14 DAY TRIAL // Even if unknowingly, teens may rely on narcissism to get them through the rough period of transition into adulthood. This is a critical stage in the life of every human being, and investigators at the University of Illinois found that this type of behavior may help teenagers deal with this transition.
Granted, not all forms of narcissism have beneficial effects in the grand scheme of things, but some do. This is the main take-home message of the new study, which is detailed in the latest issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.
What the researchers found was that certain traits that are commonly associated with this type of behavior tend to peak during teen years, and then decline steadily as a person gets older, and gains more life experience.
Past studies proposed that narcissism is one of the personality traits that doesn't really change too much during the course of an individual's life, but the new work shows that this is not really the case. The reason for that may be that the narcissistic traits are no longer useful.
“Most people think of narcissism as a trait that doesn’t change much across the lifespan,” explains study researcher and UI psychologist Dr. Patrick Hill, as quoted by PsychCentral. The expert was also the leader of the research effort.
“But a lot of recent studies have shown that the developmental trajectory of narcissism goes upward in adolescence and what we call emerging adulthood – the late teens and early 20s, and then typically declines,” he goes on to say.
In the experiments the team conducted, a sample of 368 undergraduate college students and 439 of their family members were investigated. The goal was to get an overview of the narcissistic traits these individuals and their families were exhibiting as a group.
“We looked at three different forms of narcissism,” Hill explains. The belief “that you know a lot and people should come to you for advice,” represents the first one, which the team defines as exhibiting an inflated sense of leadership or authority.
Grandiose exhibitionism is the second, and the concept most refers to a person displaying an exaggerated sense of his or her capabilities and talents. Being pompous and experiencing the need to show off are also critical components of this particular behavior.
Finally, the sense of entitlement to something or someone goes hand in hand with an increased willingness to exploit others for personal gain or profit. This represents the third component of the usual narcissistic behaviors teens display.
“This study continues a line of research that shows that there is a fundamental developmental shift in both the amounts of narcissism that people have and also in the meaning of it as people age,” Roberts concludes.