Researchers at the University of Michigan had 106 college students fill out a personality test filled with questions aimed at gauging how stressed they felt and the size of their ego (for example, rating this statement highly—“If I ruled the world it would be a better place”—likely means you’ve got a sizeable ego.) The researchers also tested the students’ saliva for levels of the stress hormone cortisol. The results? Those who qualified as narcissistic had higher levels of cortisol—especially men. The stress comes, in part, from a narcissistic person’s need to constantly prove that he’s better than everyone else, says Sara Konrath, PhD, assistant research professor at the University of Michigan’s Research Center for Group Dynamics. And men in particular tend to feel a lot of pressure to maintain the image of being independent and tough, things that overlap with narcissism, she says. The danger of having high levels of cortisol is that the hormone does more than just increase how stressed out you feel; it can lead to chronic conditions such as heart disease and stroke. Too much cortisol in your system can also pack on the belly fat, which can surround your organs and raise insulin levels, putting you at risk for diabetes. And it could be getting worse. Konrath and her fellow professors dug up data on 85 groups of college students who’d taken the same personality test between 1979 and 2006. The rate of narcissism increased 30 percent over that period. Konrath points the finger at the rising use of social media that makes people the center of their own worlds, while separating them from human interaction. Add in the misguided efforts of parents and schools to boost children’s self-esteem, Konrath says, and you’ve got the groundwork for narcissism. “Focus on self-esteem is well meaning, but if it goes too extreme, students wind up with inflated views of themselves.” And as the research shows, they just may wind up with poorer health, too.
