How narcissists process information

hi everyone it's dr romney welcome welcome back to this youtube channel that takes on all kinds of issues related to narcissism narcissistic abuse difficult relationships toxic people and just really problematic situations my hope is always that understanding will bring wisdom and that wisdom will help you better be able to cope and manage these situations now in this series of articles which is going to be peppered throughout this channel in perpetuity is taking on the science of narcissism when it comes to the science of narcissism there's a lot of good science out there and i want to talk about that as much as i can personally i do as part of my work try to stay on top of the science and the published literature on narcissism lots of researchers around the world are doing some really fascinating research using a variety of methods including laboratory experiments to notice if there are differences in various behavioral and sensory aspects of people who score higher on narcissism tests versus those who score lower and what's interesting is narcissism is a really tough thing to research because we don't have good tests of it right most people aren't going to fess up to it the tests we have that are out there are good but they're not great and until we really get some kind of super reliable i don't know nervous system biomarker test we are always going to be chasing our tails a bit in this research two researchers named mark hartaker and elias tasinicos who are from the university of kings and kings college in the uk and the university of crete published a very interesting paper in 2020 on how narcissistic people process information or stimuli in this case how they process words they used an interesting experimental method by which they could present words on a computer very quickly and in one experiment they presented sort of negative words like like worthless and incompetent in another experiment they presented positive words such as attractive or exceptional their methodology is probably more than i could get into in this video and we'll have the reference for it in the video notes if you want to look it up but what these researchers would do is they'd sometimes present the negative word a negative word after what we call a negative priming word that would be something like harm and sometimes after a neutral word and they did the same thing with the positive words they'd use a priming word and then present the more positive word they would also vary how quickly the words would be presented on the screen and doing all of this allowed them to look at what would happen when there was a really short interval between the presentation of a priming word and either a negative word or a positive word what these researchers found was actually really interesting they use a test called the narcissistic personality inventory the specific subscale something we call the superiority scale for people who had higher superiority scores when they got a negative priming word and then they were quickly presented with a negative word what they found was that those more superior narcissistic people would react more quickly to the negative words like worthlessness this interestingly didn't happen with the positive words and it didn't happen when there was a little bit more time between the priming word like harm and the actual word worthlessness the more time the less likely there would be these differences and how people responded it's an interesting finding and it appears to relate to a narcissistic person's sensitivity to words that would highlight themes such as worthlessness and it happens when the word the negative word is hap is presented very quickly after the priming word which supports the idea of this being a defense since it is a reflexive almost unprocessed reaction their work suggests what most of us working with survivors of narcissistic abuse and narcissists know that narcissistic people are forever vigilant for threat especially a threat to their fragile sense of self they are almost programmed to detect it and react to it as though they are trying to inhibit their feelings of inadequacy and feelings of shame as quickly as possible if they even have a minute to process a few extra seconds to process what's happening people who are narcissistic are actually able to quickly regulate they didn't respond as quickly to that negative word when there was more time between the priming word and that negative word like worthlessness but when they are primed and it's backed up quickly with a negative word then boom without that second to catch themselves those those narcissistic folks who have higher superiority scores will react more quickly that suggests that superiority is a defense it's not a true belief in their own greatness and the suggestion of threat through the negative words means that they start looking for more threats and when another negative word comes up quickly they react really fast this did not happen with the positive words so those positive words like attractive aren't as activating for the they are activating their attentional systems and it makes sense because those words don't signify threat and impending shame now what the hell does all of this mean for managing narcissistic relationships it means a lot this finding gives a scientific boost to what anyone who has managed a narcissistic relationship has observed the high reactivity to anything that could be slightly perceived as a critique or an insult or a slight and this research should suggest that especially when that's the vibe negative words and a person higher in narcissism is primed for negativity based on what they are seeing or hearing they are going to react that much more quickly this article in essence provides some of the brass tacks and sort of granular substantiation of why all of us walk on eggshells around narcissistic folks because they're so quickly ready to snap when they don't like what they're hearing this research once again reminds us that our garden variety conceptualization of narcissism as a preening arrogant superior person is actually just a look at the mask a sort of window dressing and that as soon as they think bad news or criticism or anything that isn't perfect is coming the mask falls off and what is underneath that mask is their inadequacy being activated and even their attentional systems are just more tuned in to the negative stuff narcissism is in that way a personality style that is associated with greater threat perception and that greater perception of threat means that there is greater defensiveness and that is why we see the projection and the denial and the edginess it doesn't change a damn thing about your life it's just a reminder that there isn't much you can do to fix this this article though and their findings remind us that there actually is something a narcissistic person themselves could do to help fix these patterns they can actually wait a minute that moment of pause seems to be just enough to regulate but unfortunately this research suggests that when the perceived threats come too fast the person higher in narcissistic superiority reacts faster pausing and mindfulness may be the single most useful approaches in addressing narcissism but are also the hardest skills to acquire especially for people with these personalities styles now listen i am always heartened when i see that the science supports the clinical observations and the people's experiences who are going through narcissistic abuse that hair trigger response of the narcissistic personality their ability to perceive threat faster than other people that's clearly happening in the attentional centers of the brain and hey maybe that's why narcissistic people cannot pay attention when the rest of us are talking maybe it's because their attention is so focused on responding to perceived threats that may be coming from what we're saying that they don't have anything left for the rest of us one this is this finding though this research is one more reminder that you aren't the one who is seeing something that isn't there trust me it's there and it's literally at the level of how people who have narcissistic traits and in this case more of the superiority traits how they differentially process information and that can help all of us understand why these patterns so quickly can spiral out of control thanks again

Channel: DoctorRamani

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Id: rLAwIAgOoKE

Length: 9min 25sec (565 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 17 2021