Unlearning Helplessness
Cognitive scientist and author, Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, breaks down vulnerable narcissism, the Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood, and the need for compassion and complexity.
This is the first part of a transcribed conversation I had with Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman. Subscribe to The Faction so you don’t miss part two.
Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman is a cognitive scientist and humanistic psychologist exploring intelligence, creativity and the depth of human potential. He's the founder and director of the Center for Human Potential and founder of Self-Actualization Coaching.
Dr. Kaufman holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Yale University and has taught at Columbia University, Yale, NYU, the University of Pennsylvania and elsewhere. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Scientific American, Psychology Today and Harvard Business Review, and he is the author and editor of over ten books.
Kimi: I'm curious, for those who are not familiar with your work, what brought you into the field of psychology?
Scott: Oh, well, that's a long story, but let's see if we can really make that short.
When I was really, really young, the first couple of years of my life, I had an auditory learning disability, where it was very hard for me to process things in real time. And I was put in special education because everyone thought I was stupid as a result of it. And I had wondered, as early as can be, why we were all being treated as though we had such little potential.
I would really advocate for my friends in special ed. And then as I grew older, I outgrew my learning disability and I fought my way out. It's really a whole story which I wrote about in my book Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined, but I'm trying to make a long story short here—there's so many little parts of this story.
But I fought my way out of special education to see what I was capable of, and I decided at one point that I didn't want to be defined by my learning disability label anymore. And I didn't want all the—I mean, I got a lot of special privileges as a result of it—but I didn't want the privileges.
I wanted to earn things on my own merits and really fought my way out of the system. And I proved everyone wrong. I fought and fought my way to get into college. I wasn't even college bound and wasn't even accepted in the psychology program at first.
I actually went through my opera singing! And then I transferred into psychology once I was there—always trying to find an alternate route to get to where I want to go. Not giving up. So, I was always interested in psychology. I think as young as I could be, as long as I can remember, I was fascinated with individual differences—why people differ from each other in talent, creativity, intelligence, these sort of things.
Kimi: It seems like you're speaking about this—about growth, about transcendence, about self-actualization, from experience. What do you think is the primary thing holding back Gen-Z and millennials in this 2020 era?
Scott: I think their mentality about life; how to face and deal with life and how to cope with life and life's many challenges.
I resonate so much with a lot of their issues and their anxiety. I've suffered from generalized anxiety disorder my whole life. I know what it feels like to feel a constant sense of anxiety, but I think that it's really important and we should be teaching young people (but I don't just stop at young people, we should be teaching adults, everyone, right?) to not be a victim to your emotions. It's how I frame it.
Unfortunately, I feel like a lot of young people today are being raised in a culture of victimhood that almost makes it easier for them to stay there, as opposed to being able to learn the tools of resiliency.
And at the end of the day, I think that we're really selling a whole generation short of human potential. I think that these kids have so much greater potential than they realize—greater potential for even just fundamentally being able to cope with the challenges of life.
Kimi: I want to tap into the word mentality a little bit, because I think we all have an idea of what a mentality is, but from a cognitive scientist perspective, what is a mentality?
Is it ingrained into your identity? Is it something that we can learn at any stage in life? Is it something we tap into at some part of the day, or once we read a certain headline? What is that word—what does it mean to you?
Scott: Yeah, I think it is absolutely the thing that you can adopt and learn and cultivate at any point in your life.
You know, we have personality differences, we have temperament differences, but above all of that, we can develop a way of being and a consciousness that allows us to have the worldview, ways, modes of thinking about our future and how to acquire our goals and skills. All these things are encompassed in them—in a mentality—and what I call an empowerment mentality.
And that's what I'm trying to get to, is an empowerment mindset. From a passive mindset to an empowerment mindset. But I think it's something that anyone can cultivate. I mean, I think that the great humanistic psychologist Viktor Frankl, who wrote a Man's Search for Meaning—I mean, he tried to cultivate an empowerment mindset even within the Holocaust.
So I don't think that you can, or anyone can, ever use their environmental circumstance as an excuse to not work toward an empowerment mindset. Does that make sense?
Kimi: That makes a lot of sense, and thank you for laying that out.
So you mentioned a passive mentality as opposed to an empowerment mentality. What's that?
Scott: That's the framework I'm trying to create.
I want people to go from a passive mindset to an empowering mindset. A passive mindset is one that is grounded in learned helplessness—the field of psychology has studied this trait that you can acquire through repeated failures or repeated sense of not being able to overcome something.
And you get to a certain point where, even if the thing that you want is available to you, you no longer see it, right? It's like the dogs don't leave the cage when the cages eventually open because they've been shocked so many times.
Kimi: And would you say that our culture, our economic setup rewards that passive mindset more than it does the empowerment mindset?
Scott: I think so, yeah. Do you think so?
Kimi: I definitely think so. I went through a journey of moving from Africa to the U.S. and to a degree, through college, through education, through general-ed classes, learning an outlook on life that would kind of align with what you describe as that passive mindset.
A lot of events I would process as happening to me and me not having any power over it. I would kind of break everything down into microaggressions and therefore feel that, based on my identity as a black woman, I can't move past whatever oppression was coming my way. In that season, I think I had a lot more compassion thrown my way in certain aspects, not that it really helped me internally, but I think there was a lot more acceptance and opportunities.
But the moment I started to sort of speak up about what you would describe as kind of being more empowered and having that empowerment mentality, it was like, "oh, I don't think you want to really talk about yourself not experiencing oppression because that's not in alignment with the narrative you should be adhering to." So yeah, in my experience, I would say to a degree that's true.
