Can a Narcissist be a Genius? (Is there any Limit to Narcissist’s IQ Level?)
Can a Narcissist be a Genius? According to many mental health experts, researchers, and psychoanalysts, a narcissist is dexterous and can achieve many accomplishments. Narcissists can be smart and seem to be gifted with the utmost intelligence as mentioned by many mental health experts, and also claimed by many narcissistic personalities themselves.
But is it true that narcissists are gifted with intelligence and a high level of IQ? Is there any Limit to Narcissist’s IQ Level? How smart are narcissists? Can the intelligence of narcissists be proven? Are the claims about them being genius true? Let us cease our inquisitiveness here, and get the answers to these questions further.
According to an article published by psychology Today, there is new research published in the journal of Personality dictates and relates the relationship between narcissism and intelligence. This article that is published by a team of researchers from the University of Warsaw, based in Poland states that there are a few types of narcissists that believe they are certainly more intelligent than most of the people they come across.
According to the head researcher Marcin Zajenkowski of the team who researched the relation or the relativity between narcissism and intelligence states that, “Intelligence and narcissism are among the oldest constructs studied in contemporary psychology, each having more than a century of research tradition.” To weigh more clarity on the diplomatic topic of “Is a Narcissist a Genius?” or “Can a Narcissist be a Genuis?”, the team of Polish researchers started recruiting nearly more than 200 subjects, to be precise 232 subjects to participate in a study to get answers regarding the genius of a narcissist and provide concrete conclusions.
The experiment was a way to obtain the answers from the participants or subjects to fill up the personality scales by weighing the personalities of two of the most common forms of narcissism, the grandiose type, and the vulnerable type. Let us shed some light on the types of narcissists and their qualities for the readers who just know the gist about narcissism but are not fully aware of the details about the types of narcissists.
Knowing a little more about Narcissistic Personality Disorder, what are narcissists and the two types of narcissism which are mentioned in the above-mentioned experiment.
A Narcissist craves attention all the time, lacks care and empathy, can be rude and blunt, ignores other people’s feelings, and has troubled relationships. They think the world rotates around them and so they are very ignorant, self-centered, and mean.
Though every human possesses these traits in a neutral capacity which is more or less not harmful, people with NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) possess and manifest these traits more than usual which can be harmful to them and to the people around them. Thus making it tough for people around them to deal with them. Narcissists possess and reveal these traits in obscene volumes.
According to mental health experts and psychologists, there are some common types that define a narcissistic personality in a being suffering from NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder). There are majorly five main types namely Overt, Covert, Malignant, Communal, and Antagonist Narcissism.
Grandiose (Unconcealed/Overt)
Grandiose or Overt Narcissism is the most common type observed among narcissists. This type of narcissistic personality displays an unconcealed act of aggression openly and struggles to hide their aggression socially. They constantly try to prove their worth, thinking about how others think of them, proving their superiority over others, and much more.
Some peculiar traits of Grandiose Narcissism are, aggressiveness, arrogance, constant need to gain attention, and most importantly they are self-absorbed. They are the extroverts of the NPD group.
Vulnerable (Covert)
This type of narcissism does not display any symptoms openly but is closely associated with mental health issues in terms of anxiety and depression. It is the complete opposite type of overt narcissism.
Narcissists are recognized for their loud and noticeable behaviors but that is not the case with Covert Narcissism. Some peculiar traits of covert narcissists are, they can associate more with childhood trauma, they are introverted and shy, have low self-esteem, always in a need to play the victim, moreover are repulsive to criticism.
In continuation with knowing more about the experiment,
In the next step of the experiment, the participants were asked to fill out some intelligence tests by the researchers. Then the participants were asked to compute their individual level of intelligence by three parameters that were mentioned low, average, and high. Participants were asked to indicate their own level of intelligence when compared to others.
