That is an interesting assessment that causes a lot of personal self-reflection on my part. Recent research suggests that narcissism has evolved as an adaptive response to environmental factors. Narcissism is rooted in physical characteristics and shaped by gene-environment interactions, with selection pressures favouring traits that promote short-term mating and dominance (Holtzman & Donnellan, 2015). The rise in narcissism in individualistic Western cultures may be linked to changes in the modern environment, including the advent of social media platforms like Facebook (Szekeres & Tisljár, 2013). Environmental crises can trigger narcissistic responses, which can be reframed as grief reactions to loss (Shaw & Bonnett, 2016). Some research suggests that in business students, narcissism may have an indirect effect on environmental ethics through materialism, with higher levels of narcissism associated with increased materialism and lower environmental ethics (Bergman et al., 2014).

My reaction to this is to (try to) be more aware of how much my sense of self-importance relies on how important my environment finds me and reinforces that certainty. Then, I try to introduce uncertainty to avoid sliding into the comfortable fictions that I might be induced and, in many ways, evolutionarily programmed to reproduce and to see reflected upon random events that may impact me but don't necessarily have anything to do with me. But I will admit it is difficult and uncomfortable to do this, so sometimes I don't. So, it is unsurprising that others, especially those unfamiliar with the research, would only do it if forced to do so by their environment.