William Chopik

And

No, the truth is that it is present in every culture, of course, to differing degrees.

But narcissism is often labeled as this really awful thing.

And indeed, it is associated with a lot of kind of negative outcomes.

But there's also a sense in which most people have like a little bit of narcissism.

They have some degree of like, I am a little better than I am.

I think I'm entitled to this thing.

They're kind of sensitive to criticism.

So on that, that's a very human thing.

Yeah, to some degree, actually.

So, yeah, so that that's what I was saying.

It's sort of this human thing where we're all a little bit like delusional sometimes or a little bit of rational confidence could be healthy if you think in your own life.

Oh, my God, I wish I had tried for that thing, applied for that job, asked that person out on a date that, you know, there's a sense in which narcissism can be really useful.

It can help us navigate, you know, times that are really, really difficult.

But then it also causes problems, as you might imagine.

So, yeah, that's the current perspective is that there might be some benefits sometimes, but by and large, it can kind of wreak havoc for your relationships and your work and your personal life.

Yeah, exactly.

So in a way that the thing that we just talked about, like inflated sense of self-worth and irrational confidence and some hypersensitivity, that's found among a lot of the different cultures we studied.

And, you know, we studied over 50 different cultures and countries and we asked them questions about narcissism.

And one major takeaway from the study is that it did differ a little bit, but it didn't differ as much as you think.