While many of these traits are often said to exist in higher levels in males, in my experience females actually have these issues to a greater degree. Would be interested to know what your thoughts are:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism
Narcissism describes the character trait of self love.
The word is derived from Greek mythology. Narcissus was a handsome Greek youth who rejected the desperate advances of the nymph Echo. As a punishment, he was doomed to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Unable to consummate his love, Narcissus pined away and changed into the flower that bears his name, the narcissus.
In psychology and psychiatry, excessive narcissism is recognized as a severe personality dysfunction or personality disorder, most characteristically Narcissistic Personality Disorder, also referred to as NPD.
The terms Narcissism, Narcissistic and Narcissist are often used as pejoratives, denoting vanity, conceit, egotism or simple selfishness. Applied to a social group, it is sometimes used to denote elitism or an indifference to the plight of others.
Sexual Narcissism
Sexual narcissism is the erotic preoccupation with oneself as a sexual being: a desire to merge sexually with a mirror image of oneself. Sexual narcissism can also be an egocentric pattern of sexual behavior, defined by David Farley Hurlbert and Carol Apt [1] as an inability to experience intimacy combined with a fixation on the sexual act, using high sexual esteem to compensate for low general self esteem. This is believed to be more common in men than in women and is suggested to be the basis of sex addiction.
Narcissistic Culture
Main article: The Culture of Narcissism
Historian and social critic Christopher Lasch (1932—1994) described this topic in his book, "The Culture of Narcissism",[2] published in 1979.
He defines a narcissistic culture as one in which every activity and relationship is defined by the hedonistic need to acquire the symbols of material wealth, this becoming the only expression of rigid, yet covert, social hierarchies. It is a culture where liberalism only exists insofar as it serves a consumer society, and even art, sex and religion lose their liberating power.
In such a society of constant competition there can be no allies, and little transparency. The threats to acquisitions of social symbols are so numerous, varied and frequently incomprehensible, that defensiveness, as well as competitiveness, becomes a way of life. Any real sense of community is undermined -- or even destroyed -- to be replaced by virtual equivalents that strive, unsuccessfully, to synthesise a sense of community.
Contrary to Lasch, Bernard Stiegler argues in his book, Aimer, s’aimer, nous aimer: Du 11 septembre au 21 avril (2003), that consumer capitalism is in fact destructive of what he calls primordial narcissism, without which it is not possible to extend love to others.
Narcissism as a genetic trait
In the decades since the discovery of DNA and the subsequent mapping of the human genome questions have arisen as to whether traits of personality, including narcissism, are partially or fully determined by one’s own genes.
Heritability study with twins
W. John Livesley (M.D., Ph.D.) is a Canadian physician specializing in the research of personality disorders. In 1993 he and his colleagues published a landmark paper entitled Genetic and environmental contributions to dimensions of personality disorder, which concluded that narcissism, as measured by a standardized test, was a common inherited trait. The study subjects were 175 volunteer twin pairs (90 identical, 85 fraternal) drawn from the general population. Each twin completed a questionnaire that assessed 18 dimensions of personality disorder. The authors estimated the heritability of each dimension of personality by standard methods, thus providing estimates of the relative contributions of genetic and environmental causation. Of the 18 personality dimensions, narcissism was found to have the highest heritability (0.64), indicating that the concordance of this trait in the identical twins was mainly due to genetics. Of the other dimensions of personality, only four were found to have heritability coefficients of greater than 0.5: callousness, identity problems, oppositionality and social avoidance. The general conclusions of the study were: (1) agreement with other studies that some personality factors have significantly high heritability coefficients, and (2) there exists a continuum between normal and disordered personality.[3]
Narcissism in evolutionary psychology
The concept of narcissism is used in evolutionary psychology in relation to the mechanisms of assortative mating, or the non-random choice of a partner for purposes of procreation. An article published in 2005 by Alvarez summarizes the work in this field. Evidence for assortative mating among humans is well established: human's mate assortatively regarding age, IQ, height, weight, nationality, educational and occupational level, physical and personality characters and family relatedness. In the “self seeking like” hypothesis individuals unconsciously look for a mirror image of themselves in others, seeking criteria of beauty or reproductive fitness in the context of self-reference. The study of Alvarez indicated that facial resemblance between couples was a strong driving force among the mechanisms of assortative mating: human couples resemble each other significantly more than would be expected from random pair formation. Since facial characteristics are known to be inherited, the "self seeking like" mechanism may enhance reproduction between genetically similar mates, favoring the stabilization of genes supporting social behavior, with no kin relationship among them.[4]
Celebrating Narcissism
Dandyism
Main article: Dandy
A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and the cultivation of leisurely hobbies. Some dandies, especially in Britain in the late 18th and 19th century, strove to affect aristocratic values even though many came from common backgrounds. Thus, a dandy could be considered a kind of snob.
