<p>I was watching a video where Lex Fridman interviewed Paul Conti, and <a href="https://youtu.be/jRBksDVs4tg?t=2946" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Paul said</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>So it's small in terms of say, narcissistic diagnosis, right? It's much less than many other things, but it causes the lion share - I don't just mean the most compared to anything else, but I think more than 50% - the majority of bad things, evil things, destructive things that I see in the world around us. I think narcissists are wildly destructive because they are driven completely. They are lodged completely in the lane of envy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, to frame this question a bit better:</p>
<ol>
<li>Have scientists made <em>any</em> attempt to rank mental disorders by &quot;total societal impact&quot; or some similar metric that might be useful to someone doing a cost-benefit analysis on various research proposals?</li>
<li>If yes, is the kind of harm that narcissism causes likely to be accurately accounted for in these rankings?</li>
<li>If yes, is narcissism high in the rankings?</li>
</ol>
<p>If there is truth to what he says, I would expect this problem to be studied and funded roughly in proportion to the amount of damage it causes to society.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-07-01T14:34:33.143Z
I don't think this is the sort of thing that's amenable to measurement. First we'd have to have a measure of bad things, evil things, destructive things - that's not trivial, especially in terms of "weighting" each. Then there's appeal to some counterfactual world that doesn't actually exist, so can't be measured. And finally, there's the difficulty in ascribing a particular event to narcissism; is that any action taken by someone diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder? Only certain actions? How do we decide which specific action is the narcissistic action?
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-07-01T14:36:29.873Z
Or is it really meant something like *selfish* actions, in that anyone narcissistic or not could potentially do an isolated "act of narcissism"? This sort of statement is easy to make in hyperbole or rhetoric; it's not trivial to study with science, and is especially uninteresting with respect to some benchmark like "most": by changing how you define the various constructs involved you could certainly "make" the data say both "yes" and "no" based on those decisions.
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-07-01T14:37:18.470Z
To make the question more scientific, your first steps should be operationally defining the claims involved and narrowing to a very specific question. The claim you quote is far too broad and vague for science.
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-07-03T00:30:56.720Z
@BryanKrause "I don't think so, so better not ask" doesn't feel right. The OP's last sentence seems valid: "If there is truth to what he says, I would expect this problem to be studied and funded roughly in proportion to the amount of damage it causes to society." Why not leave the question as-is and if you like, you can post an answer saying "No, it has not been studied, because of lack of data and metrics". Questions themselves don't have to always be scientific, they just need a possibility of a good Stack Exchange answer, which you seem to be providing in comments already.
uhoh
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-07-03T00:31:28.853Z
@BryanKrause being better informed based on that answer, the OP can then ask a follow-up question. Why leave your insight as disposable comments to one user when they could be shared more widely as an answer post?
uhoh
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-07-03T01:13:20.663Z
@uhoh It's not really possible to provide an answer showing something doesn't exist with references. This is one of the reasons that we expect questions to build on some source rather than being plucked out of thin air. In this case, OP has a source, but it's a rather flimsy one where the person they are citing has themselves plucked their statement out of thin air. The burden is on that person making the claim to support their statement.
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-07-03T03:45:04.557Z
I think we start by imagining that there *is* a person out there, like Conti, who happens to have lots of specialized knowledge about narcissism and perhaps even methods of raking mental disorders by total societal impact. Then, we should ask, "Is this question clear enough for them to write a good answer?" If the question is not read by such a person, or if there *is* no such person, then it may simply go unanswered. I expect that Conti must have some street cred if he's being interviewed by Lex Fridman.
phil1008
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-07-03T03:45:17.290Z
Conti's information comes from personal experience - which is considered a valid source of information on SE. In any case, I can't back up what he said with references - unless someone answers this question in the affirmative and cites those references.
phil1008
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-07-03T03:50:06.443Z
He's written a book, but I can't see any evidence of academic publications by him in a related field. Without buying the book we can't tell where he gets his stuff (beyond personal anecdote of a specialist). @phil1008 What's not being mentioned is that it's a self-selected group with mental issues that he's (professionally) spent time with. Seems maybe a stretch to generalise about the entire population's troubles and their cause from that. I'm tempted to read the book and come back to this to see what all the fuss is about.
Jiminy Cricket.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-07-03T04:02:24.393Z
@BryanKrause I understand your point about proving negatives. I'm just thinking that "Difficult or impossible, because no way to obtain data or define useful metrics" would be a pretty instructive and helpful answer, and would reach more people as an answer post than in comments under a closed question.
uhoh
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-07-03T12:41:48.703Z
"personal experience - which is considered a valid source of information on SE" - Personal experience is **not** considered a valid source of information on Psychology and Neuroscience Stack Exchange.
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-07-03T12:43:16.390Z
Lex Fridman is nobody. He's a podcaster that Elon Musk became a fan of. Podcasters are not credible sources of information, especially outside of their own fields (but even supposedly within their own fields; take Huberman for example, famous as a neuroscience podcaster but he's just broadcasting to sell useless supplements that make him money).
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-07-03T12:44:37.167Z
Further, there is a whole industry of "self-help"; these people are not experts in the science of their fields, they are experts in selling a simplified message that makes a reader think they know more than they actually do, which is good for selling books, nothing more.
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-07-03T14:49:21.767Z
That's good feedback. I think that Conti has "street cred" because he was selected, or invited, to Lex Fridman and (I recently discovered) got Lady Gaga to write the forward for his book. In my own field, I have to admit that Elon Musk has street cred, even though I know that he often says things that are not well supported by math, physics, and economics. The point of this question is to get some real data into the form of an answer, in service of the truth.
phil1008
<social-psychology><reproducible-research><cognitive-therapy>
Does scientific evidence support Conti's view that narcissism causes "the majority of bad things, evil things, destructive things .. in the world"
phil1008
# Does scientific evidence support Conti's view that narcissism causes "the majority of bad things, evil things, destructive things .. in the world"

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-07-01)

I was watching a video where Lex Fridman interviewed Paul Conti, and [Paul said](https://youtu.be/jRBksDVs4tg?t=2946)

> So it's small in terms of say, narcissistic diagnosis, right? It's much less than many other things, but it causes the lion share - I don't just mean the most compared to anything else, but I think more than 50% - the majority of bad things, evil things, destructive things that I see in the world around us. I think narcissists are wildly destructive because they are driven completely. They are lodged completely in the lane of envy.

