Contents:
- Medical Video: Young Women, Narcissism and the Selfie Phenomenon | Mary McGill | TEDxGalway
- The characteristics of narcissistic teenagers
- So, what does narcissism have to do with adolescent academic performance at school?
- Narcissists aren't always bad
Medical Video: Young Women, Narcissism and the Selfie Phenomenon | Mary McGill | TEDxGalway
Every teenager has a different personality. Some are closed and sociable, calm and serious or like to joke, and some are narcissistic. But it should be understood that narcissistic teens here are not teenagers who like hobbies selfieor who have high confidence. Narcissism is a sign of personality disorder called narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).
In the world of modern psychology, the characteristics of narcissists are those who have a high ego, are arrogant, lack empathy, selfishness, and feel the best in everything. At first glance, these characteristics are not ideal. However, research shows that narcissistic traits can help teenagers boost their academic achievements in school. How can?
The characteristics of narcissistic teenagers
Narcissism is not the same as self-confidence. In addition to the main characteristics described above, someone with an NPD personality will also show praise-thirsty behavior, not willing to budge, and always demand to be admired by others. Narcissists are also obsessed with themselves and feel very confident that they must also be entitled to special treatment from those around them. Or maybe, they actually falsified empathy in order to get the attention of those around them.
People who have NPD also cannot accept criticism, even those who build it. They regard criticism as an attack or insult, so that they will overreact to even burst into anger when the nature or results of their work are criticized. They also tend to be easily jealous and jealous when they see other people who are more successful than themselves, while believing that other people are jealous of themselves.
So, what does narcissism have to do with adolescent academic performance at school?
Narcissism is identical with negative personality traits, but it turns out to have an effect on increasing adolescent achievement in school. As revealed by a study from Queen’s University Belfast in England published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.
Before reaching this conclusion, Kostas Papageorgiou, a lecturer in psychopathology who was also the head of the study first recruited 340 teenage students from three different secondary schools in Milan, Italy. They were divided into two groups, namely one group of students who showed narcissistic personality traits and those who did not. After that, they were asked to do a series of academic tests.
Adolescents who tend to show high narcissism have a stronger mentality than their peers who are not narcissistic. Strong mentality will in turn help hone better academic performance, the researchers said.
Papageorgiou explained the meaning of the findings by saying, "Self-confidence in your own abilities is one of the main signs of narcissism and is also the core of mental toughness."
In fact, narcissism is indeed often based on self-esteem which is very fragile and is influenced by the fear of failure or fear of showing weakness. That's why narcissistic people will try hard to continue to outperform others. This mental toughness, continued Papageorgiou, made them more alert to accepting challenges and seeing them as opportunities to develop their personal qualities.
Unconsciously, narcissistic teenagers are helped by a sense of high self-esteem that helps encourage them to do more than their initial expectations for their own pride. This is what makes narcissistic teens more successful in certain contexts, such as in academic matters.
Narcissists aren't always bad
Although narcissism can be a sign of personal disorder, Papageorgiou stresses that it does not mean that narcissistic teenagers always have a personality disorder.
"We always categorize emotions or personality traits as black or white, but character is a product of evolution; There is no personality that is really bad or very good. "A person's personality will adapt according to his environment," said Papageorgiou.
New narcissism can be said to be an NPD personality disorder when its characteristics appear consistent at all times and situations, also over a long period of time. Personality disorders can only be diagnosed officially by doctors and mental health specialists.
To diagnose NPD, doctors will refer to the characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) in the DSM-5 book published by the American Psychiatric Association. A diagnosis of a personality disorder can only be formalized when the characteristics that emerge pose a lot of problems in the person's life, including work, school, finance, and even relationships.
Moreover, narcissistic personality disorder, aka NPD, is quite rare. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) book records that approximately 1% of the world's population is diagnosed with narcissism. Of the total, the researchers from Medical News Today, only 7.7% of men and 4.8% of women in the world showed narcissistic personality disorder.
