Narcissists: Are We Surrounded?

Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman, and you're listening to Science Bersers. I know that last week, I said we were taking a quick break to work on some new episodes. That is true. We are working on new episodes. Thank you so much for all of your suggestions as well to Julia, who wants an episode on Hippos, and wrote to us saying, quote, "The world is heavy and so are Hippos. I want to say I hear you." But the reason that I have here now is because we noticed that recently, we've had a bunch of new listeners to the show, which is really awesome. Thank you so much. Welcome to the Science Bersers party. And so we thought, while you're here, let's pop one of our favorite episodes down the feed. It's from a few years ago, and it's about the science of narcissism. It was a delight to listen back to, so interesting, I've learnt so much again, so I hope you like it. Enjoy. This is the show that pits facts against inflated egos. Today, we are talking about narcissism. So, of course, I've invited Senior Producer Rose Rimler to tell me all about it. Hey. Well, because you did the research. Fair enough. I have been doing the research, and what I quickly realized, diving into all this, is that on the internet, there's all these caricatures of what a narcissist is, but the reality is a lot more complicated and actually a lot more interesting. So to start, I want you to meet someone. This person is an actual narcissist. Oh, he's a social media influencer. That jump sounds very appropriate. Did you start by introducing yourself to our audience? Hey, everybody. My name is Lee Hammock. I am a clinically diagnosed narcissist. One of my monocurses has become like the self-aware narcissist. And Lee wasn't always self-aware about this, but something happened about eight years ago that changed his whole world. So Lee is a dad, and on this particular day, he was home alone with his six-month-old son. The baby was crying, and Lee was feeling really annoyed that the baby was fussing while he was trying to get some of his own work done. And he found himself raising his voice at the baby, and then his wife walked in, heard this, and she's like, "What the hell, you're yelling at an infant, and they got in a huge fight about it?" Hmm. So I told her to get the hell out. And of course, she's like, "Okay, I'm leaving. On the way out the door," she's like, "You know what, it's so damn hard to live with a narcissist." She said that tossed over her shoulder as she walked out the door. Yeah, it was a super insult. "So damn hard to live with a narcissist, slam the door." And I was just like, "Wait, what?" Because he's like, "Why would she say that?" Right. Why does she call me that? So I sit down, on the bed, and I'm, you know, don't angry Google. I was angry Google. Yeah. So I typed in a narcissist in Google, and they said, "Did you mean narcissistic personality disorder?" That is the medical term for someone who is diagnosed as a narcissist. I didn't mean that, but, you know, I'm seemingly, I got time in my hands now, so let's go down the road. So I clicked on it. And literally, it was like, "That's what I read in the signs and the symptoms and things like that." And I was like, "Oh, damn." It was really a huge moment for him because he's reading all these descriptions of what makes a narcissist, at least according to Dr. Google, and he's nodding along. So it's like, "You think you're special," but she definitely does think that. He's always believed he was destined for greatness. Another one is, "You are preoccupied with yourself." Yep. He keeps reading, lack of empathy. That one definitely felt right. Was there an example of a flash in your mind? You're like, "Oh, that was the time when I was being unepithetic." I don't know if you're seeing a movie right at the end when the food critic eats the right at the end, and it took him back to his childhood. Yes. When I started looking at narcissism and lack of empathy, it took me back to my childhood when I was in first or second grade. He was on the playground in school. He was watching this kid named Tony climbing on a jungle gym, and he saw that Tony was going to try to hang upside down by his legs, and he had a bad feeling about this. He didn't think Tony was strong enough to go upside down, so he told Tony to stop, but Tony didn't anyway. He was like, "Listen, he falls, snaps his own." I'm like, "I'm going to Tony's hurt. I'm screaming. I'm angry at Tony now. I don't care that he's hurt. You know, I'm angry as hell, man. I'm a crying angry." What were you thinking as a kid when he broke his arm? That he had inconvenienced me, because now we all had to go inside, and now this is the time we get to go outside and play, now we have to go inside because you made a decision not to listen to me. Little Kidley was so angry and upset in this moment that he actually remembers the teacher looking at him and saying, "What's wrong with you?" And at the time, of course, he didn't know, but as an adult, on this day in his bedroom after the fight with his wife, he's like, "Wait. Now I know." And when I was like, "Damn, wow." And this is it. I remember texting my wife. I was like, "You right. I am a narcissist." Really? Yeah, that night. Yeah, that night. I was like, "You right." I looked it up. I am a narcissist. I was like, "You, you're a hundred-sounding." And now, today as an influencer, Lee talks a lot about