Two. Troublesome Patterns

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When we talk about people, we don’t just use adjectives, such as dutiful or lazy. We also use nouns, such as workaholic or slacker. The adjectives are a way of describing traits that someone has. The nouns are a way of describing categories that someone fits into.

Putting people into categories seems very efficient: A single word or phrase appears to offer a big picture of what a person is like. But words such as workaholic aren’t really labels for a complete personality. For example, workaholic means “one who is addicted to work or who voluntarily works excessively hard and unusually long hours,” and slacker means “a person who shirks work.” So instead of describing a whole person, nouns such as workaholic or slacker are just ways of emphasizing high or low rankings on a single trait—in this case, a facet of Conscientiousness.

We also have nouns for high and low scorers on the rest of the Big Five. For Extraversion, we have life of the party on one end and loner on the other; for Agreeableness, there’s altruist and misanthrope; for Neuroticism, whiner and cool cat; for Openness, innovator and traditionalist. And we use still other nouns for distinctive combinations. For example, drama queen, whose definition in my dictionary includes “overreacts to a minor setback” and “thrives on being the center of attraction,” combines high N and high E.

The reason words such as workaholic and drama queen are so popular is that they’re not just shorthand ways of summing up some notable rankings. They also carry extra emotional weight because they evoke images that are more vivid than saying “high C” or “high N and high E.” It’s like the difference between the abstract description of a long tropical fruit that grows in bunches and turns yellow when ripening, and the enticing picture of a banana. Although workaholic and drama queen are not as clearly defined as banana, they each carry a message that immediately grabs your attention and reduces a complex set of characteristics into a simple image.

Recognizing the usefulness of such evocative words, psychiatrists have created a vocabulary for the potentially troublesome personality patterns they observe in their practices. To develop a consensus about them, they convened a committee of experts who described ten that they consider particularly important. These patterns, which I call the Top Ten, are summed up in the fourth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV),¹ along with the following thumbnail sketches:

• Antisocial—A pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others

• Avoidant—A pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation

• Borderline—A pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and emotions, and marked impulsivity

• Compulsive (obsessive-compulsive²)—A pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and control

• Dependent—A pattern of submissive and clinging behavior related to an excessive need to be taken care of

• Histrionic—A pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking

• Narcissistic—A pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy

• Paranoid—A pattern of distrust and suspiciousness such that other’s motives are interpreted as malevolent

• Schizoid—A pattern of detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of emotional expression

• Schizotypal—A pattern of acute discomfort in close relationships, cognitive or perceptual distortions, and eccentricities of behavior

As you scan the list, you may recognize patterns that you know by their colloquial names. Some of those names, such as borderline and paranoid, are the same as the clinical ones, while others are more colorful. For example, we use sociopath or psychopath for antisocial; wallflower for avoidant; control freak, detail queen, workaholic, perfectionist, or bean counter for compulsive; clinger for dependent; drama queen for histrionic; egotist or narcissist for narcissistic; loner for schizoid; and weirdo for schizotypal. But unlike the everyday words, which are used loosely and inconsistently, the DSM-IV defines the Top Ten more carefully on the basis of clinical observations of enduring patterns of behavior. It also includes criteria for deciding how adaptive or maladaptive a pattern may be in a particular person. Those who are judged to be sufficiently impaired or distressed by an extreme and inflexible form of one or more of these patterns are said to be suffering from a personality disorder.³

In thinking about the Top Ten, it is important to recognize that, unlike the banana example, these are not clearly circumscribed natural categories.⁴ Instead, they’re more like the dimensional (graded) words used for traits than like the categorical (yes/no) words used for fruits: You can be more or less compulsive, but either you’re a banana or you’re not. Furthermore, detecting signs of one or more of these patterns need not be a cause for concern. The significance of mild or moderate versions must be judged on a case-by-case basis.

Nevertheless, what makes the Top Ten useful in everyday life is that they are a convenient way to focus attention on these common patterns. Although many of us have versions of these patterns that do us more good than harm,⁵ their frequent association with difficulties in personal relationships or self-control makes it worth being on the lookout for them. Such awareness is particularly valuable when you’re trying to figure out what’s bothering you about someone and what to do about it.

