Narcissism

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Hi, I'm Jenny Brockie and welcome to Insight. Join in the discussion on Facebook and Twitter unless you're too busy updating your status and it's young adults apparently where researchers say narcissism is really increasing with parents, the media and a 'look at me' culture being blamed.

 

So what's wrong with a little bit of self promotion?

 

 

FRANCES LEE VIDEO CLIP:

 

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Even dogs Frances, thanks for joining us. That's from your YouTube channel.

 

FRANCES LEE: That's right.

 

JENNY BROCKIE: And your on‑line persona is Flankee‑‑

 

FRANCES LEE:  Flankee, that's right.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  You are called Flankee?  Why do you have your own YouTube channel?

 

FRANCES LEE: Well I discovered YouTube back in 2009 so about three years ago I uploaded like videos of me getting my pup, so just showing just the world my puppy and then it grew into blogs and then about 2010 there was this competition called My World Tour that was done by Universal Music. So I have a great passion for music and then from there I was pursuing this music career to interview other artists at music concerts and festivals.  So I did a massive six month campaigning, building up my profile, trying to get the attention of these, I would say like employers so to win this competition to go on this world tour to interview all these artists. So from there I just kept on building and then came to Facebook, Twitter and ‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  You have two Facebook pages?   Why?

 

FRANCES LEE:   Yes.  Personal Facebook and also a Facebook to, for my profile, because you want to divide yourself and also you want your personal life and the life that you want to share with people on, like on the internet and the world. So that's why I have two separate Facebooks.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  And why do you want to do all this? What's the aim of it for you? What's it about?

 

FRANCES LEE: Entertainment pretty much. Just to ‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  So for you to entertain other people?

 

FRANCES LEE:  Yes, to entertain other people and to also go around the world. That was like the main thing, to interview and interact - so entertainment, and I had my granny involved in one of my ‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Yes, granny's here. Well done granny, it was a good performance too.

 

FRANCES LEE: And you just see like different culture and from different generations. Especially I'm from generation Y, mum's from X and then my granny's from like, she was born in the '30s. So it's quite unique to have such a generation gap and still let them involved in all my YouTube videos.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  So what does mum think? 

 

FRANCES LEE: What does mum think?  She laughs and she's supportive so I guess she's okay with it.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay, alright, Keith Campbell, I want to bring you in here because ‑ and I want to thank you for joining us today from the United States. You run the behavioural and brain sciences program at the University of Georgia and you've written a book called The Narcissism Epidemic. Why an epidemic? 

 

PROFESSOR W. KEITH CAMPBELL, AUTHOR ‘THE NARCISSISM EPIDEMIC.’:  Because the changes we've seen in narcissism have increased so much. I mean the average scores of college students have gone up quite a bit but what's really changed when we look at the clinical disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, the rates were with young people in the United States, and I'm not talking about Australia, but  are about 1 in 11, the lifetime rate. So it's a very high number we're talking about.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  And what are you talking about? What are narcissistic traits and what is narcissism in itself? How would you define it? 

 

PROF. W. KEITH CAMPBELL: Well, probably the simplest way to break it down is it's an inflated, a grandiose view of yourself, you think you're special and unique, you're entitled to special treatment. At the same time you lack really warm empathetic and caring relationships with other people. I mean you can be charming and charismatic but the warmth really isn't there and then you spend a lot of your life trying to look good. So you know, you brag, you name drop, you draw attention to yourself in conversation. You know, you jump in any chance to be in front of a television camera like I'm doing right now, things like that.  So anything you can do, anything you can do to look good is what you end up doing. You spend your life sort of playing these games to continue looking good.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  But there's a big gap between somebody having fun with Facebook or having fun with being on YouTube and being a narcissist, yes? What's the difference? 

 

PROF. W. KEITH CAMPBELL: A big gap between, I mean one thing in the example we're talking about here, and I thought it was very interesting with two the Facebook pages, people have to self promote these days. I mean you have to self promote to get anything done but if you self promote in your public life but then you're doing the same thing with your parents, with your family, with your, you know, with your friends and you start to believe your own press, that's when it gets into trouble.

 

So the self promotion if in the public sphere is something necessary but doing that to everybody is where it get really problematic.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay Frances, do you do it in your private life? 

 

FRANCES LEE: When I was campaigning for that my world tour, I did, and it got to people.  It got into some people's faces and they didn't like it and then you obviously get the delete or the unfollow from Facebook or Twitter but you just accept it.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay, the lady next to you wanted to say something.

 

 

WOMAN: I think it's terrific to have a good opinion of yourself and confidence. What I can't stand is people with low self esteem.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay. Tim, you were a contestant on Big Brother. Let's have a look.

 

 

TIM BRUNERO VIDEO CLIP:

 

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Tim, do you want to talk to that?

 

TIM BRUNERO: Well I suppose, you know - it was a very interesting show - it was one of those ones where you kind of have to create story lines, you have to create interest. I was in there for four months and I think the key with reality TV, it's funny, having a good friend in Chas from 'The Chaser' before I went in there, actually constructing a story for myself and unfolding it as I did it. And of course being a little guy doing weights is a great story line and I could tell it was resonating because Gretel, the host of the show, would constantly come back to it and refer to it so just I kept doing it. 

 

And of course a show like that, you've got be a producer on the inside, you've got to be thinking about what you're doing and saying all the time to increase your longevity and creating story lines or injecting yourself into other story lines.  That was one that I created for myself.

 

JENNY BROCKIE: What type of person is attracted to going on Big Brother'? 

 

TIM BRUNERO: Well you know, it's funny, people,  you know, I suppose have a perception that it is a narcissist who would go on there but then a lot of people will say "but I could never do it". And I think it's really interesting people kind of make an instant judgment and then admit straight away that it's something they could never do. Look, I think young people are very sceptical about the world of celebrity now, I think that they realise that in the last 20 years celebrity, for want of a better word, has been decentralised and has been democratised, and also to some extent demystified.

 

So what I mean by that is 100 years ago we were all celebrities. We were all in the Gilbert and Sullivan, we all produce culture on some local level, on Sunday we stand around the piano.  But when radio and TV arrived suddenly we got professionals like Jenny who took that space so a tiny group of people then controlled entertainment. I think in the last twenty years and we're seeing with so many young people jumping on YouTube and blogging, and with reality TV too, they're taking that back. They're saying we're just as legitimate, have just as great a claim to fame - if you like, or celebrity, or what want to say in putting it out there and they've broken it down, they've decentralised it.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  So why did you go on it? 

 

TIM BRUNERO: Well there were a few reasons I suppose, the primary reason is that I’m very interested in politics and this show has always been this kind of bogan's Olympics if you like and I really wanted to see ‑ I mean I think you can't whinge about the show being the bogan's Olympics unless you're prepared to actually go on it and represent a different kind of young Australian - you know. And I've always been very interested in politics and during the time in the house, John Howard was going to take control of the Senate which was meaning he was going to ram through a whole lot of really worker unfriendly laws and I wanted to be on there to have a yak about some of those things and also other social issues, you know. That was kind of my primary reason.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  But what about you Tim?  I mean how much of it was about your ego as well? You wanting to be a celebrity? 

 

TIM BRUNERO:  Look, that certainly was a factor I think that wanting to ‑ having that soapbox was a really important thing to me. You know, working in unions and trying to get that message out there and knowing that  ‑ getting it in the Financial Review or getting it on SBS radio or ABC is not getting ‑ Big Brother penetrates to a big mainstream audience and a young audience whose minds are malleable and ready for some fresh ideas.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  And why do you think you were chosen for Big Brother? 

