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Star Wars Fans and Video Game Geeks 'More Likely To Be Narcissists,' Study Finds (independent.co.uk)
schwit1 writes: Those who take part in "geeky events" are more likely to have an "elevated grandiose" level of narcissism, according to a study conducted by the University of Georgia. Psychologists examined the personality traits of those who turn to "geek culture," developing a Geek Culture Engagement Scale and a Geek Identity Scale to help quantify the figures. It was found that those who scored highly on both scales were more likely to narcissists. Subjects are scored on a scale of one to five, depending on how often they take part in activities such as live action role playing games, Dungeons and Dragons, cosplaying, puppetry, robotics — and enjoying things such as video games and Star Wars.
"Subjects are scored on a scale of one to five, depending on how often they take part in activities such as live action role playing games, Dungeons and Dragons, cosplaying, puppetry, robotics — and enjoying things such as video games and Star Wars."
All of which sounds totally nuts to me. In my day "geeks" were loaners. They did not have a big social circle. Not because they were basically unsociable. Mostly because they were interested in technical things, electronics, programming, maths, that most people around them had no idea or interest in.
When did "geek" become a word to describe game playing fantasy obsessed weirdos.
No, just people who partake in "geek culture", which as far as I'm concerned is a new thing itself and frequently not representative of greater geekdom.
Newsflash: Folks willing to be interviewed on being 'geeky' tend to be gregarious and be quite optimistic about their own potential. Shy/anti-social 'geeks' not measured.
Everyone's got a mixed bag of ignorance and hangups - and folks who self-label as 'geeky' in public are folks who project a willingness to focus and specialize on a small range of subjects that they admire. Many others are going to be shy or antisocial, or unwilling to put up with a 'geeky' label.
BREAKING NEWS: DJs and Rap Artists also found to be frequently narcisistic! 'Fronting' found to be a very helpful form of marketing, and method of promoting causes in a comedic and exaggerated manner.
FURTHER BREAKING NEWS: 'Profesional'-style wrestlers and independent entertainment wrestling groups also found to be overwhelmingly narcissistic, in a fascinating dual dynamic! When in 'face' mode, these entertainers will be narcissistic in a friendly way, and in 'heel' mode, they will be narcissistic in an overly flamboyant and violent way. These modes can change at seemingly random patterns, but usually near the start/beginning of a season.
OMG BREAKING NEWS GUYS: Actors and many others found to be narcissistic! In a similar dynamic to 'entertainment' wrestling, this same form of narcissism seems to be almost everywhere, in most professions with a public facing component. The dynamic of trying to gather a crowd with comedy and drama seems to be steeped with various kinds of narcissism, and reactions to self-overestimation.
It's almost as if people overestimate their own potential in order to motivate themselves to try difficult things, even if it means failure, because they might learn something or motivate others in the process!
We must stop this plague of overestimation before it grows too large! The only logical conclusion to this process will be everyone jumping off buildings because they believe they can fly. Yes. Geeks must not believe in themselves, or our world is doomed!
In other news, journalists frequently post articles they know has misleading information, or false or incomplete versions on of the science they're reporting on, because it builds drama and readership. Oh no - the narcissism is spreading!
Notice the authors of this study seem to all do studies on Narcissism. It can be empirically stated that their specialization is in Narcissistic behavior since they all, except Jessica, have numerous published studies in Narcissism.
W. Keith Campbell
http://psychology.uga.edu/directory/w-keith-campbell
Brittany Gentile
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittany-gentile-920b2142
Jessica McCain
http://psychology.uga.edu/directory/jessica-mccain
Note all three are part of this lab program:
http://psychology.uga.edu/research/labs/narcissism-lab/mission
Now we do a google search for "University of Georga Million Dollar Grant" and discover they have received multiple grants to do work mostly on families in the last 2 years.
http://news.uga.edu/releases/article/grant-behavioral-health-counselors/
http://news.uga.edu/releases/article/82-million-grant-families-georgia-child-welfare-system-1015/
http://news.uga.edu/releases/article/behavioral-health-care-at-risk-youth-grant/
Statistically speaking, about 70% of men in the US aren't married and have no plans to get married and that's straight Census Buearo statistics. If you take the time to look at GAO and US Census statistics you can draw the conclusion that about a third of men are never going to father a child; look at the men without children over 45 and men never married over 45 statistics.
Largely, I would speculate this is because of a social movement from Feminists who believe men exist to serve them and do not deserve to live their lives on their terms, they don't believe men should have masculine roles in society. Of course they'd never say that outright. But since they seem to have some large donors like the Department of Education, it's no wonder you'd point social scientists who publish nothing about Narcissism at a geek convention mostly made of males and pass it off as research.