I want to transition into a very interesting topic—at least interesting to me—which is vulnerable narcissism.
In Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman's words, How would you define narcissism?
Scott: Oh, well, there are so many different types of narcissism that exist.
But the core threads that run through all of them are excessive self-focus and entitlement. It's a pervasive sense of entitlement. So that has a particular meaning in the psychology literature—psychological entitlement. It's almost contextual. Wherever this person goes—whether it's the Starbucks line or the airplane waiting line—these people tend to come out in those situations.
But there are actually so many different types of narcissism that psychologists have discovered in recent years.
Kimi: And do you think that the layperson interest in narcissism is extreme? Do you think people who aren't psychologists are maybe too fascinated by the topic, or do you think it is a fascination that is in alignment with how peculiar this disorder is?
Scott: Well, I want to say something along those lines. It has been proposed that the two words of the year are narcissism and trauma, which is why I coined the term Trauma Narcissism.
Everyone on social media is talking every day. Their stories about how much trauma they've had in their life, or the narcissist in their life. Those two things are what everyone's talking about. It's very much in the zeitgeist now—fully understanding and wrapping our head around what might be the cause.
You know it could be the book The Body Keeps the Score, which became such a runaway bestseller, and entered into and changed the consciousness. So now everyday nuisance is now framed as a trauma, you know?
Kimi: You mentioned that there are many types of narcissism and then there's this particular form of narcissism that is vulnerable narcissism. What is unique about vulnerable narcissism? What are some key traits regarding it and why? Why is it particularly captivating a certain reaction, if that makes sense?
It is sort of the form of narcissism that is most culturally celebrated because it capitalizes on that word, ‘trauma’. So I'm curious to see what it is that makes it so special, unique and maybe culturally ignored?
Whereas a lot of people will say, oh, grandiose narcissism, that's terrible, malignant narcissism, that's terrible. But vulnerable narcissism does not really get a spotlight because I think right now culture tends to reward it in my sort of layperson's opinion.
Scott: Yeah, there's a lot there's a lot to unpack there. The idea of rewarding something. Let's think that through. Let's unpack that in a really nuanced way.
What you are seeing is that there are a lot of people who are legitimately suffering. In their own subjective experience, they are facing a lot of anxiety these days. Jonathan Haidt, my colleague, a social psychologist, calls it the anxious generation. And I think that being able to see lots of examples of other people who are being vulnerable and letting go, there is a big relief and there's something that feels good about being vulnerable and being able to tell… you know, you told me your story, right?
I told you my story. So, there is something that is allowing a lot of people to open up about their own unique suffering. That's not necessarily vulnerable narcissism. And I think that can actually be a good thing. I think that the more that we listen to each other's pain and suffering and acknowledge other people's expressions of hurt, that's ultimately good for society.
What vulnerable narcissism is, is something a little bit different. It's where we start to get into the victimhood Olympics. Where we get into our silos of suffering and we lose empathy for the suffering of others, especially those who appear very different than ourselves or, those that we've deemed to be in our out-group in some way.
I mean, there's so many different ways you can view someone who's not in your in-group and things get really tribal in that way and you start to feel empathy for others. Actually, I can tell you the characteristics of people who tend [to be vulnerable narcissists]. It's literally in the psychology literature called a Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood.
I'm actually working on a large scale study right now, correlating that with vulnerable narcissism. So I think both of them are almost identical. But our data hasn't found—no one's actually made the link between the two traits yet, but I'm working on it! But the four characteristics of TIV, or Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood, is a sense of moral elitism.
You know, that sense that because I've suffered, I can't do any wrong. So that's number one. Number two is constantly seeking, and I would say demanding, recognition of one's victimhood, even in a context where it's not even appropriate. Like, let's say you're at a funeral and so-and-so stands up and says, "Yeah, I don't care about the funeral. You all need to recognize that I have experienced racism."
It's like, wait minute, that wasn't the appropriate time. But okay, I guess my examples tend to be absurd, but it paints the picture very clearly. Three, lack of empathy for the pain and suffering of others. So saying, "Look, you don't know what I've been through. I've suffered so much, I don't need to care about you."
And then the fourth one is frequently ruminating about past victimization, and that tends to cause suffering to the person. So they can't seem to stop thinking about it. Psychologists distinguish between productive rumination and unproductive rumination, and they tend to show a lot of unproductive rumination. It's not leading anywhere—it's not leading to any growth.
Four Characteristics of TIV:
Moral elitism
Demanding recognition of one's victimhood
Lack of empathy for the pain and suffering of others
Frequently ruminating about past victimization
So I just want to be clear that what I'm referring to has those four qualities. It is a great thing to be in communities where you're sharing your personal spirit, your lived experiences. I loved listening to your story. You know, it touched me. And I was able to tell you my story and you were able to show empathy for my story.
Now, that's a different sort of bulwarks than what we're talking about. I think it's important to have that kind of nuance because, you know, a lot of people are uncertain. It gets all political. Some people will immediately dismiss someone's pain as like, "Oh, that's the woke left!" It's like, yeah, we know that person's just telling you how much they're suffering.
Have a little compassion. A little compassion goes a long way. So I think in this kind of discussion it is important to distinguish between these various levels of nuance.
Join me for part two, where Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman and I dig deeper into mentality, the co-opting of the term ‘victim mindset’ by the right, and how to grow past unproductive rumination. You can learn more about his work here, and be sure to grab a copy of his latest book, Choose Growth.