This is a fascinating example of how culture can influence mental illness. There is now an identified delusion where individuals believe that they are on a reality TV. Given the similarities to the movie The Truman Show, this has been described as the Truman Show delusion. From the APA Monitor reporting:
As for what’s driving the trend, the brothers speculate that certain features of modern culture—warrantless wiretapping and video surveillance systems like the one in London, for example—may create a plausible backdrop for those with a tendency to suspect that others are watching them. In addition, widely accessible technology and media that foster the notion of instant fame or put one at the center of attention—reality TV shows and MySpace, for example—square with the Truman Show’s basic premise and with psychotic patients’ delusions of grandeur, Joel Gold says.
These cultural elements could even serve as a tipping point for psychologically vulnerable people, though only proper studies can illuminate this, Ian Gold emphasizes. The brothers also are intrigued by the fact that these cultural features may be influencing people with no diagnosable mental illness.
“It is striking that these modern technological shifts could turn a delusion whose content in the past might have seemed highly bizarre, into something that in certain circumscribed circumstances might not seem as bizarre today,” Joel Gold says.
The focus of The Narcissism Epidemic, and my work on narcissism, has been on classic trait narcissism and NPD. The cultural change in narcissistic or grandiose delusions, however, is certainly consistent with this. I need to expand my thinking on this topic, as it could partially explain some of the very narcissistic behaviors by individuals who otherwise do not appear overly narcissistic.
