An average dose of narcissism
By mattsmallbone. Filed in God, Health |Tags: Christian, disciple, narcissism
I took the Narcissism Personality Inventory online test this morning. The average participant scores between 12 and 15.
True narcissists score over 20 and celebrities often score around 18.
Joel Stein of Time Magazine reports that reality TV show contestants generate scores that should only be attained by two-year olds or Fascist dictators (sic).
I scored 15 out of 40.
PHEW…. I was kind of worried about what my result would be. I have noticed of late that I use the words “I” and “me” a LOT throughout my blogs. I paid money to own mattsmallbone.com and I have a job that has me standing in front of thousands of people (often with my ugly mug on a big screen).
My more detailed results were:
| Narcissistic Trait | Strength of Trait | ||
| Authority: 4.00 |  |
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| Self-Sufficiency: 3.00 | |
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| Superiority: 3.00 |  |
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| Exhibitionism: 1.00 | |
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| Exploitativeness: 1.00 | |
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| Vanity: 1.00 | |
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| Entitlement: 2.00 | |
The big downer in my results is that I scored highly in ‘superiority’… suggesting that I feel superior to those around me. I was accused of this a lot at University… and I guess I always hoped that it wasn’t the case.
In 2007, Campbell and Foster (2007) reviewed the literature on narcissism. They argued that narcissists possess the following ‘basic ingredients’:
- Positive. Narcissists think they are better than others.
- Inflated. Narcissists’ views tend to be contrary to reality. In measure which compare self-report to objective measures, narcissists self-views tend to be greatly exaggerated.
- Agentic. Narcissists’ views tend to be most exaggerated in the agentic domain, relative to the communion domain.
- Special. Narcissists perceive themselves to be unique and special people.
- Selfish. Research upon narcissists’ behaviour in resource dilemmas supports the case for narcissists as being selfish.
- Oriented toward success. Narcissists are oriented towards success by being, for example, approach oriented.
Source: wiki
I wonder what God thinks of narcissism? A lot of the above stuff sounds like sin to me.
What should a disciple score on this test? I bet that it should be lower than 15.
In the book of Matthew, Jesus says that a disciple will: “Deny himself, take up his cross and follow me”.
The narcissist within me refuses to deny self. It feeds on self. It NEEDS self.
If you are attempting to be an authentic follower of Jesus, I suspect that the narcissistic parts of our make-up needs to be taken out to the back yard and beaten to a pulp.
Have a go at the Narcissism Personality Inventory. Let me know how you did.
Tuesday, April 6th 2010 at 9:46 am |
I scored 11… 7 of that was authority, 3 self-sufficiency, 1 vanity and 0 everything else. However I found if very hard to distinguish between what I am actually like, and what I HOPE I’m like. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people who knew me well took the test on my behalf and ended up with very different answers to the ones I gave. And I just realised that the fact I’m so quick to jump into comments and talk about myself probably gives me away….
Tuesday, April 6th 2010 at 9:50 am |
Shannon… I felt that too. I wondered whether I outsmarted the test… in my desire to not be narcissistic. Apparently 150 years ago… the average score would have been about 9….
Tuesday, April 6th 2010 at 9:53 am |
I scored a 3. Is that even possible? More out of self insecurities than anything, probably.
Authority: 1.00
Self-Sufficiency: 2.00
Superiority: 0.00
Exhibitionism: 0.00
Exploitativeness: 0.00
Vanity: 0.00
Entitlement: 0.00
Tuesday, April 6th 2010 at 10:27 am |
I wish I was you Rachel…. i think that your score is great.
Tuesday, April 6th 2010 at 10:49 am |
And I wish I was you. Actually no.. I hate crowds and have a pretty bad case of stage fright. But the traveling aspect, I can do that. Never had any desire to be a leader; I would be terrible at it, unless I was leading a bunch of toddlers to the candy aisle.
Tuesday, April 6th 2010 at 3:52 pm |
I hope this wasn’t a requirement for your traveling abroad this summer…
Tuesday, April 6th 2010 at 10:07 pm |
I got a 2 when I took it this morning…I don’t remember the specifics of it though-superiority and exhibitionism, I think, which seems odd for me. I figure either I’m remarkably un-narcissistic, or else just plain overanalyzing the questions-which is a very likely possibility!
Tuesday, April 27th 2010 at 9:33 am |
[...] An average dose of narcissism | Matt Smallbone [...]
Tuesday, April 27th 2010 at 3:02 pm |
I wish I was you Rachel…. i think that your score is great.
Wednesday, June 23rd 2010 at 9:11 pm |
This was an interesting exercise. I scored a 12.
My scores were:
Authority: 5.00
Self-Sufficiency: 1.00
Superiority: 1.00
Exhibitionism: 2.00
Exploitativeness: 2.00
Vanity: 0.00
Entitlement: 1.00
I get the 5.00 on authority… comes from what I do for a living (which is leading others). The scores of 2.00 on exhibitionism and exploitativeness are surprising… I would have guessed I would score lower on those and higher on self-sufficiency.
Saturday, September 18th 2010 at 7:12 pm |
Hola, De dуnde eres? їEs un secreto?
BernieR
Tuesday, November 16th 2010 at 1:28 pm |
Hola,
ЎIncreнble! No estб claro para mн, їcуmo offen que la actualizaciуn de su nombre de mattsmallbone.com.
DingoDogg