Narcissists shine in times of crisis
People who adore themselves may be infuriating - but they outshine others at times of crisis, psychologists said today.
Narcissists keep their heads while all around are losing theirs because they see potential disaster as a path to glory.
Such individuals may not be reliable team players or highly talented but they have confidence, do not fear failure, and respond brilliantly to crises because it gives them a chance to glorify themselves by performing well, said the researchers.
A study showed that when there was an opportunity to be noticed and praised they outperformed their more modest colleagues.
When there was no chance of glory, they performed poorly.
Dr Harry Wallace and Dr Roy Baumeister from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, USA, used four different task experiments to assess 248 undergraduate students.
The ‘‘opportunity for glorifying the self’’ was manipulated in different ways, such as telling participants that only 25% had succeeded at a task, or that performance indicated how well an individual coped with pressure.
The findings, presented at the British Psychological Society’s annual conference in Blackpool today, showed how narcissists rose to the occasion when the going got tough.
They could be substandard performers when no spotlight was on them.
The psychologists wrote in a summary of their research ‘‘in every study narcissists performed better than others when there was an opportunity for glorifying the self by means of good performance’’.
