Narcissists Know Themselves Well

Tired of answering drawn-out questionnaires to find out more about yourself? Well, a new study has found that the most accurate way to learn more about a person, at least when it comes to their narcissism, is just to ask them.

Narcissists are generally considered egotistical, self-focused, and vain - all personality traits that are certainly not considered to be virtues by the general public.

However, according to a paper recently published in the journal PLOS One, most narcissists actually own up to their personality flaws quite readily. That's at least according to a series of 11 experiments involving more than 2,200 people of all ages and genders detailed in the PLOS paper.

In these experiments participants were simply asked, "To what extent do you agree with this statement: "I am a narcissist." Each participant then rated how much they agree on a scale of one to seven.

Amazingly, the study showed that the self-centered really do know themselves best, as results showed that people's answer to this question lined up very closely with several other validated measures of narcissism, including the widely used Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI).

"People who are willing to admit they are more narcissistic than others probably actually are more narcissistic," Brad Bushman, co-author of the study, said in a recent release.

He said that narcissists are even proud of the fact. "They believe they are superior to other people and are fine with saying that publicly," he added.

And although being ashamed of their personality would not be of their nature, Bushman says narcissism pride is a pretty bad thing.

"Those who think they are already great don't try to improve themselves," he said. "And narcissism is bad for society because people who are only thinking of themselves and their own interests are less helpful to others."

However, while this study confirms what researchers already suspected of narcissists, it also shows how personality assessment tests used in social studies and therapy can be simplified when a researcher takes into account how the personality in question may impact how the test is taken.

"Researchers are concerned about people getting fatigued or distracted while answering questions [for longer tests] and possibly even dropping out before they are done," Bushman explained.

Shortening overall personality tests by cutting some portions down to one or two questions could greatly reduce test time and thus increase likelihood of an accurate assessment.