Acquired situational narcissism

Money, Fame and...Narcissism?

Most of us are aware of the basicsymptoms of narcissism. Namely, people with this personality disorderusually lack empathy, are prone to rage and aggressive behavior,constantly seek attention and glorification by others, separatethemselves from the rest of the society and are likely to bedepressed while, also, having grandiose fantasies.

Narcissism usually gets shown at anearly age. Basically, when we are small children, we are allnarcissists. However, in some cases, this does not stop with time andwe continue having this problem when we grow older.

Nevertheless, there are situationswhere narcissism knocks on one's doors, being quite late. This kindof narcissism is called acquired situational narcissism. The bestexample of narcissists of this type is the entire Hollywood set ofextremely famous and rich actors.

Too Many Immortals in the Show Business

Upon becoming vary famous and popular,actors and the likes enjoy the attention greatly. This is reasonablesince, most of them have desired this since the very moment theythought about acting in the first place. Later, however, they getused to everyone looking at them and they start ignoring all thesepeople who get attracted to the rich and famous. Another change whichaffects these mortal gods is that they start lacking empathy towardsother people, as their ego and self-confidence grows to infinity andbeyond.

Then, upon reaching this stage, manyfamous people become prone to having bouts of anger, having some kindof grandiose fantasies etc.

Still, if we are to take a closer lookat this psychological case study of acquired situational narcissism,we, the public are the ones to be blamed. If we do not believe thatpopular people are normal and regular individuals, they themselvescannot perceive themselves as such either.

Therefore, society and popular cultureis the main trigger of this kind of narcissism and, as long as allthese people consider a movie star or any other celebrity godlike,he/she is bound to fell this way too.

The Effect of Acquired SituationalNarcissism

We have no problems with being obsessedwith famous people, to a reasonable extent. However, these people canhave many problems in their lives due to behavioral changes they haveexperienced. They get detached from real life and are incapable ofleading normal lives, being good parents, they use drugs, do stupidthings and get in trouble with the law sooner or later. All thesethings happen because they do not perceive the world the same way wedo.