The gaming avatars add playfulness to inventing online presences. But on a deeper level, personality traits show through in everyday encounters. The Myers-Briggs Type Index’s 16 personality traits are popular guides for personalities and human behavior. The index’s ESTP grouping reveals tendencies with questions arising like, are ESTPs narcissistic and manipulative?
ESTP personality types in the MBTI classification are narcissistic and manipulative. The acronym stands for extrovert, sensing, thinking, and perceiving. This personality inventory is a loadstar for interpersonal and workplace relationships, with ESTPs as charismatic and controlling.
The ESTP personality type is noticed for opposing behavior traits – hidden guises in person and personality that impact on people around them. ESTPs’ nature attracts attention through charm and charisma but is also labeled nasty, mean, and abusive. Just what makes ESTPs narcissistic and manipulative?
ESTPs As Narcissists
We know the myth of Narcissus’ self-love, self-adoration, and demise when he drowned after falling in love with his reflection in the water. For Freudian psychologists, the narcissist personality is caught up in self-involvement and self-esteem. From a commonplace interpretation, we know the loud and boastful type we don’t want to get too close to.
The narcissistic personality knows the game; sometimes, you know them without them knowing that. This is the tricky zone as a Narcissist wants to dominate. We are talking about the overtly friendly guy or girl who chats excitedly about life and almost is ambidextrous in handling what comes their way.
These thrill-seeking conversationalists, as they are known, are the embodiment of the excitement of life. ESTPs have narcissistic traits that include being a devil’s advocate of note, provocative to a degree, insincere, and demanding attention and control. Like narcissists, the moment matters, a time to seek out new thrills!
A friend told me about some gut sense about an ESTP type – it’s a space where no matter what you do, you won’t get recognition or thrive! You’ve tried everything. But you realize your efforts come with a compromise – you’re not quite good enough. The superiority space of an ESTP leaves no room for you to achieve!
What ESTP Stands For
In the scheme of the MBTI indicators, an ESTP has both strengths and preferences in how they carve a space for themselves in relationships (social) and the workplace. The most pronounced aspects are interpersonal relations, without which the ESPF is lost. This is why the label narcissism is poignantly descriptive.
So, what does ESTP stand for in the schema of the MBTI of personalities? Or how are we affected by ESTPs? Based on Jungian theories of personality types, the extrovert versus the introvert, MBTI uses sixteen types that are put in four dichotomies: extraversion v. introversion, sensing v. intuition, thinking v. feeling, and judging v. perceiving. The four-letter acronym, in this case, ESTP, represents dominant traits, like:
- Extrovert. Unlike the introvert, the striking characteristics dominate – attention-seeking and -grabbing almost simultaneously. Included in this self-centered and self-confident space is an air of entitlement. The latter easily flows over into a mean attitude. The desire to be center-stage, commanding attention to revealing meanness when side-lined.
- Sensing. Also referred to as sensors. An exaggerated sense of self-importance that relies on the senses and lacks empathy. The attitude is to deal with facts and concrete information and ignores intuitive feelings or attitudes. The essence of understanding is based on factual knowledge instead of the level of abstraction an intuitive is capable of. Practical and detail-orientated.
- Thinking. Like sensing and intuition, thinking is opposed to feeling (see above). The dominant characteristic here is decision-making as objective logic. Logical explanations are pursued, and decisions are made on rules or logic. Rational thought reigns over subjective feelings or even emotions. Analytical thinking – even impersonal attitudes – dominates over intuitive or feeling-based decisions.
- Perceiving. This trait has positive resonance. It is associated with adaptability. At the same time, this attribute refers to open-mindedness and flexibility in thinking. It easily slips into personas like entertainers or performers.
The extrovert character of the ESTP is autocratic in nature. The ESTP attitude is to follow the letters of the word. There’s no room to be tainted by feelings or emotions. This gives the ESTP a position of power, a commanding one associated with leadership. Of course, it is all about control. The reasoning is in the now, based on facts, and with little left to the opposite trait, intuition.