narcissists like him and how to live with them, deal with them. And he's part of this huge trend where people cannot stop talking about narcissists. There are even people saying that we're in a narcissism epidemic. And I'm hearing about narcissists just like coming out of the woodwork, you know, our bosses or parents, celebrities. Let's turn to Nick Cannon, who says he needs help after being diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. There is a self-importance in me. I believe I am not ordinary. One in six people are narcissistic. The rights of narcissism are rising. In Trump, you literally have the most narcissistic person, I think, anyone can name in our lifetime. He is a consummate narcissist. How do you deal with these people? How do you live with these people? It's even become like something that comedians joke about. I don't know what narcissists means, but if it's about me, it's got to be good. We're in an epidemic of narcissism. We should be rising awareness. Should be like where a little mirror of narcissists are. I mean, today, today is narcissistic day for us, right? Yeah, so let's put on our little mirrors, because today on the show, we're going to find out what's really going on here is the world truly overrun with narcissists of a hosting science podcast, beloved science podcast. How do you know if you're one or your boss, her partner is one, and if you're stuck with a narcissist in your life, what do you do about it? Science versus narcissism is coming up to stuff to the break. Welcome back. We have the show narcissism. It is blowing up right now. We're going to dive into the science of it, and we're here with saying you produce a rosary blot. All right, Rose, question number one, is the world overrun with narcissists? So people tend to throw around the word narcissism pretty willy-nilly, but first you have to know that there is some different types here. So there's pathological narcissism. That's a trait where people constantly put themselves and their own needs above other people and their needs, and it's often associated with this lack of empathy. If that describes you, you could get diagnosed potentially with narcissistic personality disorder, and Lee actually did get that diagnosis. Oh, wow. From that argument that he's wife just sort of threw out your narcissist, but she was absolutely right. Yeah. And we are going to get more into the details of that later in the episode, but there's also what's considered basically normal narcissism, where, you know, you're like a little focused on yourself, you're quite confident, maybe to the point of being arrogant. Maybe sometimes you think you're better than other people. Uh-huh. And so to science, there is this distinction. There's a personality disorder, narcissism, and then just regular old, garden variety narcissism. Yeah. And there's a spectrum. When it comes to the garden variety, narcissism, that's usually what scientists or the media are talking about when they talk about a narcissism epidemic. This question of whether lots of us are moving farther and farther up this narcissism spectrum. Okay. So are we? So to answer that, we got to go back to where this all started. We are going back to the late '90s, early 2000s. Okay, so this is the historical orally smoked. Just let me get my history face on. That is W. Keith Campbell, he's a professor of psychology at the University of Georgia. But back then, he was a postdoc at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, along with another social scientist named Gene Twangy. We're in a basement office. They shoved three of us in there. We had a little bit of light that came through the Cleveland window, and we had cut into the basement, and we'd talk in our swivel chairs. And a lot of what they were talking about was how the culture seemed to be changing. We were in a period culturally in about 2000 that was just the most overwhelming. the top self-promotional kind of culture you can imagine with the reality television show culture and other things along those lines. So it's just a very, it's kind of a very in-your-face cultural moment. Yeah, I mean, I remember well, but I don't think we've moved away from the cultural moment of self-probocious. I know, but I think right around then a lot of people see that as an inflection point for certain things like reality TV. So survivor debuted in 2000 right around there is when American Idol started. America's next top model. It's like fain, fain, fain, being on TV, being special. So Keith and Jean were like something's changing here and it seems like people are changing in some fundamental way. Interesting. So they really wanted to find this out and they really wanted to get some data behind this idea. They were becoming more narcissistic. And luckily, there is this test that measures some narcissistic traits. It's called the narcissistic personality inventory. And what it's meant to do is to measure these grandiose narcissistic traits. Basically, how great you think you are. Can we take it? Can I take it? Yeah. Gosh, when I just said, can I take it? I was like, is that a sign that I'm a narcissist? Don't you want me to take it to? How special I am on the narcissism scale. Before we take it, do you have any, do you have any guesses? Who will be higher on the narcissism scale? Oh, I am totally going to be more of a narcissist than you are. There's no doubt in my mind. You never know, you never