The narcissism epidemic, collective narcissism, and the "Terri is guilty" herd mentality

A short article as a prequel for the article I wrote yesterday

Narcissism is rising in the younger generations.  One National Institutes of Health sturvey of 35,000 Americans shows that only 3% of those over 65 has ever experienced NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) symptoms in their lives while 10% of those surveyed in their 20s had.¹

The rise in narcissism is due to materialistic attitudes, psychologists and talk show hosts that preach "self love", overspending when the economy was prosperous,  and parents who put their kids on a pedestal teaching them they are "entitled".  Fueling the narcissistic culture are celebrities and the highly narcissistic television shows such as "Real Housewives" as well as other reality shows.²

One other reason narcissism has become an epidemic is the social media sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter.  These site feed and promote narcissism because they tend to become "all about ME".   They promote shallow "friendships" and is more of a contest of who has the most "friends" and how "popular" they are.³   It's shallow relationships carry over to real life and affect how they interact with people.

In Group narcissism the group self esteem is high, but unstable, since the individual members suffer from extremely low self esteem, and reflects itself onto the group self image.  There is a blindness to alternate ideas and theories.⁴   The group is right, and everyone else is "the enemy".   This ties in to the herd mentality of the "Terri is guilty" group in the Kyron Horman case.  As I posted yesterday, there is group narcissism in the herd mentality of "Terri is guilty" and they will not even discuss alternate theories or the problems with Terri being responsible for whatever happened to Kyron.  I wrote extensively on this yesterday and highly recommend reading yesterdays post (http://alternate-theories.blogspot.com/2010/09/herd-mentality-sock-puppetry-of-terri.html)  after reading the reference articles linked below:


1.  The Narcissism Epidemic  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-narcissism-epidemic/200905/is-there-epidemic-narcissism-today

2.  Narcissism Epidemic: Why There Are So Many Narcissists Now  http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/brain-and-behavior/articles/2009/04/21/narcissism-epidemic-why-there-are-so-many-narcissists-now.html

3. Survey Says Facebook Feeds Narcissism [STUDY]  http://mashable.com/2010/08/28/facebook-narcissism/

4. Collective narcissism and its social consequences http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/0/4/6/2/p204624_index.html


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