Are You an Introvert Or Are You Maybe

an Undercover Narcissist?
By Melissa Dahl Follow @melissadahl
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Photo: Andr Krger / EyeEm/Getty Images

Something introverts really like to do, it seems, is read and talk about their own introversion. A
commenter on a recent Science of Us post on the four kinds of introversion summed matters up
quite nicely: "Gosh, introverts are just so FASCINATING! Introverts." This tendency, you
could argue, may arise simply because introverts like spending a lot of time in deep reflection,
getting lost in their own thoughts and some of those thoughts, naturally, are going to be about
themselves.
But at what point does self-reflection cross the line into self-preoccupation? As it turns out, there
are some striking similarities between the popular understanding of introversion and a
psychological characteristic called covert narcissism: It's all the entitlement and grandiosity most
people associate with narcissism, minus the bluster. Maybe you know someone like this: They
tend to believe they're being underestimated or overlooked, like their amazing qualities are
forever going unnoticed by everyone else. They often take things too personally, especially
criticism, and sometimes feel a little resentful when other people bother them with their
problems.

Quiz: Are You a Covert Narcissist?

Take the quiz below to see where you rank in this newer theory of narcissism. Jump to quiz
Take a look at some of the items on a scale to measure covert narcissism, designed by
psychologist Jonathan Cheek:

I easily become wrapped up in my own interests and forget the existence of others.

I feel that I am temperamentally different from most people.

When I enter a room, I often become self-conscious and feel that the eyes of others are
upon me.

Of that last one, Cheek quipped to me: "Who are you, who everybody's looking at you? That's a
narcissistic fantasy. It's assuming that the world is paying a lot of attention to you." (Scroll down
to the bottom of this post, by the way, if you'd like to see how you rank on Cheek's quiz.) Taken
together, many of the items on Cheek's scale sound an awful lot like the way most people
understand introversion, and that's no coincidence. Covert narcissism correlates strongly with
introversion, Cheek explained if you have one, you're more likely to have the other, though
there are plenty of introverts who don't also have narcissistic tendencies. "Covert narcissism is
sort of a dark side of introversion," he said. "Just like overt narcissism is kind of a dark side of
extroversion." Put another way: Not all introverts are covert narcissists but covert narcissists
are almost certainly introverts.
Covert narcissism is called many names in the scientific literature: closet narcissism,
hypersensitive narcissism, and vulnerable narcissism, to name a few. Here, I'll mostly be using
the term covert narcissism, and its opposite overt narcissism, which is the usual way we think
of narcissism: that is to say, as Trump-ish. But whatever you want to call it, it's not by any means
a new insight into human behavior, even though it's still not very widely known outside of
academia. As far back as the late 1930s, researchers published their observations of this quieter
form of narcissism, according to the psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman, who once wrote about
the subject for Scientific American. The University of California, Berkeley, psychologist Paul
Wink addressed the "two faces of narcissism" again in the early 1990s, and later that decade,
Cheek published the first version of his scale.
But covert narcissism is understudied in comparison to its louder sibling, mostly because the trait
is a tricky one to observe in human nature, let alone in a laboratory setting, explained W. Keith
Campbell, a psychologist at the University of Georgia. "It's not somebody with a big
personality," Campbell said. "It's somebody who's a little paranoid, who thinks they're not being
treated fairly. They're a little suspicious, entitled." (When he does presentations on the subject,
the pop-culture figure who often pops up on his slides to illustrate the vulnerable narcissist is
George Costanza.)
Because the trait is so closely associated with introversion, there are few outward signs of this
version of narcissism instead of bragging aloud, for example, covert narcissists mostly keep

their sky-high opinions of themselves locked inside their own heads, leaving them feeling
misunderstood and overlooked. Zooey Deschanel, for example may or may not be an introvert
and she may or may not be a narcissist, but back in 2012 she gave an interview to Allure that
includes a quote about her college experience, and it's a pretty great articulation of this state of
mind. "I went to Northwestern because I had gone to a really nontraditional high school. I was
like, It'd be cool to have a traditional college experience," she told the magazine. "Then I was
like, Oh, but none of these people understand what's cool about me. My specialness is not
appreciated in this place."
Some psychologists, however, argue that all narcissists are, in reality, quite vulnerable or even
needy, despite their outward boastfulness. "There are covert narcissist aspects to any kind of
narcissist," said Craig Malkin, author of the new book Rethinking Narcissism: The Bad and
Surprising Good About Feeling Special. "It's just a mess with all these different terms. At the
common core, these are people who are addicted to feeling special. It's just that there are a lot of
ways to do it." Others say that covert narcissism might not really be narcissism at all, but instead
a form of neuroticism. (And in either case, by the way, we're talking here about trait narcissism,
which is different from the personality disorder listed in the DSM-V. Many people's personalities
would rate somewhere on the narcissistic spectrum; it's when the narcissism begins to intrude
negatively into their lives, causing serious problems at work or home, that it starts to stray into
disorder territory.)
Cheek, incidentally, recently completed some new research on the "common core" that unites
both forms of the trait, which he presented earlier this year at the annual meeting of the Society
for Personality and Social Psychology. In a study of more than 600 people, he found that both
introverted and extroverted narcissists have two things in common: A sense of entitlement and
fantasies of their own grandiosity. "You have to have a pretty grand sense of yourself, but you
also have to feel like you are entitled to have that recognized by other people," Cheek said. "If
you're overt, you're out there fighting for that recognition. But if you're covert, you're left in this
kind of strange, introverted state, where you're having these thoughts like, I wonder why people
aren't more appreciative of my good qualities. Nobody else seems to understand me."
Overt narcissism carries with it some good qualities these sorts of people, for example, tend to
make excellent leaders. On the other hand, "I can't see a lot of upsides to vulnerable narcissism,"
Campbell said. If you're seeing some of yourself in the definition of this kind of undercover
egotism (and you would, you narcissist), there are some ways to tamp down the tendencies.
"Practice caring and compassion for others," Campbell said. "Do things you are passionate about
rather than make you look good, and take responsibility for your actions. Basically, practices that
minimize the ego and increase connection with the world." Bonus: If you're the type of introvert
who is prone to social anxiety, turning your attention outside of yourself has been shown to
reduce those jittery feelings. Life gets easier for any personality type when you remind
yourself every once in a while that it's not all about you.
Below, you can take our quiz, adapted with permission from Cheek's ten-item scale, to see
whether or not you are a covert narcissist.