 The narcissist considers himself God's gift to humanity He feels entitled and when I say he applies to she because half of all narcissists nowadays are women Way to go women So the narcissist feels entitled. What does it mean? It means that he believes that he deserves recognition compensation perks and status regarding regardless of his efforts investment commitment hard work and accomplishments in other words even a narcissist who loafs around all day makes redundant videos and drinks red wine even such a narcissist considers himself to be a genius deserving of the utmost respect recognition and adulation Sounds familiar. It's because I am Sam Vaknin the author of Malignant self-love narcissism Revisited the first book to describe narcissistic abuse in the 90s I'm also a former visiting professor of psychology in a prestigious Russian University Southern Federal University and it's in the Shanghai list by the way, and I am also a Long-term faculty member in see ups Commonwealth for international advanced professional studies Cambridge United Kingdom, Toronto, Canada, and of course the inevitable Outreach campus in Lagos, Nigeria Got it students. Let us proceed In an attempt to understand to understand the narcissist Disgruntlement disappointment anger and passive aggression In an attempt to decipher the narcissist's constant belief that he is being underestimated undervalued discriminated against Not promoted as it should be Not under compensated etc. etc. trying to understand this mindset Even when the narcissist does not invest does not commit does not work at all With a slacker has no accomplishments. There's no education to speak of it's not credentials nothing Even then the narcissist demands absolutely demands The treatment accorded to his accomplished peers his credential peers Why is that? What's wrong with the narcissist even a delusional Person who inhabits a paracosm of fantasy even such a person should be somehow Interfaced with reality Reality should intrude somehow is a narcissist psychotic that delusional no, I Propose a different approach. I Implemented in my work a model a model known as effort reward imbalance model It links job demands To rewards that employees receive for their work. So it's part of human resource psychology or industrial psychology Organizational psychology Yet I borrowed this model and I implemented it to the internal world of the narcissist Because you see the narcissist constantly believes That he is subject to an effort reward imbalanced the narcissist Exaggerates his efforts. However minister room and laughable. He exaggerates the efforts and he expects commensurate rewards and When ineluctably look it up when ineluctably these rewards Do not materialize because he has done nothing to earn The prestige and the recognition and the promotion and the money and the wages. I mean he's done nothing So there are no rewards in the narcissist's mind There is a discrepancy between what he perceives to be his investment and the meager yield outcomes of his exertions and The reason this happens is because the narcissist overvalues himself His very existence His mere presence are sufficient endowments He should be compensated for existing for being there by Frequenting the workplace or his relationships. He bestows upon other people his blessing the blessing of his presence he is a kind of emanation of beneficence and His very presence guarantees positive outcomes. He doesn't need to do anything. He doesn't need to work hard He doesn't need to work at all He's entitled but just by virtue of existing And so the narcissist is subject to an internal effort reward imbalanced model that keeps fueling his resentment his envy his This self-destructiveness the bad object in him is nourished and fed by this effort reward imbalance and Of course his aggression and in case of covert narcissism his passive aggression What is the effort reward imbalance? We're gonna dive deep into it. And as I do you will see how similar it is to the narcissistic psychopathology the effort reward imbalance in balance holds that high work related effort coupled with low control over extrinsic outcomes such as pay and Low control of a job related intrinsic rewards such as recognition So when you invest a lot of work a lot of effort In your in your job in your relationships, whatever it is when you invest a lot and You get little by way of remuneration Compensation other rewards intangible rewards such as recognition or status or acceptance Etc. Allegiance affiliation and so when when there is a discrepancy this triggers high level of activation of neuro hormonal pathways and These exert adverse effects on mental and physical health Everything I've just said has been proven in numerous studies now The godfather of the effort reward imbalance model is how else a German It's a German medical Sociologists. Yes, there is such a discipline medical sociology. His name is Ziggurist Ziggurist not Siegfried Ziggurist and in 1996 he proposed the model And gradually over the decades his model panned out proved itself and In occupational health studies. It's a major model along others But I'm focusing on this model and not other models because this model is 100% applicable to narcissism and has predictive powers when it comes to foreseeing the narcissist actions decisions choices effects and cognitions the model identifies unfavorable psychosocial Characteristics in the workplace, but as I said, I've applied it outside