How to Identify a Narcissist – 7 Top Traits

We all have that one friend, family or colleague who we tag as narcissist, the ones who just cannot get over their own selves!

That one friend who cannot stop clicking selfies of himself/herself, that family member who goes on announcing how grand his/her life is on social media, that colleague who expects lifelong gratitude for a little bit of help that he/she provided, so on and so forth.

However, do we exactly know what narcissism is? And when we tag people as narcissists, is that actually right? Do they really suffer from the narcissism disorder?

Most importantly, how do we identify narcissists so that we can try to get help for them before it is too late?

Who is a Narcissist?

A narcissist is an individual who has too much self-love or self-admiration. In simple words, when we notice excessive self-admiration in a person, especially towards his/her own physical appearance, we call the person a narcissist.

If we look at the psychological definition of a narcissist, it talks about an excessively selfish individual who believes his/her talents are great and craves for admiration from others. This happens to be an important trait in his/her personality.

Going to the psychoanalysts’ definition of narcissism, it is characterized by extreme self-centeredness arising from the lack of ability to distinguish self from external objects during childhood or due to some mental disorder.

So it is quite clear that narcissism is a lot more than a person taking too many selfies. So how do we identify a narcissist?

Let’s see the 7 most common personality traits that narcissists have.

1) Blaming Others

Since narcissists think no end of themselves and admire themselves all the time, they do not think that they can do anything wrong, or commit any mistakes.

As a result, in case of any problems, you will see narcissists always blaming others. They can never accept their own mistakes.

2) Lack of Empathy

Empathy refers to feeling for others or being able to put oneself in someone else’s shoes and understanding their problems and issues. One of the hallmark traits of people with narcissistic personality disorder is their complete lack of empathy.

Since they are consumed by their own selves, they just cannot put themselves in another person’s shoes and understand the other person’s experiences. They just can’t be empathetic towards others.

3) Expectation of gratitude

The egotistical person will never share the things you have done for them. They focus on the negative and the things that are missing at the moment.

Do not expect gratitude… ever. They are incapable of taking attention off of themselves. However, they will claim and retell all that they have done for you without a problem and expect gratitude.

Dr. Pavel Somov writes that, “As a narcissist, perhaps the only way for you to feel special is to command special treatment, to insist on unquestioning compliance with your wishes from others, to demand nothing less than perfection from others.”

4) Superficial Charm

Narcissists usually reflect superficial personality traits such as charm and charisma. Firstly they crave admiration which is why this superfluous charisma is generated, secondly because they receive admiration from these, this becomes a habit and in fact a personality trait.

Often you will find narcissists putting down and blaming family members or people from his/her inner circles but reflect a huge amount of charm and charisma to his/her outer world.

5) Putting other people down

Another behavioral trait that narcissists show is that of putting other people down. The craving for admiration that they have often leads them to talk or behave in a certain way wherein another individual is put down and thereby take themselves higher (read become more admirable).

Basically they reinstate themselves by dishing or degrading someone else or their achievements.

6) World’s perception to be wrong

While most narcissists are often self-consumed and arrogant people, there are many who look depressed and even angry at the world. This is because they think that the world is not realizing their importance or not giving the amount of admiration that he/she deserves.

This is one of the reasons why some narcissists also are quite depressed and in pain.

7) Entitlement and rage

Since narcissists think themselves to be special, they think that everywhere they go they deserve to be specially treated by everyone. They have this sort of ‘entitlement’ ingrained in their personality.

So when they do not get what they think they deserve they erupt in rage.

Narcissists characteristically have short temper which they can lose at the drop of a hat!

 

 

Conclusion

As a conclusion it can be safely said that narcissism personality disorder is an identified psychological disorder and arises out of a lot of life issues. It is just not admiring how one looks and taking selfies.

It is pretty serious and people suffering from that need help.

So now that you know how to spot a narcissist, and if you have a loved one who sounds like this, please see to it that they get help before it ruins his/her life and his/her relationships.