“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.”