know. Okay, so the instructions are to read each pair of statements below and place an X by the one that comes closest to describing your feelings and beliefs about yourself. You may feel that neither statement describes you well, but pick the one that comes closest. It's like a BuzzFeed quiz where just a photo of Senator Palpatine is going to show up on the screen. It's not the nerd personality index. Like an empathy rose. Oh no. Okay, let me put the link in the chat. Okay, I mean, I mean, I mean, all right, I'll read the first one. I have a natural talent for influencing people. I am not good at influencing people. I'm going to say not good. I'm going to say I have a natural talent. The thought of ruling the world frightens the hell out of me versus if I ruled the world, it would be a better place. I think about this a lot. It's number two. If I ruled the world, the world would be a better place. It's not a hot bar right now, is it? I mean, I am no better or no worse than most people, or I think I am a special person. I really like to be the center of attention. It makes me uncomfortable to be the center of attention. I just want to be reasonably happy or I want to amount to something in the eyes of the world. Everybody likes to hear my stories. Sometimes I tell good stories. Yeah, I feel confident in this one. The other day I told some of the story. I was like, the other day I had a bunch of pineapple. It was really sweet and then I had a bagel and the bagel was really sour. A comparison to the pineapple. It was like, great story. So that is a sometimes good story teller. I actually picked everybody likes to hear my stories. People sometimes believe what I tell them or I can make anybody believe anything I want them to. I wish. I wish, right? Oh my gosh. Would the world be a better place if everyone believed everything we said on science vases? Give her a point on the narcissism scale for that. Okay. Okay. So before you reveal how narcissistic we are, tell me what is the average of this test? So when they have used this test in sort of a general sample. Yeah. Just so you know, as in college students, that's kind of how it's been normed. Okay. The average score is about 15. 15. Yeah. Do you want to hear about standard deviation? I do want to hear about standard deviations. Okay. That's about seven points on either side. So, you know, eight to 22. So that's like you're in like the middle chunk of the population. Okay. Got it. Less than eight, you're really on a tail end of like you're a you're kind of a shrinking violin. Okay. More than 22, you're getting up there in your narcissistic traits. All right. How did we do? You got 17. And I got 10. Okay. So we're in, we're both normal. You're a little higher up on the normal. Okay. Okay. Also, I just have to tell you this one day, I found this paper published by Dr. Drew from Loveline. Do you know him? No, no, I don't. It was this radio show where they answered sex questions. It was like dig in the 2000s. They always had celebrity guests. Come on. And it turns out this whole time, Dr. Drew was giving the NPI to celebrities that came onto the show. I'm paper to see like our celebrities more narcissistic than other people, which kind of celebrity is the most narcissistic. And just for fun, I'll, I'll tell you that they found the celebrity that had the highest score was radio hosts. Reality TV stars. Reality, of course. Reality TV stars. Yeah. Reality TV stars got on average 19.5, which is so funny because that is like part of what kicked us all off for Keith and Jean. Okay, so with all that in mind that 19 is a reality TV star from the 2000s. 15 is punked exactly normal. So I'm exactly in between the average person and a reality star. You know what? Science podcast host. That feels exactly where I belong. Yeah, yeah, checks out. I mean, that seems like just narcissistic enough. But to take this all back to Keith and Jean sitting in their basement. Oh, yeah, that's that's why we did this. I've completely forgotten about Keith and Jade, by the way. Yeah, that's the whole point. That's why we took this test. Yes, of course. So the scientists think that people are getting more narcissistic, right? And so what they do is they find all these studies where people have taken this test. So they were able to find data on more than 16,000 college students taking this personality test between 1979 and 2006. So then they crunch the numbers and they found that on average narcissism seemed to be going up. Yeah, we've found an increase in narcissism. And I looked at the data about 25 different times to make sure and that's what we found. Those traits. Those traits. You see more and more Wendy's less and less roses. Yeah, I guess you could say that. And not only that, Keith and Jean also looked at all the stuff that was going on in the culture. So besides the reality TV stuff, stuff that they thought was evidence of people getting more narcissistic. So they pointed out that more people are getting cosmetic surgery. Parents have begun giving their children more unique names. And so they concluded we are in a narcissism epidemic. Jean Twangy published a book called Generation Me. And all of this just blew up. It became huge. There was a ton of media attention on this. This particular group of young people heard a lot of things growing up like believe in yourself. Everybody thinks they're going to be a reality star by posting their their