the workplace to interpersonal relationships I think interpersonal relationships Indistinguishable from a workplace because you have to work on your relations relationships. They don't just Self-actualize or self-materialize Relationships are not ectoplasm. You have to work hard to maintain them to To stop them and restart them and reboot them every single day And so there's a mismatch between costs and gains in Costs in this kind of social Transactions and this mismatch could be small in which case everyone is happy But when the mismatch becomes big and out of hand and out of control Spirals exponentially. There's a lot of bad blood a Lot of disillusionment Disenchantment disappointment and disgruntlement. This is a constant state of the narcissist because the narcissist believes Everything he does Should be valued much higher than everything he receives in return His give is much more than his take and he feels constantly cheated deceived Discriminated against take an advantage of Gallable, etc. And he resents this even in intimate relationships Now the whole thing rests on a concept known as social reciprocity wine break social reciprocity is At the work of what is known as the work at the core. I'm sorry. What is known as the work contract There's a social contract and the work contract and I applied social reciprocity concepts to The social contract and even more narrowly to the relationship contract And so the social reciprocity theorem says that stress is When people feel a mismatch between a high cost and a low gain Like I give you more than I get I'm invested more than you are You know my efforts are much bigger than yours and so there's a recurrent Experience of failed reciprocity and this generates negative effects negative emotions frustration and stress and Anxiety and aggression. Yes also aggression. There's three components in the effort reward in balance model effort reward and what is known as over commitment effort means Extrinsic demands demands in the workplace demands in the relationship Everything is a job When you are someone's intimate partner spouse father husband, you name it You are called wife, of course you there's a job description It's a job. It's a role. I refer you to my video on role theory So this is the effort part the reward comes from three sources Tangible remuneration or compensation for example a financial reward money Mobility Career promotion Transitioning from a romantic relationship to a marriage from a marriage to parenthood. It's another example of Mobility mobility involves two element Transitionality transitioning from one phase to another a Longer line that is perceived as progress But this must be coupled with security safety Mobility So it's not only mobility, but it's mobility within a safe stable and secure lane secure base So this is what we call is essentially status Status related reward. This is the second element and the third element is a steam recognition social acceptability social emotional reward Now recognition in an intimate relationship is also known as love Love is recognizing the existence of the other seeing the other In a way helping the other regenerates himself or herself through the the partner's gaze So this is a social emotional reward in an intimate relationship recognition professional status Authority these are social emotional rewards in the workplace It's a distinct Personal pattern of coping with demanding situations It could be under commitment or over commitment No, the narcissist is prone to under commitment and under investment because the narcissist exaggerates His own existence and presence as inputs He says I don't need to commit. I don't need to invest. It's enough that I'm there My very presence and my very existence are the necessary inputs Into the machine. These are these are my raw materials if you wish so Employees that are over committed for example, they show excessive devotion to the work and The theory postulates that over commitment leads to stress But also amplifies other adverse health effects the narcissist under commits and this shifts the stress from the narcissist to the partner While the narcissist under commits the partner commits or over commits but relationally by comparison The narcissist partner always over commits Because never mind what she does never mind how little she commits. It all it's always more than the narcissist So there's always an asymmetry in relationships with narcissists There's always a commitment asymmetry never mind how minimal The partners commitment is She still is Overcommitted compared to the narcissist and this has This stresses her creates anxiety for example in a borderline. You would create an abandonment anxiety and adverse mental and physical physiological health effects the effort to reward in balance model Is used as a theoretical framework to explain this stress and other health risks? and For example It generates all kinds of anxieties in employees about their employment Is it uncertain? question of job loss This is especially true in a globalized environment where jobs can be outsourced the same happens same happens And and their studies about this by Zikwist 2016 Same exactly same principles of operation occur in interpersonal relationships intimate and romantic friendships of the narcissist because the narcissist generates This precarious volatile environment where uncertainty and indeterminacy are the defining factors the determinants the dimensions that that