Cultivating Narcissistic Entitlement

What do you feel you deserve in life? In any specific situation, or more generally, do you have a sense that you need to earn rewards or that rewards naturally belong to you? One of the hallmark diagnostic indicators of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is an inflated sense of entitlement (according to DSM 5, “unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations”). In the narcissistic mind, there are no failures; these are merely instances of having been cheated of accolades richly deserved but unjustly withheld.

In my clinical experience, traits of narcissistic entitlement are typically forged in a particular family environment. A rejecting parent may have been absent, abusive, or unduly critical, while the other, over-indulgent parent compensated by coddling the child, instilling the message that he or she could do no wrong. In its most dramatic display, we have all seen news coverage in which the parent (often the mother) of a habitual criminal is interviewed after her son has been apprehended for yet another serious crime. Tearfully (and bitterly), this parent insists that her son is a “good child” who was incapable of this despicable act. While such coverage is likely intended to promote outrage, it always saddens me as a psychologist, because we are hearing from this parent a destructive voice of entitlement (no voice for restraint is apparent in this family), that would have been especially damaging to a child already prone to impulsivity and resentment, surrounded by antisocial influences. It is a recipe for the creation of potential perpetrators.

Narcissism by Proxy

Fortunately, most children do not become criminals, but parents seeking to insulate children from any sense of disapproval or disappointment seems a growing trend. Such parents, while not necessarily narcissists themselves, view (and treat) the child as a split-off, idealized, embodied aspect of the parental self, immune to any criticism or consequence. This notion of the child “perfect as is,” needing only love and support, mercifully untethered from disapproval or correction, is at odds with what we know about healthy moral and psychological development. Among other civilizing influences, children become socialized as they learn to experience and manage the moral emotions of shame and guilt. The shame emotion serves as a signal that the child has transgressed some social boundary by having done something “wrong.” This humanizes the child by tempering infantile omnipotence with a needed sense of humility. It can promote resilience in the face of future adversity. The guilty emotion, in turn, attunes the child to compassion by avoiding or repairing harm to others. These forces help put a brake on unbridled entitlement.

Childhood Entitlement

The inability to tolerate the shame emotion is associated with the development of narcissism. With an over-indulgent parent bent on protecting the child from any negative feelings, a family culture of shame avoidance emerges. This increasingly fragile and entitled child learns that any deflation of self-regard is threatening to the protective parent and therefore invalid. The child may come to believe that he or she is “special,” deserving only special treatment, irrespective of abilities or actions. This deprives the child of the ability to manage and surmount shameful childhood feelings of failure, inadequacy, or badness. The capacity to tolerate and manage shame can be likened to a muscle that must be developed and exercised. In the field of clinical psychology, attention has understandably focused on the damage attendant to excessive shaming. It is easy to ignore the evolutionary benefits that ensured the installation of the shame experience in human nature in the first place. The capacity for shame helps make us human.

It is normal for toddlers to exhibit selfishness, but by the ages of three to four years old, primitive understandings of fairness, as well as the ability to manifest the self-conscious emotions of shame and guilt, begin to emerge. Realistically entitled children begin to share toys and engage in reciprocal play with others. But for those steeped in a coddling family culture defiant of shame, entitlement becomes an enduring personality trait.

What Is the Harm of Dreaming Big?

When observing someone especially narcissistic and entitled, expecting only great triumphs at each challenge, we may feel a secret sense of envy. While on one level their cringeworthy behavior may repel us, we simultaneously think, “what would it be like to have that level of self-belief, free of self-doubt?” It is certainly adaptive to have a positive sense of self-esteem, but the narcissist’s exaggerated sense of entitlement leads inevitably to disappointment and bitterness. We all experience setbacks, but for the narcissist, any failure to achieve a desired end (e.g., special status, approval, admiration) is a grievous injustice. This worldview deprives them of opportunities to fully learn from experience. Presenting as confident and carefree, at a deeper level narcissists are often licking chronic, deep, and accumulating psychic wounds from a lifetime of perceived injustice.

Can a Culture Promote Entitlement?

What happens when a culture becomes defiant of the experience of shame? Looking at the behavior of college students on campus and the popular embrace of emotional fragility on social media, we see evidence of the downside of this trend to shield children from psychological "harm." While these parental attitudes may have been borne of good intentions, psychologist Jonathan Haidt (2018) has cautioned about the ways in which overprotective parenting has actually produced a generation exhibiting startlingly high levels of anxiety and depression. Given that a sense of entitlement may become baked into personality early in life, it will be interesting to see whether these new parents can reverse course.