LOS ANGELES, California (AP)
-- In case anyone needed proof, a new study supports the widely held perception:
Celebrities are more in love with themselves than the average person.
That's the conclusion drawn by Drew Pinsky and S. Mark Young of the
University of Southern California, whose study of 200 celebrities will appear in
the Journal of Research in Personality.
It's not the entertainment industry that turns stars into narcissists, the
study found. Rather, it suggests, the self-adoring seek jobs in show business.
The study, whose subjects were all guests on Pinsky's sex-advice radio show
-- not a place for shrinking violets -- found that reality TV stars were the
most narcissistic of all celebrities. Female stars were also more likely than
their male counterparts to exhibit narcissistic traits. (Watch Pinsky explain
why stars love ... stars -- 3:35)
It's "common sense" that celebrities are narcissists, said Jeremy Ritzlin, a
longtime Hollywood psychologist who has not seen the study.
"Narcissism is really being in love with yourself," he said. "So it would be
natural for narcissists to gravitate toward the spotlight, where other people
will also think highly of them."
Pinsky, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at USC's Keck School of
Medicine, said narcissists crave attention, are overconfident, behave
erratically and lack empathy.
"However, they are well-liked, especially on first meeting, are extroverted
and perform well in public," added Pinsky, who has hosted the syndicated radio
show "Loveline" for 20 years.
Celebrity guests appearing on the program were randomly chosen to participate
in the study. They anonymously took the Narcissistic Personality Inventory test,
which rates self-love levels based on seven components: superiority,
exhibitionism, entitlement, vanity, authority, exploitativeness and entitlement.