kind of encapsulate and demarcate the environment So the narcissist environment always places the intimate partner the friend co-workers never mind always places everyone else the environment always places everyone else at a need to compete for the narcissist and It's a constant doubt whether the narcissist will be there the next day constant abandonment or separation in security and This is what I call the pathological narcissistic space the narcissists Conditions his continued presence in the relationship in the workplace He conditions it on receiving narcissistic supply. It's a form of Machiavelli Machiavellian manipulativeness Coercion and extortion. You want me here? You want me here you need To gratify me you need to provide me with narcissistic supply with money with access with sex It's always a transactional Conditional thing the four s's sex services safety and supply Okay now the This model which I find Exquisitely suited to describe the inner dynamics and the outer behaviors of Narcissist Also, of course is reactive to the partner The narcissists would gravitate towards partners who would collaborate and Collude with him in generating a shared fantasy within which The asymmetry of effort investment and commitment these asymmetries are embedded and accepted as the ethos The philosophy the ideology of the shared fantasy the shared fantasy says I'm superior to you my dear intimate partner my dear friend. I'm superior to you. I mean natively Superior to you. I'm I don't know. I'm a genius. I'm more handsome than you I have the potential to be more accomplished in you, etc. So you need to count how you need to Succumb to me you need to be submissive you to be obedient you need to be adoring and fawning This is built. It's a feature of the shared fantasy. It's built into the shared fantasy as a compensatory mechanism for misperceived Problems with reward so there's a misperceived problem in the narcissists mind Between his efforts and his rewards and you need to compensate for that by Accepting this asymmetry narcissists says in short I'm here. I'm present in your life. And that's an immeasurable gift It's an endowment. I'm bestowing upon you myself You need to realize that this automatically creates an imbalance Because my presence and existence are far more valuable than anything you could ever give me So if you want me to stay with you In whatever capacity friend intimate partner your father you name it if you want me to stay with you You need to work hard You need to work hard you need to put on to put in Effort commensurate with the gift, which is me so You need to write you need to write the effort reward imbalance and so Regardless of the narcissist contribution to the relationship you are expected to accept this asymmetrical or imbalanced Defining dimension of the shed fantasy and this is work done by Zygerist in 2017 this leads of course to great tensions within the relationship great stress the partner inevitably Develops resentment this resentment and frustration That giving more than the partner receives There's always a given take but the partner gives and rarely takes so This generates frustration and according to Donald in 1939 Frustration leads to aggression, but the aggression is either sublimated or Converted into passive aggression and I refer you refer you to work by Hey, Canaan 2006 Unterbrink 2007 layer and others 2009 2010 Zerlo the Zurlo 2010 Lebrouk's 2014 one and others 2015 and of course hints which I mentioned in the previous video 2016 there these kind of relationships are by definition unstable by definition Because the in and out Are not the same they're not balanced And so the whole the whole thing is shaking and in a tremor in a constant state of tremor And this of course generates anxiety both in the partner and in the narcissist and this anxiety Within the shared fantasy kind of accumulates and then the whole shared fantasy Becomes angziogenic In other words the whole shared fantasy becomes an engine of anxiety Which leads of course to devaluation and persecutory ideation later on Studies by Yin and Lee in 2012 Hamson in 2018 and so on so forth Indicated that Emotional communication is Communication in general an emotional communication is a critical factor in somehow Avoiding the perception of an effort reward in balance Emotional communication also reduces stress ameliorates and mitigates anxiety and allows The commonality of the bond The couple or the dyad or whatever the relationship is to somehow survive Extends the longevity of the interpersonal relationship This of course and I refer you to studies by shouich 2015 hints 2016 and so on so this of course raises a Problem is a narcissist is Incapable of emotional communication this narcissists have no access to their positive emotions Narcissists only have negative affectivity anger and V So when the partner attempts to Communicate with the narcissist on an emotional level Then narcissists reacts to the emotional communication with the only emotions. He has access to anger range Envy hatred Rejection so any attempt to communicate with the narcissist via emotions Triggers in the narcissist a cascade of emotions all of which are negative And if the attempt to communicate with the narcissist emotionally persists The narcissist devolves into borderline like Emotional dysregulation you can push the narcissist to become a borderline By insisting to communicate with him regarding his and your emotions So it's not a good