Tip: click a paragraph to jump to the exact moment in the video. Opposites No Longer Attract: How Narcissism Corrupts Mate Selection

1. 00:02 if you are poor and stupid you should look for an intimate partner who is Rich and Hyper intelligent in short you should look for
2. 00:17 me if on the other hand you’re a borderline you’re leile you’re damaged you’re BR deliciously broken you’re regulated you should look for a spouse or a boyfriend or girlfriend if you’re a male you should look for someone in your life who would be a secure
3. 00:42 base provide safety and a sense of stability in short anyone but me okay shim I’m back my name is s vak and I’m the author of malignant self- love narcissism visited the blue former visiting professor of psychology and currently on the faculty of Cups
4. 01:07 Commonwealth for international Advanced professional studies Toronto Canada Cambridge United Kingdom and The Inevitable Outreach campus in Lagos Nigeria Opposites Attract or birds of feather flock together which is more true in mate selection and the formation of romantic
5. 01:35 intimate long-term committed relationships and couples do we choose spouses boyfriends girlfriends that resemble us or do we choose an intimate partner who would compliment us not in the sense of compliment but compliment make us whole everything we are not
6. 02:00 we would find in the intimate partner everything we miss everything we need every deficiency every lack the partner would compensate for it if you unstable the partner would be stable if you’re not that learned or knowledgeable the partner would be in encyclopedia the
7. 02:18 partner would complete you would render you whole so which is it what is really going on there’s been a study of millions of couples the biggest of its kind and it came it resulted in an astounding outcome opposites do not attract opposites repel birds of feather flock
8. 02:50 together we seem to be looking for intimate Partners which resemble us mirror us are exactly like us in short we tend to look for intimate Partners who are extensions of ourselves but why do we it’s extremely irrational if you choose someone who is
9. 03:12 exactly like you you’re amplifying everything that’s good in you but you’re also amplifying your shortcomings your frailties your vulnerabilities your deficiencies your lacks your defects why would you do that why wouldn’t you choose someone who
10. 03:33 would compensate for everything that you miss everything that you lack everything that you wish you were why wouldn’t you choose someone who together with you would constitute the totality of human traits qualities skills and experiences why would you
11. 03:52 choose someone who would just per perpetuate who you are for better but also so for wor that’s irrational the answer of course is narcissism narcissism corrupts the mate selection process throughout human history without any question people chose intimate Partners
12. 04:20 who did not resemble them intimate Partners who were the opposite of them poor people chose rich people rich people chose poor people stupid people chose intelligent people intelligent people chose less intelligent people young chose older people older people
13. 04:42 chose the young etc etc opposites complemented each other put two opposites together and you get a complete whole ho in the good sense with the w so and this was a rational way for selecting mates but this was at an age when narcissism was not the organizing
14. 05:10 principle of reality or narcissism was not the determinant of identity when narcissism did not inform our decisions and choices predilections proclivities preferences wishes and dreams enter the Modern Age more or less 100 years ago and we started to be more and more
15. 05:34 narcissistic as documented in Studies by TW Campbell numerous others a Wade and so on so we are much more narcissistic than our forefathers and ancestors perhaps because we don’t have to struggle for survival we can be spoiled brats without varing the
16. 05:54 consequences of entitlement and selfishness while our ancestors ERS couldn’t they were embedded in Collective cultures which required teamwork compromise and consensus today we atomized each one to his own we self-sufficient and self-contained we don’t need really
17. 06:17 anyone else any alliance any CLE any diad any collaboration requires a sacrifice and many people are not willing to make this sacrifice anymore about half 40% plus of the adult population are no longer in any relationship or any committed relationship we move around we drift
18. 06:41 like so many um like so many water molecules in the ocean we come across each other we have casual sex and we vanish we exit each other’s lives after one night if we are lucky this is the picture of the modern world and in this modern world is people
19. 06:59 become more and more narcissistic they’re likely to look for mirroring they’re likely to regard everyone else as an internal object an extension of themselves now if you were to team up with a spouse or an intimate partner and that person would be the
20. 07:21 opposite of you it would be a constant challenge if you were to cohabit or share your life with someone who is not not you who is opposite to you who is opposed to you who contradicts you and disagrees with you and undermines your nent grandiosity or your self-perception
21. 07:41 is perfect and ideal and Godlike and so on so forth that is very uncomfortable that is ego distonic so narcissism corrupts the M selection process narcissism makes it impossible absolutely impossible to team up with with someone who would undermine challenge
