Dealing with narcissistic interviewees

As fraud examiners, many of us are familiar with the cognitive interview technique, mainly developed by R. Edward Geiselman, Ph.D., as a core method to interview victims, witnesses or accused. (See the ACFE Fraud Examiners Manual, The Cognitive Interview Technique.)

However, during interviews we often focus on questions and methodological steps and less on interviewees’ characteristics. Awareness of interviewees’ psychological functioning can help us prevent conflicts and glean needed information. Here we focus on interviewees with narcissistic tendencies: how to spot them, how they think and how to best cooperate with them.

Narcissistic interviewees

According to “Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,” 5th Edition, approximately .5% to 1 % of the population suffer from narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Science indicates that people with strong narcissistic tendencies are more prevalent in management positions. (See The Prevalence of narcissist CEOs, by Patrick Wright, HR magazine, April 13, 2017.)

Researchers from the Ohio State University and the University of Georgia discovered in an experimental study that narcissism predicted emergent leadership, regardless of whether it was self-reported, reported by others in the group or assessed by expert observers. (See Leader Emergence: The Case of the Narcissistic Leader, by Amy B. Brunell, William A. Gentry, W. Keith Campbell and Brian James Hoffman, October 2008.)

Further research indicates that narcissistic behavior is linked to fraud. (See Some Personality Correlates of Business White-Collar Crime, by Gerhard Blickle, Alexander Schlegel, Panataleon Fassbender and Uwe Klein, Feb. 28, 2006.) Therefore, it’s not unlikely that fraud examiners are confronted with people of high narcissistic personality traits during interviews.

What motivates people with strong narcissistic tendencies?

The media often portrays narcissism as a horrible trait of arrogant and manipulative people. On closer inspection, however, narcissism isn’t necessarily always bad. All of us have moderate narcissistic aspects in our personalities that make us love ourselves and believe we’ll be able to achieve our goals and that protect us from inappropriate criticism.

However, some have pathologic narcissism with strong self-centeredness that they use as an over-compensating survival strategy to excessively protect their self-worth — sometimes to the detriment of others. We assume that overly narcissistic people have either experienced strong debasements and humiliation or have been seated on thrones without boundaries or consequences for bad behavior in their childhood and adolescence. Both scenarios usually result in an inflated self-perception with a missing solid self-esteem fundamental.

Those individuals with strong narcissistic traits have inner needs to be recognized and admired. And their need to sustain their public images drive them. They work hard to have others perceive them as “recognized persons.” They’re attuned mostly to the reactions of others that increase their self-esteem. Their impaired ability and willingness to recognize and identify with the needs and feelings of others keep their relationships largely superficial.

Narcissists usually have fantasies of grandiosity and a heightened sense of uniqueness and self-importance, and perceive themselves as more special than others. They can express this “red-carpet-mentality” in rule-disregarding behavior: “I’m a top manager in this firm. The rules don’t apply to me.”

Status seeking and self-worthiness drives those with narcissistic tendencies, which they often express by their high performances at work. And the link between status and wealth further drives high-performing narcissists as their careers become more successful.

How do we identify narcissists in interviews?

A self-centered person’s need to be recognized and admired often manifests in their attention-seeking behavior. Usually they openly sell their visions, dreams and competencies instead of hiding their ambitions. If you listen to their stories you’ll eventually notice, predictably, that narcissists tend to use the word “I” more often than those with moderate personality traits. Their inner need for higher self-worth is also often reflected in their appearance: designer clothes and shoes, expensive purses, fine handkerchiefs, signet rings, cufflinks with their initials, luxury cars and personalized high-brand — in short, a “valuable” look.

How do we deal with these people in interviews?

According to Geiselman, we should divide the cognitive interview into the narrative phase and the specific-detail phase. (See the ACFE Fraud Examiners Manual, The Cognitive Interview Technique.)

However, an interview is a social interaction between two or more individuals that begins with a get-acquainted talk. Also, before we move from the first “Hello” to “Tell us everything” we usually give the interviewee an overview of the interview proceedings, such as who we are, intended topics, protocol of those taking notes, admissions, reason for our meeting, etc. For these reasons, I added “warming-up” and “overview” phases to the interview process.

Warming-up phase

In social interactions with those whom we haven’t met before, the first questions we unconsciously ask ourselves is “Can I trust this person? Am I able to feel safe here?” Or in other words, “Am I encountering a friend or foe?”

