What is narcissistic personality disorder, and why does everyone seem to have it?

The reason everyone seems to have NPD is because the people judging aren't trained psychologists or psychiatrists.

People confuse egocentrism (self-centeredness) with narcissism. Many people are considered egocentric today because of only-child syndrome, when you don't get taught how to get along with others when you're young then you're likely to end up egocentric.

NPD is only present in 1% of people, but is generally higher in clinical tests. Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) presents 3% in males and 1% in females. So it's actually very unlikely one of your close friends would actually have this disorder.

Most people carry some traits of NPD, but it's all relative. "#2) is preoccupied with fantasies of ... ideal love" well that nails virtually every female character I've ever seen, I mean watch 5 seconds of Sex and the City and tell me I'm wrong.

So the article points at it being a psychological condition - fair enough - and, as with many conditions, exacerbated or originated by one's parenting. I can swallow that.

But the mention of consumers believing they deserved big, shiny houses financed by bad debt got me. Surely that was as much a problem with society's attitudes to debt, money, and rewards - including pressure to keep up with the Joneses - as the person's own narcissism?

It's one thing to think you deserve a shiny new house, or computer, or whatever, and quite another to have society enabling that narcissism by giving you credit. It obviously depends on the person, but having recently been offered a credit deal - even in this economy! - that really shouldn't have been extended to me* , I'm very aware of what some people will throw at you to flatter your vanity, and I do think it's part of the mix too.

* I rejected it, but my inner narcissist had a big cry about it.

There is an interesting article in this month's Skeptic magazine that discusses the detrimental effects the self-esteem movement has had in the educational system and it's failure to produce high achieving students. Here's a paragraph talking about the link to NPD:

"Twenge, who is also a psychologist at San Diego State University, examined the responses of 16,475 college students who'd completed the NPI (Narcissistic Personality Inventory) between 1982 and 2006. She found a 30-percent jump in students who scored 'above average' for narcissism between those two end dates - a period of intense self-esteem building activity throughout American culture".

Once again I couldn't read the article because it has too little information (facts, to be more accurate) per sentence and that's why I beleive HN is not the right place to post the link. Seriously, it seems like wasting time and I can smell this journalistic approach from the first sentences. Hackers don't write like that, do they?

Although this article was interesting, it gives a pretty hazy and sometimes inaccurate description of NPD (it seems to confuse the dissorder with antisocial personality dissorder at times).

If everyone has it, it is perhaps not a disorder :)

I was going to read this article but I'm too good looking/smart.