2By high school, the emphasis on winning has reached a fever pitch. The competition for college admissions has grown so fierce that some students spend their high school years on a constant treadmill of Advanced Placement courses, SAT test prep sessions, and meetings with privately hired consultants, costing up to $40,000, who help them craft the perfect application essay. Even some state universities now reject three-fourths of their applicants. Some parents “help” their kids compete by doing their homework and projects for them, even through college. Doctors report that they are seeing more and more repetitive stress injuries among younger and younger children as kids play one sport for longer and much more intensely than in the casual pickup games of generations past. Parents fight with one another at children’s sports games; in 2000, one father beat another to death at a kids’ hockey practice.

3In a convenient combination of the American core cultural values of self-admiration and competition, many people believe that always putting yourself first is necessary to compete. If it can help us get ahead, we’re interested, and if it’s something fun like self-admiration, sign us up. “Show me someone without an ego,” opined Donald Trump, “and I’ll show you a loser.”

4When our study on narcissism over the generations was covered in the press in 2007 and 2008, a large number of people responded by saying that narcissism was necessary, especially in an increasingly competitive world. This is yet another example of our culture’s blurred distinction between self-worth and narcissism, and the increasing acceptance of doing whatever it takes to get ahead. A University of Michigan student wrote online, “The people conducting this research didn’t have to deal with the amount of competition we face daily. We have to be confident and focused on ourselves in order to succeed. So if our generation seems a little more obsessed with the ‘Me’ than those before us, it is not our fault.” San Diego State junior Camille Clasby wrote in the Daily Aztec, “Today’s college students have more pressure and stress put on them than in past years. The way we’re able to meet and exceed the challenges we face is by believing in ourselves. Feeling special is a great form of motivation.” Lauren, 27 and from Atlanta, wrote in a New York Times comments section, “Aren’t self-confidence and belief in oneself basic requirements for success in one’s personal and professional life? If that’s the definition of a narcissist, proud to be one. And a successful one, at that;).”

5Mike Nolan, a Purdue University engineering student, was even more direct in the Exponent. “The country I’ve grown up in rewards individuals who ‘grab life by the balls,’” he wrote. “So for all you psychologists that believe this is some kind of mental disorder, perhaps you should take the stick-up-your-ass-ism inventory and then go cry about something stupid. Mike Nolan, for one, is going to continue working to achieve big things.”

6Some educators also agreed that self-admiration and even narcissism are necessary for success. “We have a society in which narcissistic behavior is a good quality to have,” said Marc Flacks, a professor of sociology at California State University, Long Beach interviewed in the Los Angeles Times. “This is a bottom-line society, so students are smart to seek the most direct route to the bottom line. If you don’t have a me-first attitude, you won’t succeed.” Bob Portnoy, director of counseling and psychological services at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, noted in the Lincoln Journal Star, “In this country, the idea of valuing oneself is critical to success. And to me, that’s healthy narcissism.”

7All of these well-intentioned folks take it for granted that a high level of self-confidence, even narcissism, leads to success. There’s only one thing wrong with this popular, pervasive, and deeply rooted belief: it’s not true.

8
Narcissism and Success
Narcissists love to win, but in most settings they aren’t that great at actually winning, For example, college students with inflated views of themselves (who think they are better than they actually are) make poorer grades the longer they are in college. They are also more likely to drop out. In another study, students who flunked an introductory psychology course had by far the highest narcissism scores, and those who made A’s had the lowest. Apparently the narcissists were wildly unrealistic about how they were doing and persisted in their lofty illusions when they should have dropped the course (or perhaps done something radical, like study).

9In other words, overconfidence backfires. This makes some sense; narcissists are lousy at taking criticism and learning from mistakes. They also like to blame everyone and everything except themselves for their shortcomings. Second, they lack motivation to improve because they believe they have already made it: when you were born on home plate, why run around the bases? Third, overconfidence itself can lead to poor performance. If you think you know all of the answers, there’s no need to study. Then you take the test and fail. Oops.

10In one series of studies, people answered general knowledge questions like “Who founded the Holy Roman Empire?” They then rated their confidence in their answers and were given the chance to place a monetary bet on the outcome. Unknown to the participants, these were “fair bets,” so someone who was 99% confident of their answer would make less money than someone who was only 60% sure. This is similar to horse racing, where the favorites have smaller pay-offs (a l-to-25 pony pays off more than the 1-to-2 sure thing), or football, where there is a “point spread” for each game.

