Youthful Adversity Appears to Temper Our Penchant for Narcissism — Perhaps Loosely Suggesting that Great Souls Are Statistically More Likely to Come from Painful Times

13 May 2014

Citation — to study

Emily C. Bianchi, Entering Adulthood in a Recession Tempers Later Narcissism, Psychological Science, DOI: 10.1177/0956797614532818 (published online before print, 08 May 2014)

I am usually skeptical, when a coddled person proffers an optimistically self-indulgent philosophy of life

But then I recognize that:

(a) my own perspective has repeatedly been tempered by “Not so fast, Buster” booby traps

and

(b) my jaded view of the Coddled Nitwit’s perspective is therefore unfair.

Emily Bianchi’s recent study suggests the same thing:

Narcissists view themselves as unique, special, and entitled to the good things that come their way. Research has shown that adversity tempers narcissism, leading [Emily] Bianchi to wonder whether economic downturns might dampen such inflated self-regard.

[Her] research shows that people who entered their adulthood during hard economic times are less narcissistic later in life than those who came of age during more prosperous times.

“These findings suggest that economic conditions during this formative period of life not only affect how people think about finances and politics, but also how they think about themselves and their importance relative to others,” says psychological scientist and study author Emily Bianchi . . . .

Young adults are disproportionately affected by economic downturns and most are likely to endure humbling setbacks.

Given the impressionability of this period of life, dampened narcissism is likely to stay with them for decades to come.

Survey data from over 1500 US adults revealed that worse economic conditions during emerging adulthood, as measured by the average unemployment rate when respondents were 18 to 25 years old, were associated with lower narcissism scores later in life.

Participants who entered adulthood in the worst economic climate experienced by those surveyed (average unemployment = 7.7%) scored, on average, 2.35 points lower on a 40-point narcissism scale than participants who came of age during the best economic climate (average unemployment = 4.3%).

The link between economic conditions and narcissism held even after gender and education were taken into account, and was not explained by varying levels of self-esteem.

Importantly, economic conditions in later stages of adulthood did not show the same association with narcissism.

The implication from this and other studies is that

We are almost exclusively the products of our genes’ interaction with our environment. Consequently, it is difficult to come up with absolute, as opposed to relativistic guides to living.

But — even with that said, I have trouble stomaching the usually untested nonsense that narcissists and materialistically spoiled people so regularly generate. The majority of the world’s historically acclaimed souls came through painful times.

The moral? — We arguably are what we were born with and into

And that should take away the ease with which we make judgments about each other.

On the other hand, some people are just jerks or simply shallow, and I see no point in paying much attention to their pronouncements about successful living. Christianity’s image of the crucifixion argues the same proposition in condensed form.

PeteFree.com

Youthful Adversity Appears to Temper Our Penchant for Narcissism — Perhaps Loosely Suggesting that Great Souls Are Statistically More Likely to Come from Painful Times