In the rest of this chapter, I flesh out pictures of each of the Top Ten. But instead of asking you to memorize lists of characteristics, I follow the lead of psychologists such as Paul Costa, Thomas Widiger, and Robert McCrae, who use high or low rankings on facets of the Big Five to describe them.⁶ This approach builds on what you have already learned about the structure of personality. It also gives you a way to make a combined assessment of a person’s Big Five profile and potentially troublesome patterns with a single framework. To get started, let’s consider two patterns on the very low end of Extraversion.

Very Low E: Two Eccentric Loners

All of us know people who like to be alone. But few of us have had much experience with those who are at the very bottom of the Extraversion scale because such outliers are so good at keeping to themselves. To give you an example of what a low E pattern feels like, I’ve excerpted a self-description that a student named Noitrix posted on Yahoo!:

I have been thinking recently [whether] my life is so unnatural/weird if I compare myself to others, but for me, my life isn’t weird or strange at all.

I mean, I have never really had an interest in making friends. I had only 2 friends in my entire life, but I have no one at the moment. I do not feel loneliness or sadness or anything like that. For me, loneliness as a feeling does not exist because I always wanted to be a loner.

In my free time, I don’t go anywhere. I don’t have any friends, and I don’t want anyone, really. I don’t want to be even with my family. At school, I don’t talk to anyone. I have no desire to get close to anyone; in fact, I love to be alone. I don’t know how it is possible, but I’m not attracted to girls—but I’m not attracted to boys, either. Never had a girlfriend because I never wanted [one] because I find it pointless/useless. I don’t think I’ll ever fall in love. I feel like I’m asexual.

I don’t really care what people say about me. I don’t feel anything when someone praise[s] or criticize[s] me. Also, I avoid eye contact when I meet strangers.

If I have to spend a lot of time with others, I feel like they suck out life energy from me and I need to spend a great deal of time alone in order to regenerate. I hate rumors, I hate gossip, and I hate small talk.

My only goal in life is to achieve my dreams. Everything else is meaningless. Friendship/love doesn’t mean anything for me.

Noitrix’s description of himself fits well with the schizoid pattern described in DSM, which lists the following characteristics: “neither desires nor enjoys close relationships, including being part of a family; almost always chooses solitary activities; has little, if any, interest in having sexual experiences with another person; takes pleasure in few activities; lacks close friends and confidants other than close relatives; appears indifferent to the praise and criticism of others; shows detachment or little emotion.” But if you think about this pattern in the context of the Big Five, you will see that it can also be described almost completely in terms of very low rankings on all six facets of Extraversion: low warmth, low gregariousness, low assertiveness, low activity, low excitement seeking, and low positive emotionality. So all of Noitrix’s unusual characteristics may simply be a reflection of his place at the bottom of the spectrum of E.

Considering Noitrix’s odd behavior in this way not only gives you a different way of understanding him, but it also helps you distinguish his schizoid pattern from an even odder low E pattern called schizotypal. Unlike schizoids, schizotypals are not just indifferent to people. They also actively dislike them, a sign of low A; feel anxious in their presence, a sign of high N; and have a highly idiosyncratic way of thinking about the world, which can be taken as a sign of high O. Because of this combination, schizotypals don’t just keep a low profile. They can be flagrantly eccentric.

A notable example is Bobby Fischer, a misanthropic recluse who was forced into the public eye because he was one of the greatest chess players of all time. But despite his great talent, Fischer’s contempt for almost everyone offended even his most ardent fans. To make things worse, his frequent expression of bizarre ideas, including a vicious hatred of Jews and Americans, alienated him further. Although he remained a legend in the chess world, Fischer dropped out of sight in his 30s and lived the rest of his life as a vagrant. When he briefly surfaced immediately after the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, it was to announce on a Philippine radio station: “This is all wonderful news ... I applaud the act. ... F--k the U.S. I want to see the U.S. wiped out.”⁷

Not all schizotypals are as blatantly odd as Bobby Fischer. Some are content to live in an unconventional way without antagonizing others. But their eccentric behavior is usually obvious enough to distinguish them from schizoid loners such as Noitrix who simply want to keep to themselves.

Very High E: The Disquietude of Histrionics

The potentially troublesome part of the Extraversion scale is not restricted to the low end. There’s also a high E pattern called histrionic. Unlike the schizoids, who may stay under your radar screen, histrionics tend to capture your attention because they are so eager to engage you.

