What People Really Think About Narcissism: 5 Insights

Sometimes, the public takes great interest in a mental health condition, and it gets intensively discussed by people without an education in clinical psychology. One such case is narcissistic personality disorder.

People with the disorder have a severely distorted perception of their own importance, an intense need to be admired, and a lack of empathy for the needs of other people. A lot of social media content and self-help literature focuses on how to deal with narcissistic people in one’s life; unfortunately, not all of it reflects the clinical facts correctly. This can be highly problematic, as sometimes the term “narcissist” is used almost as an insult, due to negative perception and stigma towards the disorder. This may have negative effects on patients suffering from narcissistic personality disorder. What has been relatively unknown so far is how people in the general public perceives narcissism.

A new study on what people think about narcissism

A new study entitled “Lots of Narcissism Out There, Treatment Needed: Perspectives on Narcissism Among the General Public”, just published in the scientific journal Personality and Mental Health, focused on understanding what people think about narcissism (Kealy and co-workers, 2026). In the study, the research team, led by scientist David Kealy from the University of British Columbia, surveyed members of the American public about their attitudes toward narcissism.

Overall, data from 815 volunteers aged 18 to 86 years was collected. Each volunteer had to answer 12 questions about their perception of narcissism, such as “There seem to be a lot of narcissistic people in the world”, and “People who are narcissistic are truly suffering”. For each question, the volunteers had to indicate a number between 1 (strongly disagree) and 5 (strongly agree). The scientists presented five key insights from their analyses.

1. People think narcissism is common, even though it is rare.

Narcissistic personality disorder is a rare disorder, with a lifetime prevalence of 0.5% to 6% (depending on the study). Yet, volunteers in the study thought that narcissism is very common, with 69% of volunteers agreeing with the statement that there are lots of narcissistic people in the world. Twenty-four percent of volunteers even indicated that they personally thought there were lots of people they personally knew in their lives who were narcissistic. Thus, people tend to severely overestimate how common narcissism is, possibly due to social media.

2. People do not want to be perceived as narcissistic.

While only a minority of people mentioned very negative attitudes towards narcissistic people (such as that they do not deserve help), more than 70% of volunteers indicated that they would hate it if other people thought they were narcissistic. Thus, people do not want to be perceived as narcissistic.

3. People do not think that narcissistic people suffer much.

Even though narcissistic personality disorder is a severe mental health condition, most volunteers in the study did not think that narcissists suffer much from their condition (only 34%). On a positive note, 72% of volunteers thought that narcissists deserve help.

4. People think that narcissists need therapy.

About 66% of volunteers agreed with the statement that narcissists need lots of therapy. But only 37% thought that therapy is effective in treating narcissism.

5. Many people think that they have personally experienced harm by a narcissistic person.

Despite the rarity of narcissistic personality disorder, about 60% of volunteers stated that they personally have experienced harm through an interaction with a narcissistic person. Most of these volunteers were female.

Take-Away

The study shows how important it is to educate the public on mental health conditions such as narcissistic personality disorder to combat distorted messaging on social media. The public tends to overestimate the number of narcissistic people but underestimate the suffering of patients and the efficacy of therapy.