The Americanization of Narcissism

Lunbeck, Elizabeth

doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674726147

Cited by 49 publications

(19 citation statements)

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“…The biological psychiatry that emerged in the 1970s adjusted the psychiatric gaze from fixating on the mental health of populations to focussing once again on individuals. This was a timely shift as the United States entered the narcissistic "me" decade and as Americans eagerly adopted the role as mental health consumers (Lunbeck, 2014).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A fine balance: individualism, society and the prevention of mental illness in the United States, 1945–1968

Smith

2016

Palgrave Commun

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In the introduction to a collection of his essays entitled Society as Patient (1950), American social scientist and Rockefeller Foundation administrator Lawrence K Frank (1890–1968) claimed that, to prevent the apparently escalating rates of mental illness: “The individual, instead of seeking his own personal salvation and security, must recognize his almost complete dependence upon the group life and see his only hope in and through cultural reorganization”. Americans, Frank continued, would have “to give up … time-honored beliefs in human volition and responsibility” and “replace them with a larger and humanly more valuable belief in cultural self-determination, social volition, and group responsibility”. For Americans entering the 1950s, a decade of postwar prosperity, McCarthyism and free market capitalism, such communitarian thinking might have been anathema. But also arising out of the American experience of the Second World War were mounting concerns about mental health, due in part to the large number of American military recruits rejected on psychiatric grounds and American soldiers granted psychiatric discharge. In the face of affluence and contentment was alarm that many more Americans were mentally disordered than previously thought, and that new preventive approaches to mental health were required. Addressing these concerns during the postwar period was a new approach to psychiatry: social psychiatry. Rooted in both the child guidance and mental hygiene movements of the early twentieth century as well as contemporary social scientific research, social psychiatry was “a preventive psychiatry”, an epidemiological approach to mental health dedicated to identifying the environmental causes of mental illness—ranging from overcrowding and poverty to social exclusion and racism—and eradicating them. In this article, I explore how the economic and social implications of social psychiatry were articulated. Did social psychiatrists believe that it was possible to re-balance American society, not merely in economic terms, but also with respect to counter-balancing the prevailing ideology of “rugged individualism” with a more communitarian outlook? To what degree were they willing to do this themselves, eschewing lucrative psychoanalytic practices for community psychiatry? I will suggest that, although many of the aspirations of social psychiatry were unrealistic, and possibly utopian, they are worth re-considering. This article is published as part of a collection entitled ‘On balance: lifestyle, mental health and wellbeing’.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A fine balance: individualism, society and the prevention of mental illness in the United States, 1945–1968

Smith

2016

Palgrave Commun

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“…In the case of CEOs, usually negative traits such as competitiveness and risk-taking can raise positive feedback as they can drive innovative and visionary leadership (cf. Engelen et al 2016;Lunbeck 2014). Prominent examples of these "productive narcissists" include the former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, Apple's Steve Jobs, and Microsoft's Bill Gates, and also historical figures like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford (Maccoby 2000: 70).…”

Section: The Narrative Relationship Between Organizational and Indivimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These dimensions are helpful for any textual approach to narcissism because they point to key binaries that constantly reappear in observations of narcissistic behavior and underline its paradoxical nature (cf. Elliot and Thrash 2001;Lunbeck 2014;Morf and Rhodewalt 2001).…”

Section: The Narrative Relationship Between Organizational and Indivimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Her title alludes to Tom Wolfe's 1970 s manifesto, "The 'me' decade," which led to that decade being considered the "age of narcissism" (cf. Emmons 1987;Lunbeck 2014;Wolfe 1976). Interestingly, Twenge also finds a direct relationship between educational institutions and narcissistic predispositions.…”

Section: The Mba Bubble As Narcissistic Institutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It can express itself in various ways, including "excessive preoccupation with self-image and beauty" (Gabriel 2008: 193), the constant need to be "the center of attention" (Bergman et al 2010: 123), and uncontrolled aggression and even sadism (cf. Lunbeck 2014). In the context of individual leadership behavior research, narcissism is associated with attention-drawing actions, extensive risk-taking, the inability to listen to subordinates, a lack of empathy, hyper-sensitivity to face critique, poor listening skills, entitlement claims, aggressiveness, and an inclination to display heroic charisma (cf.…”

Section: The Narrative Relationship Between Organizational and Indivimentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ahead of the curvein the MBA bubble: Institutional narcissism and the narrative reconstruction of moral agency

Schmidt

2017

Frontiers of Narrative Studies

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Academic criticism of institutional narcissism in business schools is well established. But little scholarly attention has been devoted to insider critics of business schools. Filling this research gap -from an interdisciplinary narrative perspective -is the aim of this article. It draws attention to one of the many autobiographical narratives that have recently been published by MBA graduates. Narcissism here appears as an important theme, both on an institutional and a personal level. What role does narration play for coping with narcissism? To explore this question, this paper offers a close reading of Ahead of the curve: Two years at Harvard Business School (2008) by Philip Delves Broughton. After a brief introduction to institutional narcissism and organizational narrative studies, the article illustrates how narrative functions as a sense-making tool for understanding institutional narcissism and as a means to reconstruct individual moral agency. The study pushes the frontiers of narrative studies by providing an innovative blend of empirical organizational research and literary studies, while also touching upon genre, interdisciplinarity, and the ethical responsibility of business in society.

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Karen Horney

Vanacore

2020

The Wiley Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

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The Americanization of Narcissism

Cited by 49 publications

References 0 publications

A fine balance: individualism, society and the prevention of mental illness in the United States, 1945–1968

A fine balance: individualism, society and the prevention of mental illness in the United States, 1945–1968

Ahead of the curvein the MBA bubble: Institutional narcissism and the narrative reconstruction of moral agency

Karen Horney

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