Sense of entitlement can be a healthy expectation, for example, in the case of children to think that they are important and the centre of attention is a normal part of psychological development. We call it sometimes healthy narcissism. But it is the responsibility of parents to make their child realize their own self is significant; it is also very important to recognize the rights of others and respect them. If this does not happen, the child feels self-entitled as he grows up. Sense of entitlement can also emerge in people who have been disrespectful or mistreated; it’s not that bad too as everyone deserves to be respected, but there should be a balance. When this balance between self-respect and others respect disturbs, the actual problem starts.

How can we identify self-entitled people? It is not easy to deal with them, so how can we effectively do that? What does self-entitle mean? In this article, I am going to cover all these questions. So let’s get started:

Self-entitled meaning

Here is self-entitled meaning so that you can better understand the concept:

What is the self entitled meaning?

A sense of entitlement is a personality trait that is based on a person’s belief that they deserve privileges or recognition for things that they did not earn. In simple terms, people with a sense of entitlement believe that the world owes them something in exchange for nothing.

Self-entitled synonym

If you are wondering what are self-entitled synonyms let me share some with you:

Arrogance, imperiousness, presumptuousness, pride, affectation, bluster, bumptiousness, conceit, conceitedness, condescension, consequence, contemptuousness, haughtiness, hauteur, hubris, huffiness, and loftiness

Some other self-entitled synonyms are as follows:

Lordliness, masterfulness, ostentation, peremptoriness, pompousness, pretence, pretension, pretentiousness, smugness, superciliousness, superiority, and aloofness

Self-entitled person

There can be reasons behind a self-entitled personality, but one thing clear; it is not a good thing. Having this personality trait can be very detrimental. It can badly affect different aspects of our lives. You may find it difficult to be happy. It is not easy to find out whether someone feels self-entitled or not the situation is complex, but you can have a little idea about yourself. So here are some signs that can indicate you are a self-entitled person:

You expect unrealistic things from others.

A self-entitled person expects that everyone should do things the way they want. If someone does not do so, the individual behaves unreasonable or violently. If you have a similar kind of superiority complex, you might be suffering from a sense of self-entitlement. You believe that you deserve their efforts and attention all the time. You want to punish them if they do not fulfil your expectations.

You try to dominate others.

Sense of entitlement usually develops as a side effect of deeply residing insecurity. A self-entitled person may seem to have high self-esteem, but it is nothing like that. The individual feels inadequate. To cover this feeling of inadequacy and insecurity, the individual tries to dominate others. The individual will try to find different ways to do so. The self entitled individual does all this to compensate for lack of confidence. The individual does not feel good about themself, so he tries to make everyone feel bad about themselves by claiming inferiority and that these people are beneath them.

You believe you are better than others.

Self-confidence and self-entitlement are entirely two different things, but there is a thin line that separates both. No matter what happens, these people think that they deserve respect from everyone. No matter how mean they are. According to Lonerwolf, self-entitled people have “malignant self-love” and extreme narcissism. You happen to believe that being superior to others can save you from various consequences, so you act harshly against your loved ones and colleagues.

You do not have many friends.

If you do not have many friends due to always having disagreements with people, this is a clear indicator that you have personality problems. Negative people cannot surround themselves with positive people, as no one wants negativity in their lives. If they somehow manage to have some positive people in life, their self-entitlement will make them leave no matter how hard they try. If you have not maintained meaningful relationships in life and don’t share good relations with your family, it can be an indication that you are self entitled.

No matter what happens your priorities should come first

You believe it is very important that your needs are fulfilled and should come first irrespective of the circumstances. Your interests should always come first always, and you are not afraid of consequences at all. It does not matter if you lose important people. You don’t care about how others feel, whether they are having a bad week or dealing with something really unfortunate. You are blinded by your own wants and needs.

You can never compromise.

Whether you have to decide a simple thing like what movie to watch or making critical choices in life, you always find your way with people. People usually call you pushy or tell you that you are always unwilling to bend or you are too proud. This is an indication that you are a self-entitled person. You will come to know that people usually find it difficult to communicate with you as it is like talking to a wall. It will affect your work badly as you will not be able to form civilized and friendly relationships with your colleagues.

You do not take your relationships seriously.

People do not feel like themselves around you. You treat them as tools or objects to get your work done. You usually get attracted to people who can help you with something. Once they do that particular thing for you, you do not care anymore whether they exist or not. You make your relationship based on what you can get from them. And you never return favours until you need someone’s help. This is also a characteristic of a narcissist who siphons out their needs from others and manipulates them for their use.

Everyone is either a competition or a threat to you.

