Faux News: "Mr. Rogers ruined a generation." (SWF inside)

[Covenant]

This had been annoying me, so I tracked down the survey used, as apparently Dr. Drew Pinskey published it in his book about the narcissism of famous people. Most of the questions are, as I had thought, rather strange. It is easy to see which are the 'good' and which are the 'bad' answers, and some of the responses are a bit odd, such as the question about if you enjoy being complimented or if it always makes you embarassed. I like positive feedback at work--is that a compliment? It certainly isn't embarassing to know I did a good job on something. Ah well.

In many places the test seems to be specifically about vanity, but many elements of it could be thrown off by optimism. Saying "I will be a success" nets you a self-love point whereas saying "I am not too concerned about success" does not, but it also makes you a rotten filthy liar. Part of it could be chalked up, as I had originally asserted, to semantics. Someone who says they aren't concerned with success would probably be told by everyone under the sun that they're a lazy societal leech, and depending on your definition of success it could have nothing to do with self-love. In part, I also balk at the idea that optimisim and confidence are the same thing as self-love.

Most importantly, this blows massive gaping holes into the correlation between this and laziness/apathy. If anything it just proves the FOX people would all score much-higher-than-average on the test, with their self-important snickering and finger pointing and success-mongering.

[Darth Wong]

Here are the survey questions:

1. A. I have a natural talent for influencing people.
B. I am not good at influencing people.

2. A. Modesty doesn't become me.
B. I am essentially a modest person.

3. A. I would do almost anything on a dare.
B. I tend to be a fairly cautious person.

4. A. When people compliment me I sometimes get embarrassed.
B. I know that I am good because everybody keeps telling me so.

5. A. The thought of ruling the world frightens the hell out of me.
B. If I ruled the world it would be a better place.

6. A. I can usually talk my way out of anything.
B. I try to accept the consequences of my behavior.

7. A. I prefer to blend in with the crowd.
B. I like to be the center of attention.

8. A. I will be a success.
B. I am not too concerned about success.

9. A. I am no better or worse than most people.
B. I think I am a special person.

10. A. I am not sure if I would make a good leader.
B. I see myself as a good leader.

11. A. I am assertive.
B. I wish I were more assertive.

12. A. I like to have authority over other people.
B. I don't mind following orders.

13. A. I find it easy to manipulate people.
B. I don't like it when I find myself manipulating people.

14. A. I insist upon getting the respect that is due me.
B. I usually get the respect that I deserve.

15. A. I don't particularly like to show off my body.
B. I like to show off my body.

16. A. I can read people like a book.
B. People are sometimes hard to understand.

17. A. If I feel competent I am willing to take responsibility for making decisions.
B. I like to take responsibility for making decisions.

18. A. I just want to be reasonably happy.
B. I want to amount to something in the eyes of the world.

19. A. My body is nothing special.
B. I like to look at my body.

20. A. I try not to be a show off.
B. I will usually show off if I get the chance.

21. A. I always know what I am doing.
B. Sometimes I am not sure of what I am doing.

22. A. I sometimes depend on people to get things done.
B. I rarely depend on anyone else to get things done.

23. A. Sometimes I tell good stories.
B. Everybody likes to hear my stories.

24. A. I expect a great deal from other people.
B. I like to do things for other people.

25. A. I will never be satisfied until I get all that I deserve.
B. I take my satisfactions as they come.

26. A. Compliments embarrass me.
B. I like to be complimented.

27. A. I have a strong will to power.
B. Power for its own sake doesn't interest me.

28. A. I don't care about new fads and fashions.
B. I like to start new fads and fashions.

29. A. I like to look at myself in the mirror.
B. I am not particularly interested in looking at myself in the mirror.

30. A. I really like to be the center of attention.
B. It makes me uncomfortable to be the center of attention.

31. A. I can live my life in any way I want to.
B. People can't always live their lives in terms of what they want.

32. A. Being an authority doesn't mean that much to me.
B. People always seem to recognize my authority.

33. A. I would prefer to be a leader.
B. It makes little difference to me whether I am a leader or not.

34. A. I am going to be a great person.
B. I hope I am going to be successful.

35. A. People sometimes believe what I tell them.
B. I can make anybody believe anything I want them to.

36. A. I am a born leader.
B. Leadership is a quality that takes a long time to develop.

37. A. I wish somebody would someday write my biography.
B. I don't like people to pry into my life for any reason.

38. A. I get upset when people don't notice how I look when I go out in public.
B. I don't mind blending into the crowd when I go out in public.

39. A. I am more capable than other people.
B. There is a lot that I can learn from other people.

40. A. I am much like everybody else.
B. I am an extraordinary person.

SCORING KEY:

Assign one point for each response that matches the key.

