Narcissistic people get more empathetic, generous and agreeable with age, according to new research into the personality trait. But although their unreasonably high sense of self-importance may mellow, they do not fully grow out of it, the study involving more than 37,000 people suggests. Those who were more narcissistic than their peers as children tended to remain that way as adults, investigators found.
And there are at least three types of narcissistic behaviour to look for, they say. Narcissist has become an insult often hurled at people who are perceived as difficult or diagreeable. We all may show some narcissistic traits at times.
Doctors use the term to describe a specific, diagnosable type of personality disorder. Although definitions can vary, common themes shared by those who have it is an unshakeable belief they are better or more deserving than other people, which might be described by others as arrogance and selfishness. The work, published in the journal Psychological Bulletin, comes from data from 51 past studies, involving 37,247 participants who ranged in age from eight to 77.
Researchers looked for three types of narcissist, based on behaviour traits: They studied what happened to these personality measures over time, based on questionnaires, and found that, generally, narcissism scores declined with age. However, the changes were slight and gradual. "Clearly, some individuals may change more strongly, but generally, you wouldn’t expect someone you knew .
