You can test yourself right now.
We all love seeing the comments and likes that come with posting a good-looking selfie on Instagram—it's a great confidence-booster. But if you've ever gone a little overboard posting your gorgeous face all over social media and are worried you might be a narcissist, a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE says there's an easy way to determine if you are.
For the study, researchers performed a series of 11 different experiments involving 2,250 adult men and women to compare typical self-reporting methods of measuring narcissism. Turns out, the way to figure out if you're egotistical is pretty simple. Just ask yourself, "To what extent do you agree with this statement: 'I am a narcissist.' Note: The word narcissist means egotistical, self-focused, and vain." The participants responded to this question using a scale from one to 11, one being, "this is not very true of me," and 11 being, "very true of me." The participants' responses to this question were about as accurate as other measures of narcissism, like the Narcissistic Personality Inventory.
Although you might assume that people who think very highly of themselves wouldn't admit to having this flaw, the study authors say that this research is proof that they actually would. "People who are willing to admit that they are relatively more narcissistic than others actually are," the researchers wrote in the study. However, they noted that while this question does predict some behaviors strongly associated with a narcissistic personality, it's not as reliable as other more involved measures, which study multiple aspects of a person's personality.
While it might not be the most accurate way of telling if someone is a narcissist, this question might help shed some light on how much you, your friends, or even that guy you just started dating really loves themself.
