Hello, I’m Wang Fang. As I record this, Beijing is bright with sunshine outside my window. I hope it is where you are too.

In the previous episode, using Trump and James Bond as examples, we saw that some personality traits are not fully encompassed by the Big Five. These outwardly less socially approved characteristics form another personality model calledthe Dark Triad(Paulhus & Williams, 2002). It contains three independent yet intertwined traits:narcissism,（narcissism）、Machiavellianism,andpsychopathy.（psychopathy）。

Let us begin with the most familiar trait,narcissism. In Metamorphoses, the Roman poet Ovid gave the earliest account of a gently sorrowful story about narcissism. Cursed, the handsome young Narcissus fell in love with his reflection in the water, became so obsessed that he fell in, and was transformed into a narcissus flower. In this ancient story, narcissism means excessive self-love.

Today, when discussing narcissism, we often say someone is “so ordinary yet so confident,” or “not ordinary, but far too confident.” That is,their positive view of themselves does not closely match reality.If you do not know what narcissism looks like, a glance at social media may make it clear: everyone is a performance artist, with unrecognizably retouched selfies and endless self-display everywhere. This self-centered exposure and exhibition has become increasingly common and accepted.

In psychology, the core characteristics of narcissism aresuperiority, entitlement, exhibitionism,andvanity. Highly narcissistic people generally believe they are better and more outstanding than others, and this excellence need not be proven by conventional achievement. If you ask someone who claims to be wonderful to show evidence, none is needed: “I am who I am—the very embodiment of excellence.” Such people possess aninflated belief in the self—in English, we say they have a “big ego”—and that inflated belief may have no matching achievement to support it.。