Narcissistic Personality Quiz, take 2

I was scrolling through some old posts this afternoon (sheesh, don't I have anything better to do with my time?) and I came across this one from five and a half years ago. Unlike the 7-deadly-sins quiz, where I think I am settling into a routine (my most recent instance is here), I hadn't taken this one again in the intervening time. So sure, what the hell? I tried it again.

You can find it here: http://psychcentral.com/quizzes/narcissistic.htm. 

Remember the scoring criteria:

Between 12 and 15 is average.
Celebrities often score closer to 18.
Narcissists score over 20.

This time I scored a 12, so it's nice to know I have worked my way up to normal. I wish I could remember what my answers were last time, so I would know what I had changed.

Something I didn't make a note of last time -- and maybe this is an enhancement to the quiz -- is that the scoring page also gives a breakdown of how I rate on several different components of narcissism.

Quoting from the website, those components are:

Authority

Authority refers to a person's leadership skills and power. People who score higher on authority like to be in charge and gain power, often for power's sake alone.

Self-Sufficiency

This trait refers to how self-sufficient a person is, that is, how much you rely on others versus your own abilities to meet your needs in life.

Superiority

This trait refers to whether a person feels they are more superior than those around them. You scored particularly high in superiority, suggesting you feel you are superior to most others.

Exhibitionism

This trait refers to a person's need to be the center of attention, and willingness to ensure they are the center of attention (even at the expense of others' needs).

Exploitativeness

This trait refers to how willing you are to exploit others in order to meet your own needs or goals.

Vanity

This trait refers to a person's vanity, or their belief in one's own superior abilities and attractiveness compared to others.

Entitlement

This trait refers to the expectation and amount of entitlement a person has in their lives, that is, unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with one's expectations. People who score higher on this trait generally have a greater expectation of entitlement, while those who score lower expect little from others or life.

And here, I think, is the explanation for the paradox that I noted last time I took the quiz, when I had so much trouble reconciling what feels to me like extravagant conceit with my (even now, comparatively) low score on this quiz. Because I scored particularly high on my sense of superiority, pretty high on authority, but low on exhibitionism, vanity, and entitlement. And I scored a flat zero on self-sufficiency.

This is pretty much what I said before ... conceit tempered with timidity. I think one of the differences compared with last time is that I gave myself a few more points for authority, based partly on Marie's observations to me about "the Tanatu charisma." (She came up with the phrase after meeting both my sons and learning that none of the three of us has ever been able to disappear into the wallpaper.)

I suppose it is nice to know I'm still not at pathological levels ....