22. 08:05 countervail your sense of omnipotence and omniscience and Perfection and being ideal on the very contr you would look you would look for a partner who would tell you that you are perfect that you are amazing in short you would look for a partner who would love bomb you no
23. 08:26 wonder narcissistic relationship on the ascendants and narcissism had become a gigantic Global problem in romantic and intimate relationships but also in the work workplace among friends in church extended family you name it people demand today demand narcissistic
24. 08:49 Supply attention the attention economy social media adoration admiration adulation and absent these they don’t mind being Notorious being feared being loathed as long as it brings modicum of daily dose of attention so mate selection nowadays is about about Scouting
25. 09:19 For and selecting for a partner an intimate or romantic partner who would be who would become your audience your greatest fan someone who would not tell you the truth who would not undermine and challenge your fantastic preconceptions and of yourself someone
26. 09:43 who would collude in your shared fantasy get integrated into it kind of people pleaser codependent but someone who would mirror you someone who would not oppose you so opposites don’t attract anymore birds of feather flock together narcissists all around the world looking
27. 10:07 for narcissistic Supply they would tend to select for identical mates everywhere mates which are mere Reflections extensions of the narcissistic partner okay what study are we am I talking about there was a analysis of meta analysis of 200 a survey of 200 studies
28. 10:35 involving millions of couples and The Meta analysis reach a conclusion that there is no grounds for assuming that Opposites Attract nowadays mind you these studies are contemporaneous they refer to the current picture to the modern or postmodern Society they don’t they did
29. 10:58 not investigate relationships in the 19th century for example so today nowadays opposites do not attract on the very contrary these studies found that most people are looking for someone who shares their values their beliefs a kind of confirmation bias a thought Silo they
30. 11:23 want someone who would Echo what they thinking someone who would not confront not challenge not undermine not disagree not criticize not bring to the table new countervailing contradictory information no someone who would serve as a filter or a membrane to
31. 11:43 tell you you’re always right you’re amazingly intelligent yes sir a yes A yes person a people people pleaser codependent in many ways these studies analyze hundreds of traits anything from political Linings to smoking to drinking to sex and these
32. 12:07 studies found that the vast majority of modern partners are more much more alike than they are different only in 3% of the trades you heard well 3% of the trades people tended to pair with someone with an opposite or different inclination this study was published in
33. 12:31 the journal Nature human behavior a very prestigious one so in 97% when it comes to 97% of the hundreds of traits listed people were actively adamantly selectively choosing Partners who would be compatible 100% with their traits who would have the same indistinguishable
34. 13:02 traits people who would be mere internal objects mere extensions mirrors not real people you see because when the person you live with is exactly like you you’re making love to yourself This is autoerotism you are you are your relationship is actually with yourself
35. 13:29 via another person by proxy that other person becomes indistinguishable from you an internal object to be manipulated at will this is not a couple this is not a diet this is not romantic this is not intimate there’s no intimacy there except the intimacy with yourself you
36. 13:50 use the partner to look at the mirror and see yourself in all your glory and perfection and infallibility so the very nature of Human Relationships has devolved deteriorated and degenerated into a kind of narcissistic self-investment also known
37. 14:14 in clinical literature as narcissistic aexis or narcissistic libido libido so people are in love with
38. 14:25 themselves through the agency of their intimate partners because their intimate partners are nothing but reflections of themselves and this is what’s happening nowadays um and these are huge numbers 97% of all of hundreds of traits you know it is not that people are not
39. 14:48 attracted to others who are very different to themselves there is such attraction but when they come to decide when they come to make long-term commitments and Investments when they when they reach the point of forming a couple cohabiting co-parenting sharing a
40. 15:12 life they give up on people who are dissimilar people who are opposed people who are not like them so while they while they may be attracted may may even have sex casual sex and so on with people who are the opposite they would never form long or very rarely would
41. 15:33 form long-term relationships with opposites only with copies replicas and clones of themselves T hor horvitz was a lead researcher said we looked at cohabiting and coparenting C couples and long-term relationships and that’s where they found that opposites
42. 15:56 do not attract long-term relationships People Partners in long-term couplings long-term diet were similar in so many ways religious beliefs political beliefs educational background socioeconomic background certain types of intelligence analytical otherwise lifestyle habits
