Monday, July 28, 2014

The virtuous circle of #Narcissism

“Narcissism” has acquired a bad rap as a psychiatric term somehow capturing the #Zetgeist – a rhetorical trend which may not be entirely justified. A few weeks ago Anne Manne reviewed in #TheGuardian psychological research indicating “how wealth breeds narcissism” – generally speaking, the wealthier you become, the more likely you are to be a narcissistic prick. A recent study, on the other hand, has found that “companies led by narcissistic CEOs outperforming those helmed by non-narcissistic executives” (at least in the short run). Which means that giving top executives astronomical “compensation” packages should set off a virtuous psychofinancial circle: the more money CEOs get, the more narcissistic they become, the higher share price their company commands, the easier it becomes to justify even higher pay for the chief, the more narcissistic he become, and on, and on. Of course, the shoes of CEOs will need to be filled by ever more extreme narcissists as the overall personality syndrome becomes more widespread and accepted as “normal” in the age of the “selfie.”