selfie online, their video online. A generation more narcissistic, materialistic, naively entitled. Do you remember this? Yes, I remember all of this. Yep. And it felt, I have to say, it felt very old man yelling at clouds to recall a meme that was probably around back then. There was as someone who was a young science journalist hustling her way to success. Hustling her way up the narcissism spectrum. Exactly. But a lot of the talk did feel like kids these days. Yeah, I was just seeing a pattern of criticizing the younger generation as opposed to necessarily a pattern around a narcissism epidemic. Well, okay. What you just said is exactly what this other academic I spoke to felt like at the time too. Her name is Collie Tresnefski. She's another psychologist. She's currently a professor at the University of California Davis. So when she first saw this paper back when it came out, it made her really uneasy. For a lot of the reasons you just said this idea of, everybody is increasing in narcissism and like this generation is just going to end up in an awful place because they can't take criticism and they're all just full of themselves out for themselves and don't care about anyone else. Those are quite strong statements to be making that leads to these stereotypes like, oh yeah, there you are. There's that lazy youth again. So Collie, I mean, at this time, she, because she was, you know, a little skeptical, but you know, also just like, if this is true, we need good, we need a lot of data behind it because we are so prone to this confirmation bias where we think the younger generation sucks. So she found this other data set. It's called monitoring the future and they survey high school seniors every year. They've been doing it since the mid 70s. It's not the NPI, but they do ask questions about things like, how do you see yourself, Compared to others, how satisfied are you with yourself, how competent are you? you. So questions that could be related to an inflated ego. So she and her co-author looked at students answers to those questions between 1976 and 2006. And what did they see? They saw no narcissism epidemic. Yeah, so we found that most things didn't change. Oh. Yeah, the high school seniors in 1976 were just as likely to say like, "Mom, not that special or I'm kind of special as the high school seniors in 2006." So she didn't find any evidence in this data of kids really changing. Interesting. And so basically ever since there's been back and forth in the literature about what was actually going on over this time period. Yeah. Fast forwarding, what's really interesting is about what's happening today. Scientists have kept doing these analyses since this. Yeah. That, you know, that data was up to 2006. It's 2024. Yeah. And so we do have newer studies where they've done something similar looking at newer crops of college kids. Right. And actually, what they're seeing now is that narcissism has been going down. Wow. Even Keith, he was on team narcissism epidemic, remember? Yeah. He was like, "Yeah, it's going down." At least with the NPI can measure that grandiose narcissism. I mean, right now what it looks like is that grandiose narcissism is going down. Whoa. Huh. Huh. So what are these researchers make of that? So the debate here, I mean, it's funny. At this point, lots of scientists seem to agree. And it's not just collie. It's not just Keith, but also like, there's another group in from the University of Vienna. They just put out this big meta analysis. All these different researchers in the space agree that there is currently no evidence that narcissism is up compared to a few decades ago. If there's a controversy, it's whether there was a bump for a while. So maybe there was something about that inflection point reality TV coming online. Well, it's hard to say because not everybody agrees that there was a bump. That's still controversial. And Keith now says, like, look at this point. It's an archaeological question because it's over. So we are not in a narcissism epidemic. We may never have been. Yeah. But so far, what we've been talking about is this test that nerds use to measure, you know, kind of normal levels of narcissism. Yeah. We haven't been talking about pathological narcissism, which is what Lee has. Right. And people with this can be really self-centered, hurtful, manipulative. And so after the break, we are going to turn back to that darker type of narcissism to talk about what's going on in their heads. And if you've got someone like this in your life, how can you deal with them? Oh, coming up. Welcome back today on the show, narcissists. We're wearing our little mirrors to spend a day focusing on them, which they would love, wouldn't they, Rose? So where do we go next? Yeah. So we're moving to this pathological narcissism that goes way beyond us just kind of being our most arrogant selves. And I talked about this with psychologist and narcissism specialist, Craig Malkin. Really the core pathological narcissism is this drive to feel special. Feel special. It's sort of an addictive, compulsive need to turn to that feeling of feeling special at the expense of everything else. It's about being so self-centered, so consistently that it actually interferes with your relationships, your ability to work, and can translate into some really crappy behaviors. Craig calls them the triple E. Exploitation, which is doing whatever it takes to feel special, no