Mine! Mine! Mine! How Entitlement Attitudes Hurt Us

Most of us are familiar with the various personality tests people have designed to help our self-understanding and personal growth. The tests have been used as tools for psychologists and marriage counsellors as well as consultants striving to improve corporate cultures.

Two of the most familiar are the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Test and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

A few years back I became aware of some of the work being done by PsychTests AIM Inc., a company devoted to developing products to assist in psychological assessments. 

Ilona Jerabek, Ph.D, founder of Psychtests is also a leadership coach. In addition, her company helps other companies hire, train and develop talent. A subsidiary of her business is a website called Queendom, which bears the moniker "Land of Tests." The Queendom site has tests for willpower, pandemic resiliency, integrity, burnout, hypertension risk and much more.

I mention all this because of this press release I received regarding new research on Entitlement.  

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Mine! Mine! Mine! - New Study Indicates That Entitlement Is Linked to Dishonesty

A recent study by Queendom.com reveals that self-entitled adults will resort to deceitful behaviors in order in order to get what they want.

Young children can largely get away with pulling a tantrum when they are not given what they want. Grown-ups, not so much. Seeing a rebuffed adult making a scene in public is awkward, whether it’s about cutting in line, getting VIP treatment, or putting on a mask in order to shop. A strong sense of entitlement can also be a powerful motive for deception, according to recent research conducted by Queendom.com.Their study reveals that self-entitled people may employ underhanded tricks in order to get what they feel they deserve, including manipulation and lying. 

Analyzing data from 8,864 people who took the Integrity and Work Ethics Test, Queendom researchers compared people on different traits related to honesty/dishonesty, based on their level of self-entitlement. Several noteworthy variances were discovered. 

Certain personality attributes can increase a person’s likelihood of acting dishonestly, including the following: (Note: Scores on the traits below range on a scale from 0 to 100. The higher the score, the stronger the trait). 

DECEITFULNESS 

• Score for people with a strong sense of entitlement: 70
• Score for people with a low sense of entitlement: 24 

MANIPULATIVENESS 

• Score for people with a strong sense of entitlement: 78
• Score for people with a low sense of entitlement: 22
  

SELF-INTEREST 

• Score for people with a strong sense of entitlement: 79
• Score for people with a low sense of entitlement: 26 

MACHIAVELLIANISM 

• Score for people with a strong sense of entitlement: 71
• Score for people with a low sense of entitlement: 37 

DISDAIN FOR RULE-FOLLOWERS 

• Score for people with a strong sense of entitlement: 70
• Score for people with a low sense of entitlement: 17 

VINDICTIVENESS 

• Score for people with a strong sense of entitlement: 75
• Score for people with a low sense of entitlement: 28 

DEVIOUSNESS 

• Score for people with a strong sense of entitlement: 80
• Score for people with a low sense of entitlement: 28 

ANTAGONISM 

• Score for people with a strong sense of entitlement: 72
• Score for people with a low sense of entitlement: 24 

SELF-ENTITLED PEOPLE ARE ALSO MORE LIKELY TO: 

• Have an overdeveloped sense of self-importance and superiority (score of 84 vs. 23)
• Desire admiration (74 vs. 25)
• Loathe weakness in others (80 vs. 26), as well as to be gullible (72 vs. 32)
• Take pleasure in other people’s misfortunes (80 vs. 23) 

ON THE FLIPSIDE, SELF-ENTITLED PEOPLE ARE LESS: 

• Remorseful when they commit an act of transgression (56 vs. 83)
• Accountable for their actions (60 vs. 82)
• Willing to stand by their values, should they have any (55 vs. 86)
• Trustworthy (53 vs. 78)
• Loyal (55 vs. 72)
• Discreet (41 vs. 73)
• Empathetic (55 vs. 76) 

“There are a number of factors that can breed a strong sense of entitlement,” explains Dr. Jerabek. “It’s important to first point out, however, that when we talk about entitlement, we’re not referring to a person’s fundamental right to safety, medical care, justice, respect, and love. We’re talking about people who demand and expect preferential treatment. This attitude is often seen in narcissists, people who have a chip on their shoulder, or who were raised by permissive, over-indulgent parents. However, a person may also develop a strong sense of entitlement as a result of over-compensating for low self-esteem, abandonment, betrayal, or an injustice. This compels the person to put their own needs first, to fight for their demands to be meet, regardless of the cost or inconvenience to others. And as our study has revealed, they have no qualms about using underhanded means to get what they want.” 

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Want to assess your integrity? Check out their Integrity and Work Ethics Test, at https://www.queendom.com/tests/take_test.php?idRegTest=3976 

 To learn more about psychological testing, here's a free eBook:

 http://hrtests.archprofile.com/personality-tests-in-hr

 

Whatcha think?

The Identity Question: Who Am I?

"The Great Escape"--Illustration by the author

Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? Why am I here?

These are questions often found on the short list of philosophy's big questions. From earliest times people have wrestled with these questions, debating--throughout the centuries--the ideas of previous thinkers.

Every aspect of what it means to be human has been debated. Do we have a soul? Some insist yes while others deny. Do we have free will? Most say yes, but again there are naysayers like Sam Harris who insist not.

My main point, which I will present in a minute, is that there is no fixed self, that who we are varies depending on circumstances, especially in our relation to others.

When you meet me in one setting, I may come across as an extrovert, confident and outgoing. In another setting you may find me quiet, self-conscious and even anxious. Am I one and not the other? Is one form of myself "me" and the other "not me"?

