Men tend to be more narcissistic than women, according to a study published in the American journal Psychological Bulletin.
Mirror, my beautiful mirror… In the place of a beautiful and cruel stepmother, the storytellers would have been well advised to put a man. Indeed, the male gender is even more narcissistic than its female pairs, according to a study published in the American journal Psychological Bulletin.
Will to power
To reach this conclusion, the researchers reviewed 355 studies published over the past three decades, covering a total of more than 470,000 people. To define narcissism, they relied on three criteria: the will to power, exhibitionism and the idea that everything is due to you.
However, according to their findings, men are more likely to claim certain privileges over women, and their desire for authority and domination is greater than that of women.
On the other hand, “we saw no difference in exhibitionist tendencies, which means that both men and women show as much vanity, a need to be admired and a lack of empathy,” says Emily Grijalva. , assistant professor of human resources at the University of Buffalo, New York, who conducted the study.
All narcissists
“Narcissism is linked to various mental dysfunctions of the individual including the inability to maintain lasting relationships with others, aggressiveness and unethical behavior”, writes the researcher, while acknowledging that this nasty flaw also allows to “boost self-esteem, contribute to emotional stability and the tendency to assert yourself as a leader”. In short, we are all more or less narcissistic.
Moreover, the differences between men and women pointed out in the study could as well result from stereotypes of society, developed over time and integrated by its members. Thus, the authors note that the fact that there are still far fewer women in leadership positions may in part be due to the disparity between stereotypes about femininity and leadership.
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