Narcissism, often used as a pejorative term to describe difficult or disagreeable individuals, may mellow with age, according to a recent study published in the journal Psychological Bulletin. The research analyzed data extracted from 51 previous studies involving 37,247 participants aged between eight and 77 and suggests that narcissistic traits generally decline over time.
The researchers of the study segregated narcissists based on three behavioral features: agentic narcissists, feeling superior and craving admiration; antagonistic narcissists, who view people as rivals and are incapable of showing them empathy; and neurotic narcissists, who are insecure and over-sensitized to criticism. The researchers, in general, indicated that the score of narcissism decreased with age a little bit and gradually.
“Clearly, some individuals may change more strongly, but generally, you wouldn’t expect someone you knew as a very narcissistic person to have completely changed when you meet them again after some years,” said Dr. Ulrich Orth of the University of Bern in Switzerland, lead researcher of the study. He added that although some narcissistic features are great for boosting popularity or succeeding at a career in the short term, in most instances they result in dire consequences over longer time frames due to the conflicts they cause.
Dr. Sarah Davies, a chartered counseling psychologist and expert author on the topic, stressed that it was sometimes a case of drawing a fine line between periodic arrogance or selfishness and clinical narcissism. “Narcissists tend to be envious and jealous of others and they are highly exploitative and manipulative,” she said. She added that interest in narcissism had also been swayed by the coming of social media but warned that the clinical meaning of the term can sometimes get lost.
Dr. Tennyson Lee, a consultant psychiatrist with Deancross Personality Disorder Service in London, who was not involved in the study, praised the methodology and the findings. Although narcissism does reduce with age, the reduction is not great. “Do not expect narcissism will dramatically improve at a certain age – it doesn’t,” he said, continuing, “This has implications for those who may hope for an overall significant improvement in their narcissistic partners over time.”.
Support is therefore provided to those suffering from narcissistic behavior. These days subtly infer understanding from the outcome of this research about how narcissistic traits mellow down with time—thereby giving some hope that these traits will slowly diminish with age.