While I enjoyed reading this, amused and intrigued, I am somewhat hesitant to accept it, lacking a search for traits that are anti-correlated and without exploring alternative theories explaining these traits. I’m also a little confused by
I predicted that if my theory is correct then Harry would have a narcissistic personality. To test this, I found a list of personality traits that describe a narcissist (by Googling “children of narcissistic parents” and clicking the first link),
wouldn’t this be a list of traits of children of narcissistic parents? If it’s not, why did you use a different list to determine if Petunia was narcissistic?
On the topic of the specific traits, we could use a lot more information about which traits are useful and which aren’t. I understand there are a number of folks around here who have worked to acquire some traits, self-awareness and mindfulness (which are very clearly useful) come to mind, but they appear (very roughly) to be on a different level than, say, need for praise. With that, thank you for inspiring me to look more into them.
Traits that are anti-correlated with narcissism include the opposites of the “symptoms” listed. For example, Hermione is not at all narcissistic. She is not grandiose: she reminds Harry that they are young and shouldn’t do anything important yet. She is not selfish: she helps Hufflepuffs with homework. She doesn’t become furious when criticized: she reacts to harsh criticism by being sad and retreating (instead of attacking). Etc.
Identifying Harry as “child of a narcissistic parent” seemed to have strong predictive power, and helped me understand people with similar personalities in the real world. There may be other theories that are simultaneously correct. One possible other theory is that Harry and his parents have a “healthy, loving” relationship, and that Harry’s narcissism is due to the Dark Lord and the scar, not his parents’ influence. Harry’s mother’s insecurity and neglect of Harry’s ego needs is evidence against this theory.
Though the search and website are for “children of narcissistic parents”, the “symptoms” listed are “Symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder”. I argue that (A.) Harry is very narcissistic and (B.) Petunia is a “narcissistic parent”. I used the “narcissistic personality disorder” test for Harry to support (A.) and matching to a description of “narcissistic parent relationship to a child” to support (B.). The argument would be stronger if I could use the “narcissistic personality disorder” test for Petunia too, but she is in the book so little that this is difficult. Instead, I argue that the Harry-Petunia relationship fits a pattern where Petunia seeks emotional validation from others (Harry or Michael), does not meet Harry’s ego needs (respect, understanding), and puts Harry in a role of caring for her ego needs (for example, solving the disagreement with Michael in Ch. 1).
As far as “useful”, I don’t know—it depends on your goals. In “How to Hire the Best People You Ever Worked With”, Marc Andresseen writes that very successful people are motivated by different things, including “the burning desire to make it big” or “guilt, often created by family pressure”. Richard Feynman was famous for doing what he enjoyed instead of what other people (including his parents) wanted. In “The Drama of the Gifted Child”, Alice Miller writes that children of narcissistic parents develop adult skills (sharing, studying, etc.) more quickly, but are trying to please their parents and so do much worse when the parental pressure is removed. From these anecdotes, and presuming the goal of making an economically significant impact on the world, it appears that narcissism and parents’ narcissism may not make a significant difference, but I don’t know of data to be sure about this. As far as happiness, narcissism appears to be anti-correlated with traits that predict happiness such as quality and quantity of relationships, but again, data is lacking.
A little brief reading elsewhere still doesn’t explain what narcissist means here. Is it just a word that means “this group of symptoms (presumably commonly found together)”? If it doesn’t mean anything else, its use carries strong negative connotations that distract from the traits it encompasses.
The argument would be stronger if I could use the “narcissistic personality disorder” test for Petunia too,
I was under the impression that you identified Petunia as narcissistic first, and was using that as a predictor for Harry’s, my confusion.
“Narcissist” is just a word! Just kidding. It means “arrogant pride”. Here, it also means “arrogant pride as a defense mechanism against parental emotional neglect”.
When I first read about narcissistic parents, I pattern-matched on Petunia laughing at Harry and Harry being kind of arrogant. I expected to find examples in HPMOR for Harry showing about 1⁄2 to 2⁄3 of a list of narcissist traits. I was surprised to find examples for every item on the list.
“Arrogant pride”, or at least arrogance, is listed among the traits already, that doesn’t add anything to the meaning.
Imagine I’m writing a computer program that models people. People who exhibit a high number of these traits gain the label narcissist. Does this label allow me to make better or more efficient predictions about the person than the individual traits? What sorts of predictions?
The label is an efficient way of describing someone with most of or all of these traits. If your computer is memory-limited, storing the label “narcissist” may be more efficient than storing answers to all of a list of questions.