1, 2 and 3: A
4, 5: B
6: A
7: B
8: A
9, 10: B
11, 12, 13, 14: A
15: B
16: A
17, 18, 19, 20: B
21: A
22, 23: B
24, 25: A
26: B
27: A
28: B
29, 30, 31: A
32: B
33, 34: A
35. B
36, 37, 38, 39: A
40: B

The average score for the general population is 15.3. The average score for celebrities is 17.8. Pinsky says he scored 16.

Young says it is important to consider which traits are dominant. For example, an overall score that reflects more points on vanity, entitlement, exhibitionism and exploitiveness is more cause for concern than someone who scores high on authority, self-sufficiency and superiority, he says.

The seven component traits by question:

• Authority: 1, 8, 10, 11, 12, 32, 33, 36

• Self-sufficiency: 17, 21, 22, 31, 34, 39

• Superiority: 4, 9, 26, 37, 40

• Exhibitionism: 2, 3, 7, 20, 28, 30, 38

• Exploitativeness: 6, 13, 16, 23, 35

• Vanity: 15, 19, 29

• Entitlement: 5, 14, 18, 24, 25, 27

Question #2 is an interesting case. If someone declares that he is modest, does that mean he actually is? George W. Bush, perhaps the most arrogant man on planet Earth, spoke often of the importance of humility.

And is there not something to be said for the relevance of factual data? Can you really evaluate some of these traits without reference to the person's actual abilities? If someone scores in the top two percentile on academic tests and declares that he is exceptionally smart, does this mean he is arrogant? Or is it a simple matter-of-fact statement? If, on the other hand, someone who scores in the bottom half on academic tests declares that he is exceptionally smart, that certainly seems like arrogance.

Question #8 is also strange. They make you choose between "I will be a success." and "I am not too concerned about success." What if you are concerned about success but you are not certain that you will achieve it in this uncertain economy with your particular skills and connections? There is no option for such a person; you must either be supremely confident or apathetic: no middle ground.

[Invictus ChiKen]

Is it just me or do some of the questions go from one pole to the next with no room for a middle ground?

[Darth Wong]

Compared to the Myers-Briggs personality type tests, this is a joke, and even the Myers-Briggs tests have their critics. But at least the Myers-Briggs test is far more comprehensive and has far better granularity in terms of its responses. This one is chock full of questions where most normal people will be profoundly unhappy with either answer.

[Invictus ChiKen]

Compared to the Myers-Briggs personality type tests, this is a joke, and even the Myers-Briggs tests have their critics. But at least the Myers-Briggs test is far more comprehensive and has far better granularity in terms of its responses. This one is chock full of questions where most normal people will be profoundly unhappy with either answer.

I remember that in college, we had to take it every semester I'll never know. Every time I took it I got different results and woe unto the student that got a result other than what the teacher thought they would have as it would label that student a teacher.

I am not surprised to find it has critics.

[bilateralrope]

Compared to the Myers-Briggs personality type tests, this is a joke, and even the Myers-Briggs tests have their critics. But at least the Myers-Briggs test is far more comprehensive and has far better granularity in terms of its responses. This one is chock full of questions where most normal people will be profoundly unhappy with either answer.

I remember that in college, we had to take it every semester I'll never know. Every time I took it I got different results and woe unto the student that got a result other than what the teacher thought they would have as it would label that student a teacher.

I am not surprised to find it has critics.

Eh ?

How would is label a student as a teacher when it gets results different to what the teacher expected ?

[Junghalli]

That test seems to me to have a few potential answers that will label you as "narcissistic" even if you actually aren't, or might label you as not narcissistic even if you actually are. For instance, apparently being assertive is automatically narcissistic. And so is beleiving you aren't being given the respect you deserve, never mind your circumstances. And like Darth Wong I wouldn't be surprised if there were lots of arrogant assholes who'd say "modesty becomes me".

[Covenant]

Yeah, I felt it was worth posting the link (even if I didn't post the entire survey, I was concerned about the spamminess if everyone now thought it irrelevent) but if you look through it, half of them are debatable. To use this as a measure of national trends is woeful. Here I believe I earn a Narciss-point for wanting credit for posting the link.

As noted, a lot of them go from one pole to the other, and some of them are flat-out confusing from a very basic standpoint of measuring narcissim. The term "Narcissistic" itself is a bit broad, measuring a variety of forms of excessive self-love, manifesting as a sense of entitlement, or vanity, or self-centeredness. To take a national survey to measure the growth of this would require the answers provide some actual basis on tracking a rise of narcissistic tendencies, and it seems pretty clear that it isn't doing much a good job of that. The average person scored around a 15, and the average celebrity around an 18. I find it strange and disturbing to think, as one article asserted, that giving this test 50 years ago or so would have gotten scores in the 8 or 9 range.

