A separate published SD4 subscale
Read the seven-item Narcissism mean with its actual wording, source and limits. No diagnosis, type or population rank.
Seven numeric ratings required; raw sum / 7. Any unscored response means no personal mean for this subscale.
A particular seven-item self-view
The SD4 narcissism subscale asks about being seen as a leader, a perceived talent for persuasion, making group activities interesting, being told you are special, exceptional qualities, possible future stardom and occasional showing off. Its mean describes agreement across those seven statements. It does not establish your actual leadership, talent, future success or how other people experience you. The research name should be read alongside this content rather than treated as a complete definition of a person.
Visibility and praise can differ
You might enjoy showing a skill while rarely thinking that a gathering is dull without you. Someone else may strongly remember being praised but dislike being the centre of attention. Different patterns can give the same average. A context with many opportunities for public performance may also make some statements easier to imagine. The form has no independent observation of these situations and cannot decide whether your account is accurate, exaggerated, modest or shaped by a particular audience.
No personality-disorder conclusion
This website does not diagnose narcissistic personality disorder or label anyone a narcissist. The published SD4 self-report subscale is not a clinical interview, and its seven statements do not cover the evidence needed for an individual clinical assessment. A low mean does not rule out difficulties, while a high mean does not establish a disorder, abusive behaviour or the impact of a relationship. Do not use the number as a verdict about yourself, a partner, a colleague or a public figure.
Approval and ability remain separate questions
Agreement that others call you special is a report about your own understanding of their feedback. It is not a survey of those people. Similarly, expecting future success does not measure the skills or opportunities involved. The mean cannot sort healthy confidence from a problem in every setting, nor can it prescribe becoming more or less visible. Consider the wording as a prompt for noticing a self-view, without allowing the name to replace concrete evidence about a particular task or relationship.
A separate SD4 score, not a winning type
The other SD4 subscales ask different sets of questions. A higher narcissism mean than your other means does not make it a dominant type, and low values everywhere do not identify a specially virtuous personality. No combined darkness score, ranking or level is produced. This version also differs from the original FermatMind Mini themes and from longer or alternative narcissism inventories. Shared terminology alone does not justify merging results, converting numbers or claiming that all measures assess an identical construct.
Reflect without soliciting reassurance
You could privately compare one statement with one ordinary experience of praise, participation or showing a skill. Keep the experience separate from assumptions about what everyone thinks of you. You do not need to ask people to rate your character, seek reassurance about a label or prove that a description is wrong. No example is required by the website, and no action is needed to finish. You may leave any statement unanswered numerically and simply read the public explanation.
Source, language and the limits of the version
This page follows the 28 English statements and five agreement anchors published on coauthor Erin Buckels’ SD4 project page, crosschecked against the instrument distributed by Delroy Paulhus. Paulhus lists SD4 among measures in the public domain available without permission. The cited article is Paulhus, Buckels, Trapnell and Jones, published in 2021. Our Chinese wording is a working translation, not a validated Chinese form. Publication of the original instrument does not establish validity, norms or accuracy for this website’s users or this translation.
Seven direct ratings and an unrounded mean
Use 1 Strongly Disagree, 2 Disagree, 3 Neutral, 4 Agree and 5 Strongly Agree. Three is the numeric neutral response, not missing information. All 28 items are direct, with no reverse scoring. For each subscale, seven numeric ratings produce their sum divided by seven, displayed to two decimals from the unrounded sum. One, two, three, four, five, three and three sum to 21 and give 3.00. Any unscored response withholds that subscale’s mean; nothing is imputed. No total, dominant type, percentile or cutoff is calculated.