 

TIM BRUNERO: I think that I was chosen because I was not your typical contestant. I mean, look, I had other reasons of course working in the media and seeing the way it is commodified and the way that personalities are produced like a Ford production line. Having some media training, I thought I can make this into something that can work for me and I can get a job out it. Of course I had that.

 

Also it was an incredible social experiment which you literally cannot, you know, you can't buy the experiences. You can only sort of be gifted it and I think the third thing is, you know, there was a million dollars up for grabs so like, you know? 

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Frances, do you get recognised? 

 

FRANCES LEE: No.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  You don't? 

 

FRANCES LEE:  My profile's not big at all so I'm just starting to build it. So I don't ‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Would you like to get recognised? 

 

FRANCES LEE: I'd like to do something that has meaning to it and get recognised, finding people, other collaboratives and having the same interest to do something together. I think that's where I want to go.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Tim, do you get recognised? 

 

TIM BRUNERO: Yeah, I do get recognised and it's very funny because you to instantly have to give people that five minutes of sunshine because they know you and I'm not like an actor from ‘All Saints’. Like they know my name, they know who I am, and so you know, sometimes like 5 percent of the time I'm not ready for that or I've just got out of the bed or whatever but I've still got to turn it on and say good day, how you going, what's your name, nice to meet you, what are you doing today?  Blah, blah, blah and give them a couple of minutes because I feel like I owe it, you know? 

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Five minutes of sunshine? 

 

TIM BRUNERO: Yeah, a couple of minutes.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Anyone want to comment on this? Anyone like to comment on what they think about narcissism and what do you think about Facebook and YouTube and the on‑line environment in relation to this topic?

JONNO SEIDLER: I think it's quite positive to do sort of what you were saying before with - you know, YouTube and getting your things out there. I've got three separate Facebooks, four separate Facebook accounts and three separate Twitter accounts and I think if you diversify what you do, you can manage the way that your profile is extended.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Why so many?

 

JONNO SEIDLER: I've got ‑ I run a music blog which I have, you know, an account for that. I work for a business which also has its own Facebook account there and then I've got another blog that I do there and I've got my personal one. And I do, I have separate friends for each separate one and separate things happening.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Everyone's talking about getting your profile out there. I mean why is that so important, this idea of your profile being out there?

 

JONNO SEIDLER: Yeah, I mean I'm a music journalist so obviously it's a lot more difficult now.  You know, everybody's talking about the decline of print and everything like that. It's a lot more difficult to get work and to get yourself noticed. So you know, like they were talking about image and how important it is to have your face out there.  For me it's my name and I think that you can be recognised by your name without anybody knowing what you look like or ever having met you. I'll meet people at a bar and they'll say Oh, you're Jonno from which ever website it is. Rather than oh, you're from the newspaper or you're a person, you know? So that's kind of good. It kind of works both ways I think.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Keith, do you think there's a connection between the on‑line environment that we're talking about here and the kind of narcissistic traits that you're saying you're finding as a researcher in young people and the increase in narcissism? 

 

PROF. W. KEITH CAMPBELL: I mean certainly that people who are narcissistic use social media to make themselves look good and to be connected.  So in the research we've done, people who are narcissistic have broader social networks, they're more self promoting in their photos, more self promoting in their descriptions of themselves. I mean there's a study even done on personal email addresses and people who are narcissistic get addresses like "fascinating", "king", "200", things like that - so even more salacious and self enhancing email addresses - so it certainly has an impact on individuals use of these media.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Do people think we're more, getting more narcissism? Olivia, what do you think?

 

OLIVIA BARLOW:  I don't think there's any real evidence for us becoming more narcissistic, it's just we have access to the means of showing how we feel about ourselves. Like back in the 1910s or whatever, no one was going to publish what you just for dinner where now you've got this free website and you've got nothing else to do so you might as well. Like and another thing is, what's the alternative? Like if you don't have a Facebook, people don't invite you to parties or they'll invite your Facebook that your friend made you because you weren't on Facebook. So if you don't have these photos that you like of yourself on your Facebook, if you don't write about yourself ‑‑

 

JONNO SEIDLER: Someone else will do it. 

OLIVIA BARLOW: Exactly.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  What did you say? 

JONNO SEIDLER: Someone else will do it for you. My brother doesn't have a Facebook and he constantly, I have to tell him about parties that I know that he would be invited to normally because he ‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  I guess there's a difference though between having Facebook for those reasons as a social networking tool and gazing adoringly at your profile to the point where you starve to death, you know, the equivalent of a Narcissus over here. What do people think?  Travis, what do you think?

 

WOMAN:  What happens to  communication? 

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Sorry?

 

WOMAN:  What happens to communication? If you have friends, they call you to or they come around to see you to go to a party. If you're a nerd, if you're not on Facebook ‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  I think that's a different debate. Travis?

 

DR TRAVIS KEMP, ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST: One of the things we have to remember, we're operating on a continuum here and it's tempting to make narcissism a dirty word and use a label of narcissism as some sort of a negative thing.  We're operating on a continuum of behaviour from functional to defunctional and at one level we're all narcissistic at some point in our life and we need to be.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Laura, what do you think?

 

LAURA PERRY: Sorry, in regards to?

 

JENNY BROCKIE: In regards to whether people are becoming more narcissistic or not? 

 

LAURA PERRY: Yeah, I think definitely people are. I did volunteering in Vanuatu and in my time there basically people have nothing, rural Vanuatu, and I found that they're a lot happier and there's definitely no level of self promotion whatsoever. I think it's just about our values and how they've changed in terms of reality TV, things like that. We all see people on TV and we think oh, they're famous - I can sort of get some level of fame too. Even if it's sort of like Facebook makes you a star in your own life.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Sophia, you've done a study of Facebook users and narcissism in fact. What have you found?

 

DR SOPHIA XENOS, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST, RMIT UNIVERSITY: Very similar findings to what has been found in the US. We have looked at over a thousand, I think 1,185 Australian internet users and we found correlations between Facebook usage and personality.  And we particularly found that people who were, who had active Facebook or who actively used Facebook were more likely to be narcissistic and they were more likely to use Facebook in a particular way. To use it in a way that allowed for them to promote their self image. So more likely to engage in putting photos up regularly, messages, use the wall.

 

JENNY BROCKIE: But does that necessarily mean people are narcissistic?  They might just be having fun? I mean ‑‑

 

JONNO SEIDLER:   I think that necessarily ‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Jonno?

 

JONNO SEIDLER:  And I think especially if you look at the kind of work environment that we have in Australia now. Everyone is chained to a computer from 8 in the morning till 6 in the afternoon, in the evening. So I mean everyone's uploading photos and everybody's projecting senses of themselves - but that's because they don't have a lot of time away from their computer and a lot of people are in offices where they have nothing else to do. They're sitting in, you know, cell blocks or pods or whatever it is that they're doing and they're not ‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Or pods? 

 

JONNO SEIDLER: Whatever, you know, you know, partitions and they don't, they don't talk to anybody. So this whole idea of oh, are you a nerd if you're not on Facebook? It's a lot ‑ it's pretty much the only way that a lot of people have to communicate any more - I'm not out in the field.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Sophie, do you want to talk to that? 

 

DR SOPHIA XENOS:  I just want to talk to that, it's not just about use Facebook or not using Facebook, but what our research looked at what as our personality actually influences ‑ how it influences how Facebook is used. So the extroverts use it differently, the narcissists use it differently, the people that are high in conscientiousness use it differently so just looking at how ‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  So how did narcissists use Facebook?

