We tend to associate entire fields of study with a great man (rarely with a great woman). This man is pictured as having seen beyond the narrow mind-set and ethos of his era. He recognizes the limitations of his community’s way of thinking and single-handedly develops a new paradigm that comes to revolutionize society by virtue of his staggering intelligence. ~ Sloman and Fernbach, The Knowledge Illusion, Why We Never Think Alone.
The thing about this? As the authors note, it’s a myth (and the book is a fabulous read). No matter how stellar and notable the individual effort is, it is not what actually moves us forward and creates new paradigms or amazing achievements. But again and again, we tend to ascribe various “wins” to one individual. So-and-so invented xyz, this person was the best actor, director, designer, insert big name here deserves the famous award for their accomplishment.
In reality, rarely if ever are significant achievements due to individual effort. Rather, we are humanly designed to think and create collaboratively and solve problems with more than one individual brain. We are smarter when we “extend our minds” past our own personal abilities — and all great accomplishments reflect this. No one person got us to the moon or made The Sound of Music.
Work by both philosophers and neuroscientists is pointing us towards the power of this “extended mind theory.” Research finds that memory, reasoning, decision-making and other higher-level functions take place most effectively across people, and are limited within people. There is even an emerging area of neuroscience exploring the brains (through fMRI or EEG technology) of more than one person at a time to see how we impact each other.
So what does this mean in terms of narcissism? I believe it flourishes in a society living in the myth that individual achievement is the be-all and end-all, and would have to wilt if we focused more on the group’s achievement as paramount. And I don’t think this is a complete pipe dream. Research by Google (see Project Aristotle) found that the most effective teams were those who demonstrated “psychological safety” and a balance of team member participation. It wasn’t about the superstar — it was about the team dynamic. And in an article reporting on this project, the New York Times noted that “As commerce becomes increasingly global and complex, the bulk of modern work is more and more team-based.”
Narcissists, on the other hand, need to be the one, the star, the top of the heap. And the myth of individual achievement means that they are hired, rewarded and tolerated as being critical to their organizations, institutes, and fields. But in a world that acknowledges, values, and rewards the power of the group, we’d begin to see that they are a) not generally able to work well as team members, and b) tend to disrupt the psychological safety and distributed participation that makes groups great.
I know that personally, any time I hear about the “great man” (or rarely, great woman) who “did” this or that, I have begun to wonder who else was involved. Who contributed but was not named? Who washed the beakers in the lab and had a cool insight they shared while doing so? Who tended the children at home so that the person had clear mental space and also probably listened and helped them clarify their thoughts? And so on, and so on.
We simply don’t think, create or accomplish alone. We need each other, and narcissists will never understand this, even as they benefit from it.
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This post was previously published on butnowiknowyourname.wordpress.com and is published on Medium.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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