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The psychology of narcissism - W. Keith Campbell

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Narcissism isn’t just a personality type that shows up in advice columns; it’s actually a set of traits classified and studied by psychologists. But what causes it? And can narcissists improve on their negative traits? W. Keith Campbell describes the psychology behind the elevated and sometimes detrimental self-involvement of narcissists.

Additional Resources for you to Explore

Interested in learning more on narcissism? Here are the abstracts for two good papers: Narcissism at the crossroads: Phenotypic description of pathological narcissism across clinical theory, social/personality psychology, and psychiatric diagnosis and Grandiose and vulnerable narcissism: A nomological network analysis. These papers describing vulnerable and grandiose narcissism can be found on Google scholar or at your local university library.

The clinical description of narcissistic personality can be found in the . But, for a quick overview, there are web resources like those found at the Mayo Clinic website or at this Medscape link.

For classroom discussion, here are three relatively short and interesting papers on narcissism and celebrity, social media, and presidential leadership, respectively: Narcissism and celebrity, Narcissism and social networking web sites, and The double-edged sword of grandiose narcissism implications for successful and unsuccessful leadership among US Presidents.

There are also some wonderful books on the topic of narcissism. For an extensive edited volume on narcissism, see:
The handbook of narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder: Theoretical approaches, empirical findings, and treatments. John Wiley & Sons.

Interested in narcissism and culture? The narcissism epidemic: Living in the age of entitlement. Simon and Schuster will have your answers.

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Meet The Creators

  • Educator W. Keith Campbell
  • Script Editor Eleanor Nelsen
  • Director Hector Herrera
  • Producer Pazit Cahlon
  • Sound Designer Nick Sewell
  • Narrator Addison Anderson

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