The above outlines traits associated ESTPs’ predisposition to want to dominate, command, and be noticed. These traits lure and entice and then trap and control. The ESTP also has a counter-side, the player or entertainer, who attracts rather than repels. ESTPs rather clinical and analytical attitude that seeks out facts and reasoning based on logic make the close proximity to this entertainer tricky.
ESTPs Narcissistic Traits
The overlapping aspects between personalities and traits for ESTPs and narcissists are self-centeredness which comes over as being self-confident. ESTPs boast easily and demand or seek validation and attention from people they are with. But the difference is a sense of entitlement and power or control over others that is obviously mean and nasty.
In the next section, the traits discussed above will be looked at through the lens of ESTPs as manipulative. Some of these refer to the slipperiness of understanding what is defined in the trait of ‘perceiving.’ This is the domain of the performer and entertainer.
ESTP As Manipulative
ESTP has high regard for performing, entertaining and captivating people. It is a commanding position with many layers in between. Mostly these in-betweens show in friendships, interrelations with colleagues, and marital statuses. We all know that feeling, shaking our heads in disbelief and sometimes downright annoyance or in tears when we feel the helplessness of entrapment.
You know, those melt-down moments at the hand of a bully. The narcissist type is manipulative and self-centered, and both these aspects fall slap-bang in the ESTP type. We’ve had to say to ourselves, stop here! And rethink the feelings of disbelief in the face of ESTP audacity. Those demoralized moments filled with trepidation, even fear. A nasty scenario played out with us at the center.
Simply, ESTPs extrovert focus is on the outer world of people, away from the inner of ideas. The trait of perceiving, marked with flexibility, is also an arena for the narcissistic personality to emerge – an entertainer with the end goal as self-congratulatory!
Manipulative Behavioural Traits
You might even feel that you are incapable of escaping the influence of an ESTP. But as soon as you realize that the ESTP needs you, you can decide what’s best for you. The dominant ESTP trait is to be the best among people. Failing to be that allows the ESTP no option but to be mean.
The moment of glory (in the most negative sense) is also one of power and entitlement – a place of being the best! And this is the area where interpersonal manipulation starts and the ESTP can find a position to reign from. As you can see, once you are caught up in the middle of this, your choices seem impossible.
Zooming in on narcissistic traits and spotlighting ESTP’s tendency to manipulate others for self-gratification reveals two aspects of narcissism. Both are intertwined with manipulative behavioral characteristics and associated with ESTP as a personality type.
These are:
- Covert Narcissism. ESTPs are self-seeking protagonists. They thrive on self-importance, and others are needed for this entitlement state. This need invariably involves direct or covert forms of manipulation. Some ESTPs fly under the radar – it’s difficult to see through their manipulative intentions.
- Grandiose Narcissism. A sense of grandiose self-importance importance thrives with attention. The ESTP sets up a scenario for this kind of play in the workplace and in relationships. The manipulative aspects center on an attitude that the ESTP can get what they want – a fantasy of power and control over others.
In the two instances, the ESTP personality emerges with a bang. And suddenly, there’s the affirmation in the form of a question: ‘don’t you know who I am?’
ESTPs As Narcissistic And Manipulative
Personality traits foregrounded in the MBTI’s 16 personality types are synonymous with behavioral patterns we are all too familiar with in the workplace and interpersonal relationships. The dichotomous attributes are part of everyday speech. These came from Carl Jung’s Personality Types.
We are familiar with concepts like manipulation and increasingly attuned to notions of narcissism, both in men and women. What is interesting is the overlaps between the personality types and opposing attitudes and what we know as domineering, self-importance, and control exercised by some over others. Even the bullies of kindergarten days!
Conclusion
What seems to be a broad classification can be narrowed down to a list of traits. These become behavioral tendencies that influence interpersonal and workplace relationships. ESTPs are good at the game – realistic and driven towards self-congratulatory moments. ESTPs’ drive for personal gratification includes narcissism and manipulation.
ESTP is a type that’s not rare in fiction and reality. A simple reference to extroversion and a realist thinking type hides a layer, the manipulative narcissist.