The fact it's posted on a feminist-leaning publication like Slashdot makes no different. EAT THIS POST MODS!
Breitbart had a good article on this last year:
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014/12/04/the-sexodus-part-1-the-men-giving-up-on-women-and-checking-out-of-society/
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014/12/09/the-sexodus-part-2-dishonest-feminist-panics-leave-male-sexuality-in-crisis/
Not saying the kinds of people who go to these conventions aren't narcissists, but I am saying the money and research all looks tainted.
There are a lot of people like me who feel coopted out of the culture they grew up with. I feel like I'm living n a cargo cult culture. It' difficult to discuss ideas because the broad and deep technical background is no longer there.
I've noticed the exact same thing. I'm a rocket scientist IRL, over educated in the technical fields, strong interests in traditional nerd culture etc, but not so interested in the new geek stuff like comic book movies. I haven't even seen the new star wars.
There are a lot of people like me who feel coopted out of the culture they grew up with. I feel like I'm living n a cargo cult culture. It' difficult to discuss ideas because the broad and deep technical background is no longer there.
Shame I don't have mod points to help the person who already voted you up, as this is bloody perceptive stuff. Everyone's a bloody "geek" nowadays.
;-)
There's actually nothing wrong with being interested in some of that stuff, but just because you know how to install apps on your Android phone and know who Alan Turing is- without having any real interest in any of his actual work- doesn't make you a geek in the same sense as him.
I commented just yesterday that although people nowadays are generally *much* more tech-savvy in general than they were- say- ten or fifteen years ago, most people don't seem to know or care what a basic term like "digital" actually means. That's a synonym for online, or high-tech, or something, isn't it...?
There's a guy I know at work who ticks way, *way* more of the stereotypical "geek" boxes than I do- something I've actually joked to him about. He spends lots of time playing World of Warcraft (I haven't been into computer games for the better part of 20 years), was (genuinely) excited to see the new Star Wars film (never cared about Star Wars that much myself) and apparently collected overpriced plastic anime figures at one point. (Don't think he still does as much, but then he's in his mid-thirties and in a steady relationship now). He's also pretty outgoing and far more socially skilled than I am, (#) especially in the "one of the lads" context. (He also has tendencies bordering on the neddish when drunk). He hasn't shown any signs of being interested in science or any of the "hard" traditional geek interests- as opposed to technology- itself.
But he's not fake- he genuinely is into all that stuff. It's just that a lot of those "geeky" interests, as they've become adopted by more people, have ceased to be the signifiers that they used to be, either of deeper interests, or of personality type.
To be fair, even in the past, I doubt it was ever as clear cut as the stereotypes imply (even in the early 90s I knew a guy at school more skilled with computers than myself who was also sociable, outgoing and into the rave scene in a way that I wasn't). But it's probably even less so today.
Then again, I've come to realise that I'm not remotely a "true" geek in either the old "true" sense nor in the modern superficial sense and have probably been guilty of self-stereotyping and thinking I knew myself more than I did. So maybe I'm not the person I should be comparing others to, regardless. But that's another kettle of fish.
(#) It could be argued that the social skills- or lack of- aspect is somewhat more to do with "nerd"-ism rather than geekism. But there's nothing more geeky *or* nerdy than getting obsessed with the difference between those terms, so who gives a toss?
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Also note, from the paper "Separate from Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), narcissism is a normal personality trait characterized by a grandiose sense of self as well as efforts to maintain that sense of self in the face of reality "
----- "narcissism is a normal personality trait ", -study
That is the problem with psyche studies, loose inter-definable terms like narcissism. They didn't find people with a NPD (even if they did, that diagnosis tool is highly suspect). You could rename the study "people with higher self esteem go to geek events" if you just use a few different words with different connotation but same measurably.
Another problem with psyche studies is they relay on self reported feelings, which are highly suspect (people don't say truth, they say what they think they should say or what they think of themselves)
It's like when shyness is renamed "anxiety" so they can sale you pills.
I could go on, one of their data points is "Real Life." Apparently DnD with friends is not real life. But is watching sports on TV real life?
From Study "(the great fantasy migration hypothesis), to fulfill belongingness needs (the belongingness hypothesis), and to satisfy needs for creative expression (the need for engagement hypothesis)."
So the study found people do normal things to fill normal needs and the people that do them correlate with a sightly higher scale of something also normal (narcissism) within normal ranges that has a negative Connotation outside of psych research.
Do you get my point yet about the problems with psych research?