Many in the men’s issues community have observed pronounced hypergamous behaviors among women. While some commenters pose reasonable evolutionary hypotheses for the behavior, there may be another cause at work – narcissism.
Society’s encouragement of the sexes into quasi social classes, with men as chivalric class and women as quasi-aristocratic class, has generated a degree of narcissism among women in recent times. Acquired Situational Narcissism is a psychological state arising with acquired status, as in the examples of academic experts, politicians, pop singers, actors – and in this case women who, in modern society, are taught that they possess high worth, dignity, value, purity, status, esteem and reputation simply for being women. This psychological disposition tends to exaggerate self-enhancement behaviours beyond what evolutionary models of hypergamy would require.
Among high narcissistic individuals, studies have found higher incidence of hypergamous behavior, indicating that hypergamy is not unleashed by a culture of sexual liberation alone; it may also be the result of an acquired social class narcissism that says “I deserve.”
Excerpts from narcissism studies:
A third strand of evidence concerns narcissists’ relationship choices. Because humans are a social species, relationship choices are an important feature of situation selection. Narcissists are more likely to choose relationships that elevate their status over relationships that cultivate affiliation. For example, narcissists are keener on gaining new partners than on establishing close relationships with existing ones (Wurst et al., 2017). They often demonstrate an increased preference for high-status friends (Jonason & Schmitt, 2012) and trophy partners (Campbell, 1999), perhaps because they can bask in the reflected glory of these people. In sum, narcissists are more likely to select social environments that allow them to display their performances publicly, ideally in competition with others. These settings are potentially more accepting and reinforcing of narcissistic status strivings.
Source: The “Why” and “How” of Narcissism: A Process Model of Narcissistic Status Pursuit1
Consistent with the self-orientation model, Study 5 provided an empirical demonstration of the mediational role of self enhancement in narcissists’ preference for perfect rather than caring romantic partners. Furthermore, these potential romantic partners were more likely to be seen as a source of self-esteem to the extent that they provided the narcissist with a sense of popularity and importance (i.e., social status). Narcissists’ preference for romantic partners reflects a strategy for interpersonal self-esteem regulation. Narcissists also were attracted to self-oriented romantic partners to the extent that these others were viewed as similar. The mediational roles of self-enhancement and similarity were independent. That is, narcissists’ romantic preferences were driven both by a desire to gain self-esteem and a desire to associate with similar others.
Narcissism has been linked with the materialistic pursuit of wealth and symbols that convey high status (Kasser, 2002; Rose, 2007). This quest for status extends to relationship partners. Narcissists seek romantic partners who offer self- enhancement value either as sources of fawning admiration, or as human trophies (e.g., by possessing impressive wealth or exceptional physical beauty) (Campbell, 1999; Tanchotsrinon, Maneesri, & Campbell, 2007)
Source: The Handbook of Narcissism And Narcissistic Personality Disorders3
Dozens more quotations could be added, however the point is obvious: self-enhancement strategies of both narcissism and hypergamy share overlapping features.
The rise of narcissistic behavior in women is receiving increased attention from academia in recent years, particularly with the addition of new variants to the lexicon such as communal narcissism, and vulnerable narcissism, which are considered female dominated modes of expressing narcissism. A more in-depth survey of narcissism variants among women, and their implications can be read here.
Hypergamy as an innate motivation doesn’t require a woman to overestimate her own attractiveness and desirability as she seeks to secure high resource/status males. Narcissism, on the contrary, does entail an overestimation by women of their own attractiveness & desirability as they seek to secure high resource/status males. To discover which of hypergamy/narcissism is at play, simply ask a woman to rate her own attractiveness. If she strongly overrates herself, then her mating-up is likely driven by narcissism and is maladaptive. If she rates herself honestly, then her desire to mate up is likely more driven by an adaptive hypergamy. Mating-up today appears largely driven by maladaptive narcissism; and excusing it as natural & adaptive serves to compound and increase that same culturally-driven narcissism.
