Psychological Testing: Subclinical Narcissism and the NPI - 40

@Daniella Moriarty here's the link you can read more on it here.

https://www.livescience.com/37684-narcissistic-personality-disorder-brain-structure.html#:~:text=Researchers%20used%20magnetic%20resonance%20imaging,called%20the%20left%20anterior%20insula.

@Daniella Moriarty What causes personality disorders in the brain?

Genetics. Some studies of twins and families suggest that personality disorders may be inherited or strongly associated with other mental health disorders among family members. Brain abnormalities. Some research has shown changes in certain areas of the brain involved in emotion regulation, impulsivity and aggression.

Oh wow! Thanks very much for sharing, that's incredibly useful. It's always informative to assess the degree to which structural abnormalities affect behaviour and the mind in general. This might mean that certain neurodegenerative disorders may give rise to narcissistic behaviours.

Great question:

It comes down to degrees of reliability, as with any psychological discovery or innovation there are necessarily degrees of uncertainty. So this is not a bad tool, just that its limitations need to be kept in mind. Generally more than one tool will be used to assess degree of narcissism.

When measuring subclinical narcissism, there has been studies that demonstrate its ability to assess narcissism. Many organisations now apply it as part of hiring policy to assess traits and expected behaviour rather than specifically narcissism.

Great points:

There are always innovations taking place, and the original NPI has now gone through several evolutions including a 16 item list.

Generally the criteria for narcissism exists, and then researchers try and capture these traits with targeted questions.