Self-entitlement plays its toxic card here too. You want to be the boss and want others to realize it. You want to maintain this pedestal position of yours and never want to follow instructions from anyone. It makes you feel inferior. You are suspicious about the people who are not doing anything for you and don’t follow your instructions. Obviously you are paranoid as you think that they want to get your position.

You do not have ethical or moral bounds.

You have your goals, most people have, but you work to achieve these goals. It is a good thing, but one thing is wrong here; you do not have ethical or moral bounds. You try to get what you want at any cost. You do not care if you are hurting others or breaking the rules; everything seems fair to you because you are going to get what you want. Only your goals matter to you, which is not a healthy attitude as it will not bring any good into your life.

You love all the drama.

You are so dramatic and think that everything revolves around you. You feel good when everything is going according to your plan. But when the smallest inconvenience happens, you become irritated and even violent. If things are not going your way, you start creating drama. You have this rebellious nature that comes out when people are not doing things your way that manifest into attention-seeking and destructive demeanor.

Self-entitled people

What is the psychology behind self-entitled people? A lot of experts have been trying to explain the psychology behind self-entitled people. Why do some people think that they deserve to get special treatment from everyone or respect when they have not earned it? Is it because of some childhood experience or an inherited flaw, or is it because of some environmental factors?

There can be several reasons behind why people develop a sense of entitlement. Here are some of the most common reasons:

Being spoiled during childhood

Parents want their kids to be happy, fulfilled and confident, which is not a bad thing at all. It is a completely natural urge, but parents make a mistake when they always say “yes” to their kids. This can slowly lead to self-entitlement. This kind of behaviour, when encouraged during childhood makes kids believe that this is acceptable behaviour throughout life. Kids who get what they want and do not require to earn rewards when they show good behaviour when they grow up expecting others to fulfil their demands. They do not understand how to communicate with others effectively. So they also have trouble developing a healthy relationship in future.

Trying to compensate for past mistakes.

In some cases, when people are treated badly in the past or are neglected, they may develop self-entitlement. According to some experts, it is a coping mechanism. For instance, a kid who has been deprived of love may demand it when growing up as they could not receive it at a young age. Sense of entitlement can be rooted in past resentments or can be a failed attempt to compensate for past mistakes. This can lead to disturbance in personal and professional life.

Personality disorders

In some cases, sense of entitlement is not related to being spoiled or neglected but can be because of personality disorder, for example, anti-social personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder.

Self-entitled narcissist

A person with narcissistic personality disorder think that they are superior to others, have a false value of the worth of other people and usually do not like following rules. They have exaggerated self-esteem or a highly elevated sense of self-worth, which can fuel their feeling of self-entitlement to extremely unstable levels. They may use manipulation to get what they want.

A person who will start a new career may expect to be respected as same as other highly experienced people, and when this does not happen, they show unreasonable behaviour. Their personality disorder makes them believe that they can get whatever they want without actually doing something and demonstrating ability.

Self-entitled teen

Some teenagers these days seem pretty careless, arrogant and self-entitled, which is not a good thing. So how can parents deal with them to eliminate this sense of entitlement in a teen? Well, instead of doing something drastic, avoiding some behaviours can help parents. It can be hard as a lot of unhelpful parenting habits have become common practice in todays modern society. And we know it is really difficult to change a habit. Here are some changes that you need to make and can help you deal with a self-entitled teen:

When your self-entitled teen misbehaves or is being disrespectful, do not let him or her get away with it. If you do not react to their bad behaviour, you reward them and set a lower standard.
When you react upset to the bad behaviour of your teen, it makes them realize their mistake. Stay calm but tell them that you do not appreciate this kind of behaviour and will not allow them to speak disrespectfully.
If your teen has made a mistake or maybe feels let down by life, let them deal with it. Do not help them; it will make them careless as they will think you will save them no matter how many mistakes they make they must learn the importance of accountability.
Privileges and necessities should not be mixed. Needs should be provided for as a must by parent and child and privileges can be taken away if necessary.
You need to set healthy boundaries for your teenager, and you both need to be clear about these boundaries. Tell them that you will not forgive them if they breach a boundary and they will be consequences.
Always encourage a positive attitude; it will create a sense of what is right and what is wrong. You encourage them; they will make it a habit to do good things. Let them know the importance of good behaviour.

How to deal with the sense of entitlement?

Well, it is not easy at all, but it is not impossible to overcome the feeling of self-entitlement. It will require a lot of work and efforts, but most importantly, you need to accept that there is a problem, and you must be willing to overcome this problem. You know about the personality traits of a self-entitled person and how they behave now you just need to work on these behaviours, learn a new one and practice consistently. The following tips will help eradicate a sense of self entitled behaviour with time and efforts.

Do not compare yourself with others.