A note on terminology:
Sigmund Freud introduced narcissism as a developmental trait that ranged from healthy to unhealthy,4,5 and some evolutionary psychologists posit that a degree of narcissism might be adaptive in the wider evolutionary sense, though this hypothesis (which has no genetic evidence to confirm it) can only be applied to a limited subset of behaviours before tipping into maladaptive manifestations of narcissism as measured by the usual psychometric instruments.6,7,8 Moreover, no one has satisfactorily demonstrated that adaptive self-enhancement (i.e. a proposed non-pathological narcissism) belongs to a construct continuum with pathological narcissism.
With these points in mind it’s necessary to differentiate between female self-enhancement as an evolutionary survival strategy, versus female self-enhancement as a maladaptive, narcissistic pathology. The narcissistic self-enhancement we see increasingly demonstrated among women today is not a contributor to evolutionary success; on the contrary it works to undermine family ties, intimate relationships and is also associated with lowering the birth rate – the exact opposite of conditions required for evolutionary success. Lastly, by differentiating hypergamous self-enhancement from narcissism we avoid the error of encouraging or excusing narcissism under the banner of it being “natural.”
Maladaptive vs. adaptive versions of self-enhancement
REFERENCES:
[1] Grapsas, S., Brummelman, E., Back, M. D., & Denissen, J. J. (2020). The “why” and “how” of narcissism: A process model of narcissistic status pursuit. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(1), 150-172.
[2] Campbell, W. K. (1999). Narcissism and romantic attraction. Journal of Personality and social Psychology, 77(6), 1254.
[3] Wallace, H. M. (2011). Narcissistic self-enhancement. The handbook of narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder: Theoretical approaches, empirical findings, and treatments, 309-318.
[4] Freud, S. (2014). On narcissism: An introduction. Read Books Ltd.
[5] Segal, H., & Bell, D. (2018). The theory of narcissism in the work of Freud and Klein. In Freud’s On Narcissism (pp. 149-174). Routledge.
[6] Holtzman, N. S., & Donnellan, M. B. (2015). The roots of Narcissus: Old and new models of the evolution of narcissism. Evolutionary perspectives on social psychology, 479-489.
[7] Holtzman, N. S. (2018). Did narcissism evolve?. Handbook of Trait Narcissism: Key Advances, Research Methods, and Controversies, 173-181.
[8] Czarna, AZ, Wróbel, M., Folger, LF, Holtzman, NS, Raley, JR, & Foster, JD (2022). Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Evolutionary roots and emotional profiles. In TK Shackelford & L. Al-Shawaf (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Evolution and the Emotions. Oxford University Press.
Excellent points. I love that you’ve cited so many studies. I would take it a step further and say that hypergamy *IS* narcissism (at least a form of it). If we examine the DSM’s 9 diagnostic criteria for NPD, do they apply to hypergamy? Absolutely.
1. Grandiosity. 80% of women believe they can be in a relationship with the top 10% of men and reject the other 90% of men.
2. Fantasies of unlimited money, power, brilliance, beauty, love. See #1.
3. Believes she is special and can only associate with other special, high-status individuals. Again, see #1.
4. Requires excessive admiration. A woman’s fascination with social media, OF, etc, highlights her need for admiration. Mate choice copying: women find men who are already taken more attractive. They are influenced by what others think, thus dependent on what others think.
5. Entitlement. Again, see #1.
6. Exploitation. Interested mainly in a man’s resources, and will leave him if a better opportunity presents itself.
7. Lack of empathy. See #6.
8. Envious. Blatantly obvious, but see #4 & #6.
9. Arrogance. See #1. Women have a tendency to look on the bottom 90% of men with disgust, referring to them using terms like “creepy”, “ick”, etc.
Only 5 of the 9 criteria are required to receive an NPD diagnosis. I knew that hypergamy would fit at least 5 of the criteria, but even I was shocked to realize that it fits ALL 9 after I completed the above exercise!!! This is crazy.
