The reason everyone seems to have NPD is because the people judging aren't trained psychologists or psychiatrists.<p>People confuse egocentrism (self-centeredness) with narcissism. Many people are considered egocentric today because of only-child syndrome, when you don't get taught how to get along with others when you're young then you're likely to end up egocentric.<p>NPD is only present in 1% of people, but is generally higher in clinical tests. Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) presents 3% in males and 1% in females. So it's actually very unlikely one of your close friends would actually have this disorder.<p>Most people carry some traits of NPD, but it's all relative. "#2) is preoccupied with fantasies of ... ideal love" well that nails virtually every female character I've ever seen, I mean watch 5 seconds of Sex and the City and tell me I'm wrong.
So the article points at it being a psychological condition - fair enough - and, as with many conditions, exacerbated or originated by one's parenting. I can swallow that.<p>But the mention of consumers believing they deserved big, shiny houses financed by bad debt got me. Surely that was as much a problem with society's attitudes to debt, money, and rewards - including pressure to keep up with the Joneses - as the person's own narcissism?<p>It's one thing to think you deserve a shiny new house, or computer, or whatever, and quite another to have society <i>enabling</i> that narcissism by giving you credit. It obviously depends on the person, but having recently been offered a credit deal - even in this economy! - that really shouldn't have been extended to me* , I'm very aware of what some people will throw at you to flatter your vanity, and I do think it's part of the mix too.<p>* I rejected it, but my inner narcissist had a big cry about it.
There is an interesting article in this month's Skeptic magazine that discusses the detrimental effects the self-esteem movement has had in the educational system and it's failure to produce high achieving students. Here's a paragraph talking about the link to NPD:<p>"Twenge, who is also a psychologist at San Diego State University, examined the responses of 16,475 college students who'd completed the NPI (Narcissistic Personality Inventory) between 1982 and 2006. She found a 30-percent jump in students who scored 'above average' for narcissism between those two end dates - a period of intense self-esteem building activity throughout American culture".
Once again I couldn't read the article because it has too little information (facts, to be more accurate) per sentence and that's why I beleive HN is not the right place to post the link. Seriously, it seems like wasting time and I can smell this journalistic approach from the first sentences. Hackers don't write like that, do they?
Although this article was interesting, it gives a pretty hazy and sometimes inaccurate description of NPD (it seems to confuse the dissorder with antisocial personality dissorder at times).