How narcissism affects the partnership

The consequences of conspicuous self-indulgence Social psychologists have studied Bochum

Bochum - If the partner's contribution to the relationship constantly overestimated or does the partner, for their efforts, they would get back too little, should be the warning signal, so Bochum social psychologist for Werner Bierhoff. A distorted self-perception may indicate interpret namely narcissism - in the strict sense, a flashy self-indulgence. The consequences would not be underestimated, can such relationships but have an exploitative tendencies.

In three recent studies at the Ruhr-University Bochum is about clinically normal "normal" narcissism. According to the University, the so-called narcissistic personality disorder is spreading worldwide like a virus.

Study design

In the first study related to a psychologist about 250 students aged around 25 years. All had lived for about 42 months in a committed relationship partly in their household. In another study, healthy self-esteem was specially recorded so as to exclude it as a possible influence factors. Lastly, the third study involved 50 pairs of parents of students, on average 51 years old and 26 years were married.

The team led by Bierhoff measured on the narcissistic personality inventory (NPI) first, the individual characteristics of narcissism. Finally, the pairs each rated their own attractiveness and that of the partner: It was about the perception of the external appearance to status issues such as education and income, or the attraction of the partners.

Results

Significantly elevated levels of narcissism occurred in about one-fifth of the surveyed students. This also means that U.S. study confirms, in the back in 1986 one in seven students reached higher values, which increased until the conclusion of the investigation in 2006, steadily, as the university.

The consequences of narcissism for the partnership, now showed the Bochum study: the narcissistic the person being interviewed, the more they overestimate their own attractiveness and with it's own contributions to the partnership. The distorted self-perception expressed in the fact that narcissists assess the performance of the partner less than his own and hardly worthy. The narcissistic person in the relationship exerts constant pressure on their partner.

At parents couples the answers were indeed less narcissistic, but even among them was the narcissism with a higher evaluation of their own contributions connected.Furthermore, it was here an interesting phenomenon: the custom over-estimation of a parent was associated with lower self-assessment with the other parent. These complementary judgments ultimately led to a consensus assessment of both partners. Regarding the gender differences had not shown the way, neither the students nor the parents pairs. (Red
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