A Study Finds That People Who Watch A Lot Of Reality TV Are Narcissistic Jerks

A new study published in the Psychology of Popular Media Culture verified something you’ve known for years: People who watch a lot of reality shows are more likely to be narcissistic jerks who no one likes.

A team of Ohio State University researchers, led by Ted Dickinson (who hates when The Bachelor takes over Twitter on Mondays), asked 565 college students (average age: 20) to keep track of which TV genres they were watching, from dramas to sports. The human guinea pigs were also, according to the Daily Mail, “asked questions about the amount of time they spent watching television overall, before completing the standard Narcissistic Personality Inventory – a 40-item questionnaire used by psychologists to measure subclinical narcissism.” Also known as The Gwyneth.

The results… won’t surprise you, because you’re so smart. But you already knew that. “Those who reported higher levels of daily TV exposure scored higher on the [Narcissistic Personality Inventory],” the study found, “as did those who watched more reality shows.” But Dickinson cautions that “some people with narcissistic tendencies are seeking out media characters similar to themselves, whereas others who watch reality TV see narcissism as normalized behavior and begin acting more narcissistic.”

Either way, The Real World is to blame for all of life’s problems.

(Via the Daily Mail)

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