The Dandiacal Body from Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle:
"A Dandy is a clothes-wearing Man, a Man whose trade, office and existence consists in the wearing of Clothes. Every faculty of his soul, spirit, purse, and person is heroically consecrated to this one object, the wearing of Clothes wisely and well: so that the others dress to live, he lives to dress...And now, for all this perennial Martyrdom, and Poesy, and even Prophecy, what is it that the Dandy asks in return? Solely, we may say, that you would recognise his existence; would admit him to be a living object; or even failing this, a visual object, or thing that will reflect rays of light..."
New Romantic
Main article: New Romantic
Decadence and Narcissism were recurring themes in the New Romantic movement that began in London Nightclubs in the 1980s. The movement was all about style, as former punks clothed themselves in surreal, anarchic glamour and romance, and postured, always on the lookout for new ways to draw attention to themselves.
It was all about making "an effort to look flamboyant in an attractive, luxuriant, beautiful, narcissistic way"[5] with icons such as David Bowie, Adam & the Ants, Bryan Ferry, Gary Numan and Duran Duran.[6]
Metrosexual
Main article: Metrosexual
In 1994, in the British Newspaper The Independent journalist Mark Simpson first coined the term "Metrosexual".
In 2002 he went on to further define the term on Salon.com.
"Well, perhaps it takes one to know one, but to determine a metrosexual, all you have to do is look at them. In fact, if you're looking at them, they're almost certainly metrosexual. The typical metrosexual is a young man with money to spend, living in or within easy reach of a metropolis -- because that's where all the best shops, clubs, gyms and hairdressers are. He might be officially gay, straight or bisexual, but this is utterly immaterial because he has clearly taken himself as his own love object and pleasure as his sexual preference. Particular professions, such as modeling, waiting tables, media, pop music and, nowadays, sport, seem to attract them but, truth be told, like male vanity products and herpes, they're pretty much everywhere."[7]
See also
External links
Look up narcissism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
References
- ^ Hurlbert, D.F., Apt, C., Sexual narcissism and the abusive male.
- ^ Lasch, C, The Culture of Narcissism. 1979
- ^ Livesley, W.J., Jang, K.L., Jackson, D.N. and P.A. Vernon (1993). "Genetic and environmental contributions to dimensions of personality disorder". American Journal of Psychiatry 150, 1826-1831. Abstract online. Accessed June 18, 2006.
- ^ Alvarez, L. (2005). “Narcissism guides mate selection: Humans mate assortatively, as revealed by facial resemblance, following an algorithm of ‘self seeking like’”. Evolutionary Psychology 2, 177-194. See online. Accessed July 21, 2006.
- ^ 1980s Fashion History, New Romantics. Accessed June 19, 2006.
- ^ Scotland on Sunday, 14 March 2004, Who says romance is dead? Accessed June 19, 2006.
- ^ Simpson, Mark Meet the Metrosexual. Accessed June 19, 2006.
This was a very interesting history on narcissisim. I remembered the Greek tale of the flower. I had no idea narcissism could be linked potentially to dna in extreme cases. This was interesting!!! 