Histrionics don’t just get top scores on gregariousness, activity, excitement-seeking, and positive emotionality. There’s also a prominent sexual quality to their Extraversion. Just as schizoids express their low E by a lack of interest in sex, histrionics express their high E through flamboyant sexual expression. In the DSM-IV, two outstanding characteristics of this pattern are: “interaction with others is often characterized by inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behavior” and “consistently uses physical appearance to draw attention to self.”

But unlike the schizoid pattern, which is largely limited to E, the histrionic pattern also includes notable rankings on the rest of the Big Five. Histrionics tend to be naively high on trust, a facet of A; high on impulsivity, a facet of N; high on romantic fantasy and feelings, facets of O; and low on self-discipline and deliberation, facets of C. In addition to their seductiveness, DSM emphasizes their theatricality, suggestibility, and non-analytical way of thinking.

It’s not hard to find public figures who fit this picture, and show business is a good place to start. Marilyn Monroe is a fascinating example because her strong desire to call attention to her body was already apparent when she was a little girl. Gloria Steinem’s biography describes Marilyn’s report of a recurrent childhood impulse to take her clothes off in church: “I wanted desperately to stand up naked for God and everyone else to see. I had to clench my teeth and sit on my hands to keep myself from undressing.”⁸ Marilyn’s subsequent promotion of herself as a sex symbol, the ease with which she moved in and out of sexual relationships, and her exaggerated emotions off-stage all fit the histrionic pattern.

This pattern is also easy to spot in Hollywood men such as Marlon Brando, with whom Marilyn had an affair. He, too, projected sexuality, but of a masculine type. While Marilyn was titillating the guys in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Brando was turning on the ladies in A Streetcar Named Desire with the pouting and emotional swings of a bad boy who could easily get out of control. As with Marilyn, this was not just acting. Brando, too, displayed this pattern off-camera, and his difficulties with studio bosses and directors were as recurrent and authentic as hers.

Of course, you don’t have to be a movie star to be histrionic. Dramatic and physically demonstrative people are hardly rare. They are often irresponsible, irrational, and shockingly outgoing. But many attract a personal audience that finds them exciting and a great deal of fun.

Low A Patterns: Paranoids, Narcissists, and Antisocials

Three patterns of unusual A are in the Top Ten—paranoid, narcissistic, and antisocial—and all are at the low end. This doesn’t mean that low rankings on A are necessarily troublesome. In fact, many people who rise to the top of their fields have prominent versions of one or more of these three patterns. Nevertheless, clinicians have focused their attention on them because extreme versions may be self-defeating, frequently invite retaliation, and bring grief to others.

Thinking of these patterns together is useful because all of them include low rankings on three of the facets of A. People with each of these patterns tend to be selfish rather than generous, combative rather than cooperative, and heartless rather than compassionate. What distinguishes the three patterns is a particularly low ranking on at least one other facet of A. Paranoids are suspicious rather that trusting, narcissists are arrogant rather than modest, and antisocials are deceptive rather than straightforward.

Of these patterns, the paranoid one is the easiest to spot because those who express it are often outspoken about their distrust and dislike of others. Being so convinced of other people’s malevolence, they justify their contempt, combativeness, resistance to criticism, and tendency to bear grudges as legitimate defenses. They also tend to be cold and detached, signs of low E; dogmatic and insistent on their strongly held opinions, signs of low O; and easily angered, a sign of high N.

Although this pattern is not a prescription for popularity, it can be skillfully employed in vocations that require litigiousness and skepticism about human motives. Ralph Nader, for example, put it to good use in his brilliant career as a public advocate. Starting with a relentless campaign to uncover chicanery in the automobile industry, which forced the production of safer cars, he later turned his attention to other areas of corporate and government incompetence and corruption. For many years, he and his Nader’s Raiders spearheaded important reforms.

But Nader’s success as a crusader was not just fueled by paranoia. His ability to attract support for his populist movement was energized in part by the confidence and need for admiration that come with the narcissistic pattern.⁹ Moderate versions of this pattern are common among inspiring leaders. But some go too far. The pattern becomes particularly troublesome if it expands into arrogant grandiosity that impairs judgment.

In Nader’s case, the grandiosity was hard to miss in his 2000 campaign for president and its aftermath. Arguing that the two other candidates, Al Gore and George W. Bush, were as indistinguishable as “Tweedledee and Tweedledum ... so it doesn’t matter which you get,” Nader claimed that he was the only worthy candidate. When many of his early supporters urged him to drop out because he had no chance of winning and was pulling too many votes away from Gore, whom they preferred, Nader refused to get out of the limelight. And when Gore lost Florida by a few hundred votes—and, with it, the election—Nader wouldn’t even consider the possibility that he had made a mistake. Instead, he was so pleased with himself that he wrote a book, Crashing the Party,¹⁰ in which he exulted in his mischief and continued to insist that only he should have been elected.

