Why Narcissism Is Bad for Men

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Why Narcissism Is Bad for Men

According to the conclusions of a new investigation conducted by University of Michigan (U-M) psychologists, and published in the latest issue of the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE, it would appear that being narcissistic makes men more likely to become sick.

This personality trait is apparently somehow linked to bad health, says study coauthor Sara Korath. She says that physical health disadvantages are added to the psychological costs that these males have to pay when it comes to their relationships with the opposite gender.

Past studies conducted by the same U-M team have revealed that narcissism is becoming increasingly common in the general population of the United States, and that men are the most likely to exhibit it.

Some of the most common “symptoms” med display include an over-inflated sense of self-importance, which is unjustified in real life, a tendency to overestimate one's uniqueness, as well as exhibiting a sense of grandiosity without too many achievements to back that up.

Together with colleagues from the University of Virginia, the U-M scientists analyzed a sample of 106 volunteer graduate students, in a bit to correlate narcissism and gender, on one hand, with cortisol levels in the saliva, on the other.

Cortisol is informally called the stress hormone, and its levels rise when people are subjected to stressful or damaging experiences. Each of the participants had their cortisol levels measured two separate times, so that the team could establish a baseline.

“Even though narcissists have grandiose self-perceptions, they also have fragile views of themselves, and often resort to defensive strategies like aggression when their sense of superiority is threatened,” UV investigator David Reinhard explains.

“These kinds of coping strategies are linked with increased cardiovascular reactivity to stress and higher blood pressure, so it makes sense that higher levels of maladaptive narcissism would contribute to highly reactive stress response systems and chronically elevated levels of stress,” he adds.

A significant implication of the new work is that narcissism may also play an important role in determining people's responses to daily interactions and routines. At the same time, the team learned that cortisol production could be boosted in males without being exposed to a stressing factor.

“Given societal definitions of masculinity that overlap with narcissism – for example, the belief that men should be arrogant and dominant – men who endorse stereotypically male sex roles and who are also high in narcissism may feel especially stressed,” Konrath concludes.


http://news.softpedia.com/news/Why-Narci...8288.sh

finally something to perhaps cheer up some of the individuals on here who constantly complain about it.

I do blame the media for basically enforcing/supporting narcissistic behaviors though.

Gee, this is news? I've known this for years. Everyone always wondered why I rarely get sick, and this is why. Because I'm not an egomaniac, I have no problem saying to myself, "OK, you are sick. Try and get better before you go and do things"

I should show this to my dad.

I get a kick out of society defining things, the definition of which is by consensus "bad for society," then doing studies to investigate whether or not said "whatever-it-is" poses negative effects on people.

just being alive has negative effects

I wonder if the alternatives are worse, though. Even the article itself says that males are expected to be somewhat narcissistic, so there are likely social benefits to being that way. Maybe if a narcissist acts in a non-narcissistic way he becomes open to even more stress by being 'stepped on' and marginalized by others. -- Like in "Clockwork Orange," where the main character goes from sociopath to victim-of-society. He was better off being a sociopath. (Not that I like or admire sociopaths or narcissists.)

There seems to be a real pandemic of narcissism going on. But I feel the media is throwing that word around and really overusing it. Narcissism is supposed to mean "vain" and was named after a Greek character. But people who are narcissistic are usually much worse than that, thinking they can't do anything wrong no matter what they do, even if its murder. I'm also sick of the media saying a person is a "psychopath" or a "sociopath" for their horrific behavior. It's like they're saying I should feel sorry for a serial killer/rapist/pedophile who had a collection of children's body parts in their freezer because they have a "disease". I think that there is really no deep psychological reason why some people are like that, they are just plain evil.

Sometimes I feel like I'm borderline narcissistic.
And I can see the connection between the stress and holding onto self-image.
But then again I may bellicose and individualistic because the world shoved me around too much and I adapted. Call it what you will.

narcissism is political code for one who doesn't share their wealth. It tends to apply more to the "haves" then the "have-not's" Our laws, captains of culture, and our economic system have all contributed to this greatly. and they all do this by removing the burden and responsibility of the individual to fight their inherent selfishness, and to remedy or shift it elsewhere. The greatest battle in life is not against the Man/machine, but rather, your not-so-spectacular self.

This is so wrong.

Sounds like narcissism causing people to perhaps get 'lucky' more often (to keep it G) isn't enough to stem the tide against their health.

On another note, I still dont follow - unhealthy 'for men'; shouldn't it just be unhealthy for everyone? Last I checked I don't think there's a huge difference in how cortisol effects the sexes.

I've got an idea!

Let's coin a word. "Nitzfurley." Now let's define it:

Nitzfurley: Stupid, mean and/or contemptable

Now lets do study about whether being nitzfurley is bad for people.

Compare with this definition.

Why does it take a study to determine whether something that is defined as bad for us, is indeed bad for us? What else can we waste money on?

True. We could always have a case study, peer reviewed of course, to prove that playing in traffic is unhealthy.