How To Identify a Narcissist With Ease
The Very Guide and Tools Psychologists Use in Their Practice Every Day👏 — Teach Your Children
Narcissists have subconsciously low self-esteem but show high self-esteem consciously.
That means they are not aware they have low self-esteem. Instead, they deal with it by faking high self-esteem externally. What you see is a person with confidence.
But the devil is in the details.
From an early childhood, a narcissist shows a lack of empathy towards others.
That includes sadistic behaviors which are part of anti-social behaviors as in criminal behaviors. When they speak they more than often structure their sentences in a way as they are something everyone loves and looks up to. That is why they have a strong craving and need for admiration.
That is where the grandiosity comes from.
1. The person has a sense of grandiosity and self-importance
It shows up as exaggerated talents and achievements. They expect to be recognized as a superior person without actually doing the work. That means that anyone low in conscientiousness falls in that risk group. Because they lack impulse control and they have a hard time sticking to a routine.
Identifier: They say they know things they do not. Brag in interviews. Lies to show they have higher worth. Take over meetings every time to show they are the best without adding real value.
2. The person has a hard time NOT fantasizing of:
- Unlimited success
- Power
- Brilliance
- Beauty (also Histrionic disorder)
- Ideal love in relationships
Identifier: This shows up as swapping out any partner disagreeing or criticizing them or setting healthy boundaries with them. To maintain this illusion they will eliminate anyone threatening that illusion. But they also speak about this and that is how you spot them.
3. They are special
They imagine they are so special or unique that they will only be associated with high-status people or institutions.
Identifier: When they speak they talk about their relationships with high-status famous people or institutions.
That means any other person they believe has a higher social status, including investing hours in social media following them, will get more time than you with a lower social status. You will always be downvoted.
4. Needs enormous amounts of admiration
Identifier: Posting on social media every day a selfie without there being a business plan behind it hoping for fame and fortune.
Asking how they look. Changing outfits to make sure they are at the top of the beauty pool. Though this is tangent on Histionic disorder.
5. Feel entitled
Identifier: Believe they should cut the line at the restaurant because they believe they are a celebrity and both expect to be treated that way and also expect everyone to comply with their behavior.
That is why you do not see empathy because in their mind they believe you should bow down to them. Throwing a tantrum in the restaurant because the waiter is late or the stake is not perfect as per their liking. That is also a drama queen. Many do not get that drama queens are narcissists as well as bipolar individuals might be. All three are high in extroversion and neuroticism where narcissism resides.
They believe they should have a parking space because they are more important than you according to them.
6. Use others
Identifier: They use others to achieve their high-status goals through lying and deceiving. This is parasitic just like a psychopath. They continuously ask for favors without ever giving back. Adam Grant refers to them as Takers.
Scientist “Xanya Sofra,” wrote in her paper “The Dark Reflection of Sadism within the Brilliance of the Narcissistic Persona”
”One of the most important revelations of this experimental research was that narcissistic individuals who entertain social acclaim and success in their prestigious career positions, manifest the regressed psychopathology encountered in mental patients diagnosed with narcissism. This finding may serve as a warning of the possible adverse consequences of electing narcissistic leaders into a high government position; or authorizing a charismatic, yet psychologically defective individual to run a major corporation. The ruthless, enthralling compulsion to maintain dominance and sovereignty, usually becomes conspicuous only after the narcissistic individual has aggregated the necessary authority to relentlessly exterminate opposition.”
7. No empathy
Empathy is two parts.
Cognitive empathy is the ability the person has to identify an emotion in another person. The second part is affective empathy which is how the person responds to the emotion they identified through cognitive empathy. Dark tetrad personalities have low affective empathy. Autistic people have low cognitive empathy.
You can test yourself with the EQ test.
Identifier: If a person behaves callously when someone is sad. Or say inappropriate things when someone is being vulnerable. Classic narcissism is telling your ex-partner. “I am in the relationship of my life now!”
8. Envious
A narcissist is envious of others or feels that others are envious of them.
Identifier: They want what other people have on Instagram, Facebook or YouTube. They say or feel that others admire their lives by lying that they are famous or super important as a person.
9. They are arrogant and full of pride (ego)
This is the key identifier for both narcissists and psychopaths.
Identifier: They say callous things inappropriately in meetings towards others. They are never wrong. Therefore when you talk to them to discuss something from different angles with different viewpoints they can not take the feedback or critique. Narcissists can not take criticism or feedback since it damages their ego and social status. Remember they have subconsciously low self-esteem and their brain is fighting against that through grandiosity.
You can present any facts you want. Because it does not matter to them since their ego gets bruised. You will be the problem and they will attack you. Today you see it through indirect female aggression and cancel culture. Passive aggressiveness is the lowest of attacks you will face from a narcissist. And you need to understand that no one is allowed to use physical aggression because you can kill the person or go to jail.
The second best aggressive means is indirect female aggression.
The Diagnosis
A person needs at least 5 or more of the nine criteria to be diagnosed by a licensed psychologist according to DSM-V -5TR.
However, they will have to do three tests and therapy sessions to confirm the results for them to confidently diagnose. This is needed when putting things on paper and giving someone medication or treatment. But remember that 33% are misdiagnosed.
Ordinary people do not need a diagnosis. They only need to get rid of the narcissist.
You can use these identifiers to stay safe by excluding them from your life and your children's lives.
Tests
- Narcissistic Personality Inventory, NPI
- Pathological Narcissism Inventory, PNI
- Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale, HSNS (Vulnerable narcissist)
Please do the tests on yourself to get to know yourself and the questions. You will then with ease identify other narcissists quickly. Especially the Hypersensitive(vulnerable) Narcissism test.
You will laugh when you read the question as to how prevalent this is in our society today.
HEXACO Test
You can also identify malicious individuals in your life by doing the HEXACO test on another person.
The sixth personality trait of Honesty & Humility will give them away. As the trait implies. Anyone dishonest and callous is associated with Psychopathy, Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Sadism. I would also take it quite seriously when you look upon yourself and others so that you do not succumb to malevolence by incorporating the dark traits yourself.
No one is immune.
If you are a gentle spirit you might want to learn how to easily identify dark tetrad personalities in others.
The classic mistake people make is not paying attention to what others do or say. People tend to tell you if they are dark tetrad or not. The problem is that most people do not take them seriously when they should. People often think they are not serious. But you would be gravely mistaken if you think that way.
Malevolent people are often authentic in their malevolence as the research also implies.
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