Do narcissistic people typically know they're narcissistic?
It doesn't matter. The narcissist is not psychologically equipped to use this information, if they even have it. Narcissists will more likely attempt to use their self-awareness against you for their own benefit semi-unconsciously. Narcissism is a reaction to deep childhood trauma that cannot be healed with drugs or therapy in figuratively 99.9% of cases.
"Have you been staring into a pool of water for a very long time?"
If your answer is yes: you're a narcissist
If your answer is no: you're probably not a narcissist
/s
When Narcissus died the pool of his pleasure changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, and the Oreads came weeping through the woodland that they might sing to the pool and give it comfort.
And when they saw that the pool had changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, they loosened the green tresses of their hair and cried to the pool and said, `We do not wonder that you should mourn in this manner for Narcissus, so beautiful was he.'
`But was Narcissus beautiful?' said the pool.
`Who should know that better than you?' answered the Oreads. `Us did he ever pass by, but you he sought for, and would lie on your banks and look down at you, and in the mirror of your waters he would mirror his own beauty.'
And the pool answered, `But I loved Narcissus because, as he lay on my banks and looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw ever my own beauty mirrored.'
This reputation then changes the more people know them. I wonder how that's possible for attractiveness though? You'd think people's perceptions of that wouldn't change.
Also if narcissists are generally regarded as attractive does that mean they are, and in this one dimension they aren't totally out of touch?
Because narcissism is almost always driven by a deep feeling of trauma, inadequacy, and insecurity which was coped for by delusions of grandiosity - this comes out in various ways, and to various degrees of success based on how high functioning they are.
A low functioning narcissist may be unable to get themselves in physical shape, or dress well, or groom themselves, or may have terrible plastic surgery, etc. and resort to attacking naysayers and spouting clear delusion that is easy to identify.
A high functioning narcissist may be working out at the gym regularly, groom themselves well, and had any obvious flaws fixed with (high quality) plastic surgery - and be objectively physically attractive. They may be well practiced in debate and oratory skills, and have spent time improving social skills. These are relatively rare, as it takes SOME degree of awareness that these are not already perfect to get here, which a Narcissist will struggle with. There is a non-trivial overlap with what some high functioning psychopaths do here, but they are different in key and important ways.
A different but related axis occurs around their ability to convince others of their delusions (and themselves). Low functioning, all but the most gullible or susceptible know it's bullshit, and avoids them. They can be self harming in clear ways as they aren't able to convince themselves well either sometimes.
High functioning can be VERY VERY convincing, with almost everyone convinced and anyone who figures it out targeted quite successfully and removed from the social group (or sometimes from society in general, driven to suicide, or outright murdered depending on the degree of power and the amount of threat felt by that particular narcissist).
They can convince themselves most (or all) of the time too, which makes it 'easier' as there is less cognitive dissonance. Those who disagree are clearly evil and out to get them, so no need to look at evidence or consider they might have a point.
Where you draw the line on this for the clear pathology vs 'not really narcissism' is of course subjective and on a case by case basis.
There ARE folks who are clearly narcissists, and having met one? God damn.
It is very true that it is overused and ‘trendy’ right now to label folks that are a pain in the ass or that people don’t like that way, which is unfortunate. Doesn’t mean they don’t actually exist though.
There ARE folks that fundamentally don’t work the way most people think people work, and that have (and which will continue to) cause sometimes catastrophic damage to themselves or others. Many of those folks can be fit into specific named boxes. Some cannot. If you consider that a dark secret or not is up to you.
Arguably "attractiveness" is a proxy for ephemeral attributes like status and other sorts of signaling narcissists excel at.
There are a lot of incongruities in research surrounding them that psychology fails to address and warrants skepticism.
For example, more recent longitudinal studies on personality disorders like Borderline Personality Disorder (BDP) pretty consistently show that 80 - 90% of people once diagnosed with the disorder no longer meet the diagnostic criteria after a decade.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abst...
I find this interesting, because Abnormal Psychology usually teaches that personality is resistant to change, and thus personality disorders rarely show improvement.
Moreover, studies like this one
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%252Fs11920-014-044...
indicate that Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is actually pretty controversial among psychologists, with a wide variation in how it is measured and diagnosed. They note a lack of longitudinal studies as well -- perhaps NPD shows a similar phenomena as BPD where 9/10 no longer meet the diagnostic criteria several year later (despite showing other social defecits).
Am I a narcissist for challenging psychologists to provide better scientific evidence for the disorder? Hopefully not! Yet I still view the construct of personality disorders with skepticism.