The Narcissist’s Shell Game

Source: Pathdoc / Shutterstock

Like street-corner hucksters, some narcissists seek to enhance their status through an array of devious tactics and verbal sleights of hand.

By “narcissist,” I mean individuals who meet the diagnostic criteria for narcissistic personality disorder or who display numerous narcissistic personality traits.

The following are five powerful, deceptive methods used by narcissists. By being aware of these shell games, you can more effectively avoid or defuse attempts at manipulation.

1. Intermittent reinforcement

Lab animals who get a food pellet every time they press a lever will rapidly lose interest once the food stops.

On the other hand, animals who receive a food pellet only sometimes when pressing the lever will keep pressing far longer, a behavior harder to extinguish due to intermittent reinforcement.

Similarly, narcissists use irregular patterns of bestowing compliments, attention, and affection. These rewards are experienced as extra-desirable because they come so randomly.

Like a thirsty person in a desert, you may over-value anything positive you get from a narcissist, given the steady diet of criticism, deprivation, and manipulation narcissists inflict. The unpredictable nature of such rewards can leave you hanging on indefinitely in an unhealthy relationship.

2. Faux vulnerability

Narcissists may pretend that they can’t live without you. Such attempts at self-handicapping self-enhancement are used more by vulnerable (sometimes called “covert”) narcissists rather than by grandiose narcissists. The goal is to make you believe you are indispensable to them, so you will feel guilty if you are tempted to stop attending to them.

The con is that they don’t need you; they just need an audience. They don’t see or need the unique person you are; they simply seek someone to praise and listen to them. Stop giving them attention or doing their bidding, and you’ll likely be discarded in a heartbeat.

3. Promised protection

Narcissists want you to believe that proximity to them and their wealth, power, charm, beauty, or wit will help you get ahead or protect you in a dangerous world. Their goal is to create dependency on them.

As with any protection racket, the costs far outweigh any benefits. Particularly with grandiose narcissists, the more you depend on them, the greater the chances you will feel trapped and become used as a narcissistic supply for their egos.

4. Strings attached

Narcissists live in a win-lose world. Their behaviors are transactional, and they feel entitled to get far more than they give.

When narcissists give a gift, they view it as a debt that you owe them. It may only be a matter of time before they remind you of their gift to guilt-trip you into doing more for them, even if it hurts you or goes against your healthy interests.

5. Faint praise

Narcissists crave praise. But as much as they demand it, they are loathe to give unabashed or authentic compliments.

For example, when you show up sporting a new outfit or hairstyle, they may say something like, “Well, look at you!” You’re left mystified, wondering: Was that a compliment or an insult?

Or compliments may be backhanded or tainted. Narcissists may say something like, “At least you didn’t screw up like the last three times.”

Narcissism Essential Reads

3 Ways Narcissists Objectify Their Children

Why Do Narcissistic Parents Gaslight Their Adult Children?

The key to avoiding narcissistic manipulation is realizing that narcissists’ actions are driven by a deep emptiness within, which they feel unable to remedy on their own. As a result, they seek to portray themselves as superior, desirable, and worthy.

While we can have empathy for the emotional wounds people with personality disorders such as narcissism carry, when those wounds lead them to humiliate, use, or manipulate you or others, you have the right to draw the line by calling out unhealthy behavior, asserting healthy boundaries, or walking away.

A version of this post appears on PsychCentral.com.