Hidden in plain sight - Interviewing for narcissism
Since 1964 the “Goldwater Rule” has been enshrined in the American Psychiatric Association’s code of conduct. The rule declares unethical and forbids APA members from opining on the mental health of public figures whom the commentating party has not yet directly examined. Such was the extent of the dangers they felt needed to be averted, that a group of practitioners and academics broke silence and spoke out against Donald Trump and the concerns they felt. Perhaps unsurprisingly these types of expressions of concern did little reduce the offending behaviours, rather they served to embolden and polarise opinion further. The ‘accuseds’ of the world turned and continue to turn ever more to the stage of social media, while the observers note increased examples of narcissistic behaviour, armed with increased literacy around what constitutes narcissism. Ironically, both sides appear to be winning. The narcissists will take attention in whatever form they can get it, the observers feeling ever clearer and justified in their concerns.
Not that there would be much prospect of useful change were the two sides to get into direct discussion on this topic. However, this seeming impasse is not without its merits. Invalidation of experience and feelings is one of the central tenets of gaslighting. There being some quite public discourse around narcissism, the construct is better understood and therefore it is more difficult for perpetrators to defend and deny and more likely that victims will feel validated and emboldened to act. Whether in public office, business leadership or personal relationships, this path takes us towards damage limitation. By its very nature, narcissism has a measure of manipulativeness, deceit and charm and therefore will not always be easy to spot. However, valuable work can and is being done in this vein, and this article, focusses on earlier identification of what could later develop into grandiose narcissism. Specifically, what interview questions and facets in a personality profile might reveal embryonic grandiose narcissism, around which ‘eyes wide open’ due diligence would be required to avert later problems.
In essence, how do you spot a narcissist in the making?
1. Past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour.
As most meta-analytic reviews confirm, poorly structured interviews have very limited predictive merit, little better than tea leaf reading or horoscopes, and in fact bring risks in terms of subjectivities and biases being inadvertently introduced into the assessment process. However, well-structured, objective, systematic and investigative ‘clinical’ interviews bring very useful predictive power. Key to these will be all the well-known principles such as having clearly defined and consistently applied behavioural criteria and having a standardised evaluation framework. Amongst these however, the one most relevant to the early identification of potential narcissism is the need to ground interview evidence in actual, recently occurred events rather than in conjecture or hypothesis. The narcissist is a master self-publicist and what better a stage than an interview. Set the expectation that examples will be needed to bring to life the interviewee’s unique way of working. Examples which are recent and have a clear beginning, middle and end in time sequence, examples with a clear context and account of what actions were taken and results achieved. The added twist here is to try and develop a deep understanding of the judgements (and not just the actions) they made; why they chose the actions they chose, what and why they discounted other options, fine judgements about tactical adaptations in light of contextual specifics.
2. Reflective maturity.
Whilst non-narcissists and narcissists alike will have reflective capacity, it is likely that the narcissists’ reflections will be focussed more on post hoc rationalisation than on insight and personal learning per se. Not many an interviewee will volunteer mistakes and learnings from missteps and failures unless directly challenged and invited to do so. It is however likely that ‘normal’ adults will occasionally get things wrong or spot improvement options after the event! To be able to reflect in this way is evidence of a learning mindset and, given the external context of change and volatility, learning and leadership effectiveness go hand in hand. This takes some careful positioning by the interviewer and yet offers a rich source of data into narcissistic potential. It would be reasonable to expect those more narcissistically inclined to have a smaller database of reflections to share. It is also likely that attributions of responsibility will feature more prominently with narcissists (i.e. reflections focussing more on who’s to blame for failings, rather than on extracting learnings). Equally it is possible that the very process of forcing the narcissists hand to discuss potential failings could provoke anger. Their logic being: this is their stage to manage, it’s a false assumption to think it normal for people to have improvement needs, reflections of this nature serve only to weaken resolve and self-confidence and how on earth would revealing weakness or personal flaws serve to strengthen my case? What feedback have they received in recent times, how did they make sense of this, what did they go on to do with it – more generally, what ideas do they have about feedback? Both in content and attitude, reflective maturity is an important area for exploration and a potentially rich source of insight.
3. Force of personality.
Taking a ‘Big 5’ view on narcissistic personality correlates, it should be possible to root out potential markers of emerging narcissism in any robust personality profile, NEO-PIR for example.
Contrariness, straightforwardness, assertiveness and displays of frustration would all give a useful insight into how challenge may manifest. Questions around judgements made about when to/not to challenge and tactical dexterity around approaches taken to influencing outcomes and persuading others would be useful probes.
Grandiosity and egotism/self-centredness more generally would be further areas to explore. Self-confidence, high self-regard (and low regard for others), immodesty and a lack of altruism might all be profile markers to look out for, supported by probes into ideas of personal legacy and personal vision, areas (or lack) of self-doubt and vulnerability, role-models etc..
Sensitivity to criticism speaks to ego vulnerability to some extent and to self-image. To this end it can be revealing to provoke a reaction to criticism during the interview (e.g. “I don’t think you’re yet ready for a role like this – what do you think?”, “Your last two answers started by sounding like they were going to answer my question, but you’ve then taken them off track. Is this what you do to take control of situations?” etc. Engagement with the criticism and any visible emotional reaction to it will provide useful insights into any hypersensitivity to criticism and/or curiosity around others’ viewpoints.
Morality, integrity and probity might be the final and most challenging of the domains to explore.Conscientiousness generally would give useful insight into self-discipline, responsibility taking, attitude to hard-work and broader facets of work duty and obligation.Compliance with prevailing expectations and norms might be evident with trait agreeableness, with impulse control (both in the form of giving in to urges and, by contrast, tenacity) offering the risk mitigation to this.Interviewing in this area is less about seeking out examples of morality or immorality in absolute terms, but is more about understanding the architecture of their morality, where they have felt challenged, how they have evolved in their thinking and practice, their approach to handling difficult situations.