Review
"The evidence Twenge and Campbell have compiled is compelling and appalling.... Twenge and Campbell marshal statistics, polls, charts, studies and anecdotes to assemble a complete picture of the epidemic's current state of contagion, brought on by the Internet, reality television, a booming economy, easy credit and other developments over the past decade. The authors dismantle the prevailing myths that have made us inclined to tolerate and even encourage narcissism: that it's a function of high self-esteem, that it's a function of low self-esteem, that a little narcissism is healthy, that narcissists are in fact superior, that you have to love yourself to be able to love someone else."-- New York Times Style Magazine
"An important and illuminating book. Drs. Twenge and Campbell expertly analyze many strands of American culture and reveal an alarming tapestry of psychocultural narcissism. They also offer sound strategies for slowing this epidemic." -- Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D., author of Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel and So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids
"The other night, when I was reading Twenge and Campbell's excellent and timely new book, my husband was busy framing a fake Sports Illustrated cover, with a picture of our 7-year old over the caption, "Player of the Year." The Narcissism Epidemic will hew close to the bone, rouse, and provoke many readers as it shines a spotlight on an important -- and highly costly -- trend in our lives. Rooted in hard data and illuminated with revealing anecdotes, stories, and solutions, The Narcissism Epidemic is both a pleasure and an education. But enough about this book. Let's talk about me." -- Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D., author of The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want
"A must-read for anyone who is a parent, a relationship partner, in the workforce, in school, or on the job market. Twenge and Campbell not only define narcissism but detail its antecedents, consequences, and underlying processes in a way that brings together so much of what one sees in modern western culture. Grounded in research and peppered with media and anecdotal stories, The Narcissism Epidemic offers practical, much-needed solutions to coping in the age of entitlement." -- Kathleen Vohs, Ph.D., University of Minnesota McKnight Land-Grant Professor, Editor of Self and Relationships: Connecting Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Processes
"This insightful book shows us how the epidemic of narcissism touches almost all aspects of our lives. Twenge and Campbell's astute analysis and salient anecdotes powerfully map the problem and the high price we all pay. They expertly show us the kinds of actions we can take to free ourselves of the epidemic's ruthless grip and how the future wellbeing of humane society depends on our doing so." -- Diane E. Levin, Ph.D., Professor of Education at Wheelock College and co-author of So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids
"Filled with important, disturbing research detailing the alarming cultural spread of narcissism today -- a serious social problem to which many people are unwittingly contributing without realizing the disastrous consequences. The authors give sound advice and provide an important resource for anyone who cares about compassion, empathy, and emotional connection rather than ME, ME, ME!" -- Karyl McBride, Ph.D., author of Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers
"The Narcissism Epidemic is a must read, an essential antidote to a culture spinning out of control. Filled with facts, fascinating examples, and written in a highly readable style, Twenge and Campbell's outstanding book shows how narcissism has been on the rise and has taken over almost every part of our lives and how we can rescue our culture from ourselves. An outstanding accomplishment by two people who truly care about the debacle of self-worship. It should be read by anyone interested in the future of our country" -- Robert L. Leahy, Ph.D., author of Anxiety Free: Unravel Your Fears Before They Unravel You
"Phenomenal...The Narcissism Epidemic clearly and succinctly identifies the dangerous disease and the catastrophic ways it threatens our society and future, and reveals urgently needed solutions at every level. The chapter on parenting alone makes this book priceless and should be compulsory reading." -- Patrick Wanis PhD, Celebrity Life Coach, Human Behavior & Relationship Expert, author of How to Find Happiness
About the Author
Jean M. Twenge, PhD, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, is the author of more than a hundred scientific publications and several books based on her research, including Generations, iGen, and Generation Me. Her research has been covered in Time, The Atlantic, Newsweek, The New York Times, USA TODAY, and The Washington Post. She has also been featured on Today, Good Morning America, Fox and Friends, CBS This Morning, and NPR. She lives in San Diego with her husband and three daughters.