Someone who shows these traits will probably continue to show these traits. Additionally, someone who shows most of these traits probably shows the other traits as well.
While I enjoyed reading this, amused and intrigued, I am somewhat hesitant to accept it, lacking a search for traits that are anti-correlated and without exploring alternative theories explaining these traits. I’m also a little confused by
wouldn’t this be a list of traits of children of narcissistic parents? If it’s not, why did you use a different list to determine if Petunia was narcissistic?
On the topic of the specific traits, we could use a lot more information about which traits are useful and which aren’t. I understand there are a number of folks around here who have worked to acquire some traits, self-awareness and mindfulness (which are very clearly useful) come to mind, but they appear (very roughly) to be on a different level than, say, need for praise. With that, thank you for inspiring me to look more into them.
Thanks for the feedback. To address your points:
Traits that are anti-correlated with narcissism include the opposites of the “symptoms” listed. For example, Hermione is not at all narcissistic. She is not grandiose: she reminds Harry that they are young and shouldn’t do anything important yet. She is not selfish: she helps Hufflepuffs with homework. She doesn’t become furious when criticized: she reacts to harsh criticism by being sad and retreating (instead of attacking). Etc.
Identifying Harry as “child of a narcissistic parent” seemed to have strong predictive power, and helped me understand people with similar personalities in the real world. There may be other theories that are simultaneously correct. One possible other theory is that Harry and his parents have a “healthy, loving” relationship, and that Harry’s narcissism is due to the Dark Lord and the scar, not his parents’ influence. Harry’s mother’s insecurity and neglect of Harry’s ego needs is evidence against this theory.
Though the search and website are for “children of narcissistic parents”, the “symptoms” listed are “Symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder”. I argue that (A.) Harry is very narcissistic and (B.) Petunia is a “narcissistic parent”. I used the “narcissistic personality disorder” test for Harry to support (A.) and matching to a description of “narcissistic parent relationship to a child” to support (B.). The argument would be stronger if I could use the “narcissistic personality disorder” test for Petunia too, but she is in the book so little that this is difficult. Instead, I argue that the Harry-Petunia relationship fits a pattern where Petunia seeks emotional validation from others (Harry or Michael), does not meet Harry’s ego needs (respect, understanding), and puts Harry in a role of caring for her ego needs (for example, solving the disagreement with Michael in Ch. 1).
As far as “useful”, I don’t know—it depends on your goals. In “How to Hire the Best People You Ever Worked With”, Marc Andresseen writes that very successful people are motivated by different things, including “the burning desire to make it big” or “guilt, often created by family pressure”. Richard Feynman was famous for doing what he enjoyed instead of what other people (including his parents) wanted. In “The Drama of the Gifted Child”, Alice Miller writes that children of narcissistic parents develop adult skills (sharing, studying, etc.) more quickly, but are trying to please their parents and so do much worse when the parental pressure is removed. From these anecdotes, and presuming the goal of making an economically significant impact on the world, it appears that narcissism and parents’ narcissism may not make a significant difference, but I don’t know of data to be sure about this. As far as happiness, narcissism appears to be anti-correlated with traits that predict happiness such as quality and quantity of relationships, but again, data is lacking.
A little brief reading elsewhere still doesn’t explain what narcissist means here. Is it just a word that means “this group of symptoms (presumably commonly found together)”? If it doesn’t mean anything else, its use carries strong negative connotations that distract from the traits it encompasses.
I was under the impression that you identified Petunia as narcissistic first, and was using that as a predictor for Harry’s, my confusion.
“Narcissist” is just a word! Just kidding. It means “arrogant pride”. Here, it also means “arrogant pride as a defense mechanism against parental emotional neglect”.
When I first read about narcissistic parents, I pattern-matched on Petunia laughing at Harry and Harry being kind of arrogant. I expected to find examples in HPMOR for Harry showing about 1⁄2 to 2⁄3 of a list of narcissist traits. I was surprised to find examples for every item on the list.
“Arrogant pride”, or at least arrogance, is listed among the traits already, that doesn’t add anything to the meaning.
Imagine I’m writing a computer program that models people. People who exhibit a high number of these traits gain the label narcissist. Does this label allow me to make better or more efficient predictions about the person than the individual traits? What sorts of predictions?
The label is an efficient way of describing someone with most of or all of these traits. If your computer is memory-limited, storing the label “narcissist” may be more efficient than storing answers to all of a list of questions.
Someone who shows these traits will probably continue to show these traits. Additionally, someone who shows most of these traits probably shows the other traits as well.