The Two Main Forms of Narcissism Explained | Keith Campbell

So let me ask you another question here. Why don't you flesh out for us a little bit based on your experience in the lab and otherwise, the nature of narcissism? Exactly what you've been studying, what are these people like, and how do you identify them?

Yeah, I mean, it's a little complicated because the term narcissism, we think about it as both a personality trait, you know, an individual difference. What we mean by a trait is somebody's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are consistent across time and situation. So somebody acts the way in one situation; they act the way in another situation. They'll probably act the same way in six months.

In terms of narcissism, we find that in the personality world, there's sort of two different flavors or two different forms of narcissism. What most of us are talking about is this more grandiose form, this, you know, as you said, disagreeable extroverts. So people that are self-centered, have a sense of superiority, have a sense of entitlement, but are also assertive, agentic, maybe charismatic, extroverted, driven. So that combination of grandiosity is what you see in your classic ex-boyfriend, your politician, your celebrity—that's that profile.

Then there's the more vulnerable form of narcissism, which people don't talk about as much, where you have that antagonism but you also have things like envy comes out a lot more with vulnerable narcissism. You see a lot of envy right now, and then you also get a lot of neuroticism. So people who are vulnerable narcissists appear more—they might appear depressed or anxious, and then you kind of get to know them and you're like, "Wait, you're kind of self-centered too. You kind of think people don't..."

So they're kind of the more passive narcissists. Now, is that the axis? Okay, so is the fundamental axis of discrimination there trait neuroticism? Like, if you take your extroverted, disagreeable, unconscientious person, let's say, so the real kind of narcissist that's bordering on psychopathy and then you break them into two types, you'd have the low neuroticism, fearless movie villain type of implacable predatory narcissist.

But then you could flip that and you could say, well, what about the people who are really high in neuroticism? Well, they can be just as narcissistic, as you pointed out, but they're going to be depressed and anxious, claim victimization. They're going to use their suffering as a means of manipulating people. Is it neuroticism that's the distinguisher between vulnerable and grandiose narcissism?

The neuroticism and also you'll see lower extraversion with more vulnerable narcissism. So the extraversion won't be as high, and the neuroticism will be higher. So it's driven more; it's more of a defensive structure. I don't want people to criticize, it's sometimes called thin skin narcissism. I'm looking for people trying to criticize me, whereas people are more grandiose are like, "I'm looking for an opportunity to shine. Hey, there's a camera, you know, here's a microphone, awesome."

So it's a little different. It's like approach versus avoidance orientation. And of course, some people have characteristics of both, but that's the main distinction that we've seen in the literature. That took about 20 years to sort out. It sounds crazy, but because of the history—what happened historically is the clinicians who were seeing narcissism were often seeing more vulnerability. The people who were studying narcissism in the world of leadership were seeing much more grandiosity, sort of like studying criminals or the criminal people, or in the OR in criminality, they'd seen more grandiosity.

And so you ended up with sort of two theories coming together. And then, there's the issue of what's a personality disorder. And that's typ when you take that narcissism, narcissistic personality disorder is grandiose but also has elements of vulnerability in it, and you make it extreme and then inflexible.

So one of the challenges, you know, if I'm narcissistic on stage, that's fine, but if I go home and I'm that way with my kids, I'm that way with my wife, I'm going to have problems. So when your personality becomes inflexible, then you get the impairment, you ruin your relationships. You take too big of risks at work; you're too self-centered to learn from your mistakes, so you're overconfident, you make bad business decisions, whatever the case is. You have that sort of impairment, and that's where you start talking about a personality disorder.

People with a personality disorder, it’s the extreme narcissism. Sometimes there’s some trauma, something going on in childhood that maybe makes it more fixed, but generally, it’s just the extreme with impairment. Then people have noticed some other kinds of narcissism; sometimes people talk about communal narcissism, which are people that take the enhancements more like I'm the best friend ever, I'm the most moral person ever.

So it's a more moralistic face on narcissism. Sometimes in the clinical world they'll talk about malignant narcissism as a specifier. So it's I'm narcissistic but I'm also sort of sadistic and pathological and mean. So there's that kind of darker face of narcissism. You can move this around in different ways, but typically it’s that combination of, you know, that disagreeable extrovert personality and then what you're doing is that self-regulation is about gaining positive attention and avoiding negative attention.

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Yeah, yeah, okay. So, we should also point out something that's worth thinking about for people too with regards to being self-centered. You know, it's kind of an odd linguistic formulation, and there's an inaccuracy in it that's actually dangerous because the narcissists aren't so much self-centered as they are whim-centered, right?

And that goes along with the immaturity because if you were treating yourself properly, you're playing the long game, you're trying to regulate your social relationships, your marriage, your relationship with your children. You're not going to be selfish, but what that means more specifically, more precisely, is that you're not going to sacrifice the future or other people around you to the immediate gratification of your motivational or emotional states.

Right? And so the self—it's that because the narcissistic type isn't exactly selfish, not in a productive way because they're—they don't do well across time. What they are are prisoners of their own whims, and that speaks to the immaturity as well because like a 2-year-old is a creature of whim. I mean, there's a developmental trajectory towards exploration and integration, but fundamentally 2-year-olds aren't social, and they want what they want right now or it's tantrum time.

And kids are more or less like that; some are very tantrum-prone and some much less so, but that's still part and parcel of being a two-year-old. But that selfishness that goes along with narcissism isn't really care for yourself; it's subjugation to your own immature whims, right? It's just not productive.

It's not like the narcissist's benefit, not really. I like that you're pushing back on that term because you're correcting that it isn't self-centered, like, "You know what? I really care about myself and what's best for me in the next 20 years, and I have a vision, and I'm pursuing that vision aggressively.” It’s like, "Oh, here's an opportunity for status. I'm going to take it.”

"Oh, there's a cute woman; my wife's not going to find out about this.” It's much more hedonistic; it's much more immediate action, which is why when we were talking about conscientiousness as being a buffer to this, I mean, that's why it's important.

As I usually tell my students, “Hedonism is a terrible way to be happy. If you do what makes you happy in the moment all the time, you're guaranteed to be depressed and ruin your life.” I mean, so yes, this by self-centered, it's much more whim-centered. It might be that the cardinal elements of narcissism are disagreeableness, let's say, extraversion, low conscientiousness when it gets really pathological—but that short-term orientation, short-term pleasure orientation is a crucial element of it, I think, right?

And that would be the hedonistic element, and I don't think you get really—you certainly don't get the malignant narcissistic or the criminal narcissistic type without including that hedonism. And that would be something like short-term mating strategy, live for the day, hedonism. That's part and parcel of that.

And I do think that that's really equivalent to something like lack of cortical maturation, right? Because it's the default condition of the typical 2-year-old. But now there's another element of this that's cool too. So, you know, in the linguistic analysis that established the Big Five, there were all sorts of trait descriptors of negative emotion that loaded powerfully on neuroticism, right?

One of those—this is so cool—is self-consciousness, which is actually a facet in the Neo system, and this is something that's also extremely worth thinking about in relation to selfishness because you might think, "Well, I'm concerned with myself, and that's going to make me happy.” It's like, "No, self-consciousness is indistinguishable from negative emotion.” And so it's so interesting because what it implies is that it isn't that there's a causal connection between being obsessed with yourself and being miserable; it's that they're actually the same thing.