. Michelle, if people want to find these citations, where should they go? To the show notes. Head over to our Show notes and click on the transcript. And if people want to send us their ideas for next year, Meryl, what should they do?

• 43:34Speaker 01

  Just look at the show notes. We'll also have info there for how you can tell us all your great ideas. We want to hear them.

• 43:39Wendy Zukerman?

  Blythe, how did Science vs. change your life this year?

• 43:45Wendy Zukerman?

  You know what? You know what it did? I lucid dreamed. I realized I was like a lucid dream. It was a big deal. Rose, you changed my daily life this year because I now soak beans. I soaked them and then I boiled them. Thank you to everyone who also emailed me giving me instructions. And I am never going back to canned. I can't. They're too slimy. Once you've done it properly, they taste better, less microplastics. Thank you, Rose.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  I'm delighted to hear that.

• 44:16Wendy Zukerman?

  Michelle, I'm eating, as a result, eating more fibre. Wow. My poos are out of control. Amazing. Thanks. All right. See you in the new year. Bye. Happy New Year, everyone. Happy holidays. Happy New Year.

• 44:36Wendy Zukerman?

  This episode was produced by Rose Rimler with help from me, Wendy Zukerman, along with Michelle Dang, Meryl Horn and Aketi Foster Keys. We're edited by Blythe Terrell. Mix and sound design by Sam Bear. Fact checking by Erica Akiko Howard. Music written by Peter Leonard, Emma Munga, So Wiley, Bumi Hidaka and Bobby Lord. Thanks to all of the researchers that we spoke to for this episode, including Dr. Igor Weinberg, Dr. April Ilkman, Dr. Jennifer Gerlach, Dr. Betsy Edershile, Professor Brad Bushman, Professor Brent Donilon, Professor Chris Barry, Dr. Glenn Gair and Winky Ma. Special thanks to Rachel Humphries for editing help. And a big thanks to everyone who helped us with this season, including Jack Weinstein,

• 45:17Wendy Zukerman?

  Hunter, Chris Suter, Oscar, Elise, Dylan, the Zukerman family and Joseph Lavelle Willson. Science vs. is a Spotify Studios original. Listen to us for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We are everywhere. But if you are listening on Spotify, then tap the bell icon so you get notifications when New episodes come out and whatever podcast app you are using, we would love it if you love the show to give us a five star review. It helps new people find us, which we love. I'm Wendy Zukerman. We'll back to you soon.