The first step to overcome self-entitlement is to accept that you are not like others, so do not compare yourself with others. You are a unique person with your own identity; you can work on your goals and achieve them. Think about what are the things you want to achieve in life after that make a list of things you can do to achieve these goals. Life is not easy for everyone, so there will be setbacks but don’t be discouraged as they are temporary. Try again and again to get what you want and make yourself better. Feeling of achieving your goals after the real struggle is something else that you won’t get if you have a sense of entitlement. If you are determined to change yourself and have willpower, you can get rid of this sense of entitlement. Here are some suggestions for you:

Do things you feel are the right thing to do

Only prefer doing things that you think are right to do, not just because you want to get rewarded. Sometimes when you are not being appreciated or recognized, you can feel disappointed, leading to anger or frustration. Keep in mind that life is not always fair. It is not very likely that all the time if you have done a good deed, you will be rewarded the way you actually hoped for it. For a while, just try to look at things the way other person is seeing it; always remember they are multiple perspectives this will make you feel better. Instead of hoping for things you think you are entitled for, receiving gratitude from others will bring even more satisfaction. And what is better than that? When you see the happiness on someone’s face because of a little good deed, you will feel happy too.

What is done is done

Living in the past will not bring any good for you, so don’t do that. I know it is one of the hardest things, but it is for the best. You need to understand that you cannot change your past, what is done is done, so it is useless to cry over spilled milk. But you can always learn from your past and try avoiding some mistakes in future to make things better. We all have to face difficulties and hardships in life of one kind or another. No doubt these are unfortunate occasions, but life would be so boring if there were no troubles. You have to accept that all of this is a part of life. Our attitude towards these difficulties determines our behaviour towards other aspects of life and makes you a more formidable strong behaviour.

Treat others with gratitude and respect.

I know it would not be easy for you to start as you have this sense that only you are entitled to get respect from others, and others are inferior to you. But if you start practicing to treat others with compassion, gratitude and respect, you can overcome this issue with time. It may seem artificial at the start, but with the time you can bring positive change in your life. Remember that what goes around comes around so if you give kindness to others, more you will receive kindness. It is just simple like that; favour produces favour. If you are kind to others with all your heart without having any expectations from others, they will surely love to return the same kindness to you and if some do not be comfortable in the fact you tried your best.

Celebrate the success of others

You might feel like a failure when you are struggling for the dream job but can’t get it or when you are sacked from your job. At this point, when someone tells you about their success, it is really not easy to celebrate with them. But let me tell you that joy and happiness are very infectious all you need is to let yourself feel. When you can’t accomplish anything, especially when you are trying to deal with the sense of entitlement, you get upset and frustrated but learn to celebrate the success of others. When you are dealing with difficulties in life but trying to be happy for others, you are letting others see how beautiful a person you are. People will find you more approachable and friendly and who knows this may open doors for some great opportunities for you.

Learn to change yourself

It is a brilliant idea to tackle your personal issues yourself and to overcome these issues independently, but at some point in our lives, we all need some help if not we need the support of our loved one. Everything feels better if our loved ones are there for us even they cannot practically solve all of our problems. Moreover, when you are dealing with self-entitlement, you might need help from professionals. There is nothing to be shy about asking for help. A professional can help you better with your problem.

For some people joining a church, social club or any other community based on faith can help too. You can learn how to practice selflessness and effectively communicate with others. Take this as an opportunity to think about your beliefs, moreover, try to look at different aspects of life from a different perspective. Your whole thought process will start changing when you try to look at things differently.

Remember making an effort to change your perspective is an excellent way to make a fresh start in life. No doubt it will not be easy for you, but in the end, it will be totally worth it. It would be better to reach out for help from a professional for proper guidance. They will help you find the exact issue behind your behaviour. Taking help from a professional is not a sign that you are a weak person. Rather it indicates that you are a self-aware person and willing to change your bad behaviour for your own good and betterment of your future.

Self-entitled meme

Self-entitlement is really not acceptable, but self-entitled meme can make you laugh for sure. Here are some of the best self-entitled memes I found on the internet are as follows:

Conclusion

Research has shown that it is not easy to deal with the self-entitled person; it can lower your well-being. Moreover, you cannot change others, especially those who have a sense of self-entitlement. If a person does not accept that there is a problem and should be dealt with in time, nobody can help. You can only help them realize that you do not feel comfortable around them.

If you are a self-entitled teen or adult and you are reading this piece of writing, it means you accept you have a problem. It is the first step towards overcoming this sense of self-entitlement. In this article, I have tried my best to share useful information and some highly effective tips for dealing with self-entitlement. Hope so you will find it helpful and try to be a kind and passionate person towards others. BOOK IN A FREE CONSULTATION.

Self-entitled