This is not to suggest that there is no real "I" or that I do not exist. I wouldn't be typing this if I didn't exist. But who are we precisely?

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25 years ago a company I worked for conducted a two-day workshop to help us understand our Myers-Briggs personality profiles, to help us better understand ourselves and our company co-workers. I found it personally helpful with many takeaways. One of these I discovered through the following experience.

Preceding the two day off-campus workshop we were each required to answer a bunch of questions which would be analyzed and used to help us understand our personality types. If you're unfamiliar with the 16 Myers-Briggs types, you can learn more at the Myers-Briggs Foundation website and even take the indicator test.

On the first day of the workshop they pulled ten of us out of the group and had us wait in the hall. Unbeknownst to us, we were the five most extroverted and five most introverted people in the company. The facilitator came and called five of the ten into the room. I was not in this first group.

After a few minutes, the facilitator retrieved myself and the other four from the hallway. We had no idea what this was going to be about, nor had we guessed that it was related to our being the extroverts.

We were seated at a table in the middle of the room, where the introverts had been seated before us, It was like a theater in the round, with everyone watching us as we faced one another. We were then given a problem to solve along with a two minute time limit (or some arbitrary amount of time.)

As we bandied about the problem--which may have been to come up with as many ways to cover a floor or fill a room, a problem with a variety of solutions--our co-workers watching us began laughing. Whatever we were doing was funny to them, but we stayed on task and grappled with the problem, throwing out ideas.

Afterwards, the facilitator stopped us, explained what was going on and why it was funny. We then discussed our own feelings about it.

Here's why it was so amusing to everyone. As extroverts we were all talking at once, in complete contrast to the introverts who had gone before. First off, the introverts were somewhat self-conscious being seated in the middle of the room with everyone watching them. They took turns talking, with thoughtful pauses between their offered up solutions. Nor were they loud.

The extroverts on the other hand were talking over one another, probably finishing one another's sentences. There was probably not a second of silence.

Quilt detail, Kathy McTavish design at JNG.

HOWEVER, there was another lesson from this experience, besides the comic contrast. Of the five most extroverted I was not the most or second most outgoing of the group. My score was either fourth or fifth, and here's what happened.

In the presence of these louder, more extroverted people than I, I ended up becoming quiet, behaving more like an introvert. I became uncomfortable. It felt unnatural.

And here's my point: Who I am is, to some degree, altered by the people I am with.

In a hundred different ways our behavior can be crimped or nurtured. We can be made to feel small and powerless or confident and strong, depending on the situations we are in, so that if someone makes a judgment about us based on a single encounter, they really don't know us at all.

All this to say that before we put other people in boxes and label them, let's remember that people are more complicated than that. I dislike being labeled as something I'm not. You probably do, too.

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PostScript: For the record, my MBTI was ENTP. What's yours?

Rejecting the Myth of Artists As Madmen

"Instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I see before me, I make more arbitrary use of color to express myself more forcefully." ~ Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to his brother Theo.

We remember him as somewhat of a madman. And to a certain extent his behavior warranted this. He cut off his ear, for love. A bit excessive, though it made for an interesting self-portrait afterwards. On another occasion he was determined to see the girl he loved but her parents would not let him in. To show them how intent he was on seeing her, he held the palm of his hand over the lamp flame and said he would not leave till he saw her. The smell of burnt flesh was not very convincing and ultimately he passed out from the pain.

This story reveals that he was indeed a man of intense passions, which poured out of him into his works, works now valued in the millions of dollars. During his lifetime he sold almost nothing, and died in a mental institution in his thirties by his own hand.

As for the source of his mental illness, psychiatrists by the score have studied his behavior and his work to identify its root causes, whether from schizophrenia or syphilis or some other variety of experience. What we know is the notion of "artist as eccentric" found a home in the pop psyche, a notion that treats artists as kooks and social misfits. Or rather, that to become a great artist you have to be a kook or misfit.

Dorothea Brande, in her outstanding volume Becoming A Writer (1934), assaults this notion head on. "The picture of the artist as a monster made up of one part vain child, one part suffering martyr and one part boulevardier is a legacy to us from the last century, and a remarkably embarrassing inheritance. There is an earlier and healthier idea of the artist than that, the idea of the genius as a man more versatile, more sympathetic, more studious than his fellows, more catholic in his tastes, less at the mercy of the ideas of the crowd."

OK, so Salvador Dali comes along and portrays this vain child-madman to the extreme and makes a fortune doing it. No comment. Brande went on to explain that there really is "an artist temperament" and it is not the same as the accounting mindset.* The book goes into detail about left brain/right brain thinking, a concept which became excessively popular in the 1980's and has filtered its way into business books, consulting, education and psychology. The notions have been with us a much longer time than many folks realize.

What Brande argues is that you do not have to be mentally unstable to be creative. In this instance she is speaking to young writers, but the same applies to creative souls in the visual arts or music as well.

Vincent Van Gogh once said, "A good picture is equivalent to a good deed." If you are in Duluth this month there are plenty of venues where you can see some good pictures... and probably there are plenty of places in your home town, too. Check out the Duluth Art Institute at the Depot. Or make your way to the Tweed up at UMD, especially if you've never been. Open your eyes and engage.

*The Myers-Briggs personality tests, developed in the 1920s and fine-tuned over time, demonstrate that indeed artists and accountants have differing personality traits that result in their engaging the world differently. It is not insanity that makes people creative.

The picture at the top of this page, titled Blue Van Gogh, is currently available as a giclee reproduction. $85 plus S&H for a limited time.