43. 16:18 you name it the the people in the couple were indistinguishable it’s a terrifying picture it’s cloning and ution depends crucially on
44. 16:32 diversity on the meeting of opposites sex is about mixing genes mixing genes which are incompatible in order to create a third option this is how the roulette the roulette of life and the roulette of evolution keeps coming up with new Solutions all the time on the cellular
45. 16:55 level there are mutations and on the the microorganism level there is coupling romance love which is essentially a biochemical cocktail Evolution wants us wants us to be in compatible Evolution wants opposites to attract because this is the only way to encourage
46. 17:20 diversification of the G pool and a much better strategy of survival much better chances odds of survival 199 published studies involving millions of male female couples dating back as far as 1903 also there was an analysis of data from the UK biobank which is an ongoing
47. 17:48 research project collects health and genetic information from about half a million British adults yes I know British adults is an oxim but all the same I can’t help it that’s me okay so they made a list of 150 trades and for 82 to 89 of those trades
48. 18:13 Partners were clearly likely to be much more similar than different and another 9% similar not much more similar but just similar among the trades there were couples uh which were most strongly aligned strong alignment Coupes strong affiliation
49. 18:35 couples and these couples were bonded mostly through political and religious vectors their beliefs their faith in terms of religion their commitment or activism in terms of politics their opinions views and judgments bonded them together so did
50. 18:56 education level it was a great predictor of cohesion in couples and couple formation and finally IQ measurements and smoking and drinking habits there were personality traits that also mattered um and even there when personality was analyzed using big five
51. 19:20 factor and big factor analysis and so on never mind all that personality was also a great predictor of of coming together compatibility in personality in personality traits so the study found that Partners did tend to be more alike than different on Big Five personality traits
52. 19:45 extroversion openness agreeableness cons conscientiousness and neuroticism I strangely the correlations when it came to personality were not as strong as the correlations when it came to behavior political views religious beliefs in short the emphasis was not
53. 20:09 about who you are not about your substance not about your essence it seems that we judge each other based on preference on appearances I’m sorry and on self-reporting we no longer care about who you truly and authentically are but about who you claim to be and
54. 20:34 who you appear to be the correlations the correlation between members of couples were based on appearances on externalities on Behavior not on who these people were it’s as if members of modern couples don’t reach in beyond the facade Beyond appearances they don’t
55. 21:05 care appearances interact with appearances and the real personality the authentic self The Voice whatever you want to call it remains hidden modern couples do not truly communicate who they are to each other they bond they attach they form diads based on
56. 21:31 behaviors claims about beliefs and values and appearances shocking extroverts for example were’re only slightly more likely to pair up with a fellow extrovert rather than an introvert so it extroversion is a a personality trait however extroverted Behavior did determine
57. 22:03 coupling so if you were an extrovert and didn’t show it you were an extrovert but it didn’t become active your extroversion remained hidden occult this would not have influenced couple formation and mate selection but if you externalize your extroversion if
58. 22:22 you became an extrovert behaviorally you attended many parties you socialized a lot you were vocal in you were center of attention and life of a bodyy this did affect mate selection and died
59. 22:39 formation his finding was similar when it came to neuroticism according to the UK biobank study there were only few traits um which did attract opposites one was what is known as chronotype people who are Mourning persons or or night owls you know night
60. 23:01 persons so night owls for example uh paired more often with early Rises than with other night owls so if you are if you Blossom if you’re at your Peak during the night you would tend to choose someone who is functional in the morning but half dead at
61. 23:24 night again I interpret it interpret this in terms of narcissism if your partner is not at his
62. 23:35 Peak if your partner is less than perfect less than functional at night and you on the other hand flourish and Thrive at night then you would be able to be much more dominant in the couple so there’s a question here of dominance narcissistic Supply attracting attention
63. 24:00 control all a manipulative maavan narcissistic or at least dark personality issues and traits so even this rare coupling of opposites has to do in my view with manipulativeness control and garnering more narcissistic Supply more attention than your partner
64. 24:24 because come nighttime she’s half dead she she just wants to sleep she doesn’t stand out she doesn’t shine like
