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Are Narcissists More Likely to Experience Impostor Syndrome?

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Are Narcissists More Likely to Experience Impostor Syndrome?

#6
Maybe they're more likely to report imposter syndrome? How exactly can we distinguish between a self-aware narcissist who knows they have imposter-like tendencies and someone who gets satisfaction over having a pathology that others will be sympathetic towards? Nothing I've read here suggests an answer to this, I think.

Re: Are Narcissists More Likely to Experience Impostor Syndrome?

#7
TIL I'm a narcissist. Not how I expected this morning to go.

I think these kind of categories that come from psychology are useful and also dangerous. Our innate tendency towards heuristics makes it difficult to talk about this stuff, especially with words like "narcissist" that have strongly negative connotations. The brain is a complicated mess. Maybe the most complicated mess in the universe. We try to impose some order on it without understanding it. It's true that "everyone in this room loves me" and "everyone in this room hates me" could be manifestations of a similar neurological configuration, and we could put the label "narcissist" on it. But the label is somewhat arbitrary and the behavioral results are often very different.

Re: Are Narcissists More Likely to Experience Impostor Syndrome?

#8
post #7

TIL I'm a narcissist. Not how I expected this morning to go. I think these kind of categories that come from psychology are useful and also dangerous. Our innate tendency towards heuristics makes it difficult to talk about this stuff, especially with words like "narcissist" that have strongly negative connotations. The brain is a complicated mess. Maybe the most complicated mess in the universe. We try to impose some…

Agreed. This striving towards binary classification is so flawed from any broader perspective.

I, too, just learned that I'm a narcissist.

I had to squint quite a bit at the diagnostic list there, and sort of wedge my own psychological dispositions creatively into the qualifications list there but then yeah -- snap (and crap!) -- I'm a narcissist.

Oh, but if I use just a little more nuanced application of thought, then suddenly I'm not a narcissist. Or at least in a safer position on the linear spectrum that is assumed in this kind of "scientific" categorization.

Which is really quite absurd as you have pointed out.

Re: Are Narcissists More Likely to Experience Impostor Syndrome?

#10
If you are interested in this topic and want to discover more about yourself and maladaptive behaviors and coping mechanisms, a great resource for personality disorders is the “Out of the Fog” website[1]. I also find Sam Vaknin has written a lot of interesting stuff on covert narcissism and the concept of narcissistic supply. (he also has a youtube channel) [2]

I feel that covert NPD shares a lot of traits with BPD.

[1] https://outofthefog.website [2] http://samvak.tripod.com

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