I think I had heard of this Freudian term before, but I just saw it mentioned again in a Mark Manson newsletter.
To frame this up, there’s a study referenced that aims to find the similarities between people, which is very different than how America and the world feel these days, when everything is about difference. The study was large (86,000+ people) and international, and ultimately, here’s your takeaway:
The researchers then cross-analyzed the data in every way they could to determine which groups of people around the world are the most similar and dissimilar. In all, they ran over 168,000 comparisons and found that, on average, people’s values were 93.3% the same. Of all of the comparisons, only 0.66% of them produced results where populations were more dissimilar in their values than they were similar.
So, basically we’re 93% similar in what we want from life, our value structure, etc. But it feels, every day, like the other 7% is driving everything.
So is this about media? Social media?
It’s about lots of things. The way media is now — which is less journalism and more cross-aisle screaming and dog-whistling — certainly contributes. The way social media is, which is basically comparison on steroids, also contributes. As Manson puts it in his newsletter: “We take our common humanity for granted and instead obsess over subtle divergences in culture and character as if they are world-ending.” Would agree as well.
In general, our minds are already primed to loathe any dissimilarities we spot between ourselves and others. The internet simply gives us millions and millions more dissimilarities to spot.
So that’s part of it.
One other area, potentially less discussed, is the impact of the rise of nationalistic leaders who “say whatever they think” and “have no filter.” There’s been research post-2016 USA election that found:
Over a series lab experiments, conducted before and after Election Day, they observed a striking result: Post-election, study participants were less cooperative, more likely to use adversarial strategies and less likely to reach an agreement with a partner. The effect was driven by an increase in men acting more aggressively toward women.
Now, you may say “Well, that’s only a gender thing” or “Well, that’s because lunatic liberals are still mad about Hillary losing.” In saying either of those things, you’d essentially be showing the same biases reflected in the narcissism of the slight difference. We take these cultural divergences and magnify them to mean everything — “You want kids in cages?!??!” — when, in fact, the majority of your goals for yourself and your family overlap with that person who you are currently assuming wants children living in cages.
What about at work with these ideas?
Absolutely a factor. The very nature of many jobs is silo’ed, and information does not flow freely. As such, there are a lot of assumptions about what a person may value before you even come to speak to the person. “She’s a HR person, she doesn’t care about the financials,” etc. Maybe she deeply cares about the financials because she wants to make sure her department runs lean, ya know? But people don’t think like that. There are a lot of value-connected assumptions, and small differences in thought — or small differences in what’s perceived as “strategic,” which is often just “logistical” — can cause huge blowups and even exits or terminations.
So yes, the narcissism of the slight difference plays very big into the psychology of work. Work is a complicated dance of people, politics, belief structures, assumptions, and attempting to determine what is and isn’t a priority when no one is actively telling you. A lot of slight differences can get blown up into brawls because of how many things need to be managed and massaged in these work contexts.
Could we manage the narcissism of the slight difference better?
Not really. Human nature, human biases, etc. We could try to be more clear about what we want, or return conversations to shared goals and interests (“We both want the company to grow, Harold”), but jockeying for position and relevance usually wins the day. These are just the realities of the human brain existing and interacting out in the world.
Seen this at all in your work?