 

DR SOPHIA XENOS: Well for starters they're more likely to use Facebook, so people that are high on narcissism are more likely to use it and then in terms of how they use it, they're more likely to use the active features, things like the wall, posting regular status updates - posting photos up. They're just some examples of ‑ so people that are high on narcissism use it differently to those who are shy or  lonely who will sit back and be more of the sort of passive recipients of Facebook rather than be active.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  And by high on narcissism, how do you define that?  What do you mean? 

DR SOPHIA XENOS: Alright, we're not looking at narcissistic personality disorder.  As has been mentioned, that ‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  And we'll talk about that a little bit later.

 

DR SOPHIA XENOS:  Yes. Narcissism is on a continuum so perhaps we could come back to that little later on.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay, but what are you using to define what narcissism is when you're describing these people? 

 

DR SOPHIA XENOS: Yes, exhibitionism, leadership, so wanting to be noticed, wanting people to look at you, wanting power.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Is that you Tim? Would you describe yourself as wanting people to look at you in going on Big Brother? 

 

TIM BRUNERO: Well, you know what I think is interesting all this focus on individuals and we've had absolutely no discussion about society and what it's giving us. I think in the last 30 years,  I think Jonno summed it up really well, people stuck in their little cell blocks, we have as a society decided that we're going to work a lot longer and a lot harder, we've cut out things like penalty rates so even family times 30 years ago were sacred, Saturdays and Sundays. You don't even get penalties for working, you know, at those times anymore and so of course society's cutting down community.  People aren't going to church - we're losing that community focus. Of course we're turning inwards so I don't think we can just say it's people - I think we need to, you know, dare I use the C word but I think it's capitalism that, in its advanced form, is really making us focus on ourselves, forcing us to focus on ourselves.

 

WOMAN: I think the kids' generation is the most, I think this generation is the most photographed generation that we've ever had. And I work as a school counsellor and I see the teenagers come in and they've posed and they've worked out which outfit and it has to be different because I had my Facebook photo in that outfit last week, I've got to have it in this outfit this week. And ‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  But is there anything necessarily wrong with that?

 

WOMAN: Well, it's changed.

 

JONNO SEIDLER:  We're not the most photographed either. I mean you were probably photographed as well. It's just that we have the means to disseminate those photographs.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Keith, can I ask you, because I'm struggling to get a definition here in terms of this particular aspect of the discussion and we'll go on to the more serious aspects of narcissism in a moment, but I'm just wanting a definition from you about the difference between narcissism and say egotism or arrogance or being a show off. How do you define that difference? 

 

PROF. W. KEITH CAMPBELL: I would say those are components of narcissism and the important thing to remember is we're talking about a normal trait that's a continuum, that some people are somewhat narcissistic, some are more narcissistic.   It's not the same as being pathologically narcissistic or, you know, causing so much destruction in your life that you have a clinical disorder.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Ranil, I wanted to ask you about that because you're a psychiatrist. When does narcissism get dangerous?

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE, PSYCHIATRIST:  Can I just comment on a couple of things? I've got some sort of good news and bad news I suppose from my perspective on what has been discussed. You know, it does sound overall that some of the youth of today have a higher level of narcissism than perhaps the youth of the past, but one needs to take into account the developmental context to this. So narcissism is a normal stage of life that people often grow out of and it's not the end of the world if children or youth are going through a narcissistic stage. For example, those of us who have had children would realise that a two year old is one of the most intensely narcissistic characters you can have.  You know, it's all about the two year old.  They don't have empathy, they have entitlement, you know, they expect and get special treatment so on and so forth.

 

So that's a normal stage and the youth also go through this stage I think as a necessary evolutionary stage.  So if you think about teens and 20s, for example, this is the age where mating is actually at the most prominent stage and, you know, from an evolutionary perspective we're thinking about having babies and so on. So looking good, feeling good, presenting yourself well is probably an evolutionary advantage to attract a mate.

 

I've had the pleasure of being ‑ pleasure of being in Miami during spring break in the States and it's quite something to see. Really, Australia looks quite lame in comparison to - it's like the wild end of the animal kingdom.  You know, the people with the most colourful feathers and the brightest colours and so on, and the biggest muscles and that's what it's all.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  But is that narcissism?

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: It is narcissism but it's a normal stage of development. The more concerning ‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  So when does it get dangerous? 

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: Well, the more concerning thing is if you have a 50 year old or a 60 year old, you know, you can sense the difference who's preening themselves for hours on end in front of the mirror and acting like a teenager. They haven't come through that developmental stage so they haven't gotten to more advanced stages like being more generous.  Generative Ericson talked about the stage of adulthood where you're thinking more about giving and thinking about people less fortunate and people who are younger and inspiring and teaching and so forth. Now if you haven't gone through that narcissistic stage and reached other stages, then there's a problem.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Tonight we're talking about narcissism, Catherine, I'd like to bring you in here because you went out with a man who you suspect was a narcissist. Tell us about your initial impressions of him? 

CATHERINE:  Right, well my initial impressions of him was that he was this charming, beautiful man and I mean, you know, I know that sounds crazy but I think the initial presentation, the way that someone presents themselves, especially when they have, you know, behavioural patterns that are along the lines of narcissistic personality disorder is that they will come across initially as being very, very articulate, you know, very charming and flattering.

 

JENNY BROCKIE: So when did you first start to think something wasn't right then?

 

CATHERINE: Very soon into the relationship. It wasn't long before I started picking up, you know, I guess repeated patterns that I thought, okay, there's something wrong here. There, you know, self embellishment and the way that he saw himself, I really felt crossed a line in terms of a healthy, you know, perception of one self and ‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  What sort of things Catherine?

 

CATHERINE: Okay, well there were a few different signs, I guess. And I really appreciate what was said too in terms of, you know, the healthy way that people sort of mate with each other and flatter each other and so on and also what was said in terms of the self persona because the types of things that went on with him was, there was this grandiose, if you like, idea of who he was. He believed that he was going to achieve, you know, fifteen person's worth of global successes in his one lifetime and it was to the point of, you know, it was clearly crossing the line between a rational, healthy perception and an illogical one.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  And there were problems with money?

 

CATHERINE: Oh, yes, yeah. There was, there was a lot of irresponsible behaviour around money. He certainly saw the whole, you know, well what happened was, just generalising what happened, he lived off me for quite some time and his idea was that, you know, he was always going to get this great, you know, huge business deal and that's the thing. That was the thing with the really key kind of behavioural and mental thinking, irrational thinking was that he honestly believed that he was going to, you know, achieve these unattainable goals and so it was always going to happen, so in terms of financially, he was very irresponsible.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  And what happened? Did you ever confront him about any of this behaviour? What would happen if you confronted him?

 

CATHERINE: Oh, yes, yeah, I confronted him on several occasions. I gave him the opportunity to actually admit certain things that had happened in terms of financial, you know, misuse and things like that and so what would happen is that he became very confrontational, even to the extreme of being quite physically and emotionally abusive and that was all triggered by this very unrealistic, you know, mindset in his mind that he was, you know, that he was perfect. And so anything that contradicted that, if you like, or any disagreement with him became, you know, a major confrontation.

 

JENNY BROCKIE: Ranil, you work with people with narcissistic personality disorder -  which is a disorder. What do you see? What are the qualities that you see in them in their relationships? 

