Narcissism in the modern world

Narcissism has been around since the time of Ovid more than 2000?years ago and the concept has long been a source of study, intrigue, fascination and literature both within and beyond the psychoanalytic community. While Narcissistic Personality Disorder remains a severe and fairly rare clinically diagnosed condition, sub-clinical narcissism or narcissistic traits have reached epidemic proportions with serious consequences. Ever increasing levels of greed, self-obsession, superficial relationships, arrogance and vanity are everywhere apparent and not making us any happier, with common mental health problems on the increase, especially among the young. Seemingly irreversible alterations to family life, technological development – including social media, attitudes to death and dying and celebrity worship, all feature in the rise of our narcissistic society and are interconnected trends. Group greed and grandiosity, as in the world of banking, have led to wide-scale corruption and cover-ups leaving us vulnerable and unable to place our trust in many organisations. Perhaps most sinister of all is our attitude to the planet that supports us, as we play a part in the destruction of much of the environment and many of the species that share the earth with us. Looking at the literature of narcissism, the aim of this paper is to consider ways in which cultural changes have brought about this huge rise in both individual and group egotism. We are seeing many more clients high on the narcissistic spectrum but consideration will be given to the narcissism of the therapist and the impact of the therapist’s narcissism on the client. We live in difficult times and cannot step outside our culture but there are ways of countering our narcissism and helping our clients to do the same. Having compassion for one’s self and recognising how ordinary we really are make for a good start.     

How Are Personality Judgments Made? A Cognitive Model of Reference Group Effects,Personality Scale Responses,and Behavioral Reactions

This article suggests that personality judgments are wholly relative, being the outcome of a comparison of a given individual to a reference group of others. The underlying comparison processes are the same as those used to judge psychophysical stimuli (as outlined by range frequency theory and decision by sampling accounts). Five experimental studies show that the same person's personality is rated differently depending on how his or her behavior (a) ranks within a reference group and (b) falls within the overall range of behavior shown by other reference group members. Results were invariant across stimulus type and response options (7-point Likert scale, 990-point allocation task, or dichotomous choice). Simulated occupational scenarios led participants to give different-sized bonuses and employ different people as a function of context. Future research should note that personality judgments (as in self-report personality scales) only represent perceived standing relative to others or alternatively should measure personality through behavior or biological reactivity. Personality judgments cannot be used to compare different populations when the population participants have different reference groups (as in cross-cultural research).     

Proximate and ultimate causes of punishment and strong reciprocity

While admirable, Guala's discussion of reciprocity suffers from a confusion between proximate causes (psychological mechanisms triggering behaviour) and ultimate causes (evolved function of those psychological mechanisms). Because much work on "strong reciprocity" commits this error, I clarify the difference between proximate and ultimate causes of cooperation and punishment. I also caution against hasty rejections of "wide readings" of experimental evidence.     

Bias in the Reporting of Family History: Implications for Clinical Care

Family history of cancer is critical for identifying and managing patients at risk for cancer. However, the quality of family history data is dependent on the accuracy of patient self reporting. Therefore, the validity of family history reporting is crucial to the quality of clinical care. A retrospective review of family history data collected at a community hospital between 2005 and 2009 was performed in 43,257 women presenting for screening mammography. Reported numbers of breast, colon, prostate, lung, and ovarian cancer were compared in maternal relatives vs. paternal relatives and in first vs. second degree relatives. Significant reporting differences were found between maternal and paternal family history of cancer, in addition to degree of relative. The number of paternal family histories of cancer was significantly lower than that of maternal family histories of cancer. Similarly, the percentage of grandparents' family histories of cancer was significantly lower than the percentage of parents' family histories of cancer. This trend was found in all cancers except prostate cancer. Self-reported family history in the community setting is often influenced by both bloodline of the cancer history and the degree of relative affected. This is evident by the underreporting of paternal family histories of cancer, and also, though to a lesser extent, by degree. These discrepancies in reporting family history of cancer imply we need to take more care in collecting accurate family histories and also in the clinical management of individuals in relation to hereditary risk.     

Robustness without asymmetry: A flaw in Fodor's theory of content

We wish to thank Fred Adams, Ken Aizawa, Lynne Rudder Baker and Carol Slater for helpful comments on an earlier version of this essay.