Narcissism linked to sexual assault

Source: jezebel.com

If you want to know if someone is a narcissist all you have to do is ask.

According to a new study, narcissists are so into themselves that they

don't see their narcissism as a problem, so they will proudly own up to it.

(Read more)

Narcissism linked to sexual assault perpetration in college

Almost 20 percent of college men have committed some kind of sexual assault, and 4 percent have committed rape, according to a study published by University of Georgia researchers who were examining the link between different kinds of narcissism and the perpetration of sexual assaults.

The study found a strong connection between pathological narcissism and sexual assault perpetration through a survey of 234 male university students, mostly in their first and second years of college. Its findings related to perpetration rates were mostly consistent with previous studies, said the study's lead author Emily Mouilso, a clinical assistant professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences' psychology department.

The study found that men with vulnerable narcissistic traits were more likely to use alcohol or other date-rape drugs to incapacitate their victims, a finding that is especially concerning on a college campus, Mouilso said.

"I think people don't realize how prevalent drinking is" in colleges, said Calhoun, a professor emerita in the psychology department. "It's not so much how much they drink total for women that makes them vulnerable; it's how much they drink at a time, the binge drinking, the getting drunk and just not being alert and aware of their surroundings or the risks involved. That really puts women at risk."

Mouilso and Calhoun explained their results in the context of the theory that there are two general pathways that frequently lead to perpetration.

"If the end product is perpetration, there's more than one kind of profile that would make you more likely to perpetrate a sexual assault," Mouilso said. "One of those streams is promiscuity--so people who have higher levels of sexual interest and more frequent sexual partners, they're more OK with impersonal sex. That's one stream of risk factors.

"The second path is the hostile masculinity path. That has more to do with how you look at women, so having a hostile and angry orientation toward women in general and thinking that relationships are adversarial ... it's more about, what can I get out of this person that I want? I don't really care all that much about what they want."

She explained that people can be high or low on factors in both of those tracks, but if a person has both of them together, it makes that person much more likely to perpetrate a sexual assault, according to current theory.

Narcissists feel a sense of entitlement to anything they want, something that makes it easier for them to rationalize their aggressive and sometimes illegal behaviors, Mouilso said.

Many previous studies have used incarcerated sex offenders as their sample pool, which makes it more difficult to generalize results to other populations. Mouilso and Calhoun's sample of college men is fairly representative of large Southeastern university male populations.

Often the view of college men tends to be an old-fashioned, "boys will be boys" attitude when it comes to acts of sexual aggression, Mouilso said.

"I just don't think that that's accurate," Mouilso said, "so this research helps to shed light on some of the commonalities in the personality profile between men who end up in prison and men who are walking around because they haven't been caught."

The idea that most sexual assault perpetrators are strangers who grab women in dark alleyways isn't accurate, Mouilso said.

"It's less likely to be a stranger who jumps out of the bush," she said. "It's more likely to be someone you know like the guy sitting next to you in your intro psych class."

The societal belief in "stranger danger" puts people at risk because they are looking for the deranged person on the corner rather than at the individuals in their lives who have much greater access and opportunity to perpetrate, the researchers said.

Studies of non-incarcerated perpetrators are useful in developing prevention programs that could give women a more accurate idea of what to look out for.

Although the percentage of college men who committed sexual assaults is unsettling, the findings suggest that it's a "small percentage of men who are doing most of" the assaults, something that gives the researchers hope, Calhoun said.

"If we could identify them and intervene in some way, that would give you some better hope of preventing it," she said.


Story Source:   Materials provided by University of Georgia. E. R. Mouilso, K. S. Calhoun. Personality and Perpetration: Narcissism Among College Sexual Assault Perpetrators. Violence Against Women, 2015.

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About Narcissism
The DSM-IV-R1 observes that many people who are highly successful behave in ways that we could call narcissistic.  However, not everyone who has an inflated opinion of their own importance can be diagnosed as having Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).  The DSM-IV-R stipulates that these traits must be:

• inflexible
• maladaptive
• persisting
• Moreover, these traits must also cause significant functional impairmen or subjective distress

Non-pathological narcissism is defined as the way in which a person relates to others and focuses on the issues of self-esteem and the ways in which an individual maintains the stability of their sense of self.  For someone with narcissistic tendencies, the focus is principally upon the self rather than on others.  What is referred to as normal narcissism is seen as an expression of self-preservation, self-regard, self- assertiveness with normal levels of entitlement and competitiveness, and competitiveness that includes an appropriate level of empathy and compassion.