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: Well, I guess some of them have been talked about already and the real challenge in considering this concept is differentiating normal healthy narcissism, and there is such a thing and we do need that because it's a precursor to self esteem, really. So that's important and then you also have people who have significant traits, who that causes them problems both personally and socially and professionally, and then you've got severe disorder - or you've got the disorder and then you've got severe disorder as well so it's quite a broad spectrum.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay, describe for us because I think some people are going to be struggling with what we're talking about here.

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: Yes, sure.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Because a lot of the things that are being described, as you say, are part of a continuum in people's behaviour. What do you see when you get the really extreme cases? What kinds of behaviour? 

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: Well, the more extreme end is the malignant version of a narcissist is a psychopath, okay? So that's what a psychopath means is a malignant version of narcissism and they're people who have gone so far that not only do they lack empathy and exploit and so on, they also get a sadistic pleasure out of manipulating and conning and can indulge in criminal behaviour all for their own ends or advancement. But they can't see that that causes an unhappy emotional reaction and pain and suffering in those around them and that can affect people both personally and professionally and so on.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay, so stepping back from a psychopath which is a different thing to a narcissist, a serious narcissist, what are the defining features? Lack of empathy is one thing.

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: That's right.  You know, basically DSM, classifies, which is a, it's a dimensional concept but essentially the qualities we look for, which have been discussed, are people having that excessive need for admiration, fantasies of unlimited success and wealth, a lack of empathy, exploitativeness of others, entitlement, arrogance, grandiosity, expectation to be treated in a special way. But what makes it a disorder is that it is causing people difficulties in their personal or professional lives - so relationships in other words.

 

Now this is the tricky bit because people may seem like they're functioning wonderfully well in the right environment, say work, corporate environment where the environment caters for a narcissist or a psychopath, and if you talk to their wife or their daughter or their son, they will tell you that they are a very, very difficult character to have a relationship with.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay, so people, a true narcissist will behave the same way right across their life? 

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: No, you will find that it can be, they can find the right context in which to channel that and it seems very adaptive and successful in today's society. But you'll find other settings in which that trait or problem doesn't really, is very problematic, sorry.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay.  Catherine, why do you think he was a narcissist and not say someone who was a con man or just unstable? 

CATHERINE: Yes, that's a million dollar question I've been asked on several occasions. I think the defining difference is that he truly believes, and believed that he was, you know, in fact on this, you know, great mission.  That he was, you know, quite elite for all intents and purposes and that he was going to, you know, truly achieve what we would rationally see as being impossible. I think the defining difference was that he truly believed, you know, in his mind that he had that, you know, those super powers.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Did he ever get diagnosed?

 

CATHERINE: No, I begged him to get diagnosed on several occasions. I think he was, you know, when he was younger I think there was some diagnosis but certainly, you know, not, you know, not to the, in terms of, you know, narcissistic personality disorder and at this stage, you know, of his life, he would not have a bar of it.  Even the suggestion of, you know, having any kind of weakness as he would see it.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Is that pretty typical Ranil?

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: Yeah, I mean a lot of that story sounds familiar, doesn't it? The idea that he's too good to do a regular job so he's sponging off you, until he's in his ideal job. That in itself is reasonably telling.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  So delusions of like, grandeur? 

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: Grandiosity, that's right. But the standard sort of - one of the core processes or psychological process is people don't want to work their way up.   This is what is narcissistic about the youth, if we go back to that wanting fame and accolades for in essence doing nothing. People deserve fame and accolades who have worked their way and got a profession, or you know, they're a famous artist or they deserve the fame. Those who want fame and grandiosity without actually going through the process is telling as well.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay, up  here - a question.

 

ANNA RAIF:   I just have a question. Do you find that narcissism is addictive in the same way as gambling, or not really, you haven't really found that?

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: Well it's not so much addictive. It's just that deep down a lot of these people are actually intensely insecure. So it's a series of defences that they've built up to avoid feelings of envy and self contempt and rage and things like that.  So they have these defences that helps hold them together, helps them feel better than everyone else and they can't let go of that, mainly because if they let go of that, there's this horrible, there's no middle ground. They don't, they will go from that to absolute zero. So they don't sort of come to a middle ground so it's a tricky thing to let go of.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  So what's it like being in a relationship with a narcissist then? 

 

ROSS:  They're co‑dependent, aren't they?  Don't narcissists attract in the insecure?  Isn't the mythological source about a nymph called Echo who was herself inadequate?  When she revealed herself to Narcissus he scorned her and she had to run away. But I don't know, I think everyone needs to interact with someone in the outside world to get a sense of reality. It just strikes me about the conversation that the people who are speaking, we're all narcissists, aren't we, being here, taking the risk of being seen.

 

But the people who are most ‑ the people who are doing the talking most confidently seem to be the ones who've got another issue to attach their conversation to rather than just their self perception. It's not about necessarily the ego, the narcissism can be healthy but as soon as it gets past stage two I suppose you have to have a consciousness of the outside world to make it real, to have an authentic conversation.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Yes. Sophia, what did you want to say?

 

DR SOPHIA XENOS: I just wanted to add a comment to follow on from yours. Part of what makes someone have a personality disorder, so what makes narcissism a narcissistic personality disorder is the inflexibility that comes with having a personality disorder. So while we all may have some narcissism, and I would agree with that, the people that have narcissistic personality disorder have inflexible coping styles. So they will use and reuse the same or engage in the same behaviours and that's why, as you were saying earlier, it's often partners and colleagues, et cetera, that come in for counselling - those individuals with the disorder don't think they have the problem.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  So what's it's like to be in a relationship with one, Ranil? 

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: Well, you know, they're called emotional vampires in popular culture sometimes because they are in a relationship an actual disorder will be sucking the other partner dry. They'll also be projecting all of their unpleasant aspects of themselves onto that partner. So things that are qualities about themselves like being selfish or self absorbed or entitled and so on, they actually see in their partner and it's not really. It's called projective identification, it's seeing these things in other people, but it's a gruelling and draining process emotionally and in terms of your sense of self to be in a relationship with this disorder.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Keith, would you agree with that? I mean what is it like for people dealing with narcissists? 

 

PROF. W. KEITH CAMPBELL: In the work we've done the suffering that others experience from these relationships is one of the hallmarks of narcissism, it's very, very bad. I mean they start off charming, likeable, social, exciting and they end up hurting you over time - there's less empathy, they're manipulative, they're controlling.  The story we heard was a really good example except there was no infidelity - that's what I was the waiting for - and they leave people devastated and then people spend the next two years trying to figure out what happened to them. So even after they're devastated, they have another period of time where they just ruminate on it and try to figure out what happened to them.  It's very destructive.

 

JENNY BROCKIE: Does that sound like you Catherine and was there infidelity? 

 

CATHERINE: Well it sounds very much like me and especially I like, well I dislike the term 'emotional vampire' but you know, it's extremely accurate. There was a lot of, you know, emotional draining because you know, one minute you've got this charming beautiful person who, you know, for all intents and purposes wants to love and be loved and have this fairytale, you know - romantic ride off into the sunset life with you, and then five seconds later they're accusing you of, you know, being an evil witch or trying to, you know, sabotage their future.

 

So yes, very much so in terms of the emotional, you know, draining and there was no opportunity for infidelity. It was certainly a concern of mine only because, just of, you know, the promiscuous lifestyle I guess that you know had been there throughout this person's life and you know, also because they wanted to see me as this perfect, you know, woman who was going to be the perfect bride and they were going to be the perfect groom and when I wasn't going to live up to that, then you know, my intuition sort of told me that you know, it would be very easy for someone like that to look for, to look elsewhere for the next perfect person in their eyes.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  And do you think you were a particularly vulnerable personality to that, to narcissism?