Even before the 2000 campaign, the paranoid and narcissistic patterns that fueled many of Nader’s successes had already gotten out of hand. We now know that the suspiciousness that helped him defeat outsiders also turned him against his colleagues at the first hint of disloyalty. And we know that the narcissistic traits that attracted dedicated crusaders to his early causes became justifications for exploitation and mean retaliation if they didn’t follow him blindly. Lisa Chamberlain summed this up in The Dark Side of Ralph Nader:

Dozens of people who have worked with or for Nader over the decades have had bitter ruptures with the man they once respected and admired. The level of acrimony is so widespread and acute that it’s impossible to dismiss those involved as disgruntled former employees...his own record, according to many of those who have worked closely with him, is characterized by arrogance, underhanded attacks on friends and associates, secrecy, paranoia and mean-spiritedness—even at the expense of his own causes.¹¹

The narcissistic pattern has other dark sides. Taking unnecessary risks because of a sense of invulnerability is one of the most common, and many narcissists self-destruct because of such errors of judgment. Napoleon’s invasion of Russia is an example.

But not all narcissists feel invulnerable. Many who lack the talent to be truly successful devote their energies to maintaining the illusion of superiority. To puff themselves up, they fantasize about a brilliant future, brag about their smallest achievements, and try to increase their status by putting others down. Nevertheless, such vulnerable narcissists¹² are easily crushed by even the smallest hints of criticism.

The great need of narcissists to feel high on the pecking order distinguishes them from people with a related low A pattern that the DSM calls antisocial and that other experts call psychopathic or sociopathic.¹³ Like narcissists, antisocials are deceptive exploiters who lack empathy. But unlike narcissists, who are eager for admiration, most antisocials are not particularly interested in praise from others. Their cool indifference shows up in very low rankings on self-consciousness, vulnerability, and anxiousness, facets of N. In fact, their ability to experience negative emotions may be so low that they are incapable of feeling guilt or remorse and show no signs of conscience. Many of them also rank low on dutifulness and deliberation, facets of C, and are high on assertiveness and excitement-seeking, facets of E.

Considering how much damage antisocials can do, you might think that we would constantly be on the lookout for them. Yet they are remarkably easy to miss. One reason we may be so blind to them is that most of us find it hard to believe that such people really exist. Furthermore, they tend to be such glib deceivers that we may keep dismissing the evidence that they’re conning us even if we keep catching them in the act. Robert Hare, an expert on the psychopathic pattern, remembers how he, too, used to be fooled by them. When he talks about such people at a party, he often gets responses like, “You know, I never realized it before, but the person you’re describing is my brother-in-law.”¹⁴

Bernard Madoff,¹⁵ who operated a massive Ponzi scheme for 20 years, is a good example. When the scheme was finally exposed, many of those he had been swindling for two decades just couldn’t believe it. “How could such a nice man do such a terrible thing?” “How could he keep screwing his closest friends, the people who kept trusting him?” Yet here he was, a seeming pillar of the community who had gone on lying and stealing for years in the face of repeated investigations—shameless, remorseless, unconstrained by conscience.

Madoff didn’t fool only gullible clients. He also fearlessly faced down officials of regulatory agencies who were trained to detect fraud. Even when an economic meltdown led to massive withdrawals that finally exposed his scheme, Madoff remained confident that he could cut a deal—so confident that he didn’t bother to consult his lawyer before he confessed.

O.J. Simpson, another famous antisocial, shared Madoff’s belief that he could get away with anything. After he was accused of murdering his wife, Nicole, and her friend Ron Goldman, and with a trail of damaging evidence against him, Simpson stayed cool. His brazen demeanor during his criminal trial, and the ease with which he played with the murder glove, helped persuade the jury that he wasn’t guilty.

