Narcissists are self-centered people who take the view that
they are far more important than the people around them. They promote themselves to the exclusion of
others and take other people’s successes as competition to their own. They also tend to suck the life out of
groups, because they steal the limelight and push their own agenda at the
expense of others.
Because of these negative influences of narcissism on
relationships and in the workplace, it is valuable to understand where this
collection of traits comes from. An
interesting paper in the January, 2014 issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin by Paul Piff
explores the relationship between narcissism and wealth.
He argues that great wealth and higher levels of social
class can lead people to have a greater sense of entitlement and that sense can
lead to narcissism.
In one study, adults ranging in age from 18-72 filled out a
series of surveys including two of importance for this project. One showed participants a ladder with ten
rungs on it that represent people of increasing levels of income, education,
and prestige and asked them to select the run they belong to. This is a measure of perceived socioeconomic
status (SES). The second measure was a
questionnaire measuring people’s sense of entitlement with items like “I
honestly feel that I am more deserving than others.” This study found a small positive correlation
between the measure of SES and the measure of sense of entitlement.
A second study used college students. As a measure of SES, students reported their
parents’ income. As a measure of
entitlement, the author used a scale that asked people to rate the relative
importance of themselves compared to others.
This measure had a circle representing other people and circles of
different sizes that could represent the self.
They had to select a size of a circle representing the self that
corresponded to their feelings about their own importance compared to other
people. Previous studies suggest that
this measure relates to people’s sense of entitlement. Finally, participants filled out an inventory
that assesses narcissism.
In this study, there was a small correlation between SES (as
measured by parental income) and narcissism.
There was also a small correlation between SES and the measure of
entitlement.
Statistical tests suggested
that the sense of entitlement explained the differences in narcissism between
low- and high-SES participants.
A third study gathered measures of SES from college students
in the lab. Other measures were
collected including a measure of how much participants care about their
appearance. Toward the end of the study,
participants were asked if they would allow the experimenter to take their
picture for a future study on face recognition.
Participants were given the opportunity to look in the mirror to fix
their appearance before the picture. The
experimenter left the room to get a camera, and another RA measured whether the
participant looked in the mirror. Overall,
women tended to look in the mirror more often than men. That reflects a general difference between
men and women in how much they care about their appearance. Beyond that, high-SES individuals looked in
the mirror more often than low-SES individuals.
This difference was not explained by differences in how much these individuals
care about their appearance.
Finally, one study did an experimental manipulation to break
the relationship between SES and narcissism.
Participants drawn from a sample on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk filled out
a measure of SES. Then, participants
either listed three benefits of treating others as equals (which primes the
concept of equality) or listed three activities they do in a normal day (a
control condition). Finally,
participants filled out a narcissism scale.
For the participants in the control condition, there was a
small positive relationship between SES and narcissism. That relationship disappeared for the group
that wrote about equality.
Putting this together, then, there is a weak relationship
between SES and narcissism. When people
grow up and live in a privileged environment, it can increase their tendency to
feel entitled. That sense of entitlement leads to greater narcissism.
As interesting as these results are, it is important to
recognize that the effects overall are small.
There are plenty of people high in socioeconomic status who have neither
a sense of entitlement nor a tendency toward narcissism. Similarly, there are many people from a
low-SES background who do have a sense of entitlement and narcissistic
traits. But, it is valuable to know that
there are elements of a person’s social situation that can make them more
susceptible to being a narcissist.
