Those college students think they're so special...

This is kind of old, but I wanted to write a post about this news story, which states that college students today are more narcissistic than any previous group since 1982, when they started doing the survey.
First, I take issue with the questions they are using to determine if students are narcissistic. Some of the statements that participants agreed/disagreed with were “It is important to be very well-off financially” and “If I ruled the world, it would be a better place.” I don’t really see how agreeing with these statements determines a person is narcissistic. There are many reasons that a college student might state that it is important to be financially secure, including the fact that they are currently incurring huge debt just by being in college, and are often living hand-to-mouth while they are in school. Neither of those implies that the person is abnormally self-obsessed, just that money and their future earning potential are important issues for them at that point in their lives. As far as running the world, with the current state of international affairs, it is hardly surprising that students feel that they could make positive changes. Again, does that mean that these students are narcissists, who “lack empathy, react aggressively to criticism and favor self-promotion over helping others,” as the article states, or could that be positively interpreted as students are taking a greater interest in world affairs, and have opinions about how to improve things? That sounds like empathy to me.