So let’s talk about our sense of entitlement.
“A sense of entitlement is a personality trait based on the belief that someone deserves special treatment or recognition for something they didn't earn. People with this mindset believe that the world owes them without giving anything in return.”
VeryWellMind.com (See link below)
I’ve been becoming more aware of how expressions of entitlement are increasingly uttered by public figures seeming to give ‘permission’ to the rest of us.
I think it’s because President-elect Trump’s repeated expressions of grandiosity and entitlement has been influencing his loyalists and many other politicians to puff themselves up as well. And it seems be spreading to the rest of us.
Hearing so many statements of presumed entitlement has been really unsettling to me.
But why am I so upset by this realization?
Maybe it’s because it reminds me of the grandiose attitudes heard too often growing up influenced by an environment of “me, me, me.”
And I recognize how ‘deserving’ I, too, can sometimes feel.
I hate this about myself when it flares up.
The good thing though, is that much of the time I have learned to observe myself, recognize it, and remind myself that I do have an option here about how I choose to present myself.
A helpful piece about what a sense of entitlement means, how it affects others and how to deal with it is here:
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-sense-of-entitlement-5120616
Donald Trump is such a terrific teaching tool about entitlement.
For example, he repeatedly has bragged about being "entitled" to personally attack Vice President Kamala Harris because he doesn't "have a lot of respect for her.”
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-says-hes-entitled-personally-attack-kamala-harris-1940074
Another example of his feelings of grandiosity has to do with his refusal over the years to pay for workmanship at his casinos and resorts.
Several years ago USA Today ran pieces on frequent complaints of non-payment for work done at Donald Trumps properties. Seems to me payment was often too often totally withheld for no other reason other then “Because he could.”
The USA TODAY NETWORK investigation found hundreds of people – carpenters, dishwashers, painters, even his own lawyers – who say he didn’t pay them for their work.’
Some just give up the fight, or settle for less; some have ended up in bankruptcy or out of business altogether.
https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/trump-lawsuits/
There have been some published pieces focusing on Donald Trump’s ‘Pathological Narcissism’ as an explanation for many of his behaviors and how these influence his supporters:
Dimensions of pathological narcissism and intention to vote for Donald Trump by Matthew M. YalchI
"Pathological narcissism is a term often applied to former President Donald Trump, but it has been less examined as a potential predictor of voting for him. Trump projects a grandiose and omnipotent self-image during press conferences and rallies, and his followers at these events often respond with both effusive admiration and an inflated sense of their own self-regard, all of which are aspects of narcissism...."
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0249892
Golden Child Syndrome
I was recently reading about Golden Child Syndrome which really resonated with me – I recognize I, too, grew up having an overwhelming need to please parents and impress family members in a family where the adults so often were bragging about their own children like it was some kind of a contest or something.
Re-reading this Golden Child stuff about these dysfunctional and narcissistic families, it occurred to me that many of Donald Trump’s followers very possibly have some characteristics of needing to please “Golden Child”
https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/golden-child-syndrome
This surely might explain the need for many to ‘follow’ and ‘please’ a narcissistic authority figure.
One of my Family Therapy instructors used to describe how we tend to repeat those childhood dramas —”it ain’t much but it’s home!”
One of the main signs of golden child syndrome is the overwhelming need to please parents and/or other authority figures.
"They make an extreme effort to appease their parents and satisfy all of their needs," explains Sanam Hafeez, M.D., neuropsychologist and director of Comprehend the Mind. "They will often obey their parents' ridiculous requests because they feel it's the only way to receive love from them."
And regarding Donald Trump, for me, it’s the ‘ridiculous requests’ part that stands out here.
And lately themes of entitlement and grandiosity seem to have become contagious among some other politicians as well. As I’ve blogged about several times over the years Donald Trump seems to ‘give permission’ for many others to ‘follow the leader!’
And lots of stories about how the general public is following along too.
“More recently, entitlement has taken on a critical sense. If someone has a sense of entitlement, that means the person believes he deserves certain privileges — and he's arrogant about it. The term "culture of entitlement" suggests that many people now have highly unreasonable expectations about what they are entitled to.”
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/entitlement
Sure seems like every day I’m reading about folks out there with this kind of sense of entitlement.
Women are nicknamed “Karens" –– Is there a term for men?
Here are a few types:
The ‘Karen’ pushing to the front of a long line.
The jerk on the plane who insists someone give up their assigned seat to them.
Or the couple in a popular restaurant who tries to get seated before you
And folks that hire contractors and don’t pay them, as described above by USA Today and Fox News.
WebMD has a terrific piece: “Simply put, people with a sense of entitlement think the rules don’t apply to them.”
- What Is a Sense of Entitlement?
- How Entitlement Mentality Affects Relationships and Mental Health
- The Cycle of Entitlement
- Overcoming a Sense of Entitlement
Emphasis is on:
- The environment we grew up in
- The way your parents treated you
- Whether adults solved your problems for you
- How you are treated by authority figures
And since so much of my focus as a therapist and author is on early childhood messages, I really appreciate this WebMD piece.
https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-is-an-entitlement-mentality
So of course one of my New Years Resolutions is to keep reminding myself that contrary to my early conditioning as a Golden Child, I am really not all that special! And I can remind myself that I do have an option here about how I choose to present myself.
© Elayne Savage, PhD