Narcissists may start out popular, but people see through them in the long run

But if, as they say in this electoral season, you're looking to "grow your base," exercising emotional intelligence -- expressing empathy, checking your emotions in a bid to avoid conflict, and investing in personal relationships -- is a strategy that beats narcissism over the long term. A new exploration of how we make friends and influence people rigorously measured the emergence of popularity in small groups -- first-year college students organized into 15 study groups of about 20 in Poland. In the first week of their assignment to a group and then again three months later, 170 of the freshmen named the person or people they most liked in their group. Upon recruitment into the study, each participant completed standard inventories assessing their narcissistic personality traits and gauging their emotional intelligence. The findings: When a group of strangers is thrown together, individuals who score high on narcissism enjoy an early surge of admiration, recognition and friendship among their peers.