7 Signs A Person Is A Narcissist From The Start, According To Psychology
Emotional manipulation is never any fun.
Dean Drobot | Shutterstock Think about the most annoying people in your life, whether it is a partner, a boss, a friend, or someone else close to you. In these relationships, you somehow lose track of yourself — acting like a maniac or feeling constantly uncertain — and you can’t figure out how or why.
Looking back on past relationships, you know you haven't always behaved this way, but in this particular relationship with this particular narcissist, you get hooked every time.
Why do certain people have this power over us and make us feel insane with their emotional manipulation? It's like there's always some edge we're about to fall off, or we feel constantly confused. People like this are called emotional manipulators, and dealing with them is maddening.
Not sure if you're in a relationship with one or not? Keep reading to learn the signs of a narcissist and the characteristics of this frustrating behavioral pattern. Then, you can learn some smart strategies to deal with it.
Here are 7 signs a person is a narcissist from the start, according to psychology:
1. They're nice on the outside, not so much on the inside
Emotional manipulators hide their true identities by acting nice, altruistic, empathic, concerned, and caring on the surface. When you first meet them, you'll strike up an instant rapport and think they're the nicest person ever.
Beware, as outlined by a study in the Personality and Individual Differences Journal, because emotional manipulators shape-shift themselves into whatever you want to see, but only long enough to lure you in. Once you're hooked, all things end up in arguments, and your general emotional state becomes one of frustration and anger.
Because they still strategically flash their "nice" side, you'll continually justify your relationship with them and live in a world of confusion. It's a cycle of feeling mad enough to leave the relationship only to then receive just a drop enough to lull you back in. Over and over.
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2. Taking care of them is your job
Narcissists want a life full of fun, leisure, and excitement, and anything outside of fun is not their thing. They prefer for others to handle all things boring or difficult. In other words, they're allergic to the words "responsibility" and/or "accountability." Oh, and those who delay their gratification experience the full wrath of an emotional manipulator's discontent.
Remember, they're not in relationships to contribute. They're here to receive and for someone else to take care of them. A commentary published in the Psychological Inquiry Journal helps demonstrate how narcissists always want more than they give, and they don't care how you feel about it.
3. They're selfish
This is their central feature. Emotional manipulators do not operate in relationships with empathy or fairness. Their idea of fairness is getting what they want exactly at the moment they want it. They feel entitled to it, as supported by an assessment of entitlement in relationships in Frontiers in Psychology.
They're stubborn, opinionated, unreliable, and refuse to perform on demand (though they expect you to do so). They are intentional in their desire to get others annoyed, all the while acting as if everyone outside of them is overreacting. It is their world, and you are just a visitor.
4. They're never wrong
Egocentric creatures that are emotional manipulators live in a world of distortion. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin published a study exploring how narcissists see themselves as victims of their circumstances. From their perception, they never make mistakes, are never wrong, and their motives are always of pure intent. They take no responsibility for their behavior.
One of the more maddening signs you're in love with a narcissist is their inability to distinguish important from unimportant matters. They argue over everything and nothing, often making the biggest fuss over the matters of least significance.
Kicking up dust deflects their responsibility for the issue at hand and throws their victims off target. They'll use anything to justify their anger while pointing the way you're actually in the wrong. They only see certain "facts" and eliminate all other useful (or fair) information.
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5. They throw tantrums
Wow, do these people have tantrums down to a science, maybe even an art form? They make a ton of noise when not immediately gratified, often throwing around verbal threats, justifications, and rationalizations for meeting their demands immediately.
Their other favorite way to throw a fit is pretending you don't exist. Research in the Journal of Personality explains how they'll ignore you as you speak, walk right by you, or make noise in one form or another until you either attack back (so they can blame you for your “anger”) or you give in because it's not worth the fight. Either reaction encourages the cycle because the emotional manipulator did get their way.
6. They irritate you "accidentally"
Emotional manipulators behave in a covertly hostile way, so no matter how you react, you're wrong. Driving you mad with their chronic forgetfulness, foot-dragging, lateness, withholding affection, and stubbornness is par for the course.
They're also fond of provoking with nonverbal behaviors such as eye-rolling, ignoring, sighing loudly, smirking, comments under the breath, sarcasm, and deflection. Their goal is to incite you into a rage so you look at fault, and they easily side-step responsibility, as supported by a meta-analysis in Psychological Bulletin.
To add insult to injury, emotional manipulators then offer insincere apologies feigning innocence with passive-aggressive phrases like: "All I said was..." or "I only meant that..." implying that you're "too sensitive" or "taking things the wrong way."
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7. Nobody bosses them around (because they're the boss, obviously)
These people get especially annoyed when others try to tell them what to do. “I’ll do it in a minute...” and “Geez, I was going to do it; just relax...” are two of their more famous lines. They stall taking action until you're so enraged you do it yourself. Or they react with anger and resentment when asked to cooperate or comply. They see any request as a demand and cooperating as submitting.
Chronic lateness is a favorite strategy for re-establishing dominance if forced to comply. Emotional manipulators recognize the opportunity to promise others a beneficial arrangement for all involved, knowing they'll probably opt to disappoint everyone by backing out or showing up late (just because they can). They even train themselves to be sensitive to what other people want and need to avoid giving it to them.
If you try to hold them responsible, they'll simply deflect by saying, with false sincerity, "Sorry" or "I screwed up." But they're not sorry. They'll turn around and make the same "mistake" over and over again. Soon, their apologies become more offensive than the original assault.
Sadly, the thing emotional manipulators withhold most often is emotional support. Sometimes, they defend the indefensible just to be difficult. They do not see other people as "people." They see other people as subjects meant to serve their satisfaction. They do not empathize with the feelings and needs of others.
Dr. Sherrie Campbell is a licensed psychologist with over two decades of clinical training experience providing counseling and psychotherapy services, including psychotherapy, marriage and family therapy, grief counseling, childhood trauma, personality disorders, illness, and more.