The Number of Circles You See Determines If You’re a Narcissist: Exploring Optical Illusions, Personality, and the Myth Behind the Meme

In the vast sea of social media content, memes, and viral posts, few topics intrigue people as much as quick, eye-catching “personality tests.” You might have scrolled through your feed, stumbled upon an image with concentric circles, and read a bold claim: “The Number of Circles You See Determines If You’re a Narcissist.” Perhaps you paused and tried to count the circles, or maybe you shared it with friends, curious about their reactions. Whatever the case, this particular meme taps into a powerful and enduring human desire: the wish to understand ourselves, and perhaps to understand others as well.

Why do we give so much credence to a simple image that purports to measure something as complex as narcissism? In a world where personality quizzes, from the “What Kind of Pizza Are You?” variety to the more established Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, are endlessly shared, this question is worth asking. This article takes a deep dive into the nature of optical illusions, the psychological concept of narcissism, and the broader cultural fascination with quick-and-easy “tests” that promise to reveal who we really are. Ultimately, we will see that the meme in question is more entertainment than fact. Nonetheless, it opens a window into how people perceive, how illusions can fool us, and why we are so eager to believe that a single glance at a picture might unmask our innermost traits.

By examining the context, background, and implications of this viral meme, we can better understand how illusions intersect with human psychology—and why the question of narcissism is so deeply compelling in our modern, image-conscious era.

Before we delve into the specifics of this circle meme, it helps to have a baseline understanding of optical illusions. Optical illusions have existed for centuries, captivating the human mind and providing insight into how we process visual information. These illusions occur when the external reality (the shapes, lines, and colors we see) conflicts with how our brain interprets that information. The result is often a surprising or puzzling experience in which we see something that doesn’t match objective reality.

Literal Illusions: Images that differ from the objects that create them. For instance, a classic example is a depiction of a figure that looks like a duck from one perspective and a rabbit from another. The image is literally ambiguous.
Physiological Illusions: These result from excessive stimulation of the eyes or brain—brightness, color, size, position, or movement. A well-known example is the “grid illusion,” where you see gray spots at the intersections of a black-and-white grid.
Cognitive Illusions: These rely on our unconscious inferences about the world. Examples include the Müller-Lyer illusion, where two lines of equal length appear different because of the arrow-like tails at their ends.