Are you a Narcissist?

RedFox said:
Buddy said:
[quote author=Yas]
.. I would say that the reason may be different for each of us,

I agree, and to futher complicate things, the current psychology literature on best management practices offers no consensus on using praise and each has their own evidence to back themselves up. On the one hand, there is the advice to praise and praise often - even to excess because people suffer from its lack. On the other hand, there is the advice to avoid praise because it's manipulative and will be perceived as such thereby inducing resentment as just one negative reaction possible.

So, for two different people, a reflexive 'run from praise' reaction could be both, a valid defense mechanism related to feeling like they're being set up for a downfall, or the 'flight' response could simply be a 'solution' for feeling a gap between how good someone says a person is and that person's own, poorer, internal self-evaluation.

In any case, it's hard to say that avoiding praise is a 'program' in and of itself, and that if it is, that it's good or bad for you.

Personally, I've most often perceived praise as superficial manipulation unless it comes with a believable description of how something I did actually benefitted someone. But maybe that's just me? I don't know.

fwiw the common underlying mechanism of automatic behaviours is that of the emotional component, no matter the personal experience.
So when it comes to things you 'run from', it is the feeling a situation brings up that you can't handle and run from.

Learning to observe the feeling and learning how to relate to it differently changes the behaviour, or so it seems. :)
[/quote]
Thanks for this, there are many things that I can apply this to. Especially various kinds of social interaction involving new people which makes me so nervous.
 
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