 

CATHERINE: I think there was some, probably lack of wisdom - there was some naiveté I think on my part. I wouldn't necessarily say that I was a needy person who was kind of looking to become, you know, co‑dependent with someone. I genuinely saw this guy as a beautiful man when we, you know, first started communicating. But I think, you know, it's just my opinion that someone with such an extreme disorder can very much, you know, even subconsciously be looking for the right person that they can target.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Travis, sorry, yes?

 

WOMAN: What I've been hearing, which is to me very interesting, is that the chap in Atlanta mentioned the dropping of empathy or the lowering of empathy. But I would say that it's very, very likely that the narcissistic personality would be faking empathy to draw you in at the beginning and to make you feel that he or she understands you. And as a result, they never actually have it themselves which is one of the reasons we have such a problem with lack of societal harmony and the narcissism has become so important.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Are you speaking from experience here? 

 

WOMAN: Some of it - naturally.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Do you want to share any more of it?

WOMAN:  Well no, it just mirrors so much of what our lady in Brisbane was saying and it's their ability to, at the beginning, to appear to be so empathetic with you and to really understand you and to think oh, my God, I found a soul mate - this is absolutely wonderful and I'm being on cloud nine for maybe a few months. And then getting the barbs, the little nasties, the not being available to you and realising, of course I'm taking it back on yourself thinking it's all your fault and it takes maybe years when you've walked away from that relationship to actually see, well I may have had some part in it but this person was deliberately manipulating me for his own advantage, to make him feel good and the only way he could feel good was to make me feel bad.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay, hands going up everywhere.  Yes? 

 

MAN: It was hard for me to hear what Catherine was describing because years and years ago I was not her actual partner but I was that guy and so I can really sympathise with, and now genuinely, really see the damage and what, what it was like being the bad guy in that relationship.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  But were you the bad guy or do you think you were a narcissist?

 

MAN: I think I was a narcissist at the time, yes, because everything that's been described here made me kind of just shrink further and further down at the stage ‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  You're not a narcissist if that's how you feel, right Ranil? 

MAN:  Now, yes.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  I'm sure a narcissist wouldn't be shrinking feeling terrible. 

MAN: But is it possible to come, because of stress or whatever, come through narcissism, come out of it with some kind of realisation of need for change?

 

JENNY BROCKIE: Ranil, do you want to talk about that?

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: I mean that's my point about the developmental stage and this is, I mean you know narcissism, and not just the disorder but the trait causes enormous damage to relationships in the work and personal setting, even on the milder end of the spectrum.  But a lot of people grow out of that and they learn not to be like that. So it's not a fait accompli and we need to have that in mind when we think about it, that we can teach people to be less narcissistic.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  What about the idea of faking empathy? 

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: Well that point is a really interesting one. Some people argue that you shouldn't do treatment on psychopaths, for example, because it's mainly about social skills training because what you will do, you will actually arm them with more skills to be more effective and manipulative. So you've got to be careful about who you attempt to treatment and who you don't attempt to treat.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  And this gentleman up the back telling us the story, saying he was that guy, shrinking in his seat, does that by definition mean that he is no longer a narcissist, even if he thought he was? 

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: Yes, well I don't know him well enough but, but one would say that he certainly sounds like he's getting a greater level of insight into his behaviours and the impact they have on other people and therefore that's empathy in essence. So you know ‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay, we'll take a little bit more on relationships. We can talk about this on‑line as well. Yeah?

 

WOMAN: We're just saying that all men are narcissists, I'm presuming that are women who are also narcissists and treat men badly in relationships. I'm just wondering what the ratio is.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay, Keith, what is the ratio of men to women in America? 

 

PROF. W. KEITH CAMPBELL: Clinically it's much higher in men. I'd say three quarters to one quarter with NPD, narcissistic personality disorder. When you look at the trait there's a small difference for men who are somewhat more narcissistic but not much more. When you look at relationships though, I find in dating women complained about it much more than men. I mean my own experience, but when you look at marriage, I've had many men contact me and say look, I married this woman, it was great, she's very narcissistic, I see it now with kids, can you help me? So really it's something that women do just like men do, they're just a little bit fewer of them.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Travis, you're an organisational psychologist, you professional coach senior executives. How many senior executives exhibit narcissistic traits? 

 

DR TRAVIS KEMP: That's a loaded question but a lot is the answer. In a lot of ways organisations are the perfect incubators for narcissism because all of the behaviours that we've been talking about are rewarded in organisations and they're rewarded well. They're rewarded in terms of status, in terms of position, in terms of admiration.  Financially they're incredibly well remunerated, the more narcissistic behaviour in some situations. So being focused on a singular goal which is unattainable is a great thing if you're a CEO because the shareholders will love you for that.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  And also having empathy is not what you're supposed to be focusing on. You're supposed to be focusing on the bottom line, returns to shareholders.

 

DR TRAVIS KEMP: Absolutely. And beyond the utility that empathy has to be able to get you to do what I want you to do, which is a relatively short conversation, I'm not really interested in wasting time on that. Now this is a gross generalisation remember. There is a lot of really good leaders out there that are not non narcissistic and we would say well adjusted narcissistic.  It's when it becomes destructive and it gets out of hand - that things a start really falling apart.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  And what happens then? 

 

DR TRAVIS KEMP: Then you get a phenomenon around them which likes look low levels of engagement, high levels of bullying, people don't want to come to work any more so absenteeism goes up. Their productivity goes down the toilet. They don't really want to be there and then that infects everybody else in their team. So the people in the team don't even want to be with each other, let alone around the leader so it's an incredibly destructive environment.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  And do these people again, do they switch it on and off? 

 

DR TRAVIS KEMP: It's interesting. A lot of the high functional narcissists in organisations are very good at picking situations in which to behave in certain ways. So they have a behavioural adaptability which the person with the disorder, if you like, and that severity may not have. So it's a very difficult thing to ascertain at times in organisations just how severe it is because you get glimpses of adaptive behaviour at times, even in a sea of maladaptive behaviour.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  And how do you actually - given the nature of some of these jobs almost encourages narcissism, how then do you manage people and manage their personalities and their flaws? 

 

DR TRAVIS KEMP: Yeah, well that's a difficulty one. Organisations are like little pyramids so it gets more and more difficult to get higher up in the pyramid and of course narcissistic behaviour gets reinforced more severely the higher up the pyramid you get.   So what we're trying to do is how do we break that down at some sort of level?  How do start to reward behaviour which is the contrary of what narcissistic people tend to demonstrate and that's a tough gig because a lot of the behaviour that we want to be rewarding doesn't necessarily translate quickly to the bottom line.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  And presumably the true narcissists don't see their own behaviour? 

 

DR TRAVIS KEMP: Yeah, well it's interesting sitting across a table from an executive suggesting that they might have some narcissistic behaviour, because on a number of occasions I've had chairs and tables thrown at me.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Really?

 

DR TRAVIS KEMP: They don't like hearing that and they're very resistant to it ‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Chairs and tables thrown at you, truly? 

 

DR TRAVIS KEMP: Absolutely, and you know, it's a very dangerous environment to be in sometimes but you know, the bottom line is that the disorder, if you like, is a very fine line sometimes for these guys in these organisation .

 

JENNY BROCKIE: Ross, you're a barrister and I just wonder whether you think that barristers need some narcissistic qualities to get ahead? 

 

ROSS:  Well they certainly need to have a sense of themselves to be able to project themselves, but as I said before, it's an issue that they're putting forward. It's not their ego necessarily that they're projecting. They're doing it for a useful social cause and I think that's what sustains them. I mean you can have groups of professionals that do become elitist in their attitude but I don't think that's particularly useful for everybody and my goal is to be as sort of social as I can.