The researchers concluded that the people inclined toward grandiose narcissism stated to have higher or higher than average levels of intelligence and the people inclined toward vulnerable narcissism tend to have average or lower than average levels of intelligence. The highlighting factor or the key conclusion by the researchers was that not neither of the forms of narcissism was associated with objective intelligence.
Knowing more about objective intelligence,
Objective intelligence is the applicability of knowledge in any field of study, space, time, and argumentation. Objective intelligence is commonly the factor that makes a person wiser, learned, and acute. This intelligence has universal applicability to knowledge.
So after checking the results, and perspectives of the participants and weighing the results of the forms, researchers found that grandiose narcissists as usual present themselves to be more intelligent than others despite the fact that the test run had shown no reliable and supportable supremacy for their claim for higher levels of intelligence.
On the other hand, vulnerable narcissists presented themselves to be intellectually inferior. Also, there were no supported pieces of evidence or patterns to support this viewpoint of covert narcissists. In fact, researchers observed that even covert narcissists were anxious even before participating or while taking the tests.
So in conclusion according to the researchers at the Polish university, that they had finally put on the table was, “Individuals with high grandiose narcissism maintain unrealistically positive self-views with regard to intelligence. They feel that high intelligence is a resource that buys people benefits in multiple domains, and they feel that they possess that resource. Thus, people scoring high on grandiose narcissism are indeed preoccupied with the topic of intelligence.”
Coming back to the topical question,
Can a Narcissist be a Genius?
Narcissists thinking and proving themselves as intellectually advanced than others can probably be a mishap, certainly due to some reasons. One of which is presented above in the article published by Psychology Today regarding, Why some Narcissists are obsessed with IQ, is that Narcissists hardly possess objective intelligence. Yes! they might have subjective intelligence that can be superior to others as the matter of fact but the knowledge that can be applied universally is not a strong suit for a narcissist, which in fact they claim to be vice versa.
But there are always exceptions in every aspect. Nothing can be specifically claimed that Narcissists may/can or may not/cannot be geniuses because this completely depends upon an individual’s personality, atmospheric variables, and capabilities to develop and flourish. These variables keep constantly differing, thus it is difficult to provide a full-proof answer regarding the question, “Can a Narcissist be a Genius?”
All in all, narcissists present themselves to be intellectually superior to others due to their self-love, self-dependency, and self-pride. But it is not that all narcissists are genius or all have to be genius. There even might be many examples that would prove otherwise, or show the unsuccessful and incapable side of a narcissist.
There have been many types of research that have been conducted regarding the two variables Narcissism and Intelligence, and according to almost most of the research, they have been able to conclude that there has been no significant correspondence between Narcissism and Intelligence, making it somewhat clear that there is no direct proof that can prove that Narcissists are geniuses or they can be or may be geniuses.
Is there any Limit to Narcissist’s IQ Level?
As such, there is no limit to Narcissist’s IQ Levels, but many researchers have claimed of narcissists prove themselves to be smarter for the attainment of higher social status and the desire to be superior to others.
Conclusion
There are no hardcore claims that prove narcissists to be genius, yes but there are many kinds of research that conclude that there is no relativity be intelligence and narcissism and that narcissists are highly intelligent, but despite these facts, they always want to be superior, prove their worth and always try to be the most intelligent person wherever they are due to their grandiose nature or try to be unnoticeable and intellectually inferior due to their covert or dainty nature.
There have been many types of research that have been conducted regarding the two variables Narcissism and Intelligence, and according to almost most of the research, they have been able to conclude that there has been no significant correspondence between Narcissism and Intelligence, making it somewhat clear that there is no direct proof that can prove that Narcissists are geniuses or they can be or may be geniuses.
As such, there is no limit to Narcissist’s IQ Levels, but many researchers have claimed of narcissists prove themselves to be smarter for the attainment of higher social status and the desire to be superior to others.
From Relationship, Depression, and Personality Disorder to Narcissistic problems, I have helped a lot of people find their solutions. Upon gathering a number of common problems that people face, I decided to put the information on this blog so that anyone can get their answers easily.
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