Celebrity Narcissism
This doctor claims celebrities are a self-selected group of narcissists. Whereas it is certainly true that some individuals pursue acting or singing careers for the pure love of it, the great majority of celebrity-wannabes are driven largely by the outcomes fame, money and adulation. A study supports the contention that celebrities, as a group, are narcissists.
The extraordinary attention that is heaped upon celebrities, not to mention outlandish sums of money makes it easy to succumb to your own hype.
Celebrities are seldom exposed to negative feedback from those closest to them. Those in an inner circle serve as lubricants for their outlandish narcissism. The tendency of overconfidence bias.
The asymmetry of being exposed to positive, and not negative, feedback creates overconfidence bias. Negative feedback, as hard as it might be to take, serves a crucial role in guiding behavior. Failure to receive any such feedback ensures that celebrities will maintain their grandiosity.
Existential guilt is another factor behind celebrity narcissism. What makes me so special?
Postmodernism proposes that all viewpoints are welcome and none is privileged. Reality is relative. This creates a democratization of opinions. It is apparently arrogant to think that psychiatrists, physicists, evolutionary scientists, and epidemiologists might know more about their areas of expertise than, say, Oprah, Jenny McCarthy, Madonna, or Kirk Cameron.
Celebrity expertise is apparently unlimited and spans endless other domains of human import.
Gad Saad, Ph.D.
Psychology Today
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