W. Keith Campbell, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Georgia, is the author of more than 65 scientific journal articles and book chapters and the book, When You Love a Man Who Loves Himself: How to Deal with a One-way Relationship (Sourcebooks, 2005). He has published more than 30 journal articles and chapters on narcissism, more than any other academic researcher. He is also a contributing author of the study on the rise in narcissism covered by the Associated Press. His research has appeared in USA Today, Newsweek, and The Washington Post, and he has been featured onFox News’ The Big Story and made numerous radio appearances. He holds a BA from the University of California at Berkeley, an MA from San Diego State University, and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Athens, Georgia, with his wife and daughter.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction
The Growing Narcissism in American Culture
We didn't have to look very hard to find it. It was everywhere.
On a reality TV show, a girl planning her sixteenth birthday party wants a major road blocked off so a marching band can precede her grand entrance on a red carpet. A book called My Beautiful Mommy explains plastic surgery to young children whose mothers are going under the knife for the trendy "Mommy Makeover." It is now possible to hire fake paparazzi to follow you around snapping your photograph when you go out at night -- you can even take home a faux celebrity magazine cover featuring the pictures. A popular song declares, with no apparent sarcasm, "I believe that the world should revolve around me!" People buy expensive homes with loans far beyond their ability to pay -- or at least they did until the mortgage market collapsed as a result. Babies wear bibs embroidered with "Supermodel" or "Chick Magnet" and suck on "Bling" pacifiers while their parents read modernized nursery rhymes from This Little Piggy Went to Prada. People strive to create a "personal brand" (also called "self-branding"), packaging themselves like a product to be sold. Ads for financial services proclaim that retirement helps you return to childhood and pursue your dreams. High school students pummel classmates and then seek attention for their violence by posting YouTube videos of the beatings.
Although these seem like a random collection of current trends, all are rooted in a single underlying shift in the American psychology: the relentless rise of narcissism in our culture. Not only are there more narcissists than ever, but non-narcissistic people are seduced by the increasing emphasis on material wealth, physical appearance, celebrity worship, and attention seeking. Standards have shifted, sucking otherwise humble people into the vortex of granite countertops, tricked-out MySpace pages, and plastic surgery. A popular dance track repeats the words "money, success, fame, glamour" over and over, declaring that all other values have "either been discredited or destroyed."
The United States is currently suffering from an epidemic of narcissism. Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines an epidemic as an affliction "affecting...a disproportionately large number of individuals within a population," and narcissism more than fits the bill. In data from 37,000 college students, narcissistic personality traits rose just as fast as obesity from the 1980s to the present, with the shift especially pronounced for women. The rise in narcissism is accelerating, with scores rising faster in the 2000s than in previous decades. By 2006, 1 out of 4 college students agreed with the majority of the items on a standard measure of narcisstic traits. Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), the more severe, clinically diagnosed version of the trait, is also far more common than once thought. Nearly 1 out of 10 of Americans in their twenties, and 1 out of 16 of those of all ages, has experienced the symptoms of NPD. Even these shocking numbers are just the tip of the iceberg; lurking underneath is the narcissistic culture that has drawn in many more. The narcissism epidemic has spread to the culture as a whole, affecting both narcissistic and less self-centered people.
Like a disease, narcissism is caused by certain factors, spreads through particular channels, appears as various symptoms, and might be halted by preventive measures and cures. Narcissism is a psychocultural affliction rather than a physical disease, but the model fits remarkably well. We have structured the book according to this model, explaining the epidemic's diagnosis, root causes, symptoms, and prognosis.
Like the obesity epidemic, the narcissism epidemic has not affected everyone in the same way. More people are obese, just as more people are narcissistic, but there are still those who exercise and eat right, and still those who are humble and caring. Even the less self-absorbed have witnessed narcissistic behavior on TV, online, or in real-life interactions with friends, family, or coworkers. The mortgage meltdown that led to the financial crisis of 2008 was caused, in part, by the narcissistic overconfidence of homebuyers who claimed they could afford houses too expensive for them and greedy lenders who were willing to take big risks with other people's money. In one way or another, the narcissism epidemic has touched every American.
