Well-Being in the Age of Entitlement

Entitlement adds bars to the prison of self.

Reviewed by Abigail Fagan

Key points

• For all its seeming advantages, entitlement attracts ripples of misery.
• Entitlement inflates the ego to unrealistic levels, where it’s vulnerable to negative feedback from others.
• Practicing emotional reciprocity might help the entitled escape the prison of self.

Entitlement has two meanings, one straightforward, the other convoluted. The first meaning is societal, referring to legal and moral rights that all people share equally. The problematic meaning is psychological and interpersonal:

“My right to have something is superior to your right not to give it to me.”

There are two major types of psychological entitlement. In the first, the entitled view themselves as intellectually, morally, emotionally, or spiritually superior:

"You have to do what I want because I know best."

If their superior rights and privileges are unacknowledged by others, they may feel inferior. Superiority and inferiority are opposite sides of the same coin.

The second type of psychological entitlement is compensatory. Those afflicted with it see themselves as victims of unfair treatment, abuse, disability, or personal defect. They feel entitled to special privileges as compensation.

“It’s so hard being me, I shouldn’t have to wait in line too.”

Both types of entitlement gradually inflate the ego to unrealistic levels. Both require a certain amount of impression management and self-deception to maintain. They’re fed by confirmation bias but remain ever vulnerable to disconfirming feedback from others. The ego becomes fragile. They feel defensive when being aggressive and attacked when attacking.

In my clinical experience, entitlement expands (along with defensive anger) to hide a deeper sense of unworthiness. For example, clients with a sense of entitlement rarely feel loved. Despite feeling entitled to be loved, they feel unworthy of it. There's no way we can feel genuinely worthy of love while feeling entitled to devalue or assume rights that are superior to those of loved ones.

Overcoming Entitlement

First, recognize that entitlement brings untold misery in waves of disappointment and negative feedback. These days most people feel some degree of entitlement. The inevitable clashes of entitlements are wars no one can win.

Authors who suggest an antidote to entitlement typically cite its opposite, humility. Although it's better for us psychologically, humility in our present age is commonly construed as low self-esteem. But there’s a crucial difference between the virtue of humility and the symptom of low self-esteem. With the latter, we're not as good as other people, while the former recognizes that we're no better than others.

Humility is a hard sell at a time when people perceive the need to feel morally, intellectually, or emotionally superior. A more palatable antidote is the principle of emotional reciprocity, which holds that we’re likely to get back what we put out. If we want to be respected, we must be respectful. If we want fairness, we must be fair. If we want appreciation, we must appreciate. If we want compassion, we must be compassionate. If we want to be loved, we must be loving. We’re entitled to receive emotional rewards to the extent that we give them.

Emotional reciprocity has ample empirical support, reinforcing the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) and its more ancient versions, put forth most famously by Confucius in the 5th century B.C. The principle has been around for thousands of years, but it's never too late to learn it, and it's never been more urgent to practice it.

Dealing With Entitled People

Confronting them or arguing with them creates pointless power struggles, which will only increase their sense of entitlement. A better bet is to ignore their assertions of entitlement and act according to your own sense of fairness. Above all, don’t take their coping mechanisms personally.