This begs the question though, if women are hypergamous but men aren’t, and hypergamy is narcissism, why are there twice as many male narcissists as female narcissists? I think you hinted at an answer at the end of your blog post. Women who are narcissists tend to be more vulnerable (or covert) narcissists, as opposed to being grandiose. Male narcissists tend to like to “show off” or talk themselves up. Men are more of the braggarts who are full of themselves. This has some basis in traditional male and female roles. Men are expected to be the strong protectors, and in order to attract women, they need to show that strength. Women, OTOH, as the less physically imposing gender, have learned to get their way using less brashness and direct confrontation. They prefer persuasive communication (verbal or nonverbal), sex, and passive-aggression to get their way. Thus women express their narcissism more subtly, often flying under the radar undetected.
“This begs the question though, if women are hypergamous but men aren’t, and hypergamy is narcissism, why are there twice as many male narcissists as female narcissists?”
Apparently that skew toward more males is a result of fatally flawed testing instruments – the NPD criteria of the DSM, and the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI). These two testing instrument captured only, or mostly, what’s called grandiose narcissism – and that’s the mode of being narcissistic that mostly male narcissists display. So all the previous decades of studies were simply not targeting women’s style of being narcissistic – a style more accurately described as communal narcissism, and vulnerable narcissism. Those last two are now firmly on the clinical radar over the last few years, and the result of those instruments and models indicates that women occupy a large section of the narcissistic real estate. So there’s a lot of catch up going on in academia. I have a major survey of these issues coming out in New Male Studies Journal any day now, but you can also get the gist of this revolution in these recent academic studies FWIW:
Recollections of parenting styles in the development of narcissism: The role of gender (2020)
Female Narcissism: Assessment, Aetiology, and Behavioural Manifestations (2021)
Clinician perception of pathological narcissism in females: a vignette-based study (2023)
Excellent points. I love that you’ve cited so many studies. I would take it a step further and say that hypergamy *IS* narcissism. If we examine the DSM’s 9 diagnostic criteria for NPD, do they apply to hypergamy? Absolutely. Not sure why my comment didn’t appear the first time I posted. Maybe it’s too long. I’ll try to break it up.
“I would take it a step further and say that hypergamy *IS* narcissism.”
They certainly look the same. However their motivation appears to set them apart; the hypergamist seeks self-enhancement for personal survival and perpetuation of the genome, whereas the narcissist seeks it for self-aggrandizement and may have zero interest in having offspring. Plummeting birth rates among narcissistically inclined women tend to support the theory that its an evolutionary dead end.
1. Grandiosity. 80% of women believe they can be in a relationship with the top 10% of men and reject the other 90% of men.
2. Fantasies of unlimited money, power, brilliance, beauty, love. See #1.
3. Believes she is special and can only associate with other special, high-status individuals. Again, see #1.
4. Requires excessive admiration. A woman’s fascination with social media, OF, etc, highlights her need for admiration. Mate choice copying: women find men who are already taken more attractive. They are influenced by what others think, thus dependent on what others think.
5. Entitlement. Again, see #1.
6. Exploitation. Interested mainly in a man’s resources, and will leave him if a better opportunity presents itself.
7. Lack of empathy. See #6.
8. Envious. Blatantly obvious, but see #4 & #6.
9. Arrogance. See #1. Women have a tendency to look on the bottom 90% of men with disgust, referring to them using terms like “creepy”, “ick”, etc.
Only 5 of the 9 criteria are required to receive an NPD diagnosis. I knew that hypergamy would fit at least 5 of the criteria, but even I was shocked to realize that it fits ALL 9 after I completed the above exercise!!! This is crazy.
This begs the question though, if women are hypergamous but men aren’t, and hypergamy is narcissism, why are there twice as many male narcissists as female narcissists? I think you hinted at the answer at the end of your blog post. Women who are narcissists tend to be more vulnerable (or covert) narcissists, as opposed to being grandiose. Male narcissists tend to like to “show off” or talk themselves up. They are the braggarts and the individuals who are full of themselves. This has some basis in traditional male and female roles. Men are expected to be the strong protectors, and in order to attract women, they need to show that. Women, OTOH, as the less physically imposing gender, have learned to get their way using less brashness and direct confrontation. They prefer persuasive communication (verbal or nonverbal), sex, and passive-aggression to get their way. Thus women express their narcissism more subtly.
Yes the way you summarised the situation is perfect!
PS. Apols your comments were not auto approved, not sure why WordPress applied approval requirements to them.