11Narcissists stunk at this game. Their performance on the questions was the same as everyone else’s, but they were more confident of their answers and thus bet too much and too often. Narcissists also showed their trademark decoupling from reality: they started off saying they would do better than others, but they did worse. Undaunted, the narcissists continued to claim that they had outperformed others on the test and would do well in the future. At least for a short period of time, narcissists were able to live in a fantasy world where they thought they were successful. They were even able to maintain these beliefs in the face of failure. Narcissism is a great predictor of imaginary success—but not of actual success.

12Narcissists also love to be know-it-alls, which psychologists call “overclaiming.” You say to your know-it-all friend, “Have you heard of jazz great Billy Strayhorn?” or “Do you know Paul Klee’s paintings?” or “Do you know when the Treaty of Versailles was signed?” and the know-it-all says, “Of course.” You might be tempted to ask him, “Have you heard of jazz great Milton Silus?” or “Do you know John Kormat’s paintings?” or “Do you know when the Treaty of Monticello was signed?” to see if he still answers “of course”—even though none of these things actually exists. That’s overclaiming. One study had people answer 150 questions, including thirty made-up items. Narcissists were champion overclaimers—they were so smart they even knew things that didn’t exist.

13Narcissists have a high tolerance for risks, because they are so confident they are right and that things will go well. For this reason, narcissists are successful when investing in bull markets, when their overconfidence and willingness to take risks pays off. In a study using a simulated stock market, narcissists did better than others when the market was headed up. But their superior performance disappeared as soon as the market turned south—then narcissists lost their shirts due to their higher tolerance for risk. This, in part, is what happened in the mortgage market during the late 2000s: Both buyers and lenders were narcissistically overconfident and took too many risks. When many buyers couldn’t pay their overly optimistic mortgages, the market turned downward, eventually taking much of Wall Street with it. In the short term, narcissism and overconfidence paid off in spades, but when failure came it was even more spectacular than usual. In the end, the financial crisis was the worst since the Great Depression.

14It’s tempting to believe that narcissism might still be beneficial when leading a large company. Not so, according to Jim Collins, the author of the bestselling business book Good to Great. In an exhaustive study, Collins found that companies that moved from being “merely good to truly great” did so because they had what he calls “Level 5” leaders. These CEOs are not the charismatic, ultraconfident figures you would expect. Instead, they are humble, avoid the limelight, never rest on their laurels, and continuously try to prove themselves. Collins profiles Darwin E. Smith, the former CEO of Kimberly-Clark, who wore cheap suits and shunned publicity. In his twenty years of service as CEO, Smith oversaw stock returns that bested the market four times over. Instead of showing in-your-face braggadocio, Smith quietly kept at his work. “I never stopped trying to become qualified for the job,” he said.

15Collins’s study of companies did not originally set out to find a profile of CEOs; he had been looking for company characteristics that would explain business success. But the profile of the humble but determined CEO came up over and over. These CEOs were also excellent team players, something else narcissists aren’t. “Throughout our interviews with such executives,” Collins writes, “they would instinctively deflect discussion about their own role. When pressed to talk about themselves, they’d say things like ‘I don’t think I can take much credit for what happened. We were blessed with marvelous people.’”

16In other words, Collins found that the best corporate leaders were not narcissistic or even particularly self-confident. Companies with short-term success, however, were often headed by attention-seeking, arrogant leaders. In these companies, Collins writes, “we noted the presence of a gargantuan ego that contributed to the demise or continued mediocrity of the company.” This lines up well with the academic research on narcissism and judgment: in the end, narcissists’ overconfidence undermines their performance.

17Business professors Arijit Chatterjee and Donald Hambrick studied CEO narcissism and company outcomes. In more than 100 technology companies, they found that the more narcissistic the CEO of a company was, the more volatile the company’s performance. Apparently the narcissistic leaders were using dramatic highly public corporate strategies. For example, they might buy up a smaller competitor or start a new “cutting-edge” business venture. When those strategic decisions paid off, the company did really well; when they didn’t, it was a disaster. Less narcissistic leaders, in contrast, produced a more steady performance. Given that volatility in performance is considered a negative in the valuation of companies (in economics, volatility is seen as “risk”), the narcissistic CEOs were not ideal.

18Narcissists are also not popular bosses. Employees rate narcissistic managers as average in problem-solving skills but below average in interpersonal skills and integrity, two qualities considered very important for management. Another study found that while narcissists saw themselves as excelling at leadership, their peers thought they were below average.

19Despite the iffy performance record of narcissists in leadership roles, narcissists are more likely than others to emerge as leaders in an organization. In one study led by Amy Brunell, groups of previously unacquainted students worked together on a task. Narcissists quickly came to dominate these interactions; they saw themselves as leaders, and so did others in the group. A study of business executives found that narcissists emerged as leaders in these real-world contexts as well. However, narcissists’ rise to leadership is short-lived. Over time, group members notice narcissists’ negative qualities and stop viewing them as leaders. Unfortunately, by then they were the boss and the group had to listen to them.