matter the cost to others. Entitlement, which is acting as if the world should bend to our will, because we're so special. And empathy impairments that's getting so caught up in that need to feel special, that you lose sight of the needs and feelings of others. That triple E explains all the worst behaviors and narcissistic personality disorder. So to be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, the DSM, which is like the psychological Bible, says you need to display a pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy. All right, this is somebody who's so focused on themselves that they wreak havoc in relationships. It's pervasive. And this disorder, it's not super common. It's estimated that in the US, maybe one percent of the population has NPT, one percent. So to go back to Lee, who we heard from at the start of the show, this was the guy that had this big fight this wife after he yelled with a baby and he got diagnosed with this. Okay. He told me that this desire to feel really special and important is a major thing that has driven him for years. Kind of like the movie, I always got the kids movie references like when I watch the movie Coco, I always wanted to end up on a friend of not just buried and gone and just forgot about. You want to be remembered as somebody who changed the trajectory of your family. You want to have the portrait of yourself in the family house, right? Well, listen, yeah. That's Grand Polly right there. He changed the trajectory of the family right here. What more can I do to leave my mark on or what more can I do to just not a normal person, normalcy being average is it's like painful, it's like death, it's almost like dying. I want my tombstone to be a statue. That's a hard mark to hit. And so it turns out that this drive to feel special doesn't always feel good. So one thing that might surprise people is that a lot of narcissists are not happy people. That is surprising. It is because I guess there is this assumption that if you were a person in the world that lacked empathy that didn't give a sh*t about anyone else, you could just do whatever you wanted and that that somehow makes you freeing. Exactly, exactly, but that's not that's not what we find. No, I mean one study found that a third of people with NPD have major depressive disorder, a fifth have generalized anxiety disorder, which is much higher than the general population. Yeah, that really is surprising. I mean, it's just not how you picture a narcissist, I don't think. Yeah, but that's the case and it's actually something that Lee can really relate to because he's also been diagnosed with depression and anxiety alongside NPD. And and a thing that Lee told me that really helped me see why you'd be so miserable as a narcissist is that his ego really can't handle any criticism. This is pretty common with this disorder, by the way, being very sensitive to any criticism. And so when this happens to Lee, just eats and eats at him. Criticism feels like a truly like a wound like it just doesn't go away. It's just like sometimes it gets healed up. It's kind of like a score, right? It gets healed up, but somehow it randomly just burst open. Like literally stuff that I forgot about will pop into my head that's somebody saying to me in the club, you know, about 21 years old. And it hurt my feelings now. I'm like, but it's hard. It's so hard just to kind of let stuff go. And so he's always on the lookout for his ego getting dinged and like preemptively getting ready to fight. Like when they first meet people, always try to find a way to take them down just in case even physical violence, of course, if anybody be like, hmm, what about you? Can I hurt your feelings with just in case you gotta hurt my feelings? How can I hurt your feelings? You're looking for weaknesses in case you need to exploit them later. Just in case, you know, just in case, just in case, just in case, just in case they insult me, a joke on me. How can I joke on you back to hurt your feelings or get the attention back on you? Because that's how my mind is where he's always like attacking and vengeance. This is a pretty miserable way to live. Yeah. And hearing that, I could really see how narcissism can manifest as anxiety because you just have these ruminating thoughts of anger over and over again. And that's not all. I mean, there's a review paper that found that they often suffer from feelings of meaninglessness, they're very critical of themselves, and they struggle to express their emotions. So is there a way to help them? Because this feels like it's kind of the worst of both worlds. No one is happy. The people around them aren't happy, they're not happy. Can we do anything about it? Yeah. I mean, so Leo of course had that question right after he had his moment of revelation because like the next thing he googled was like cure for narcissistic personality disorder, right? And the results were disappointing. None. There's no medicine. There's no peels or anything like that. They take, there's no cure. Go to therapy. That was just like, oh, well, I guess I have to go to therapy. So that's the treatment we have. Therapy. Talk therapy. Therapists might do things like try to help their patient be more aware of triggers that lead to narcissistic actions. One paper described what you can do as a therapist is move a patient from me mode to we mode. Okay. I mean, did Lee end up trying therapy? Yeah, he