It’s All About “Me”!
Narcissism has become a very popular topic that personality psychologists have been researching on. There are various tests that are used to measure narcissism, but they are only used when it is viewed as a personality rather than a diagnostic. The DSM IV defines it as the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) measures it.
Raskin and Hall were the ones that designed this test. It consists of 40 items and each item has two statements, in which you pick one that you relate to the most. In addition, it has seven subscales. The seven subscales are
1. Authority: If you score high in this, it means that you see yourself as a leader and you thirst for power.
2. Self-sufficiency: Focuses on how much you depend on others or if you believe that you can do everything on your own. Narcissists would score high on independence.
3. Superiority: Narcissists believe that they everyone is beneath them.
4. Exhibitionism: Based on the thought of whether you are center of attention and the amount of effort you put on being in the center. Of course, narcissists would do anything in their power to be the center of attention.
5. Exploitativeness: Narcissists who score high on this are willing to go as far as exploiting others to meet their own needs and goals, even if it ends up hurting people.
6. Vanity: The belief that you are the best and the most attractive compared to others.
7. Entitlement: They belief and expect others to treat them well and to comply with whatever they say.
The higher the score you get, the most narcissistic you are. If you score 20 and hire, the closest you are of having NPD.
Oddly enough, Raskin admits that the NPI does not fully cover what the disorder is all about. Therefore, its validity is not strong. However, there does not seem to be a full agreement regarding the validity of this test. Some researchers state that is invalid because it only focuses on narcissism as a whole, and others say it is valid and that it focuses on the disorder.
If you are interested to see on whether you are narcissistic or not, here is a link to take the quiz. It does not focus on the disorder, but it does give you an idea of how they test and measure narcissism.
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