Criminal psychologist claims asking one question can instantly reveal a narcissist

An expert has detailed exactly how you can tell if someone is a narcissist by how they reply to a common four-word question.

If you’ve ever heard the term ‘narcissist’ being banded about, then you’re likely to think it describes someone who is extremely self-centred, has an unhealthy preoccupation with themselves, and is hungry for attention, admiration, and praise.

However, the American Psychiatric Association classifies narcissism as a personality disorder, defining it as a pervasive pattern of grandiosity and lack of empathy.

And while you may be quick to brand ex-friends and relatives, it turns out that only one to two percent of the US population has narcissistic personality disorder.

As people with narcissistic personality disorder are rare, Dr Julia Shaw, a German-Canadian criminal psychologist, has explained the best method of rooting them out.

Dr Julia Shaw knows a thing or two about narcissists (LADbible Stories/YouTube)

Dr Shaw works with murderers and psychopaths regularly and previously hosted the Bad People BBC Sounds true crimepodcast, which last aired in December 2024.

In her career, the psychologist has also proved that law enforcement officers can essentially inspire people to confess crimes or recall illegal moments they were never actually involved in.

In November 2025, the pro sat down to discuss how best to identify a real narcissist out in the wild.

Speaking to LADbible Stories during an episode of Honesty Box, Dr Shaw said: "People love this term right now, don't they? Narcissist," before revealing how anyone can be a narcissist, from your parents to an ex-partner to even your therapist.

"Narcissism is a personality disorder," she explained, which she says can be spotted by asking 'specific kinds of questions'.

However, psychology studies over time have whittled down the key questions from 20 to 15 before settling on just the one, ultimate question, which she says is called the 'single item narcissism scale'.

"Which is literally just the question, 'Are you a narcissist?'" she said. Although that seems like a blatant question a narcissist might dodge, Dr Shaw said the question is actually surprisingly 'useful'.

The expert has warned that she would be 'incredibly' careful when it comes to using the term 'narcissist' (Getty Stock Image)

"How do you spot a narcissist? Ask them," she explained. "A narcissist would probably answer to this question, 'Yeah but like, I am better than most people. It's a realistic appraisal of myself,' because that's what narcissism is.

"It's that overconfidence, it's that thinking you're great and thinking you're better than you actually are."

However, Dr Shaw said the term has slipped into everyday contexts and urged us all to be 'incredibly careful with that' as it 'devalues the terms like narcissist in contexts that matter, like in a criminal context'.

She added: "It's not useful because you're just angry at somebody in real life, in normal sort of everyday life. So I think we need to be incredibly careful not to use this therapeutic language in this really casual, overly confident, inaccurate way because it takes away from context where it really matters."

Her insight comes as the true crime specialist, who also hosts TV series Murder in Mind on ITVX, said neither men nor women are inherently 'evil'.

"I don't like the term 'evil', but certainly in terms of crime, I mean almost all crime is perpetrated by men and also the victims are most likely to be men," Dr Shaw explained.

"So I think there it's pretty clear that there's a gender issue going on in terms of crime and rule breaking and anger and especially violent crimes, but all kinds of crimes really."