did start therapy. It was several months after the big fight with his wife. And when he went to see this therapist, she was like, "Okay, so what are you doing here at 32 years old?" I was like, "Oh, okay, now just start crying," 'cause I know what to say. I was just like, literally, just start crying, yeah. Uh-huh. Was that unusual for you? Crying? Yeah, it was out, yeah. Did she ask you why you're crying? I was like, I feel like I don't have any emotions. I was like, I just feel like I'm empty inside. And I started crying. Like, no, you know, you're crying, so there's something there. You know, there's something in there. You're definitely crying, so there's something in there. It's just, there's something blocking it. We got to figure out a way to kind of lower down the gates. She's kind of described it like a castle. We got to figure out a way to lower down the gates because you can't walk around. Just like, sealed up all the time. And did he was he able to lower the gates? Yeah, I mean, there's no magical transformation. He says he's still an arseist. But over the years, it has helped him learn to put some space between his thoughts and his actions. My very first thought is typically the narcissist reaction. It really, really is. It's kind of like, bow. And it's the first thought. It's probably going to be self-serving, super defensive and egotistical, whatever it is. So I have to take my time to respond now. So I'll take a deep breath. I'm like, okay. I have to ask myself, is that narcissism? Or is this normal? It's kind of like, I have dual thoughts. And I have competing thoughts. It's kind of like, it's open a whole new door. And there's somebody else living up here. And they're just like sitting in the room. Like my brain is like, there's a narcissist apart of me and a non-narcissist part of me. They're like sitting in the living room arguing. You know? All day long? All day long. Yeah, I don't find very much peace. Oh, that's so interesting. How Lee talks about it. That therapy has allowed him to see a different way of thinking. The quote unquote, what he says, "normal way of thinking," but he's still a narcissist. But that, I mean, just that step seems like it's been helpful to him. I mean, do we have any data on other people with narcissism? Like, what's the chance if a narcissist goes to therapy, they will change? We really try to run this down, but it's very hard to put numbers around it. Because there are no trials exclusively on people with NPT. Annoying. Yeah. And, you know, psychologists have said that people with NPT tend to drop out of therapy. So maybe that's one reason, you know, we don't have these. But we do have some evidence that is promising and people who do stick it out. There are some case studies showing that people with NPT can improve after two and a half to five years of therapy. And a lot of therapists that I talk to told me the same thing, that they have helped people with this disorder. So that is how narcissists can help themselves. But on the flip side, I mean, if you are living with a narcissist who's perhaps not working on themselves in the way that Lee is, what can you do? Yeah. So this question of how do you deal with a narcissist in your life is something that Craig, our psychologist, from earlier, he specializes in. He sees a lot of people who come to therapy, oftentimes they come in trying to figure out if someone in their life is a narcissist and then what should they be doing about it? And his number one tip is to not focus so much on the other person's diagnosis, but to figure out whether or not the relationship is working for you. The one thing people don't do that I often help them get to is just to be in touch with the questions, like, am I safe in this relationship emotionally, physically, do I like how I'm being treated, regardless of where it comes from in this person? If you decide, I mean, I do like this person, but God, they've got some crappy traits that I'd like them, them not to have what can you do anything about that, or you just have to take them as they come. Right. So if you do decide the relationship is worth working on, you want to stay or let's say it's like a relative or a boss, Craig has a few strategies. Right. They're based on this observation that you can actually boost empathy in people with narcissism. There's a body of research on this. And Craig has come up with some ways to basically exploit that. So the first thing is something he calls an empathy prompt. And this is basically in your conversation with this person about why you're unhappy with their behavior. You sort of set it up by priming the other person to feel empathy for you while you're giving them feedback in this really particular way that could get through to someone with narcissism. So he gave me an example. Say your partner is someone who can often act very dismissive of your ideas. And you might want to say something like sweetheart, you're the most important person in my life. And that's why it's so devastating when you dismiss my ideas out of hand. I just feel like somebody I love and care about really doesn't think much of me. It's just heartbreaking. Wow. Right. Anybody who has a capacity for empathy at all, you know, that will melt them. Yeah. That's an, that's like a gunpowder packed statement because it gives it's so much about how much you value them. Yes. In addition to this is what I'm not getting from you. Yes. Exactly. So