65. 24:37 you so if all this is true why do we still keep saying that Opposites Attract because they used to they used to um up until the 1950s multiple studies found that opposites do attract 1950s are exactly the age of rebellion after the second world war where Defiance malignant
66. 25:08 individualism contumacious rejection of authority started to flourish the hepp movement and so on and with all these narcissism narcissism came came to its own in the 1950s but even in the 1950s as narcissism was blossoming for the first time for the first time there were
67. 25:27 studies for for example by Robert winch that suggested that Opposites Attract so we can safely assume and believe that throughout human history the rule was choose your opposite choose in your partner in your spouse and in your mate those things
68. 25:48 that you need and don’t possess those traits that could be of help to you and yet you don’t have make your partner a completion of you choose a partner that can supply you and provide you with skills talents personality traits moods and and so on so forth and effects
69. 26:16 that you yourself are lacking in and this positioned well into the 1950s uh and then something happened in the 1950s and there’s been a a major reversal of this folk wisdom Angela B is an associate professor of psychology at Welsley College in Massachusetts and she studied uh the
70. 26:44 topic in 2016 she published a study and she found that in both romantic pairings romantic Pairs and friendships people are actually drawn dramatically overwhelmingly to likeminded individuals which would explain for example political po polarization we want to listen only to
71. 27:09 likeminded people confirmation bias we don’t we resent and reject and get very angry when we are challenged when we are criticized when people disagree with us and there was no evidence starting in in around 2010 there was no evidence that Partners or friends changed over
72. 27:31 time to become more in sync the similarities was were there from the get go from the very beginning and part of the story says buns is structural if you’re a college graduate for instance you’re more likely to be around a lot of other college
73. 27:49 graduates and if you have a high school diploma you’re not so your pairing opportunities your mate selection opportunities are much higher in your natural habitat or environment or ecosystem but this fails to explain this fails to explain the previous 10,000
74. 28:09 years of human history there have always been asymmetries they’ve always been discrepancies there’ have always been different environments people have always been exposed to like-minded people and to opposites and yet Opposites Attract used to be the rule until recently
75. 28:29 similarities are very attractive to narcissist because similarities are validating and some someone shares your beliefs and values the message is you’re a genius you’re always right you can’t get anything wrong you’re infallible yes I agree with you the more people agree
76. 28:50 with you the more you become convinced of your own of your own omniscience Godlike omniscience it’s a narcissistic Supply procedure or defense or mechanism or whatever Vector whatever you want to call it it’s all about narcissistic Supply today we pair we create pairs we
77. 29:12 create diads and couples based on the availability anticipated availability of narcissistic Supply we reg each other as sources of narcissistic Supply we commoditize each other bonds found that in bigger more diverse environments a large University for
78. 29:32 example versus a small College people tend to be even more similar to their romantic partners and friends which gives the lie to the claim that it is an environmental selection no the environment has no no effect on this the environment is is not the
79. 29:53 reason why people choose similar-minded people n nism is when you have a large pool of mates and friends you can be more selective and yet people keep selecting the same like-minded people disimilar people can still team up they can still have friendships they
80. 30:17 can even have romantic relationships and so on but they never l in a narcissistic environment because the friction is too is too big if you’re with someone who is not like you you keep being reminded of your own shortcomings of your own failings of your own defeats of your own
81. 30:34 mistakes of your own vulnerabilities and frailties and narcissistic people don’t want that this is Nar narcissistic injury when you’re someone who someone with someone who is dissimilar to you that person becomes a source of frustration and constant
82. 30:52 injuries who wants this no one does if you are not narcissist and the more narcissistic people become the less they’re inclined to team up with potential sources of frustration and narcissistic injury uh one caveat we have no information about same seex couples this
83. 31:14 is only about heterosexual couples and we don’t know if we were to include samesex couples what how would the outcome look but I’m pretty convinced that the situation is even worse among samesex couples because H homosexuality does imply however Politically Incorrect is to say
84. 31:39 this homosexuality does imply homoeroticism does imply Auto erotism and narcissism there I say I suspect the situation is much worse among samex couples but we don’t have information narcissism has totally degraded and corrupted our M selection process is
85. 32:04 therefore an evolutionary threat to the existence and survival of our quickly degenerating decaying and dying
86. 32:17 species