'Compared with low-level agents, high-level agents express a more internal locus of control, report more stability and consistency in their actions across contexts, and have clearer and more stable self-concepts. By contrast, low-level agents report acting more impulsively and describe their actions with less reference to mental states. The tendency to identify one’s actions at higher levels then may be indicative of an awareness of one’s own mind as a cause of behavior. -- Mentalizing incorporates subprocesses whereby the perceiver infers the existence of mental states, internal events, and other features of agents from external cues or from a personal simulation of the other’s experience... The tendency to mentalize in adults has been examined in studies of empathy, perspective-taking, emotion recognition and attribution, and knowledge estimation....mentalization is a continuum. At the lowest end of the continuum is the failure to attribute mental states to an agent, which might be called dementalizing. Thought, emotion, and intention are not inferred or are ignored. A perceiver can dementalize a person by explaining the person’s actions in terms of physical events, preexisting dispositions, or causal chains that do not require a mind.'

'Narcissists idealize potential new sources of narcissistic supply and later devalue and discard them. Cycles of over-valuation (idealization) followed by devaluation ... They reflect the need to be protected against the whims, needs, and choices of others, shielded from the hurt that they can inflict on the narcissist. The ultimate and only emotional need of the narcissist is to be the subject of attention and, thus, to support his volatile self-esteem and to regulate his sense of self worth. The narcissist is dependent on others for the performance of critical Ego functions. While healthier people overcome disappointment or disillusionment with relative ease – to the narcissist they are the difference between Being and Nothingness. The quality and reliability of Narcissistic Supply are, therefore, of paramount importance.'

'Mark Rife’s narcissist manifesto reveals he put no effort into his search for meaning partly because he was not intellectually capable of recognizing meaning when he found it, but mostly because he didn’t want to find a reason not to kill himself. What he wanted to do was mythologize himself. He wanted to create this story about how he gave life a chance, so he could end it with a self-inflicted death in order to communicate to us just how deeply sad he was. It’s important for Mark to know that his friends understand how sad he is. So he’ll murder himself to make them feel it. There is a legend that people die three deaths: the first death is when your body ceases to function. The second death is when you are buried and exists nowhere but in the minds and memories of others. And the third death is when the last person who remembers you dies. I wonder if Mark considered that in killing himself, he was in a way killing his wife again by obliterating so many memories of her.'

'As far as their fans are concerned, celebrities fulfil two emotional functions: they provide a mythical narrative (a story that the fan can follow and identify with) and they function as blank screens onto which the fans project their dreams, hopes, fears, plans, values, and desires (wish fulfilment). The slightest deviation from these prescribed roles provokes enormous rage and makes us want to punish (humiliate) the "deviant" celebrities. But why? When the human foibles, vulnerabilities, and frailties of a celebrity are revealed, the fan feels humiliated, "cheated", hopeless, and "empty". To reassert his self-worth, the fan must establish his or her moral superiority over the erring and "sinful" celebrity. The fan must "teach the celebrity a lesson" and show the celebrity "who's boss". It is a primitive defense mechanism – narcissistic grandiosity. It puts the fan on equal footing with the exposed and "naked" celebrity.'