A superiority complex is a defense mechanism that develops over time to help a person cope with feelings of inferiority. The term was coined by Alfred Adler (1870–1937) in the early 1900s, as part of his school of individual psychology.
Individuals with a superiority complex typically come across as arrogant, prideful, and disdainful toward others. They may treat others in an imperious, overbearing, and even aggressive manner.
In everyday usage, the term is often used to refer to an overly high opinion of oneself.
Alfred Adler
Alfred Adler was the first to use the term superiority complex. He claimed that a superiority complex essentially came from the need to overcome underlying feelings of inferiority: an inferiority complex. Throughout his works Adler intertwines the occurrence of an inferiority complex and a superiority complex as cause and effect. Among his writings touching on the topic were Understanding Human Nature (1927), and Superiority and Social Interest: A Collection of Later Writings, a collection of twenty-one papers written by Adler and published posthumously in 1964.
Adler distinguished a normal striving to achieve from superiority complexes, the latter being attempts in order to overcompensate a feeling of inferiority. revealed for Adler the reactive nature of such strivings. The DSM IV states that a second cause to this delusional disorder could stem from an exaggerated emotional state.
- Ada Kahn has argued that the superiority and inferiority complexes cannot both be found in the same individual, since an individual with a superiority complex truly believes that they are superior to others. She claimed thatwhereas an inferiority complex may manifest with the behaviors that are intended to show others that one is superior, such as expensive material possessions, or an obsession with vanity and appearances to conceal feelings of inadequacythose with superiority complexes do not always care about image or vanity, since they have innate feelings of superiority, and thus do not usually concern themselves with proving their superiority to others.
- Vera Hoorens says that those exhibiting the superiority complex have a self-image of supremacy. Whereas individuals with an inferiority complex tend to present themselves in the best light possible, those with a superiority complex may not even attempt to make themselves look good, or to express their superiority to others. They may speak as if they are all-knowing and better than others, but ultimately do not care if others think so or not, much like with the cognitive bias known as illusory superiority. Picasso was described by his former partner, Fernande Olivier, as possessing a superiority complex: "He said he could only be touched by things to which he felt superior".
- Beethoven's nobility pretence was the result of a superiority complex; but it was the same complex that fuelled his extraordinary musical achievements. As Ernst Bloch said of the young musician's boastful claims, "This piece of presumption was needed to enable him to become Beethoven".