A criminal psychologist has revealed a key indicator that you might be dealing with a narcissist.
The term ‘narcissist’ is often used to describe people with toxic traits, such as an ex-partner or a difficult relative. You might have even encountered someone you believe fits this description.
The Mayo Clinic describes narcissism as a mental health disorder where individuals possess ‘an unreasonably high sense of their own importance.’ These individuals crave admiration and attention, yet they lack empathy and care for others.
Due to these traits, narcissists often face various challenges in their personal relationships, work, school, and occasionally, legal issues.
Dr. Julia Shaw, a German-Canadian criminal psychologist, regularly engages with murderers and psychopaths. She shares her experiences on her BBC Sounds true crime podcast, Bad People.
In her professional journey, the 38-year-old psychologist has demonstrated how law enforcement techniques can sometimes lead individuals to confess or recall crimes they haven’t committed.
Dr. Shaw has now shared valuable insights on recognizing genuine narcissists in society.
Speaking during an episode of Honesty Box, Dr. Shaw mentioned: “People love this term right now, don’t they? Narcissist,” indicating that anyone from a parent to a therapist could exhibit narcissistic traits.
“Narcissism is a personality disorder,” she elaborated, noting that it can be identified by posing ‘specific kinds of questions’.
Psychology research has narrowed down the identification process from 20 questions to just one defining question, known as the ‘single item narcissism scale’.
“Which is literally just the question, ‘Are you a narcissist?'” she stated.
Though this might appear to be a question a narcissist would evade, Dr. Shaw emphasized the question’s surprising ‘usefulness’.
“How do you spot a narcissist? Ask them,” she explained. A narcissist might respond, ‘Yeah but like, I am better than most people. It’s a realistic appraisal of myself,’ reflecting their overconfidence and inflated self-view.
Dr. Shaw cautioned against the casual use of the term, as it can ‘devalue the terms like narcissist in contexts that matter, like in a criminal context’.
She further explained: “It’s not useful because you’re just angry at somebody in real life, in normal sort of everyday life. So I think we need to be incredibly careful not to use this therapeutic language in this really casual, overly confident, inaccurate way because it takes away from context where it really matters.”
Her perspective is shared as a true crime expert, who also hosts the TV series Murder in Mind on the True Crime Channel, and emphasizes that neither gender is inherently ‘evil’.
“I don’t like the term ‘evil’, but certainly in terms of crime, I mean almost all crime is perpetrated by men and also the victims are most likely to be men,” Dr. Shaw noted.
“So I think there it’s pretty clear that there’s a gender issue going on in terms of crime and rule breaking and anger and especially violent crimes, but all kinds of crimes really.”