A person with healthy strong self-regard will not only have his or her best interests at heart, but will also have a concern that the rights and needs of others are met as well.  

Of course, too little self-regard is not a good thing for a person.  Low-self esteem can lead to feelings of inadequacy, inferiority, and incompetence and can cause any number of psychological difficulties.  So there appears to be a continuum of self-regard:  from not enough to way too much.  As with other aspects of the psyche, neither extreme is healthy.

Just beyond the range of  average or normal narcissism is something Stone labels heightened self-regard, which he accounts for as follows:

1. In certain common life situations and various occupations, optimal performance seems to require a heightening of self-regard or an exaggerated sense of indestructibility that goes beyond the normal yet is adaptive to one's circumstances . . . . [For example,] men with . . . low harm avoidance and an exaggerated sense of invulnerability are those more likely, in wartime, to storm the enemy's machine gun nest and to become heroes (dead or alive), preserving, if not their own lives, at least those of their comrades. Stone also finds this level of heightened self-regard/self-confidence to be an intrinsic component of effective leaders.

Interestingly, some have observed that narcissism might be a "disorder" that only those in more developed countries have the luxury of indulging since in other parts of the world people are too busy taking care of meeting basic needs, such as food and shelter, to spend time on individualism.  In this respect, narcissists have been categorized as being at a more advanced level in Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  Millon and Davis point out that persons in cultures prizing "individualism and self- gratification at the expense of community" namely, the United States would be more likely to develop narcissistic personality disorder.  Additionally, in such cultures, professions with high visibility that garner either "respect," such as law, medicine, or science; or those that carry the cachet of "stardom," such as sports, politics, and entertainment may also attract or foster the narcissist.

Perhaps one way to look at the difference between these non-pathological forms of narcissism and the pathological variety that expresses itself as Narcissistic Personality Disorder is the absence of enlightened self-interest in the pathological narcissism.  Enlightened self-interest can best be characterized as a frame of mind in which the person acts and thinks with regard to the needs of others, not from purely selfless reasons but rather because it is realized that by doing good for others the person can also derive positive gain for the self.  In contrast to this ability to also take into account the needs of others as well as one's own, is the person with NPD, who is first and foremost self-directed.

Millon describes the personal style of the normal narcissistic person as being competitive and self-assured:

• An interpersonal boldness, stemming from a belief in themselves and their talents, characterizes these persons.  
• Competitive, ambitious, and self-assured, they naturally assume positions of leadership, act in a decisive and unwavering manner, and expect others to recognize their special qualities and cater to them.  
• Beyond being self-confident, they are audacious, clever, and persuasive, having sufficient charm to win others over to their own causes and purposes.  Problematic in this regard may be their lack of social reciprocity and their sense of entitlement their assumption that what they wish for is their due.  On the other hand, their ambitions often succeed, and they typically prove to be effective leaders.

In contrast, pathological narcissism Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a state in which self-esteem is disturbed and regulated through a distorted self-structure with a pathological grandiose self which requires the individual to protect and bolster their self-esteem through maladaptive defensive means.    It has been variously defined as, activities aiming at maintaining cohesiveness and stability of the self-representations, . . . a concentration of psychological interest upon the self  . . . [and currently] the libidinal investment of the self [O. Kernberg, 1975].

People who demonstrate characteristics of pathological narcissism have difficulties when it comes to relating to others, Mouilso explained.

Non-pathological narcissism, on the other hand, can be somewhat beneficial because it manifests in high self-esteem and makes it easier for people to shake off failures, study co-author Karen Calhoun said, explaining that it's what some researchers call the "healthy" form of narcissism.

"As we predicted, the aspects of narcissism that we thought would be related were (related)--the lack of empathy, the entitlement aspects of narcissism," Mouilso said.

What surprised them was the link between vulnerable narcissism and rape perpetration.

Vulnerable narcissists express high levels of self-esteem but are actually very insecure, Mouilso said.