that's an empathy prompt therapy bomb. Whereas it sound like you just had a revelation. Is that someone you want to try this on? Maybe. Wendy, because you love being the center of attention and you people always love your story. Okay, okay. Oh, what else? What are the tips to crack out? Crackout had different strategies for like how stubbornly narcissistic people are. So for someone that's like maybe not going to melt from the empathy prompt. What he suggests is this thing called catching good. So here's who here's what he means by that. There's going to be moments where they say something thoughtful or kind caring where they appreciate you. You want to catch those? He's like say you think you have a narcissistic boss. But one day they do like one nice thing. Maybe they take you out for lunch and they listen to an idea that you had. You can tell them. Yeah, I so appreciate that you invited me to lunch. I just feel so much more motivated to get to the finish line on on tasks. So I really want to thank you for that. Oh, that's great. That's great. You know what really stands out here is the advice that you don't tell your boss. That makes me feel great. Thanks. Instead tell them you're now more motivated to get your work done. Because the idea is that your narcissistic boss cares about your work. They don't care about your feelings. Yes. He ties it to like here's the outcome that will benefit you. Yes. So if that doesn't work and the empathy prompts don't work. And you can't, you know, this person's still in your life. There is one last strategy that's I think we're talking about. And especially because this is something that the internet loves talking about. And this is called gray rocking. Gray rocking. So this is the idea that like if you're in a fight with a narcissist, you basically become so still and so boring and quiet that you are acting like a gray rock. Oh, it doesn't give them anything to fight with. Gray rock is simply when you respond or interact, you're not emotionally engaged. You're flat. You're not really offering anything. We don't really have science here. But Craig says this is a tactic that people have found useful. The key is that you give the other person as little ammunition as possible. The mistake people make is explaining themselves or defending. And now you now you really get things going. Because the more narcissistic someone is the more they're going to have to say in response to that. So the last thing you want to do is invite more answers or more reactions. Yeah, these are sort of helpful suggestions. But if I was employing these in a relationship I could get out of. It would really make me question whether that was the best option. Yeah, Craig was definitely like that is something worth considering. And I also really wanted to relate to people that if you feel unsafe in your relationship your priorities should not be on using these techniques to improve communication. It should be on making sure you're safe. Yeah, absolutely. So I guess the takeaways of this episode are that narcissists are among us. There may not be as many of them out there as the internet would have you believe. But they are among us. There are some ways that you can try to deal with them. Maybe not so science-backed, but hopefully these tips are helpful. And if you are the narcissist or think that you are going to therapy is a good idea. Rose, how are you walking around the world differently after researching this episode? Well, it's just been a good reminder that when we start to focus on ourselves too much it can be harmful and it can actually make you less happy. And it makes me really want to catch those moments where I'm doing that, where I'm like really spinning around about myself, my own legacy, or what people think of me noting when that's actually to a point where it's not helpful, it's making me less happy than I would be otherwise. I think that's a takeaway that even someone who's scored low on the narcissism spectrum, not to brag, can take away. It's like, especially, I would say, extraordinarily low. I would say. I can't benefit from thinking about narcissism. Thanks, Iris. Thanks, Wendy. This episode was produced by Rose Rimler, with help from me, Wendy Zookaman, along with Michelle Dang, Meryl Horn, and a Keri Fostokies. We're edited by Blight's Terel, mixed and sound design by Sam Bear, fact-checking by Erica Akiko Howard, music written by Peter Leonard, Emma Munga, So Wiley, Boomi Hidaka, and Bobby Lord. Thanks to all of the researchers that we spoke to for this episode, including Dr. Igo Weinberg, Dr. April Ilkman, Dr. Jennifer Girlach, Dr. Betsy Ederschild, Professor Brad Bushman, Professor Brent Donnellan, Professor Chris Barry, Dr. Glenn Gehr, and Winky Mah. Special thanks to Rachel Humphries for editing help. And a big thanks to everyone who helped us with this season, including, Duck Weinstein, Hunter, Chris Suda, Oscar, Elise Dillon, the Zookaman family, and Joseph LaVell Wilson. Science Vest is a Spotify Studios original, listening to us for free on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, we are everywhere. But if you are listening on Spotify, then tap the bell icon so you get notifications when new episodes come out. And whatever podcast app you are using, we would love it if you love the show, to give us a five-star review. And it helps new people find us, which we love. I'm Wendy Zookaman, we'll back to you soon.