idea Not a good idea. There are also there's also a question of boundaries the effort reward in balance model Is the outcome Of no clear boundaries between work and life not life or balance With a narcissist there's no clear boundary between The narcissist And his shared fantasy This is a narcissist doesn't exist. There's nobody there. It's an emptiness an empty schizoid core The shared fantasy the workplace so to speak is the narcissist so There's no way for the narcissist to gain Some balancing influences From his life. For example, if you're discriminated at work If you're passed over from promotion if you're not rewarded and not recognized for your hard labor you can still Derive satisfaction and happiness And a modicum of balance from your girlfriend or boyfriend The narcissist come do this The the the narcissist doesn't have a life versus relationship thing The narcissist shared fantasy is the totality of the narcissist. So if the narcissist perceives An effort reward in balance in the shared fantasy Because he's so great and he's so entitled and he's not getting his due Then this is total. He cannot He cannot somehow ameliorate this or mitigate this By introducing inputs from other areas of his life because there are none And I refer you to studies by you and yang 2017 Um The narcissist pushes his intimate partner via the mechanism of projective identification He pushes his intimate partner coerces very in effect To become gradually more and more narcissistic more and more abusive And in extreme cases even psychopathic As the relationship devolves or deteriorates Into a totally narcissistic space where the partner Becomes narcissistic and the narcissist is narcissistic. So it's like two narcissists fighting it out The impacts In terms of stress and anxiety and mental health and physical health on the partner Are enormous And I refer you to studies by unterberg unterbring For example in 2008 so social emotionally the partner keeps keeps deteriorating Keeps getting dilapidated keeps withering and shrinking Because the narcissist Is invulnerable is immune to this This is the narcissist This conflict is the narcissist The narcissist lives for this conflict. He needs to reenact The separation individuation cycle with his mother That's what the whole thing is about He is provoking the conflict on purpose He is triangulating or is introducing betrayal is forcing the partner to betray him sexually otherwise He is he is all into converting the shared fantasy Into a battle zone Love is a battlefield to quote an eminent intellectual of the 20th century so In this battlefield The partner is much less equipped than the narcissist You could think of the narcissist As an army While the partner is a small guerrilla unit It's asymmetric warfare The partner has no chance No chance to survive this The more she's exposed The more the outcomes Will be horrendous for her in the long term And again, at the heart of all this Is the narcissist's Misperception Of his input and contribution Versus the rewards that he's getting He's always Under compensated He's always giving more than he's taking He's always entitled He's always demanding He's always criticizing He's always berating and demeaning and justizing And attacking Because he feels constantly Under compensated undervalued underestimated On the wrong end of the stick And this of course offends against his grandiosity He challenges The total structure of the narcissist's psyche This is not a minor issue The narcissist always must have the upper hand It's one upmanship The narcissist always must be the winner Narciss always must take more than he gives Narciss must feel That he pulled the fast one over people He's not always a con artist But he has the mentality of a con artist So When in a relationship for example in intimate relationship or friendship There are expectations of very finely tuned and well balanced reciprocity Of which the narcissist is incapable truly Because of his impaired reality testing He doesn't gauge properly Himself and others He tends to Overvalue idealize himself Consider himself superior While undervaluing or devaluing Other people The over-commitment model Is evolving Originally there was no clear distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic efforts and so on and so forth In 1996 When Zegrist started all this But today we are much more Much more evolved shall we say When we deal with the issues of commitment and over-commitment You must understand The narcissist under commits But he perceives his under-commitment as over-commitment It's as I said a problem with reality testing with an ego function He misperceives He misjudges Reality He misjudges his commitment because it is a part of reality So It's all in his head But he behaves as if it were true Zegrist in 1999 As early as 1999 When I published my book He developed The extrinsic effort in the original model Into effort And the intrinsic effort into over-commitment He said we should distinguish between real inputs Real work Real investment Real money Real I don't know what Real raw materials Real Factual Material Tangible We should distinguish this from intangibles such as commitment And he focused on over-commitment He said effort reward in balance is usually the outcome of over-commitment You don't calibrate your commitment according to what you're getting out of the situation But you try to somehow compensate For the lack of reward By exaggerating your efforts As if As if you