~ Source: www1.appstate.edu/~hillrw/Narcissism/intro.html

The Shy/Covert Narcissist
In contrast to the Arrogant/Overt Narcissist,  the Shy/Covert  Narcissist is characterized by vulnerability and sensitivity which manifests itself in defensiveness and hostility.  Like the Arrogant/Overt Narcissist, the Shy/Covert Narcissist has grandiose fantasies, feels a sense of entitlement, and is exploitive.  However, the Shy/Covert Narcissistic personality is characterized by worry, ineffective functioning, unfulfilled expectations, and vulnerability to stress.

Cooper summarizes the distinguishing features of the Shy/Covert Narcissist as follows:  Covert narcissistic individuals are those whose fantasies, whether conscious or unconscious, are indeed grandiose, inflated, unrealistic, and self-centered.  They may be preoccupied with fantasies of grandiose achievements, imagining themselves as world heroes, centers of attention, and acclaimed by all.  However, for one of several dynamic reasons, these fantasies are not expressed in overt behavior and are regarded by the individual consciously as beyond attainment.  The grandiose desires are not matched by a conviction of personal efficacy.

These individuals are conflicted and guilty over their overweening exhibitionistic, competitive, and aggressive desires, and their defensiveness often leads them to suppress or repress any awareness of the existence of these qualities.  Most often, a barrier is imposed by a severe inner conscience that finds these fantasies unacceptable, demanding both that they should be  suppressed and that the person should feel guilty for harboring unacceptable wishes.  In effect, the superego accurately detects that within these self-inflating ideas lie self-centered, aggrandizing desires to attribute all goodness and power to oneself and relegate all weakness and badness to others, an aspect of the angry envy that probably is involved in the genesis of all narcissistic pathology.

. . . the patients, like the public at large, may see only the final defensive inhibitory behaviors and perceive themselves as shy and unassertive, unable to obtain what rightfully they deserve.  Often, the first hint of their underlying grandiosity comes when one realizes that adolescent types of daydreams of being heroic and acclaimed have persisted into adult life with unusual intensity and frequency. . . .  these individuals often think of themselves as perfectionists . . . their fantasy of what they ought to be or produce is so inflated and grandiose that no actual product ever meets their internal standard.  This discrepancy between unconscious fantasy and reality leads to further guild and merciless attack from the conscience for not meeting self-set standards as well as to feelings of worthlessness concurrent with grandiosity.  These individuals often come to the attention of psychiatrists because of the depression and sense of inner deadness that they experience, as nothing in the world matches the thrill of triumphant achievement that they imagine is due them.

A Covert/Shy Narcissist will have grandiose fantasies but will also be plagued by a feeling of unworthiness and thus shame for even having fantasized about his or her greatness.  This type of narcissist, is likely to be characterized by an incapacity to sustain ambitions or to pursue even attainable goals with full dedication, yielding to others rewards that he or she may legitimately deserve.  The final result is often significant masochistic self-damage, self-pity, feelings of hurt, and depression.

While feeling they deserve to be recognized for their specialness, unlike the Arrogant/Overt Narcissist, the Covert/Shy Narcissist is plagued by self-doubts and thus does not as readily seek the affirmation from others he or she believes is due.  Moreover, because of this strong sense of worthlessness, this type of narcissist often will not seek out appropriate friends or romantic partners because they fear exposure as frauds; for this reason their associates tend to be conspicuously inferior to themselves.

Cooper observes that this narcissist secretly harbors fantasies that he or she is engaged in a heroic rescue of someone of lesser capabilities.  And, when their friends and associates offer praise, the Shy/Covert Narcissist believes that this admiration is phony and insincere.  They tend to devote a considerable amount of time ruminating over the unfairness of how little their true worth is appreciated and how others get the recognition for things that they themselves did.

According to Cooper, these people have pathologically harsh consciences and indulge in self-talk that denigrates their sense of self-worth.  In fact, instead of demanding special attention from others in recognition of their superiority, the Shy/Covert Narcissist may actually fawn over people whose accomplishments they envy while secretly harboring strong feelings of resentment and contempt.

For all these reasons, these people are frightened to show their accomplishments and often fail to get credit for good work they have actually done.  They procrastinate about accomplishing tasks that are well within their capacities but that they fear they cannot accomplish, and their overt demeanor is often excessively retiring, modest, and shy.

~ Source:  www1.appstate.edu/~hillrw/Narcissism/shycovertnarcissist.html