Understanding Narcissism

[Rayaan]

Narcs are suppoedly often charming... can they also be super sexy?

This is known as superficial charm, and this quality is also common in psychopaths and machiavellians.

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For those who don't know, the the three personality traits - narcissism, psychopathy, and machiavellianism - are all grouped together in a larger personality contruct called the "Dark Triad." That is because the three traits have many similarities between each other. There's a large degree of overlap between them. Some researchers have also argued that the three traits are positively correlated. In other words, anyone that has any of the three traits will tend to have the other two traits present as well.

The core features of the Dark Triad are as follows:

"Despite their diverse origins, the personalities composing this Dark Triad share a number of features. To varying degrees, all three entail a socially malevolent character with behavior tendencies toward self-promotion, emotional coldness, duplicity, and aggressiveness." (Source)

"Although the personality constructs of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy had different origins, there are striking similarities. To varying degrees, all three entail a dark, socially destructive character with behavior tendencies such as grandiosity, emotional coldness, manipulation and aggressiveness. In the clinical literature, the link between narcissism and psychopathy has been noted for some time (for a review, see Hart & Hare, 1998). The recent development of non-clinical measures of narcissism (Raskin & Hall, 1979) and psychopathy (Forth et al., 1998) has permitted direct comparison of the three dark traits in normal populations. For example, there is now empirical evidence that, in non-clinical populations, Machiavellianism and psychopathy may coincide (McHoskey et al., 1998). Similarly, there is evidence that narcissism and psychopathy overlap (Gustafson & Ritzer, 1995)." (Source)

"Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy are distinct constructs, but they share several common features. All three traits are typified by a high degree of selfishness and a willingness to put one’s own needs ahead of others. All three are socially repugnant (hence their grouping), and as a result they are often deliberately hidden from others rather than openly expressed. Machiavellians and psychopaths use social skill and superficial charm to hide true intentions, and even a narcissist will occasionally appear humble if only to elicit praise from others." (Source)