believe that if you were to commit more Invest more work harder Somehow the reward side will rectify itself Correct itself And you will start to get the appropriate reward Over-commitment is a pressure response It's kind of anxiolytic It regulates the relationship between The perception of balance or imbalance And stress responses So Some studies found Moderating a moderating effect or over-commitment In other words If you over-commit Because of the anticipation Of proper appropriate reward in the future This reduces your anger, your anxiety, your depression And increases your job satisfaction I refer you to studies by Hogan and Dollard 2007 Kinman and Johns 2008 Zorlo A aforementioned study in 2010 But there were other studies, for example by Prekel in 2007 They didn't find this effect It seems that according to Prekel Over-commitment does not reduce anxiety about future rewards Over-commitment is a kind of self-deception It's like telling yourself the problem is me It's an autoplastic defense I'm the problem I'm not getting rewarded Not because the workplace is unjust Not because the relationship is unbalanced I'm not getting rewarded because I haven't committed enough I haven't invested enough I haven't worked hard enough So that's an autoplastic defense And extremely unlikely with a narcissist That's why over-commitment in the effort to reward In-balance model is not a good explanation About the nature of the actual operation of the relationship With a narcissist But it's an excellent explanation of what's happening in the narcissist's head Is in the narcissist's mind He is over-committed And the rewards never come So he gets angrier and more resentful by the minute You know If you ask the narcissist, he says Oh, I'm investing in this relationship much more than she does And I'm getting much less than I should Always Regardless of reality So, and by the way, studies clearly show Studies by Unterbring, for example Clearly show that there's no There are no gender differences here So everything I'm saying, and no age differences Everything I'm saying applies to female narcissists As well as male narcissists Equally Hintz in 2017 Oh, 2016, I'm sorry Yeah, 2016 Hintz studied German teachers An oxymoron, I know And he showed that female teachers felt A higher level of reward and a lower level Of imbalance than male teachers But there was no significant difference in age This was one of a few studies that found gender differences And I think Hintz found gender differences Because of the society he was studying Which is German society Essentially, still a relatively traditional and conservative society In a way In some ways, still patriarchal I think he would have obtained the same results in Pseudo-patriarchal societies Or quasi-patriarchal societies Such as Russia or even Israel Masculinity is closely associated with narcissism Narcissism is competitive Narcissism is ambitious Same as masculinity These are stereotypical traditional masculine values So I would be more I would try to fine-tune To be more refined in what I'm about to say In traditional conservative patriarchal societies Then we are likely to find a difference Between male narcissists and female narcissists Male narcissists would have a much larger Effort, reward, imbalance effect Than female narcissists Female narcissists would be Under the influence of societal mores And cultural conventions Their resentment and so on Would be much more passive-aggressive Less expressed And even less felt But in more advanced societies More progressive, not advanced More progressive societies More liberal societies Such as for example Scandinavia Or parts of the United States Or California We are not likely to find a gender effect In my view and according to quite a few studies What else can I say about Narcissist and effort, reward, imbalance? Well, the vast majority of healthy people Normal people who experience A health, reward, imbalance situation The vast majority of such healthy, normal people React with stress With anxiety, with sadness, depression Dysphoria They internalize it They internalize the situation They take it badly The narcissist, because of the antisocial Aspects of narcissism The narcissist externalizes His reaction to the imbalance He's likely to become angry Openly resentful Aggressive He's likely to try to change the situation By, for example, devaluating his partner Devaluing his partner Would enhance his status Which is a form of reward By devaluing his partner He enhances his own omnipotence And that is very rewarding So the narcissist would try to change the environment To yield higher rewards While most healthy and normal people Would internalize the hurt and the pain The resentment and the anger Of not being seen Of being discriminated against Of not receiving rewards Commend it with their work And they would become sick Simply speaking The reciprocity of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards Should be commensurate with extrinsic and intrinsic efforts There's an effort-reward ratio And there's overcommitment Which is a reaction to perceived imbalance Or a kind of prophylactic A way to avoid such an imbalance To fend it off, to prevent it According to Sigrist An imbalance between effort and reward In other words, a ratio that is higher than one Leads to a state of active distress By evoking strong negative emotions And the model also proposes That this process will be reinforced By overcommitment So that overcommitted