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.

Comments

It's obvious

[gueryjones]

They're just mad that Georgia Tech students are smarter than them and this is their way of undermining them. I'm surprised that a UGA researcher can even spell "geek."

Re:It's obvious

[phantomfive]

Given that 70% of psychology experiments are unreproducible, it's most likely that they have not even found a correlation.

Re:It's obvious

[TWX]

well, it's just easier to coerce it out of geeks that they feel superior - even if they're fat losers and they know they're fat losers you can get them to give answers that would mark them as feeling grandiose. especially at a geek event(well why the fuck not, they're having fun there).

neo-nazis beat them at that score though.

Every counter-culture is a culture of its own. Counter-cultures, with a large enough sample size, tend to reflect the mainstream cultures from which they spawn. They're fractals. There are bullies, know-it-alls, wannabes, the self-righteous, followers, the artsy, and even nerds within every subculture. I've seen it through four major subcultures. Stereotypes like the Comic Book Collector on The Simpsons exist because someone is just about always going to fill that role with a large enough sample size. It just happens with that particular character that there are a lot of men that resemble that character both physically and in temperament, so it tends to lead to a bit of confirmation bias.

People also don't act the same way around separate distinct groups. Someone might be meek or quiet in a more mainstream setting but be very outgoing or as the article discusses, narcissistic when they're within the subculture that they are comfortable in. Conversely, someone in a mainstream group might be the expert, and be narcissistic or at least very confident, but when they're put into a subculture suddenly they're quiet or subservient because within that particular group their skills or interests or knowledge is among the least, putting them at the bottom of the pecking order. The latter is why MIT has alumni interview applicants, to make sure that they can handle the fact that they'll likely go from being at the pinnacle of scholastic achievement in high school to close to the bottom when measured against all of the other students in college.

Re:Shocking

[Austerity Empowers]

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.

Re:We already know that Millennials are narcissist

[__aaclcg7560]

Extreme narcissism and self-importance are defining traits of the Baby Boomer generation!

FTFY - Signed, Gen Xer

Inflammatory article, study taken out-of-context

[MobyDisk]

This article is horrible.

Narcisissm was but one of the many things the study correlated with geekdom. Yet the article by "The Independent" talked about only that one aspect. The study actually doesn't include Star Wars as an example of geekdom since Star Wars is mainstream. The study does consider someone a geek if they mix "Star Wars" with zombies. Yet The Independent started their headline with that "Star Wars" - probably because it is so popular in the news right now and people will have knee jerk emotional reactions to it.

I am sad that Slashdot chose to link to this article, rather than to the study itself which is completely free, reasonably short, and paints a different and more interesting picture. It talks about geek involvement with family, the political process, civic organizations, and long-term life goals. It even explains how the term "narcissism" is used differently in the clinical context and might be misinterpreted when used without the relevant context. Yet that is exactly what The Independent did.

And a recent paper showed the majority...

[Fragnet]

A recent paper shows the majority of psychological studies aren't replicable. So you know, jog on.

Re:Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

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.