Narcissists are not easy to live with. Even co-existing with them becomes impossible when they put their needs before anyone else’s.
So far, we have talked aboutthings narcissists do to always get what they want, dealing with a narcissistic parent and one question that always exposes people with the antagonist personality trait. Now a study reveals if they are capable of truly changing with age.
Narcissism declines with age, shows study
Despite raising awareness about the mental condition and the fact most humans display traits of narcissism, there is a lack of dialogue about the impact it has on interpersonal relationships. Anybody with no choice but to deal with a narcissist wonders if they are better with age and the new study has the answer.
The study published by the American Psychological Association analyzed 37,247 participants with narcissistic traits to see if their personalities change when they become older.
The researchers looked into three factors of narcissism – agentic, antagonistic, and neurotic narcissism. “The results suggested that narcissism typically decreases from age 8 to 77 years,” the study notes.
Narcissism is defined by a sense of grandiosity and people with problematic personality traits think the world revolves around them. They have fragile egos and often live in a different reality centering their existence. They are too sensitive to criticism and tell themselves that they are always right and easily shift the blame onto others.
Any relationship with a narcissist is transactional and the victims end up losing their sense of identity and much more in an attempt to make the dysfunctional relationship work.
The personality doesn’t truly change
The study found that older narcissist may display more compassion, but they can’t separate themselves from their true personality.
It was determined that people who were more narcissistic as children did not change drastically in old age. “Thus, even if narcissism does show a normative decline, mean levels of narcissism are more stable than mean levels of many other personality constructs,” it states.
The new study aims to understand the personality disorder and changes within the condition because it not only impacts the person with NPD, but people associated with them will have their mental health compromised if they don’t learn healthy ways to cope.