 

ROSS: Well I see some, yes, I do see some. I wouldn't say a lot. I mean it's a bit hard to tell until you get to the end point. I mean you can tolerate the behaviours if you're satisfied that you're achieving what you want to achieve - and I don't want to change the way other people behave, I want to attain my end and so I have to accommodate those sorts of behaviours.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Anna, what about you?  You're a medical student, I wonder, do you see much narcissism in your area? 

ANNA RAIF: Well a lot of peers are quite ambitious, intelligent and‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  That's different though to what we're talking about here? 

ANNA RAIF: Yes, but they do have this type A personality where they do want to be top of the class. Look, I do think it's a chicken and egg - certain professions do attract people with certain personality.

 

WOMAN: I think we're talking about extreme narcissism but I think Australia needs a certain amount of narcissism. I remember thirty years ago all people talked about was the cultural  cringe, people talked about going home to England, the average Australian had a hat with corks on and was a beer drinker. That was our identity and now I think a little bit of narcissism is a good thing. The film I saw, "The Kings Speech", I realised what some education systems could do to a healthy young man, turning him into an inhibited self doubting creature who couldn't help stammering and I feel a little, a little self esteem and narcissism is a good thing.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay, we'll talk about self esteem in a moment.  Gentleman up the back, you've had your hand up for a while.

 

MAN: Yes, I had a friend in the past, he had narcissistic traits. It went to sort of an extreme on most days but each week he tried to defeat the week before. So he tried to make each week even better than the last week, such as he'd go to costume shops and put different costumes on and he'd come home and he'd go up on the balcony and start waving to people.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Good grief.

 

MAN: Things like this. And he went through the town looking like that in the costume and he got lots of people looking at him. He loved all that and then the week after he'd even out do what he did before. So the next week he actually did what that gentleman did, tried to get on Big Brother.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Tim, there you go.

 

MAN: He sent in to a tape to Big Brother, I don't think he was chosen as far as I know, but it didn't stop him. The week after he tried to go even better and do something else. So every week he was trying to make it even better but I noticed that one day he run out of steam and he sat down on a chair, I think it was a Sunday, and he sat there for about two minutes I think, or maybe one minute and he noticed he was going in a depression - he was sinking in depression. He felt like if he doesn't keep this up, it's like he's losing some kind of new identity that he's built up and it makes him depressed if he doesn't keep this new identity up. So it was interesting just to see that, yeah.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Travis, I wanted to ask you about some of the more extreme cases you see because you talk interestingly about multiple lives, people leading multiple lives amongst some of these executives that you deal with? 

 

DR TRAVIS KEMP: Yes, it's interesting - the level of self focus can go to the extreme sometimes where you do get some executives where they will have multiple lives. They will set up families independent of each other. You'll see them operating in a way, because of their mobility on planes and the like, where they'll have a separate house, a separate wife, a separate group of kids in one city and another one in another city. Now it doesn't happen very often but that's an extreme level of I guess self focus and self indulgence that comes along with that.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  And when you see that, I mean - why is that associated with narcissism? I mean that could be just somebody who's deceptive or who's again a con man? I mean why narcissism? 

 

DR TRAVIS KEMP: Yeah, I guess it's a thing about having to have the world revolve around me. So I am the centre of the universe and every one of my needs becomes the most important thing to everybody. And if I can create very innovative and new ways of having every single one of my needs met, then I get to be creative around how I do that.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Can narcissists be treated successfully, Ranil?

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: Well, it's an interesting question and it depends what level of severity -  I think there is a realm at which you can't really treat successfully and as I said, attempting to treat can actually become more dangerous or counter productive. But people along the spectrum, including the disorder, can be treated to a certain extent and it's a question of what level of improvement. You're unlikely to get them to a point of remission where they're living symptom free, in other words, but ‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE: Presumably you've got to get them there first to treat them? 

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: Well that's right, and generally what I tend to see more of are the casualties of narcissism - so the wives, the partners, the daughters, the work colleagues and so on, but you do sometimes also see narcissists and I think that issue of relationships with narcissists is very interesting. I mean there's an important show you're doing because the mental melt literacy in the community about narcissists is very poor. I mean we've heard of depression but narcissism and the damage it causes, even at trait level, is very poorly understood.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Well it's associated with vanity primarily -  isn't it, because of the image in the pool and the mythological history?

 

DR TRAVIS KEMP: Yes, and there we are meant to be choosing our partners and trying to work out why relationships in families went so horribly wrong and why problems in work, there's so many problems with certain people at work. Yet people don't realise a lot of that is actually due to narcissistic, you know, the opposite of that is empathy so you don't usually have conflict with others when you have empathy.

 

TIM BRUNERO: We don't reward depression. I mean no‑one celebrates depression as a positive thing, but we've just talked about how we do reward narcissism. Especially when you look at it, how we define ourselves against American culture with it's, you know, highly abrasive, highly self promoting kind of, yeah, that kind of over the top constantly sort of projecting out.  And I think we've talked about success in business and a whole range of areas narcissism is celebrated. So again, it comes down to the messages we're sending back out. If we reward it, how can we expect people not to behave in that way.

 

WOMAN:  I'm very concerned that the rates are increasing. We're seeing in schools, we're doing anti bullying programs, we're doing community service, we're doing all of these things to get children beyond that developmental stage of being self centred and I think it's disappointing to hear that we're getting rates that are increasing.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay, we're going to talk about kids and little kids and parenting too because the question I guess is whether some parents are creating mini narcissists.  

Keith, I want to know whether narcissists are important or made? 

 

PROF. W. KEITH CAMPBELL: Both. There is some genetics involved just like everything. I don't know what numbers, maybe 50 percent in some of the studies, but there are developmental effects, there's cultural effects, various things that play into it. It's not just something you're born with.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  And we heard before about how the classic two year old or three year old is essentially an absolute narcissist and that's a normal part of developmental behaviour. But I wonder how much parenting can help to create a narcissist? 

 

PROF. W. KEITH CAMPBELL: We find in the research that the parenting's related to narcissism. It isn't a huge effect and you get a couple of different patterns and sometimes you find parents who are excessively admiring of kids, put them on a pedestal, overly permissive seems to result in narcissism. Sometimes it's the more cold parenting, especially when you talk about more pathological narcissism, so parents that are cold and their love is very contingent so they look at the kid when the kid's doing well and pay attention when the kid is succeeding but not otherwise. So there is a role in parenting but it's still complex and we don't have wonderful data on it unfortunately.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  In your book you're very critical of some modern parenting.  Can you just run through the things that you really don't like in relation to this topic? 

 

PROF. W. KEITH CAMPBELL: Well I think one thing we've done in parenting over the years is spend a lot of time trying to give our kids self esteem directly, rather than let self esteem grow on its own. So rather than have self esteem grow from relationships and from sort of achievement and success over time, what we've done is told our kids they're special, they're unique, they're wonderful and that's been problematic I think. So it's not the self esteem that's the problem, it's just trying to give it through specialness, through really doing whatever the child wants, basically spoiling kids.  And the schools are doing this as well - I don't think it's parents, I think the schools are really where this has taken off.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Why is specialness a problem?

 

PROF. W. KEITH CAMPBELL: Because I think it's fine when you're two to think you're special, I think it's developmentally appropriate - but none of us are special. There's 5 billion people on earth and we all have to,  you know, work with other people and when you think your needs your special and you get threatened to hear you're not special, your resort can be anger or hostility or depression.  And specialness is not the most useful way to think about yourself - self esteem is okay, thinking you have value, thinking you have worth, thinking you're a decent person, caring about others, all those things are valuable - Specialness not so much.