In the last few years, narcissism has become a popular buzzword, used to explain the behavior of everyone from hooker-obsessed former New York governor Eliot Spitzer to famous-for-being-famous Paris Hilton. Others have diagnosed themselves: former presidential candidate John Edwards explained his extramarital affair by stating, "In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic." As the New York Times noted, narcissism "has become the go-to diagnosis by columnists, bloggers, and television psychologists. We love to label the offensive behavior of others to separate them from us. 'Narcissist' is among our current favorites."
Despite the popularity of narcissism as a label, it is difficult to find scientifically verified information on it outside academic journal articles. Many websites on narcissism are based on some combination of conjecture, personal experience, and poorly understood psychoanalytic theories. Christopher Lasch's 1979 bestselling book, The Culture of Narcissism, though fascinating, was written before any serious research explored the personality and behavior of narcissists. Books such as Why Is It Always About You? and Freeing Yourself from the Narcissist in Your Life were written by established psychotherapists and use case studies of individuals with NPD. This approach is important, but largely ignores the scientific data on the topic.
We take a different approach in this book, describing the nowextensive scientific research on the truth about narcissists and why they behave the way they do. We believe that with a topic as complex as narcissism, the empirical research is the place to begin.
Narcissism is an attention-getting term, and we do not use it lightly. We discuss some research on NPD, but primarily concentrate on narcissistic personality traits among the normal population -- behavior and attitudes that don't go far enough to merit a clinical diagnosis but that can nevertheless be destructive to the individual and other people. This "normal" narcissism is potentially even more harmful because it is so much more common. Of course, much of what we discuss applies to individuals with NPD as well.
Narcissism is not simply a confident attitude or a healthy feeling of self-worth. As we explore in chapters 2 and 3, narcissists are overconfident, not just confident, and -- unlike most people high in self-esteem -- place little value on emotionally close relationships. We will also address other myths, such as "narcissists are insecure" (they're typically not), and "it's necessary to be narcissistic to succeed today" (in most contexts, and long term, narcissism is actually a deterrent to success).
Understanding the narcissism epidemic is important because its longterm consequences are destructive to society. American culture's focus on self-admiration has caused a flight from reality to the land of grandiose fantasy. We have phony rich people (with interest-only mortgages and piles of debt), phony beauty (with plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures), phony athletes (with performance-enhancing drugs), phony celebrities (via reality TV and YouTube), phony genius students (with grade inflation), a phony national economy (with $11 trillion of government debt), phony feelings of being special among children (with parenting and education focused on self-esteem), and phony friends (with the social networking explosion). All this fantasy might feel good, but, unfortunately, reality always wins. The mortgage meltdown and the resulting financial crisis are just one demonstration of how inflated desires eventually crash to earth.
The cultural focus on self-admiration began with the shift toward focusing on the individual in the 1970s, documented in Tom Wolfe's article on "The Me Decade" in 1976 and Lasch's The Culture of Narcissism. In the three decades since, narcissism has grown in ways these authors never could have imagined. The fight for the greater good of the 1960s became looking out for number one by the 1980s. Parenting became more indulgent, celebrity worship grew, and reality TV became a showcase of narcissistic people. The Internet brought useful technology but also the possibility of instant fame and a "Look at me!" mentality. Using botulinum toxin to smooth facial wrinkles to perpetuate a youthful face birthed a huge industry. The easy accessibility of credit allowed people to look better off financially than they actually were.
Jean's first book, Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled -- and More Miserable Than Ever Before, explored the cultural shifts in self-focus that affected people born after 1970 and -- because the trends continued to accelerate -- especially those born in the 1980s and '90s. In The Narcissism Epidemic, we widen our focus to Americans of all ages, and to the entire culture. Younger people bear the brunt of the changes because this is the only world they have ever known, but retirement ads promising extravagant fantasies (own your own vineyard!) suggest that the epidemic has reached far up the age scale. And although we present data on the growing number of narcissistic individuals, we concentrate on the rise in cultural narcissism -- changes in behavior and attitudes that reflect narcissistic cultural values, whether the individuals themselves are narcissistic or simply caught up in a societal trend.
When observing cultural change -- especially changes in the negative direction -- one runs the risk of mistaking one's aging for a true shift in culture. Change is...
