The Relationship between Sketch and Personality: The Narcissistic Personality Inventory Research

This study investigated 73 designed beginners who drew the Venus plaster and completed the 7-dimensional Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) test. Next, 5-point scales were used to compare the degrees of the facial similarity between the paintings and photos of the beginners who created the paintings. The results indicated that over half of the paintings were similar to the photos of the painters, and the similarity was significantly correlated with narcissism. For example, the painters with self-sufficient personalities were more likely to exhibit assertiveness, independence, self-confidence, and need for achievement; thus, they were automatically drawn to their own sense of personal feelings as projected onto the drawings, which naturally tended to look like themselves. These results might help the educators in the design field identify the likely NPI-associated psychological and behavioral outcomes of design beginners by observing the contexts of their paintings.