employees Remember that the narcissist in his mind is overcommitted Overcommitted employees respond with more strained reactions To an effort-reward imbalance Compared to less committed employees And the narcissist, because he keeps feeling That he is overcommitted Wrongly The narcissist would try to change the environment Via aggression He would become aggressive Or passive aggressive The ratio and overcommitment Significantly associated, statistically speaking With adverse health outcomes We have studies from China, from Japan, from Gambia From, I mean, you name it This is well-established Your health as an intimate partner Is going to suffer Because in your relationship with the narcissist One of the conditions of the shared fantasy You have with the narcissist Is effort-reward imbalance You invest effort and you're not getting any reward Because the narcissist has a misperception Of an effort-reward imbalance He thinks he's giving you enough He thinks he doesn't have to give you more He thinks he's giving you too much So he never gives And you always give You always give and you never take So your health is likely to suffer Again, this is a well-established fact In multiple studies This study is found that Overcommitment predicted other negative outcomes Such as low satisfaction of life Or job and low engagement Gradually begin to detach You give up on your partner Your narcissistic partner And then you feel bad You feel pangs of guilt and shame And with yourself You're ashamed of yourself And there is a subjective feeling of illness Illness, ill it is, discomfort Your needs are not being met You don't like the situation You begin to dislike the situation You begin to resent not only the narcissist But you begin to resent the whole relationship And yet you feel trapped Because it's an element of addiction and so on Watch my videos in the shared fantasy playlist And so it's a hopeless trap You can't exit and you can't extricate yourself from it As your satisfaction decreases Your health problems increase Job satisfaction for example Has significant negative correlations With headaches Gastrointestinal problems There's a study in Malaysia of working women So we have studies from all over In China they studied nurses And nurses who had a higher job satisfaction And no perception of effort rewarding balance These nurses were in much better health And had much fewer incidents or episodes of anxiety There's a mediating effect of job satisfaction Relationship satisfaction With self-rated health Not only does your objective health deteriorate Your subjective perception of your own health deteriorates You begin to misperceive your own mental health And physical health In short you become hypochondriac There's a study by Shimitsu And he identified job stress among Japanese Full-time occupational physicians And job stress contributed negatively to self-rated health Through job dissatisfaction In your relationship you need to be engaged You need to feel positive You need the relationship needs to fulfill you So it's a state of mind You need to feel vigorous, dedicated And absorbed in your dis- undertaking Of a relationship with another person Another person is another universe, it's a miracle Yet the narcissist doesn't provide you Doesn't give you access to himself Because there's nobody there So you're working full gas in neutral You're not going anywhere Just making noise Work engagement for example Has been found to be negatively associated With health problems There's studies by Hecane and in 2012 Shoe in 2018 So work engagement had a negative effect On depressive symptoms The more you are into your job The more you like it The more you love it The more you're committed to it The more you look forward to getting up in the morning And going to your workplace The less depressed you are Shoe study found that the relationship Between job stress and depressive symptoms Is mediated by work engagement And everything I say about work Applies of course to relationships with nurses Because that's a full-time job Work engagement impacts personal outcomes Such as job satisfaction Which then impacts depression Mental health, physical health, anxiety, you name it So there's a study of nurses in Belgium hospitals They had high levels of work engagement And high levels of job satisfaction And they were very healthy Employees of petrochemical enterprises in China Same interventions for improving job satisfaction Improved job engagement And there was a massive decrease In complaints about mental health and physical health When you are with the narcissist You're never rewarded Definitely not rewarded in accordance with Or reciprocally to your investment Your effort goes unnoticed You're never praised You're never thanked You never... there's no credit Like the nurses... dissociative as the nurses is Your work... you don't accumulate any credit with the nurses Every day is from zero So there's no social reciprocity There's no interpersonal behavior You know, it used to be called the grammar of social exchange There's no social exchange There's no mutual cooperative investment There's no norm in the shared fantasy Of return expectancy Where efforts are equalized by respective rewards There's no regulating mechanism of reward Of rewards The reward is so rare That you continue to invest And you continue to work hard In vacuum In a black hole And so there's no feedback regulatory mechanism or process And you are lost You feel