Even Simpson’s subsequent conviction in the civil trial didn’t faze him. And instead of putting the whole thing behind him after that verdict was announced, Simpson decided to write a book, called If I Did It, an in-your-face virtual confession that further illustrates the callousness of antisocials. By describing the details of the way he might have committed the murders, Simpson could take pleasure in taunting the families of his victims while still claiming innocence.¹⁶

Such sadistic pleasure is illustrated even more vividly in Javier Bardem’s Academy Award–winning portrayal of a psychopathic killer in No Country for Old Men. In a particularly chilling scene early in the film, we see him toying with the hapless attendant at a gas station, who is quickly transformed from friendly to terrified. The man becomes increasingly bewildered by Bardem’s subtle threats and his unwillingness to back off in the face of signs of conciliation. Only because of the luck of a coin flip does the attendant escape with his life.

Bardem’s fictional character is, of course, an extreme version of this pattern, a killing machine who loves his work. Simpson’s version is more moderate, and many components of the pattern served him well in his outstanding football career. Were it not for the close scrutiny that followed Nicole’s murder, his great athletic achievements might have allowed him to continue to get away with a lot of antisocial behavior. From Robert Hare’s perspective, Bardem’s character is a good example of a full-blown psychopath, whereas Simpson might have been considered a “subcriminal psychopath.”¹⁷

Many other antisocials who reach high positions are even more skillful at covering their tracks. And such people are not rare. Surveys show that about 4% of Americans, mostly male,¹⁸ fit the antisocial picture described in DSM. So if someone you know shows signs of it, don’t dismiss it out of hand. It’s worth staying on the lookout for additional evidence.

Very High C: Compulsives

Although the antisocial pattern is fairly common, it is not the most widespread of the Top Ten. The compulsive pattern holds that record. A recent survey found troublesome forms of this pattern in about 8% of American adults,¹⁹ both women and men.

A major distinguishing feature of the compulsive pattern is high scores on all facets of Conscientiousness. But what’s wrong with that? Aren’t competence, orderliness, dutifulness, self-discipline, deliberation, and achievement-striving exactly what our parents kept encouraging? Aren’t they crucial ingredients of success? So what’s the difference between the adaptive pattern of high C that is associated with healthy achievement and the potentially troublesome pattern of high C called compulsive?

As with all troublesome patterns, it is a matter of degree. For example, Theodore Millon describes gradations of the component he calls perfectionism that range from adaptive (“I take pride in what I do”), to disordered (“I can’t stop working on something until it’s perfect, even if it already satisfies what I need it for”), to severely disordered (“because nothing is ever good enough, I never finish anything”).²⁰ DSM’s description includes other signs of maladaptive perfectionism: “is preoccupied with details, rules, lists, order, organization or schedules to the extent that the major point of the activity is lost”; “is overconscientious, scrupulous, and inflexible about matters of morality, ethics, or values”; and “is reluctant to delegate tasks or to work with others unless they submit to exactly his or her way of doing things.”

But it isn’t just the degree of high C that accounts for the troublesome forms of this pattern. After all, many super-achievers express top scores on C in an adaptive way. A distinguishing feature of maladaptive high C is that it tends to be associated with high Neuroticism, especially high anxiousness and vulnerability. Unlike healthy high Cs, whose hard work may be rewarded by the joy of achievement, maladaptive ones take little pleasure in what they do. Instead, they are motivated by the intense desire to avoid mistakes, and their distress can become unbearable if they don’t do things in a certain way. Nobody knows why they choose a slavish commitment to hard work as their main tactic for warding off negative emotions. But whatever the reason, they are prisoners of perfectionism, locked in a pattern that brings no happiness to them or to anyone else.

High N Patterns: Avoidants, Dependents, and Borderlines

High Neuroticism, which brings so much grief to maladaptive compulsives, is also responsible for the distress that accompanies the three remaining Top Ten patterns: avoidant, dependent, and borderline. But unlike compulsives, whose N flares up if they deviate from their rigid ways of doing things, the high N of these three patterns is mainly expressed as a feeling of vulnerability in social situations and relationships. Because of this common feature, people who have prominent versions of one of them may also have signs of the others.

The easiest to spot are the avoidants because they are uncomfortable in groups. But unlike schizoids, with whom they are sometimes confused, avoidants are actually eager to socialize. The reason they hang back is their worry that they are personally unappealing, which makes them afraid of being embarrassed and rejected.

This difference between avoidants and schizoids shows up in their scores on Neuroticism. Avoidants are particularly high on self-consciousness and vulnerability, which together drive their dread of disapproval, whereas schizoids couldn’t care less if other people look down on them. DSM also emphasizes broader aspects of the avoidant pattern, such as “is unusually reluctant to take personal risks or to engage in any new activities because they may prove embarrassing.”

