Excessive posting on social media (w/o being paid to do it), adorning yourself with bling around your neck, wearing that red flashy dress or generously skin-revealing, bragging unnecessarily loud or putting those spinners on your car, causing drama in public… All sums up to three words: attention-seeking behaviour. The real question is: why do people seek attention?
Easy to spot attention-seeking behaviours
Breaking a rule out in the open, while observable by others. E.g.: listening to very loud music in your car or on a scooter (!), while it’s obviously not physically comfortable. Or smoking in a place where common sense would forbid it – like a hospital or public transport.
Dressing out flashy with the intention to stand out. Sure, you’ll say that’s it’s fashion and you can dress however you want, etc. Cool. But if you show up at work, at a corporation for the sake of exemplifying, with a feather hat or dressed as a clown, guess what? You will draw attention. Saying – “why is everyone looking at me, I don’t get it?” is not going to fool anyone. If you have a mirror at home and a minimum of self-awareness, you should know.
Bragging out in a loud, very loud voice. So loud, that is in a way beyond necessary for the person you are talking to, to hear you. This includes loud exclamations or moaning (yes, moaning!) and other audio special effects.
What you need to understand from the above examples is that attention-seeking behaviour does not always aim for a positive reaction. It can be a negative reaction also. That’s why kids who are ignored do some bad things on purpose. That’s why dogs sometimes destroy stuff on purpose. You’ll say it’s because they are bored. No, they actually want your attention, even if you’re going to scold them for what they did.
Other examples: acting as a victim that can’t do things that person is perfectly capable of, fishing for compliments (persistently!), posting cryptic messages on social media or controversial ones just to spark a fight. Promiscuity can be a form of seeking sexual attention (and has nothing to do with enjoying sex or not). Looking to cause drama (preferably in public) is definitely attention-seeking.
Let’s distinguish a bit
It is not attention-seeking behaviour when it’s something that you do naturally. Naturally does not mean by force of habit, because you may be accustomed to seek attention on a daily or hourly basis. Let’s take a few examples and you’ll get it.
When you’re into sports and you look accordingly – because you actually do sports, not just watch them – you will probably pick some clothes that look quite good on you. The slim fit type. It makes sense, you want to look good, but you’re not flashing it. Unless the clothes are neon-green.
If you love mechanics and cars, it’s quite possible that you own a powerful car or a rare model. Powerful as in “what’s under the hood”, not extra-big, super loud, chameleon paint. Then, there would be the matter of having roads for such a car, but I will not get into that.
So distinguish between what looks and is natural vs what is forced, loud, flashy, meant to draw attention.
The root cause(s) of attention-seeking behaviour
Honestly, the root cause is always in childhood. It often has to do with parents not giving enough attention to their children. Those kids were trying to be seen when they were children and they continue to want to be seen, as adults. This is valid for long-term behaviour or behavioural patterns exhibiting attention seeking.
This lack of attention as a child impacts self-esteem. According to Erikson’s developmental stages, self-esteem starts to form between the ages of 5 to 12 and continues in the next stage up to the age of 18. As teenagers, the soon-to-be adults are starting to seek validation from their group of friends. All this behavioural pattern is a scream for help: “Look at me, I exist!”.
There can be short periods of time when attention-seeking behaviour manifests and it’s not a behavioural pattern. In that case, it’s a need for validation. Even confident people require sometimes validation of some skills or traits: either by entering a competition or flirting without pursuing sex. Something that would re-validate a skill they are starting to doubt.
Behavioural patterns of attention seeking can develop into different personality disorders. The most common ones are histrionic personality disorder and the borderline personality disorder (click the links for more details on both). Narcissistic and bipolar personality disorders have attention seeking as a characteristic. For these last two, it isn’t so much part of their root cause as it was for the former two.
So what?
A problem would be that through attention-seeking behaviour you are taking attention and validation by force. It’s not genuine. That’s why the need for more is constant. Plus, once attention is granted, the behaviour is encouraged to continue (positive reinforcement). If it’s the only way to get some attention, chances to want to change it are slim.
Speaking about change…. Well, first step to fixing any problem is admitting there is a problem. As explained here, You cannot change someone else. Change comes from within. If you arrive to the conclusion that you need to fix your behaviour it means it’s doing you some damage. Like it or not, the best way to fix it is through therapy. If you don’t like efficient solutions, then get ready for a bumpy introspection ride. You’ll probably say you don’t have the money or the time for therapy. There is free help in any developed country and there are online therapy sessions. But until it hasn’t hurt you enough, you will not address it.
You can fix your self-esteem on your own. Sure you can. It will take years and a lot of constant effort, set backs and commitment. Whether you get professional help or not, it’s still You that will have to do the work. No matter how much money you have, you can’t pay someone else to work on your personality development.
If it’s just temporary (is it?) don’t beat yourself up. We all want to know every know and then that “we still got it”. Just be mindful of what you do and own the consequences. This is where people who don’t want to make a change will feel relieved 😉
If you have enjoyed reading this or know someone who needs to hear all this, please go ahead and share it with your friends. Thank you!