disoriented You feel dislocated The failure of reciprocity Which results from the violation of this of this norm Norm of return expectancy I invest... I expect return So the failure of reciprocity elicits Strong negative emotions and sustained stress responses Because it threatens this very fundamental principle I give you, you give me Give and take Reciprocity Hey, the basis of all human relations The model of effort, reward, imbalance Claims that failed reciprocity in terms of high effort spend And low rewards received in turn Is likely to elicit recurrent negative emotions and sustained stress responses So Positive emotions Evoked by appropriate social rewards Promote well-being Health Even survival And it's a kind of implicit contract It's like the narcissist keeps violating the contract you have with him Keeps breaching the agreement It's like he never cares to fulfill his side of the bargain And so we need to exit industrial and organizational psychology And realize that effort, reward, imbalance model Can be easily applied to social roles in adult life period Including intimate relationships Effort spent is a part of a social contract Reciprocity is embedded in this social contract And should guarantee adequate reward And rewards are distributed via three transmission mechanisms In work, it's money In other relationships, it's recognition or esteem or compassion or love Career opportunities and or mobility within the relationship Some kind of progress or horizon Each of these components Is critical to your mental and physical health So when the contract is poorly defined When it is violated or breached And when you don't have an alternative Because you're somehow trapped There's a lack of mobility, extrinsic mobility Mobility outside Extra-diadic mobility This is a horrible feeling, it's like prison That's why many, many partners, intimate partners of narcissists End up betraying the narcissists and cheating on the narcissists You may accept this imbalance for strategic reasons I don't know because you believe in the future Or because you have no other option as I said Or because of anticipatory investments or whatever You say, okay, I'm investing now One day it'll pay off Somehow I'm gonna have children with this man I don't know what This is strategic thinking But in the case of narcissists, it's counterfactual It's self-deception It's part of the fantasy This is exactly the shared fantasy The shared fantasy induces you To lie to yourself about reality To impair your own reality testing To self-gaslight Experience of high-cost, low-gain Is especially prevalent in specific cognitive types Specific motivational types People who are, who react to such imbalances With doubling the efforts, doubling down over committing People who blame themselves there Clinically, what used to be called neurotics The water-plastic defenses Of course, narcissists home into and onto people With weak or poor boundaries or non-existent boundaries With a tendency to blame themselves People pleases People who attempt to kind of gratify and satisfy the other party People who are terrified anxious about future aggression And try to forestall it by acting submissive and obedient And so on and so forth It's important to understand about yourself Overcommitted people suffer from inappropriate perceptions Of demands and of their own coping reasons You are the one undervaluing yourself You're the one devaluing yourself If you remain in a relationship with the narcissists We only give and never take You're your worst enemy You are abusing yourself Because you hold yourself in low self-esteem Your sense of self-worth is shot You can't regulate it properly And so you need to snap out of it This is a perceptual distortion You don't appraise, you don't evaluate accurately You don't assess accurately Cost-gain relations And you need to do so You need to do so because There's an imbalance between high effort and low reward There is non-reciprocity There is non-reciprocity in the relationship with the narcissists And this increases the risks for you As far as your health Mental health Physical health And these are long-term effects And you tend to react by over-committing And this makes the situation, your health situation, even worse And you need to snap out of it To awaken somehow Don't ever tell yourself that there are no alternatives or choices available There are always alternatives or choices available For example, walking away, breaking up That's a choice That's an alternative Do not develop a strategy of anticipated outcomes There are no outcomes The narcissist doesn't have a future Because he doesn't have a present You're not dealing with anyone You're talking to yourself This is not a dialogue, it's a monologue Your motivational pattern over commitment Is deceiving you and misleading you And pushing you to an early grave That's not the way to cope with Not a relationship with the narcissist It's not the way You need to understand that whatever you do Never mind how committed you are Self-sacrificial, even The narcissist would never appreciate Because he's always giving more Because he's much more valuable than you are Much more superior to you And you should cater to his needs And you should service him Because of your innate inferiority You are his servant for life Without any remuneration or compensation Except his divine shining benevolent presence in your life For which you should be eternally grateful Up to and down into your grave