A narcissistic person often unconsciously assumes that other people are better than they are. To protect themselves from the corresponding feelings of inferiority they use a psychological trick. Instead of thinking, “This person is better — in any terms — than me” they’ll think, “This person is bad.” Thus, it’s important, that we don’t go into an interview with an attitude of “I’ll teach this person a lesson.”

We should keep in mind that a fraud examination inherently isn’t a social situation between two equal partners but one-sided skewed toward the interviewee. We usually determine the meeting date and location, and the topic of conversation. We ask questions and therefore lead the conversation.

All of this can make an interviewee feel, especially if they’re narcissistic, that they’re subordinate, and the interviewer is superior, even before the interview starts. And an interview can reveal an interviewee’s shameful, sensitive information.

Therefore, try to dissuade an interviewee from feeling you’re the enemy by first asking them general non-threatening questions about their wellbeing, city, office, company and family, among other innocuous subjects.

Gaining sympathy is of higher value than showing that you’re an experienced professional whom your counterpart better not mess with. Let the interviewee lead the small talk as you show interest by actively listening and nodding in agreement.

However, avoid asking seemingly neutral questions that the narcissistic interviewee can’t answer, such as, “Wow, this is an incredible picture here of you and the northern lights. Last winter, I took my holiday at Cape Horn. Do you know where that is?” A narcissistic person could interpret that as a challenge to play the “mine is better than yours” game and then hold back with important information to your substantive questions.

Overview phase

Interviewees, including narcissists, generally are more willing to share information with us if we’re transparent and show our readiness to share information with them first. However, narcissists are usually more interested in telling their stories instead of listening to us talk about our careers, the interview processes, protocols and so on.

In contrast, people with high accentuations of conscientiousness or vigilance explicitly want to know as much as they can about the interviewer in front of them, what the interview will be about, how you’re going to use their statements, if the interview will be legally in line with data protection guidelines, etc.

By dealing with narcissistic interviewees, instead of excessively explaining the processes etc., you can use the overview phase to explicitly state that you’re reliant on their help and explain how they’re able to support us in this case: “You’ve worked at this company for 10 years, so you probably have more expertise than most other employees around here, don’t you? Because of this, we’re very happy to have the opportunity to talk to you today about …”

Narrative phase

You’ll probably gather most of the interview’s information in the narrative phase. It’s highly important that you give the narcissistic interviewee enough time and space to tell their story and avoid interrupting them.

As you ask them to remember incidents or conversations that might have happened months or years ago, they’ll need to dig into their brain’s long-term episodic memory. This long process can be exhausting for them. Patiently wait during these moments of silence until they answer.

The narcissist equates their spoken words as their very essence, value and importance. Interrupting them is an attack on their self-worth. TV political talk shows exhibit narcissists’ extremely defensive behavior when they’re interrupted. “Excuse me,” they’ll say. “If you don’t let me finish speaking, I can leave right know. You invited me to hear my opinion, didn’t you? So, let me finish.”

Specific-detail phase

Here are three essential rules when you interact with narcissists in this phase:

Begin with simple questions that the narcissist will be able to answer instead of tough questions that require expert knowledge. Any of us feels good supplying helpful information, but a narcissist’s self-esteem will especially grow if they can answer your first questions, which could spur them to think longer for your eventual more difficult interrogatives. But if you ask the hard questions first, a narcissist could give wrong answers because they might not feel safe enough to say, “I don’t know. Let me think about it.”

Generally, don’t begin questions with “why,” such as, “Why didn’t you follow the prescriptive rules of your company regarding vendor selections?” All of us usually link “why” questions with feelings of inferiority and our parents’ age-old demands, such as, “Why did you get a D in math again? Learn more the next time!” A narcissist translates those questions as, “You’re a failure. As a person, you’re not worthy!”

Instead of asking the interviewee, “Why?” we should say, “I’m sure there was a plausible reason you did this and that. It would really help us if you would explain the reason behind …” This implies that you understand the interviewee’s position, you’re honestly interested in them and won’t judge their actions. Therefore, we reduce the interviewee’s feelings of shame and add more space for them to openly and freely explain the situation.

Don’t criticize. You might be tempted to point out the interviewee’s mistakes, because it might give you a feeling of superiority. However, avoid saying things like, “I would expect that you know this” or asking, “Wasn’t this your responsibility?” Narcissists won’t accept even constructive criticism, and will be angry or refuse to give further information.

Benjamin Schorn, CFE, is a forensic investigator at KPMG and self-employed profiling specialist, systemic coach and behavior analyst. Contact him at bschorn@kpmg.com and benjaminschorn.de.