Narcissists Can Be Identified By Their Facebook Accounts - Psychologists | Hacker News Reader

Narcissists Can Be Identified By Their Facebook Accounts - Psychologists

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8 pointsjkopelman11 comments

The article didn't say how I one can tell narcisists on facebook, but I guess the actual report does. Maybe I can write a facebook app that tells you if a user is a narcisist... What other personality disorders could we screen for?

Yes, it does - it says that people who have dozens or hundreds of friends ("numerous yet shallow relationships") and whose primary profile pictures are glamor shots rather than candid shots (i.e., are intended to give an self-promoting representation rather than a personal one) probably lean towards narcissism.

I wonder if the observers would have been more accurate if they had used the Brunswikian lens model or some other tool instead of just eyeballing it. It looks like the observers were basing their judgments too heavily on self-directed identity claims.

So having lots of friends and flattering pictures of your self makes you a narcissist?

And here I thought I was alone in thinking everyone who plasters their pictures on the internet is self obsessed.

there's a hard number limit for how many good relationships you can realistically have with people. personally I think someone with say 500 'friends' either is a psuedo celeb or collects people like pokemon for their social network site

Yeah, exactly. And it makes it really hard to do anything useful on Facebook.

I only have 54 friends on it and I get useful info, and really sparse updates. It's useful rather than addictive.

What does it say about me that I don't have a Facebook account at all?

That you're not in a social environment that encourages Facebook.

I'm in college, so it's much more useful to me.

Peer pressure is the reason you use Facebook?

According to the post, narcissism is not just being 'self-obsessed,' but rather preferring breadth over depth in social relationships.

Thus, they specifically pointed out that having a profile picture is not narcissistic, but using a glamour shot rather than a candid snapshot is narcissistic. My guess would be that the glamour shot--which represents you as you aren't--is there to foster attraction from people who don't know you well, while a candid snapshot reinforces your image with people you already know.

So basically a socially affecting disorder will manifest itself on a social website? Shocking revelation!

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