Authors: Jean M. Twenge, W. Keith Campbell
ISBN-13: 9781416575993, ISBN-10: 1416575995
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group
Date Published: April 2010
Edition: (Non-applicable)
Jean M. Twenge, Ph.D., is a widely published associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University. Her research has appeared in Time, USA Today, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and she has been featured on Today and Dateline and National Public Radio's All Things Considered. She holds degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan. Dr. Twenge lives with her husband in San Diego, California.
W. Keith Campbell, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Georgia, is the author of more than 65 scientific journal articles and book chapters and the book, When You Love a Man Who Loves Himself: How to Deal with a One-way Relationship (Sourcebooks, 2005). He has published more than 30 journal articles and chapters on narcissism, more than any other academic researcher. He is also a contributing author of the study on the rise in narcissism covered by the Associated Press. His research has appeared in USA Today, Newsweek, and The Washington Post, and he has been featured on Fox News’ The Big Story and made numerous radio appearances. He holds a BA from the University of California at Berkeley, an MA from San Diego State University, and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Athens, Georgia, with his wife and daughter.
Narcissism—an inflated view of the self—is everywhere. Public figures say it’s what makes them stray from their wives. Parents teach it by dressing children in T-shirts that say "Princess." Teenagers and young adults hone it on Facebook, and celebrity newsmakers have elevated it to an art form. And it’s what’s making people depressed, lonely, and buried under piles of debt.
Jean Twenge’s influential first book, Generation Me, spurred a national debate with its depiction of the challenges twenty- and thirty-somethings face in today’s world—and the fallout these issues create for educators and employers. Now, Dr. Twenge turns her focus to the pernicious spread of narcissism in today’s culture, which has repercussions for every age group and class. Dr. Twenge joins forces with W. Keith Campbell, Ph.D., a nationally recognized expert on narcissism, to explore this new plague in The Narcissism Epidemic, their eye-opening exposition of the alarming rise of narcissism and its catastrophic effects at every level of society. Even the world economy has been damaged by risky, unrealistic overconfidence. Drawing on their own extensive research as well as decades of other experts’ studies, Drs. Twenge and Campbell show us how to identify narcissism, minimize the forces that sustain and transmit it, and treat it or manage it where we find it. Filled with arresting, alarming, and even amusing stories of vanity gone off the tracks (would you like to hire your own personal paparazzi?), The Narcissism Epidemic is at once a riveting window into the consequences of narcissism, a prescription to combat the widespread problems it causes, and a probing analysis of the culture at large.
Twenge (Generation Me) and Campbell (When You Love a Man Who Loves Himself) argue that the U.S. is suffering from an epidemic of narcissism, as real and as dangerous as the more widely reported obesity epidemic. Although Christopher Lasch's 1979 bestseller The Culture of Narcissism identified the phenomenon, this book draws on far more extensive research findings to claim that one in 10 Americans in their 20s suffers from narcissistic personality disorder, a psychocultural affliction and unanticipated consequence of the emphasis placed on self-esteem and self-promotion in modern parenting and the media and fed by Internet social networking sites that reinforce an obsessive need for admiration and ego-enhancement. At times, the authors sound like old scolds, but they themselves are members of the "Me Generation" and support their generalizations with persuasive evidence, particularly data derived from surveying 37,000 college students. Suggesting that the current financial crisis is, in part, a consequence of the narcissism epidemic affords the book an unexpected up-to-the-minute dimension, and the authors conclude with a dash of optimism, positing that straitened circumstances might cure Americans of all ages of narcissism. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Foreword to the Paperback Edition ix
Introduction: The Growing Narcissism in American Culture 1
Section 1 The diagnosis
Chapter 1 The Many Wonders of Admiring Yourself 13
Chapter 2 The Disease of Excessive Self-Admiration and the Top Five Myths About Narcissism 18
Chapter 3 Isn't Narcissism Beneficial, Especially in a Competitive World?: Challenging Another Myth About Narcissism 40
Chapter 4 How Did We Get Here?: Origins of the Epidemic 57
Section 2 Root Causes of the Epidemic
Chapter 5 Parenting: Raising Royalty 73
Chapter 6 Superspreaders!: The Celebrity and Media Transmission of Narcissism 90
Chapter 7 Look at Me on MySpace: Web 2.0 and the Quest for Attention 107
Chapter 8 I Deserve the Best at 18% APR: Easy Credit and the Repeal of the Reality Principle 123
Section 3 Symptoms of Narcissism
Chapter 9 Hell Yeah, I'm Hot!: Vanity 141
Chapter 10 The Spending Explosion and its Impact on the Environment: Materialism 160
Chapter 11 Seven Billion Kinds of Special: Uniqueness 180
Chapter 12 The Quest for Infamy and the Rise of Incivility: Antisocial Behavior 195
Chapter 13 The Chocolate Cake Trap: Relationship Troubles 211
Chapter 14 All Play and No Work: Entitlement 230
Chapter 15 God Didn't Create You to Be Average: Religion and Volunteering 244
Section 4 Prognosis and Treatment
Chapter 16 The Prognosis: How Far, and for How Long, Will Narcissism Spread? 259
Chapter 17 Treating the Epidemic of Narcissism 280
Appendix: How Individuals Affect Culture, and Culture Affects Individuals 305
Bibliography 309
Acknowledgments 321
Index 327