20Enron—the company made up of “the smartest guys in the room” that cooked its books and subsequently imploded—is a microcosm of the downfalls of narcissism. As Malcolm Gladwell argues in his essay “The Talent Myth,” “Enron was the Narcissistic Corporation—a company that took more credit for success than was legitimate, that did not acknowledge responsibility for its failures, that shrewdly sold the rest of us on its genius.” Gladwell argues that creating a great organization involves cultivating great teams of individuals who can work well together—not just individual superstars. This is yet another reason narcissists are often not very successful in the long run: they would rather take all the glory for themselves than share it with a team.

21In sports and business, teams that work well together often triumph over groups more focused on individual success. Despite paying its superstars (Alex Rodriguez) ungodly amounts of money. ($275 million), the New York Yankees haven’t done much lately. Many recent World Series champions have been teams that worked well together rather than relying on a few stars. The 2002 World Series winning Anaheim Angels are a good example: Their catcher could barely run, their shortstop was 5’6”, and only two players made the All-Star team, but, boy, could they rally when they needed to.

22This strategy works in basketball, as well. The Princeton Tigers, a team devoid of any huge superstars, developed a highly disciplined, complex, and fast-moving team-centered offense that allowed them to beat teams with higher levels of individual talent. Slate.com columnist Richard Just wrote that the Princeton offense has a sense of virtue to it: “Specifically, the virtues of selflessness and intellect. Players don’t do much dribbling in the Princeton offense; shots come almost exclusively off assists, and there is little room for the individual to shine.” This kind of teamwork shows how the individual can benefit when efforts go toward the success of the team. Narcissists, however, would rather seek individual glory than work as a team.

23The U.S. men’s basketball “Dream Team” at the 2004 Summer Olympics was instead a showcase of individual talent. The original 1992 Dream Team, formed when the Olympic rules changed to allow professional athletes, was a roster of all-stars, including Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Michael Jordan. The 1992 Dream Team had no problem dominating the competition and winning the gold. This all-star approach worked for the next several Olympics, with the U.S. winning gold at each. By 2004, however, the other teams had improved and the U.S. failed to change its strategy. At the 2004 Olympics, the Dream Team, including Tim Duncan and Allen Iverson, lost to Puerto Rico. They next lost to Lithuania. Thanks to a victory over Spain, the Dream Team ended up with a bronze medal, following the well-known basketball powerhouses of Argentina and Italy (yes, we’re being sarcastic). In 2008, the U.S. recovered and won gold, in part because they fielded a team that worked together instead of a piecemeal group of superstars. They also went by the more humble moniker “Redeem Team.”

24In short, a group of superstars is not always as good as a team comprised of less capable individuals. Take, for example, chickens. Yes, chickens. If you’re in the poultry business, you want your chickens to lay as many eggs as possible. Researchers first tried a Dream Team approach, taking the best-performing chickens from each room and putting them together. This technique backfired—the chickens started laying fewer eggs. Apparently the superstar chickens owed their success to taking resources from the less dominant chickens in their original groups (who knew there were narcissistic chickens?). In the new group, the superstar chickens wasted their time and energy fighting for individual dominance and resources and laid fewer eggs. In some cases, farmers had to remove the superstar chickens’ beaks to prevent them from injuring each other as they tried to establish a “pecking order.” Choosing chickens that got along, however, worked well—they produced more eggs than the Dream Team chickens and were cooperative enough to keep their beaks. If you’ve ever worked in a group with more than one narcissist, you’ve probably wished for the human version of beak removal.

25There is one exception to the rule that narcissism doesn’t lead to success. Narcissists are good at individual—though not necessarily group—public performance. When narcissists can receive public recognition and admiration for their performances, they try harder and do better than non-narcissists. One lab study tested this by having a group of students write down as many uses for a knife as they could within twelve minutes (a common test of creativity). When individual performance was recognized by putting each person’s name on the board with his or her number of creative uses, narcissists performed very well. When the credit went only to their group, however, narcissists didn’t try very hard and performed fairly poorly. This lack of effort with a group will make a narcissist a liability in business, where much work is done in groups and individual work isn’t always publicly recognized. But in acting and solo singing, narcissists feed on the glory of the spotlight. So narcissism might be beneficial in a situation like trying out for American Idol or a reality TV show. Notice we said trying out. Once narcissists have to work with other people—which in real life and even in most reality TV they almost always do—their performance tanks, and reality sets in.