--- title: Why Men Are More Narcissistic Than Women description: Sexism explains the difference between men and women — but that could be changing canonical: https://time.com/3734329/narcissism-men-women/ author: Jeffrey Kluger article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-05T21:48:39.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T04:57:23.898Z article:section: Science og:title: Why Men Are More Narcissistic Than Women og:description: Narcissism has long afflicted more men than women — but that could be changing. og:url: https://time.com/3734329/narcissism-men-women/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt075ef2bb51b6d339/698782af5f570ffb1bb15a37/man-dress-shoes.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4998 og:image:height: 2811 og:image:alt: Men sitting on bench wearing colourful socks og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Men Are More Narcissistic Than Women twitter:description: Narcissism has long afflicted more men than women — but that could be changing. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt075ef2bb51b6d339/698782af5f570ffb1bb15a37/man-dress-shoes.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why Men Are More Narcissistic Than Women > Sponsored content. 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Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Mar 5, 2015 9:48 PM UTC  Men sitting on bench wearing colourful socks Men sitting on bench wearing colourful socks Noel Hendrickson—Getty Images  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Mar 5, 2015 9:48 PM UTC If there’s one thing you can say for craziness, it’s that it’s not sexist. Across entire populations, males and females face a pretty equal lifetime risk of coming unhinged. Within conditions, however, there may be differences. [Women are twice as likely as men](http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in-depth/depression/art-20047725), for example, to develop depression. Anxiety disorders such as OCD and phobias [also hit women a bit harder](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3135672/). Narcissism, however, goes the other way. Research has long suggested that if you’re looking for someone who’s preening, strutting, self-absorbed, arrogant, exhibitionistic, conceited, insensitive and entitled, you’ll find more of them in the boys’ camp than you will in the girls’. So it comes as, well, almost no news at all that [a new study](http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2015/03/009.html) — hold your applause till the end, please — found exactly that! The research, in fairness, was sweeping: a meta-analysis of 355 journal articles and other studies going back 31 years. In the behavioral sciences, which lack the tidy, 1+1=2 certainty of fields like chemistry and physics and math, meta-analyses are often the best way to lock down a hypothesis. The paper did that, but it did more too — not just establishing the gender disparity but explaining why it exists. In my 2014 book, [_The Narcissist Next Door_](http://www.amazon.com/Narcissist-Next-Door-Understanding-Bed/dp/1594486360), I wrestled with the question of narcissism and gender, and came to the conclusion that our still patriarchal society is far likelier to tolerate — even encourage — narcissistic swagger and aggressiveness in men than it is in women. It was hardly a theory I developed de novo, but rather is one many researchers had voiced — thought not yet proved. The researchers in the new study — led by Emily Grijalva, an assistant professor of organization and human resources at the University of Buffalo School of Management — broke down their metadata in ways that highlighted three of the multiple categories of narcissistic behavior: grandiosity and exhibitionism; leadership and authority; and entitlement. Men ran away with the entitlement category (we’re looking at you, John Edwards, Donald Trump, Charlie Sheen), and led by a narrower gap in the leadership and authority category. “Compared with women,” Grijalva said in a statement that accompanied the study, “men exhibit more assertiveness and desire for power.” That too is consistent with a culture in which men don’t merely hold more positions in government and high finance, but seek those positions more as well. But when it comes to exhibitionism — the basic table stakes for boys and girls dreaming of growing up to achieve their true full narcissistic potential — the sexes start off pretty much equally. As happens so often in a sexist world, however, that potential — O.K., pathological potential — is squelched in girls while it’s encouraged in boys. “Individuals tend to observe and learn gender roles from a young age, and may face backlash for deviating from society’s expectations,” Grijalva said. “In particular, women often receive harsh criticism for being aggressive or authoritative, which creates pressure for \[them\] to suppress displays of narcissistic behavior.” Gender equality, of course, is a surpassing good, and the arc of history is inevitably bending its way. It will, alas, almost certainly mean narcissistic equality too. 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