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The You are not so smart podcast. Episode 247. Research into the true nature of narcissism. Nisa: What does it mean that this resonates so much with people? Why does this resonate so much withPeople? That's the same question both Pascal Wallach and Mary Kowalchik, psychologists at NYU asked me when I reached out to them after seeing their research all over the internet a few weeks back.

In this episode we explore what narcissism is (and what is most-definitely is not).

There is a form of narcissism which has been, up until now, confused with psychopathy. But a new paper, the result of years of experiments, suggests narcissists are not psychopaths, and psychopaths are not narcissists.

In the psychological literature, narcissism comes in two varieties. Grandiose narcissists tend to really, truly love themselves and heavily manipulate their social environment for personal gain. Vulnerable narcissists don’t love themselves, not their true selves. Vulnerable narcissists love their image, and they are highly aware of the fact that it is an image and work very hard to prevent anyone else realizing that. According to the research explored in this episode, there is no such thing as a grandiose narcissist – that’s just another way to describe a psychopath.

Vulnerable narcissists like Don Draper in Mad Men cope with their insecurity by donning a mask, and then spend most of their lives protecting that mask out of a fear of what will happen if people ever see what it hides.