 

JENNY BROCKIE: And you rail against some tee shirts that do the rounds at the moment.

 

PROF. W. KEITH CAMPBELL: I don't like to use the term rail. I try to be a little more, a little less than that, but yeah, you see this culturally in things like tee shirts where, you know, you see it with the adolescent ones you're showing but you see it with babies too.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Oh, we've lost him. What's happened there? Okay, sorry, Keith, I'm going to have to ask you again that because you just lost the link, we just lost the satellite. I'll just ask that question to you again if that's okay.

 

PROF. W. KEITH CAMPBELL: Oh, yeah, I was saying with the tee‑shirts are showing, which are more for adolescents or young adults, I mean you find this narcissistic messages that are somewhat humorous but you see it on bibs and clothes for two year olds, whether it's "I'm a little princess", "I'm too cool to eat my vegetables", "I'm cuter than my mum", those kind of messages in kids. At least in the US, you go to any store and look at what's on bibs and it's a remarkable example of sort of soon to be personality disorders.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  But the people wearing those bibs might only be ten months old, they're not going to take in message.

 

PROF. W. KEITH CAMPBELL: No, I don't think it's, I don't think putting your kid in a princess bib at ten months is the end of the world but it shows what our culture values and what our culture values is treating kids like they're special.  Like they have, you know, some unique sense of wonderfulness in the world and I think -  it's part of a larger cultural trend that can be problematic.

 

JENNY BROCKIE: Jan, you're a psychologist, do you think some parenting is encouraging narcissism? 

 

DR JANET HALL, PSYCHOLOGIST:  I do, I think that they are far too permissive in how they're raising their kids and they don't want their children to be unhappy. You know, when I teach parenting I say who would take their kids lunch to school, you know, if they'd forgotten it and everybody would take the lunch to school because they just couldn't bear to think that the child might have to be self reliant and ask somebody else could they have a bit of their jam sandwich. So they are raising little princes and princesses and I think that when the lass behind me was talking about volunteering in Vanuatu, I think research is showing that the amount of volunteering done by young people is actually dropping, unless very to do it to get their college grades. I think that sort of wanting to give should be starting in a young person and parents should encourage that.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  A lot of modern parenting though is about making kids feel special. You know, a lot of it is about, I mean phrases like you can't love someone else until you love yourself and all that sort of thing. I mean do you think that is a problem in terms of kids being raised with those messages? 

 

DR JANET HALL:  Well I think it has created a lot of young people - Gen Y's who have a sense of entitlement because they've been told that they're special and that's the worry. You know, not to be, you're not that special and you're not entitled to, you know, that you do have to work to create.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  So where does self esteem fit in then, encouraging self esteem in kids? 

 

DR JANET HALL:  Well that's very important but it's about a parent noticing what the child has done and giving praise for effort and for, you know, actual behaviours which are reinforced in that positive way.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Laura, you run a child care centre.   What do you think? 

 

LAURA SILVERA: I think you've finally hit the nail on the head. It's not so much about the end product so we're just focusing on praise, praise, praise, praise, praise, praise and perhaps I am responsible for some of these CEOs that are out there. I guess having to deal with because in my environment we are responsible and the parents expect us to nurture and meet their needs, especially if they're absent from the care giving side of things for the eight or ten hour day. Then that's when we step in and certainly when I go to employ future educators or future carers, they need to demonstrate to me that they will be able to read the child's needs and even be able to read it before the child even knows what they want - so to be able to predict and so that becomes a real focus of what we do in our environment.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  So do you think that's a problem?

 

LAURA SILVERA: Well now I'm sort of thinking wow, I've created these little monsters, what have I done? Is it too late? No, but definitely not. I think what the lady  said earlier was it's not so much about the praise, it's about making sure that we encourage every step of the way before we get to the praise. So when we say good boy, good girl, hi five, what's that all mean when we're not actually putting specific, specifically articulating what it is that we want the child to achieve at the end.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Or praising when something actually isn't that good? 

LAURA SILVERA: Yeah.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Saying something's fantastic maybe when it isn't that fantastic?  Jan?

 

DR JANET HALL:   And I think to articulate and get kids to articulate, did you do your best?  And if the child says yes, that was my best, even if they felt over climbing up the ladder - to get them to be able to acknowledge that they did their best and that's all that you ever want.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay, anyone want to talk about this? Just up the back.

 

WOMAN:  You need to reward effort, right, and not rewarding just you're special and you're born this way and whatever.  But when you think about people like my age, that have grown up with Brittany Spears, Christine Agiluari, Paris Hilton, they've all been rewarded with money, riches, photos everywhere and they've done essentially nothing.  It's not like we're rewarding brain surgeons, we're not rewarding scientists.  So what is, so what is the imperative for parents to reward their children when they can see that money and riches comes from just self promoting?

 

JENNY BROCKIE: Sorry, what did you say? 

 

JONNO SEIDLER:   Brittany was working in the Mickey Mouse Club when she was tiny, she was already - she was performing when she was seven.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Brittany sings, Brittany sings ‑‑

 

JONNO SEIDLER:   And she sings. She doesn't sing any more ‑‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE: Paris Hilton is another category all together.

 

JONNO SEIDLER:  So there I see the reason but yeah, Paris and stuff and Snookie from Jersey Shore.  I mean she's a moron and she's got tee‑shirts, she's got three different shows happening now and there are people my sister's age who are like 14, 15 who like idolise this kind of thing.  It's very worrying.

 

WOMAN: They're all the names we know. We don't know Nietzsche because we're not taught to read Nietzsche.  We're taught to watch Brittany Spears on the Mickey Mouse club.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Ranil? 

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: Just from the childhood perspective, I think, you know, all the parents may have noticed you don't get a trophy in the under 6s soccer any more because you were the best and fairest, everybody gets a trophy because they're all special and that is that message that is creeping into society which is very different when we were kids. I mean I had to wait years before I got my first trophy.

 

JENNY BROCKIE: Does it matter though?  Does it really matter? We're talking about a link between all of this ‑‑

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: Yes.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  ‑‑ and some of the serious stuff that we've been listening to tonight. Do you actually thinks there's a connection between those two things? 

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: Well it depends on the context and there's more to it. There's a lot more to it than that but the problem is when kids aren't taught to be selfless and thoughtful about other people and considerate and think about other people's feelings. It's okay, there's no such thing as too much love for a child. Kids need lots of love, the more the better, but they also need firm boundaries, consequences for actions and empathy training. Those things are very important and some kids just don't get that. They get all this grandiosity and special training and then you superimpose on top of that what some of the youth are talking about, which is the societal changes which are things like the cult of celebrity and magazines of rich and famous people.  We all know what everyone rich and famous is doing - the growth in that magazine and TV market is huge.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay. Comment up the back from our former self confessed narcissist.

 

MAN: No longer, reformed. I think the problem isn't rewarding a two year old for being, you know, as unique as snow flake.  The problem is when that same two year old is getting that same message at six and then at eight and then at ten and then at twelve. So I think rewarding or telling your two year old girl that she's a little princess isn't a problem. It's when that message isn't tapered off and isn't then brought up to self worth and self value - as opposed to you're unique, you're special, you deserve all of this.  When that message is carried through all of upbringing then I think the logical progression has to be a type of narcissistic personality, doesn't it?

