Okay, theres social criticism and theres people who just like to hate things. Ive seen a number of articles about social networking lately that claim that social media promotes excessive attention-getting, a tendency to over-value the importance of ones opinion, a need for others to confirm ones social identities, the want to excessively please others, while being unable to empathize with others, and having little interest in close relationships, while feeling entitled to special treatment. Most people would look at the following above and say these are dangerous traits linked to narcissistic behavior. And, heres my problem with that. All of these articles are written by bloggers and not researchers.There are spectrums of narcissism which are dangerously bad, which cut off empathy and lead us to grandiose delusions, lead to dehumanization, estrange our closest allies, even work against our own self-interest (paradoxically), but in the scholarly research, narcissism works more like a spectrum than a pole. There are healthy traits in the psychodynamic model of narcissism which work on the mask model; a mask is not always a bad thing. As Freud once noted, healthy narcissism can allow people to be more adaptive and self sufficient, take on positions of leadership, cope with anxiety in complicated social situations, maintain a good self-concept and positive body image, and in some cases, it actually does the opposite of what people think it should do -- it can allow people to see others as extensions of themselves, enhancing empathy.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 15:35:11 +0000
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