But many avoidants do find a way to become engaged with people, and some may even rise to positions of prominence, despite their fears and inhibitions. A good example is William Shawn, who edited the New Yorker for 35 years. His son Allen described his father’s avoidant pattern, and his way of coping with it, in Wish I Could Be There:

He had what might in retrospect seem like a strong streak of social phobia. In addition to avoiding crowded places and always sitting on the aisle or near an exit in any theater or concert hall, he avoided most parties and get-togethers. I don’t remember his instigating a party of his own. Rather he seemed a somewhat reluctant, passive participant in a social gathering, though he usually ended up being the quiet epicenter of the event. He would walk into even his own living room rather tentatively if it contained guests, looking cheerful and ruddy-faced but also hanging back. Though he spent all day with people, they seemed to astonish him. His respect for the complexity and mystery of others was part of what made him a deep person, but it also expressed some inner fear....

He was famously shy, preferring to speak to individuals rather than to a group.... He had, I believe, no actual fear of anyone and in a sense was profoundly sociable. He just needed certain conditions in which to reveal his sociability, just as he needed certain conditions in which to assert himself, to be spontaneous, and to reveal his pride in himself....²¹

This ability of some avoidants to assert themselves is not shared by people with another high N pattern, called dependent. Instead of fighting against their deep sense of insecurity, they seek out stronger people as potential protectors. DSM-IV’s description of this pattern includes: “has difficulty making everyday decisions without an excessive amount of advice and reassurance from others”; “needs others to assume responsibility for most major areas of his or her life”; “feels uncomfortable or helpless when alone because of exaggerated fears of being unable to care for himself or herself”; and “is unrealistically preoccupied with fears of being left to take care of himself or herself.”

This group of vulnerable people can take this path because they are also relatively high in Agreeableness. Believing that there are many generous people who won’t take advantage of them, they are not ashamed to admit their limitations. Instead, they feel free to express their eagerness to ingratiate themselves, in the hope that their trust will be reciprocated and that they will find a loving companion they can rely on.

It sometimes works. If dependents get themselves into a stable relationship, their N may stay under the surface while only their Agreeableness shines through. But a troublesome outcome is not unusual because dependents often overestimate the commitment of their partner. When the honeymoon is over, they may become clinging and demanding, and fear of abandonment may overwhelm them.

Such fear of abandonment is also a prominent feature of the borderline pattern, an extreme expression of Neuroticism. Borderlines have high scores on all facets of N: anxiousness, angry hostility, depressiveness, self-consciousness, impulsivity, and vulnerability. To make things worse, they also have low scores on trust and compliance, facets of A, and a low score on deliberation, a facet of C. But it is the N that stands out, and its expression may include both angry disappointment and clinging dependency, the combination of I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me,²² which is the title of a popular book about this pattern.

The description of troublesome forms of this pattern in DSM-IV begins with three signs of such turbulence: “frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment”; “unstable and intense interpersonal relationships alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation”; and “unstable self-image or sense of self.” The picture, then, is one of intense interpersonal needs, strong attachment, and fears of betrayal. Prone to loneliness, people with this pattern often seek comfort from sexual promiscuity and illegal drugs.

Despite its extreme nature, don’t be surprised if this description reminds you of someone you know. Researchers from the National Institutes of Health detected troublesome versions of the borderline pattern in about 5% of the Americans that they examined in face-to-face interviews. And despite the widely held belief that most borderlines are women, the researchers found that this tumultuous pattern is also common among men.²³

Milder versions of the borderline pattern also exist that Millon considers to be “on a continuum with normality”²⁴ and that Oldham and Morris call “the mercurial style.”²⁵ Such people are eager to be involved in romantic relationships, seek intense closeness, and are easily hurt if these feelings are not enthusiastically reciprocated at all times. But their breaking up and making up is more modulated, their moods are less volatile, and their view of their relationships is more realistic.

Opinions of Self and Others

Now that I’ve described these patterns in terms of the Big Five, let’s turn to another way to conceptualize them that I also find helpful. This method is based on research by psychiatrist Aaron T. Beck, who studied the thought processes of people with troublesome personalities as a guide to their treatment. His approach, called cognitive therapy, is designed to help his clients identify and re-examine the ways of thinking that get them into trouble. In developing this form of psychotherapy, Beck and his coworkers identified two highly informative thought processes: a person’s opinion of himself, and his general opinion of others. They also found that particular opinions of this kind are characteristic of each of the Top Ten.²⁶

In looking for signs of such potentially troublesome thought processes, I begin by restricting my attention to the opinions of themselves. And instead of trying to sort through ten alternatives, I’ve lumped them together into four categories. Two of them project positive self-images: “I’m special” and “I’m right.” The other two are more negative: “I’m vulnerable” and “I’m detached.”