 

TIM BRUNERO:  I think the opposite of that. I mean not that but some of the things that have been said, you know, like I think we need to celebrate. I think we encourage narcissism by only celebrating the ultra successful. The way we kind of drool over doctors and lawyers as if that's the only way you can contribute, you know?  Professions that used to 30, 40 years ago be seen as important as teaching have become devalued, you know, in the province of people who are supposedly not as ‑ they're professionals as well and I think we don't carry it through. We don't reward people who are doing things that aren't being the DEO of a bank or a being doctor or lawyer. We don't celebrate other kinds of achievement and I think that that's what leads to, you know, narcissism and its growth.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Keith, what are the other things that are contributing to this increase in narcissism that your research has shown, do you think?

 

PROF. W. KEITH CAMPBELL: Well I think any aspect of culture that allows you to have a more, you know, grandiose or flattering image of yourself that really exists is going to be a problem.  So the internet does this, I mean social networking where we can create a great image of ourselves publicly, even though it might not be true, the self esteem movement in education which we sort of talked about which is giving kids that sense of specialness - I think the idea that we all can be famous which was talked about as well, the democratisation of fame which is really everywhere, and the one thing we really haven't touched on is credit or materialism.

 

You know, with the easy credit, especially in the US, I mean it's like, it's like the fairy godmother saying okay, we'll turn the pumpkin into a coach. You can act as wonderful and as successful as you want to be until the credit card bill comes due and they repossess the car- and I think that credit was, you know, very much a problem with culture right now.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  So if there is this increase that your research suggests there is, what do we do about it? Or do we do anything? Does it just iron itself out? 

 

PROF. W. KEITH CAMPBELL: I think one thing is just stop with the self esteem, focusing on that. I think that's a mistake to focus directly on self esteem rather than and things that lead to self esteem. But the big buffers to narcissism are compassion, empathy for other people, so to the extent that's encouraged, you'll find less narcissism, responsibility taking so people who are narcissistic have a good deal of trouble taking responsibility, especially for the shortcomings, not for their successes - so any way to increase responsibility.

 

And finally something people won't think about is passion. So when you do things you're passionate about, when you're deeply engaged in something, there isn't really time for the ego to creep in and so you're going to have a very joyful life without sort of reflecting on how great you are, how great you look doing it. So these three things I think are very, a sort of good outline of what we can do.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Emma, you're a mum, what do you think having listened to all of this?    How does it make you feel about raising kids? 

 

EMMA LETCHE:  It's terrifying being a mum. It really is, I've got three young children and every day I'm analysing everything I do and I just absolutely 100 percent agree with letting them develop a sense of self esteem from, you know, right down the bottom - not, you know, praising everything necessarily is not necessarily the best way to go about it. I want my six year old to make decisions, make mistakes and learn from those decisions and mistakes because I know I have suffered with some self esteem issues as a teenager and I'm just terrified that I don't want my children to go through that. And letting them, you know, develop their own sense of self esteem by working out what they're good at and making sure that they know that they are not the best at everything, that's just not reality.

 

Letting them, I let my six year old watch the footage of the earthquakes in New Zealand because I wanted him to see how lucky he is to be living in a house that has its four walls. I think, you know, making him aware of other people less fortunate and making him aware, look, he's a great kid but he's not, he may not be the fastest runner in his class and that's okay because that's how the world works, we're all really different.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Travis, how are going to deal with this? Are you going to have an avalanche of more CEOs that you're going to have to deal with and if so, are they going to come straight from the child care centre?  But what do you think about this?  I mean is it all being a bit over blown do you think, or is it something we should really be concerned about and if so,  how do you deal with it as a society? 

 

DR TRAVIS KEMP:  I think in the executive population we need to be concerned about it.   I don't think we need to disasterise about it because a lot of these traits within organisations we can change and the people within those organisations are very adaptable and can change, but they have to have the right value propositions. So one of the toughest things to get executives to do is tell the truth to their people but with compassion - they quite often don't tell it at all or don't give any feedback, or when they do give it it's like a sledge hammer and it's not taken on board. So that training of the empathy bit is really important and really helping these guys, and ladies, women too, to step into the shoes of the people that they lead and really see the world from their eyes and help them to develop that empathy is a really important first step in that process.

 

JENNY BROCKIE: There was one question I really wanted to ask you before we wind up and that is what's the worst thing that can happen to a narcissist?  Ranil?

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: From their perspective?

 

JENNY BROCKIE: From their perspective?

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: Well, the worst thing that can happen to a narcissist is for them to see their real self and be totally disarmed of all of their delusional defences and from that heightened and lofty state, if that happens, they will crash to a depressive position and we see that in therapy sometimes.  A failed narcissist who hasn't been able, for some narrow narcissists it's very hard work to sustain that whole thing.  Others it comes very naturally but if you strip all that down it's like pricking a balloon, gone.

 

DR TRAVIS KEMP: In some ways it's like having their biggest fear realised which is they're not good, they're basically just normal and they're no different to anybody else. So the worst thing that can happen is that be made true for them.

 

DR RANIL GUNEWARDENE: But they fear ‑ their real truth is they think they're a sniverling sort of low life and they're defended against thinking that. So that's what they're avoiding looking at. They don't think that they're just a normal person. Deep down they think they're nothing, they almost don't exist.

 

WOMAN:  When Narcissus died, a beautiful white flower, fragrant white flower ‑‑ ‑

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  You're going to defend narcissists to the end, aren't you? Okay? 

EMMA LETCHE:  Can I just say one more thing about being a parent and touching on what you guys are saying? You're just so spot on the money and I want my child, if his CEO comes to him and says now listen, you haven't gone a good job, I want him to be resilient against that as well and develop the self esteem to take on criticism and not crumble into a heap. And if he forgets his lunch at school, I'm not going to bring it up because that's okay, because that creates, now how will I deal with this?

 

JENNY BROCKIE: Sophia, what did you want to say?

 

DR SOPHIA XENOS: Just an important point that may be obvious or may need to be stated.  Narcissism is not high self esteem. Self esteem is very different to narcissism. Self esteem is low in individuals that are high in narcissism. So they're almost opposite ends of the spectrum. So as parents, as many of you have said, as parents it's important to encourage your child to have those coping mechanisms to deal with successes and failures. We all fail, it's how we deal with it and how we learn from that.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Keith, if we keep going the way you say we're going, what are the implications do you think? If narcissism keeps rising? 

 

PROF. W. KEITH CAMPBELL: Look at America.  I mean I was in Australia a few weeks ago and my mum called me twice and said how can we move there? So I think when you have a culture that becomes too self absorbed there's break downs in it, there's corruption, there's a lack of ethics, there's a sense that community is breaking apart. It's not, it's not something we really want to get worse in our culture and I wouldn't want other people to sort of follow our lead on this.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  And you were saying that you think the tall poppy syndrome could in fact be our saving grace here? 

 

PROF. W. KEITH CAMPBELL: You know, there's a time and place for self promotion but I think there's something to be said that we're all in this together, we're part of a group - we're part of a society - we take care of each other when things go bad and fundamentally we're the same. And I think there's something - I think there's something nice about that.

 

JENNY BROCKIE:  Okay, we'll leave it there. Thank you very much Keith for joining us from the US, much appreciated.  And Catherine, thank you for joining us with your story too, we really appreciate you sharing that with us. And you can keep talking to our guests Dr Janet Hall and Dr Ranil Gunewardene on our live chat. If you're in the eastern states just hop onto our website and click on the link.  I'm sure you'll have lots to say about that.  Facebook is very welcome on this show, we love our Facebook fans everybody.