Read Someone
Is he a psychopath, a narcissist, or just cold?
The Dark Mirror, asked about a person you know. Twenty things you have watched them do, the same six axes, scored the same way, from the outside. Six minutes. They will never know unless you show them.
7,722 people have taken the Dark Mirror about themselves. The people you rate go into their own dataset on the Index; the rated curve opens at 100.
Who are you reading?
What you saw, not what they meant
Every option is a thing a person did: when you went quiet, when you were ill, when you tried to leave. No mind-reading required.
Six axes, one verdict
Psychopathic, sociopathic, narcissistic, borderline, histrionic, neurotypical. The type they read as, the band on every axis, and where they sit against everyone who has taken it.
How to carry yourself
Three lines per verdict from someone who has the pattern from the inside. Recognition, never a plan of attack.
Then send it to them
The result page carries a link they can open. If they take the Dark Mirror about themselves, both verdicts sit side by side: how they read to you, and how they read to themselves. The gap is usually the whole story.
Frequently asked questions
Can this tell me if my partner is a psychopath?
No test on the internet can, and this one does not claim to. It tells you what they read as on the Dark Mirror's six axes, from twenty things you have watched them do, and how that compares with everyone who has taken the quiz. A diagnosis needs a clinician, a history, and the person in the room.
How is this different from the Dark Mirror I take about myself?
Same six axes, same scoring, same bands and percentiles. The scenarios are written from the outside: what they did when you went quiet, how they treat the waiter, what happened when you tried to leave. Rated people are kept in their own dataset on the Index, never mixed with people who answered about themselves.
Will they know I rated them?
Only if you show them. The result page never shows who did the rating. If you send them the link, they can take the Dark Mirror about themselves and see both verdicts side by side.
Who can I rate?
A partner, an ex, a parent, a boss or colleague, a friend, a sibling, or anyone else you know well enough to answer twenty questions about their behaviour. Answer with what you saw, not what they said they meant.
Is this a real psychological instrument?
It is the Dark Mirror's own twenty-scenario instrument, written by Kanika Batra, who is diagnosed ASPD and was clinically assessed as Factor 1 psychopathy by her psychiatrist. Informant ratings, where someone who knows a person answers about them, are a standard method in psychopathy research and add information self-report misses. This is a reading aid, not a clinical assessment.
Nothing on this page or its results is a diagnosis of anyone. What a person reads as on this instrument, as answered by one person who knows them, is a reading aid. Only a clinician can diagnose, and only with a proper assessment. Aggregates from rated people live on the Dark Mirror Index.
How this test is scored
- The instrument
- The Dark Mirror scenarios rewritten as an informant form, so you answer about someone else. 20 items.
- How it is scored
- Twenty scenarios on the same six axes, scored the same way. Ratings of other people are kept in their own dataset and never mixed with people who answered about themselves.
- What it is compared against
- No norms claimed. Rated people get their own curve, built only from other ratings.
- What the research says is wrong with it
- Informant and self-report agree at about r = .4 on personality pathology: an observer reads antagonism better than the self does and inner distress worse, and how you feel about the person shifts the whole profile, so a reading of someone you resent runs harsh (Oltmanns and Oltmanns 2019; Leising et al. 2010).
- What a result is not
- A result here is a trait profile, never a disorder and never a diagnosis. Only a clinician with your full history can diagnose anything, and no self-report questionnaire can.