So, to frame this question a bit better:

1. Have scientists made *any* attempt to rank mental disorders by "total societal impact" or some similar metric that might be useful to someone doing a cost-benefit analysis on various research proposals?
2. If yes, is the kind of harm that narcissism causes likely to be accurately accounted for in these rankings?
3. If yes, is narcissism high in the rankings?

If there is truth to what he says, I would expect this problem to be studied and funded roughly in proportion to the amount of damage it causes to society.

**Tags:** social-psychology, reproducible-research, cognitive-therapy

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I don't think this is the sort of thing that's amenable to measurement. First we'd have to have a measure of bad things, evil things, destructive things - that's not trivial, especially in terms of "weighting" each. Then there's appeal to some counterfactual world that doesn't actually exist, so can't be measured. And finally, there's the difficulty in ascribing a particular event to narcissism; is that any action taken by someone diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder? Only certain actions? How do we decide which specific action is the narcissistic action?  
> **username_1**: Or is it really meant something like *selfish* actions, in that anyone narcissistic or not could potentially do an isolated "act of narcissism"? This sort of statement is easy to make in hyperbole or rhetoric; it's not trivial to study with science, and is especially uninteresting with respect to some benchmark like "most": by changing how you define the various constructs involved you could certainly "make" the data say both "yes" and "no" based on those decisions.  
> **username_1**: To make the question more scientific, your first steps should be operationally defining the claims involved and narrowing to a very specific question. The claim you quote is far too broad and vague for science.  
> **username_2**: @BryanKrause "I don't think so, so better not ask" doesn't feel right. The OP's last sentence seems valid: "If there is truth to what he says, I would expect this problem to be studied and funded roughly in proportion to the amount of damage it causes to society." Why not leave the question as-is and if you like, you can post an answer saying "No, it has not been studied, because of lack of data and metrics". Questions themselves don't have to always be scientific, they just need a possibility of a good Stack Exchange answer, which you seem to be providing in comments already.  
> **username_2**: @BryanKrause being better informed based on that answer, the OP can then ask a follow-up question. Why leave your insight as disposable comments to one user when they could be shared more widely as an answer post?  
> **username_1**: @username_2 It's not really possible to provide an answer showing something doesn't exist with references. This is one of the reasons that we expect questions to build on some source rather than being plucked out of thin air. In this case, OP has a source, but it's a rather flimsy one where the person they are citing has themselves plucked their statement out of thin air. The burden is on that person making the claim to support their statement.  
> **username_0**: I think we start by imagining that there *is* a person out there, like Conti, who happens to have lots of specialized knowledge about narcissism and perhaps even methods of raking mental disorders by total societal impact. Then, we should ask, "Is this question clear enough for them to write a good answer?" If the question is not read by such a person, or if there *is* no such person, then it may simply go unanswered. I expect that Conti must have some street cred if he's being interviewed by Lex Fridman.  
> **username_0**: Conti's information comes from personal experience - which is considered a valid source of information on SE. In any case, I can't back up what he said with references - unless someone answers this question in the affirmative and cites those references.  
> **username_3**: He's written a book, but I can't see any evidence of academic publications by him in a related field. Without buying the book we can't tell where he gets his stuff (beyond personal anecdote of a specialist). @username_0 What's not being mentioned is that it's a self-selected group with mental issues that he's (professionally) spent time with. Seems maybe a stretch to generalise about the entire population's troubles and their cause from that. I'm tempted to read the book and come back to this to see what all the fuss is about.  
> **username_2**: @BryanKrause I understand your point about proving negatives. I'm just thinking that "Difficult or impossible, because no way to obtain data or define useful metrics" would be a pretty instructive and helpful answer, and would reach more people as an answer post than in comments under a closed question.  
> **username_1**: "personal experience - which is considered a valid source of information on SE" - Personal experience is **not** considered a valid source of information on Psychology and Neuroscience Stack Exchange.  
> **username_1**: Lex Fridman is nobody. He's a podcaster that Elon Musk became a fan of. Podcasters are not credible sources of information, especially outside of their own fields (but even supposedly within their own fields; take Huberman for example, famous as a neuroscience podcaster but he's just broadcasting to sell useless supplements that make him money).  
> **username_1**: Further, there is a whole industry of "self-help"; these people are not experts in the science of their fields, they are experts in selling a simplified message that makes a reader think they know more than they actually do, which is good for selling books, nothing more.  
> **username_0**: That's good feedback. I think that Conti has "street cred" because he was selected, or invited, to Lex Fridman and (I recently discovered) got Lady Gaga to write the forward for his book. In my own field, I have to admit that Elon Musk has street cred, even though I know that he often says things that are not well supported by math, physics, and economics. The point of this question is to get some real data into the form of an answer, in service of the truth.  

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## 0 answers

