Development and validation of the super-short form of the Five-Factor Narcissism Inventory (FFNI-SSF)

The Five-Factor Narcissism Inventory (FFNI) has exhibited strong construct validity and is the only measure that captures the three factors associated with recent models of narcissism. Unfortunately, the FFNI and its short form (FFNI-SF) may be too long to use in certain research protocols. To make the FFNI-SF even briefer while maintaining its structure and breadth, the FFNI-SF was administered to 2 samples of undergraduate students (N = 1009, N = 432) and 2 samples of adults recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk platform (N = 494, N = 591) along with commonly used measures of narcissism, antisocial behavior, and other related constructs. Fifteen items (one per FFNI subscale) were selected to constitute the FFNI “super-short” form (FFNI-SSF). Exploratory factor analyses of the items supported a three-factor (antagonism, agentic extraversion, and neuroticism) solution consistent with its longer parent instrument. Total, presentation (grandiose and vulnerable), and factor (antagonism, agentic extraversion, and neuroticism) scores showed strong associations with other narcissism measures and external criteria related to narcissism, and all of these relations were virtually identical for the SSF compared to the SF. The FFNI-SSF shows promise as a very brief but multifaceted measure of narcissism grounded in an empirically validated model of personality.