Much to my dismay, however, even when I chose some bad answers on purpose, I still scored where I felt I should be. Furthermore, [quote=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6746921]there seems to have been some testing done[/quote] to determine if it was valid, and it is believed to be valid. However, there's a great degree of debate between groups as to how to distinguish between rational, healthy self esteem and actual narcissism, which is apparently very hard to do. That seems to jive with the general consensus here, as we would balk at these being narcissistic traits. I think it's probably more likely that they should be testing for a lack of empathy instead of confidence, since a lack of empathy amongst people similarly disposed causes the hoarding and self-centeredness attributed to narcissism, and if even self-absorbed celebrities aren't scoring much higher than your average factory worker, it's not self-love but symapthy for others that we really need to track for.

[Havok]

edit: This is like saying Reading Rainbow didn't try to get kids to read books!

Why should we have had to? He practically read them to us. If anything, we should bring Lavar Burton up on piracy.

He read us one book and then at the end showed us three more to interest us in.

I guess we should lock up your mom for every Dr. Seuss book she read you.

Isolder, I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic.

And I'm just guessing, but I think Mike may not like FOX News and Baby Boomers.

This is ridiculous in the extreme. If you want to blame the narcissism of the current generation of kids on something, blame it on shit like fucking Myspace and MTV, which is what most kids are/were actually watching and paying attention to, and parents not being around and substituting for that by spoiling their kids to make up for it. Mr. Rogers is the problem?! Fuck that noise.

[Isolder74]

as was I

[Ilya Muromets]

Here are the survey questions:

snip questions

Question #2 is an interesting case. If someone declares that he is modest, does that mean he actually is? George W. Bush, perhaps the most arrogant man on planet Earth, spoke often of the importance of humility.

And is there not something to be said for the relevance of factual data? Can you really evaluate some of these traits without reference to the person's actual abilities? If someone scores in the top two percentile on academic tests and declares that he is exceptionally smart, does this mean he is arrogant? Or is it a simple matter-of-fact statement? If, on the other hand, someone who scores in the bottom half on academic tests declares that he is exceptionally smart, that certainly seems like arrogance.

Question #8 is also strange. They make you choose between "I will be a success." and "I am not too concerned about success." What if you are concerned about success but you are not certain that you will achieve it in this uncertain economy with your particular skills and connections? There is no option for such a person; you must either be supremely confident or apathetic: no middle ground.

Wait... is that thing serious? Just the face validity of that questionnaire wouldn't pass muster as an undergrad Psychometrics-class sample questionnaire project, let alone any other more in-depth measure of test validity. The questions seem to basically boil down to "I'm a pretty okay guy" versus "I am just that damn good." Anyone trying to make his- or herself "look good" in the sense of not appearing like an arrogant ass will obviously pick the former, regardless of how they actually see themselves. True, that's always been a problem with such self-assessment questionnaires, but this doesn't even try.

EDIT: added link.

[neoolong]

I read that book. You can't just take the quiz as is. It's only one part out of a battery of things that help psychiatrists diagnose NPD. And there's some analysis involved. For instance, there's nothing inherently wrong with being an authority, and it's how the different factors are weighted that's important. Also, some people are going to score higher because of their positions, ie professors score high on authority, so just being high isn't the complete point.

From what I remember, you're not supposed to be told what's its for either, but you can game the test.

[Covenant]

It's not designed to diagnose NPD, just to be used as a survey of the population, to watch trends. Scoring high on it does not predict NPD, nor does it mean you have any other disorder, they just say it tracks several factors which are shared by NPD and are predictors.

I'm not defending it (I gleefully watch it burn) but it should suck for what it is, not for what we misinterpert it as. As for the book, thankfully the Quiz isn't his work, as I'd be severely pressed to take seriously any kind of medical advice from Dr. Drew of Loveline (in)fame(y). Not that he's not got some credentials, but consider me somewhat wary to labor long on the counsul of the celebrity radio pop-doctor to the rich and foolish.

Just look it up, it's called the NPI-40, though if you google that, you might need to make sure you don't get some kind of pellet or something, I don't know what it is. They're also trying to make a 15 or 16 question version (now with less reliability!) and see all excited about testing it. I wonder if people who study and try to track narcissism are themselves a bit off. They can't even successfully account for the differences between the genders, as feminine sorts tend to be less confident/assertive/aggressive and thus score lower, giving masculine sorts a higher baseline level of narcissism according to their studies--ugh.