It turns out that there is a personality quiz consisting of 40 questions that can be answered in about five minutes that supposedly gives you a score that measures this characteristic in you. The test compilers say that a score between 12 and 15 is average, that celebrities often score closer to 18, and narcissists score over 20.
I scored 11 and my breakdown on the seven traits of narcissism is below.
The explanation of the traits is as follows:
Authority: Authority refers to a person’s leadership skills and power. People who score higher on authority like to be in charge and gain power, often for power’s sake alone. You scored particularly high in authority, suggesting you see yourself as a leader or as someone who values power.
Self-Sufficiency: This trait refers to how self-sufficient a person is, that is, how much you rely on others versus your own abilities to meet your needs in life.
Superiority: This trait refers to whether a person feels they are more superior than those around them.
Exhibitionism: This trait refers to a person’s need to be the center of attention, and willingness to ensure they are the center of attention (even at the expense of others’ needs).
Exploitativeness: This trait refers to how willing you are to exploit others in order to meet your own needs or goals.
Vanity: This trait refers to a person’s vanity, or their belief in one’s own superior abilities and attractiveness compared to others.
Entitlement: This trait refers to the expectation and amount of entitlement a person has in their lives, that is, unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with one’s expectations. People who score higher on this trait generally have a greater expectation of entitlement, while those who score lower expect little from others or life.
I took the test again after several weeks just to see if the results were consistent and scored a 9, which was close. All the subscores were very similar with the difference with my earlier scores being that I scored one less each on Authority and Superiority.
Of course, a case can be made that anyone who takes such tests may be prima facie narcissistic since they are preoccupied with themselves. So maybe about 5 points should be added automatically to anyone each time they take such a test, which would put me at 21 or 19.
… then my score’s 5 points
I stopped answering it because too many questions assumed a particular state was desirable. Does refusing to finish the quiz make me more or less narcissistic?
I scored 4.
to quote somebody or other:
Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead.
Don’t walk ahead of me, I may not follow.
Don’t walk beside me, either, just leave me alone.
Superiority: This trait refers to whether a person feels they are more superior than those around them.
As an intermittent copy editor, I feel grammatically superior to all those who wrote and approved that sentence.
I’m a natural born leader of men. But they won’t follow me!
My score was 1…
Ah, yes, “social ‘sciences'”
Mine was an odd, composite number, and I had no zeros in the seven traits.
I’ll say nothing more except that I wasn’t surprised by the number.
Since these quizzes rely on self-reporting, at best they’ll indicate what one imagines oneself to be.
(What one actually is, not so much)
3. Scientific!
And yes, John Morales has it. Each question was not subtle, and the humble option could quite easily be selected at each turn by any arrogant jerk unaware that they are an arrogant jerk.
I scored 1, on self sufficiency.
John,
I assume that most people do it to find out what they are like and so will try to answer honestly. On the other hand, if they are doing it to report their scores for some purpose, yes you can easily game the system.
I got 10, but the quiz is annoying. Some of the questions are not mutually exclusive; I could easily have chosen both of them. Or neither of them.
I also noticed part way through that using the keyboard arrow keys changes the answers, so I don’t know if I got the correct rating or not.
John --
if you can’t know what the final result is -- or ‘means’ -- how can your statement be true?
I got a 20. But I’m pretty awesome and generally score higher on quizzes XD
I didn’t get much “Authority” like you did, of course (more Vanity and Exhibitionism). Some of the answers annoyed me because of the lack of mutual exclusiveness. And others talked more about the future than the present (like “I’m going to be a great person” is wrong. I AM a great person. Or maybe saying that should have given me an even higher score)
5. But I’d rather not talk about it.
First time I took it, I scored 1. This time, I summoned all the swaggering arrogance I could, and got 3. Look out world! Or not…
I got a 16 yesterday and a 14 today. Some of the questions I found very difficult to answer. For example:
>> 28. “I don’t care about new fads and fashions.” versus “I like to start new fads and fashions.”
In this case, I actively don’t want to start new fads or fashions, but I also still enjoy dressing well when I can. Which one do a pick? Many of them resulted in essentially a coin flip.
I also suspect that some of the answers in which one answers humbly (as in “I don’t think I’m anybody special) can skew your answer upwards--similar to the Dunning-Kruger effect, not admitting to yourself that you’re special while expecting others to treat you as such is probably a classic sign of narcissism. I’m a bit more curious as to what others’ answers are.
My Score: 4
About 3 years ago, I was diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, on the lower spectrum which is characterized mostly by retreating into fantasy self-aggrandizement, while showing the world that you are less than you actually are. Doesn’t look like I’ve changed too much.