These four kinds of opinions of self are probably familiar because they frequently come up when we gossip about people. For example, we may say, “She’s so full of herself” (special), “He’s so self-righteous” (right), “She’s so insecure” (vulnerable), or “He’s a real loner” (detached). If these or similar statements seem to fit the person you have in mind, you can refine your assessment by seeing how well it matches up with the characteristics summarized in Table 2.1.²⁷

Table 2.1 Top Ten Patterns: Opinions of Self and Others

The three ways of thinking “I’m special” have some similarities and clear differences. Narcissists believe they are superior and above the rules. They expect others to admire them and to offer them the special treatment they are convinced they deserve. Histrionics also expect admiration, but mainly for their glamour. And, unlike narcissists, histrionics don’t see others as inferior. Instead, they view them as potential targets for seduction. Antisocials share the sense of superiority of narcissists, but they are mainly interested in taking advantage of people rather than being admired by them. They believe that what makes them special is that they are unconstrained by social conventions. This allows them to deceive and exploit the suckers of the world. It also allows many of them to keep getting away with it because they are so good at hiding their true aims.

The two ways of thinking “I’m right” are also fairly easy to tell apart. Compulsives consider themselves competent and committed to excellence. They consider others to be self-indulgent slackers who should work harder and follow the rules. Paranoids may be even more self-righteous. But they also feel misunderstood, despite what they consider to be their noble intentions. Instead of dismissing others as irresponsible, they are wary of them as malicious antagonists.

The three ways of thinking “I’m vulnerable” each include a particular version of the belief “I’m not good enough” and can also be distinguished by their very different views of others. Avoidants are particularly concerned that others see through them, recognize their ineptness, and are eager to put them down. To prevent embarrassment, they keep a low profile. Dependents also feel inept but are not ashamed to reach out to people who may take care of them. Borderlines, the most flagrantly troublesome, have an unstable view both of themselves and of others. They are acutely aware of their limitations but also cling to the belief that they are adored. They swing between a positive view of people they become attached to, whom they consider loving and perfect, and the negative view that they are in constant danger of being betrayed and abandoned by them.

The two ways of thinking “I’m detached” also include very different views of self and others. Schizoids have a sense of self-sufficiency that reflects their ability to take care of themselves, and they stay away from others because they find relationships messy and unrewarding. In contrast, schizotypals have a sense of self-sufficiency because they live a fantasy world that they prefer to the real one, and their main reason for staying away from others is that they suspect them of being untrustworthy.

Traits, Patterns, and People

Considering the Top Ten as both a pattern of traits and a pattern of thoughts underscores their value as a vocabulary for discussing people and making predictions about them. So if you identify someone’s boss as narcissistic, you can better understand why he demoralizes an avoidant employee but angers a paranoid one. And if you identify a friend as histrionic, you can better understand why she is a sitting duck for a smooth-talking antisocial.

Useful though this may be, it is important to remember that the Top Ten are not sharply defined natural categories. For example, there are all kinds of narcissistic bosses. Nevertheless, identifying someone as narcissistic, using the characteristics I’ve described, still communicates real content that further observation and analysis can either confirm or reject. The same is true for the other patterns on the list.

When viewed in this way, the hunch that a person has a potentially troublesome pattern can be a useful starting point for thinking about all his or her notable Big Five traits. In the case of narcissism, it might first focus your attention on the facets of low A that tipped you off. If your hunch is confirmed, Conscientiousness might be the next one to consider: High C can propel people with the narcissistic pattern to great achievements, while low C may move them in an antisocial direction. Rankings on N, O, and E also change the complexion of this pattern in many different ways. So building a Big Five assessment around an initial hunch about someone can be more fruitful than just going through the list of traits without a working hypothesis.

As you learn to think of people in terms of both their traits and their patterns, you will not only start seeing them more clearly—you will also become increasingly aware of the great variety of human personalities. This raises questions about the origins of these many variations, questions that I turn to in the following chapter.