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COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 1
Collective Narcissism and Weakening of American Democracy
Oliver Keenan1
Agnieszka Golec de Zavala1, 2, 3
1 – Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom
2 –SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poznan, Poland
3 – ICSTE-IUL, Lisbon, Portugal
Abstract
Correspondence should be addressed to: Oliver Keenan, Department of Psychology,
Goldsmiths, University of London, 8 Lewisham Way, New Cross, London SE14 6NW,
United Kingdom. Email: oliver.r.keenan@gmail.com
Data collection was supported by National Science Centre Grant 2017/26/A/HS6/00647
awarded to Agnieszka Golec de Zavala. Study 3 was conducted as fulfilment of the Master
degree by the first author. The paper includes statements of sample size estimation and data
exclusions, all data and materials for the 3 studies can be found in the Supplemental Material:
http://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/4PJCN
The preregistration of hypothesis and material for Study 2: https://aspredicted.org/42665.pdf
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 2
The storming of the US Capitol on January 6th 2021 and voter intimidation by Donald
Trump‘s supporters has marked significant upheaval in American democracy. In two cross-
sectional studies and one experiment, we tested the proposition that American collective
narcissism is associated with support for populist leadership (particular, their message of
renewed ingroup recognition) to the point of disregard for democratic procedures. In Study 1,
conducted just before the 2020 Presidential elections, we examined the association of
American collective narcissism with support for Trump‘s re-election even if he was to violate
the democratic procedures while securing it. In pre-registered Study 2, conducted just after
the Capitol attack, we examined the association between American collective narcissism and
support for the attacks. In Study 3, we experimentally examined a more general proposition
that collective narcissism is associated with support for populist leaders and lack of support
for democratic procedures, in a minimal group setting deprived of any associations with
particular political context. The results of the three studies converge to indicate that collective
narcissism is most strongly (beyond variables commonly implicated in support for right-wing
populism) associated with populist leadership to the extent of disregarding democratic norms.
[T]he explicit focus of "hate rhetoric" is frequently on who "we" are and this leaves
implicit (but obvious) who is excluded. … once it is evident who "they" are and that "they"
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 3
endanger us, then a focus on ingroup vulnerability and ingroup virtue is sufficient to
legitimate intergroup violence.
— (Reicher et al., 2005, p. 632)
… But those days are over. We will no longer tolerate such abuse. We will not allow
our workers to be victimized, our companies to be cheated, and our wealth to be plundered
and transferred. America will never apologize for protecting its citizens.
— (Donald Trump’s Address to United Nations, 2018)
America is fulfilling our destiny as peacemaker, but it is peace through strength.
— (Donald Trump’s Address to United Nations, 2020)
Since rioters stormed the Capitol on January 6th 2021, to challenge certification of
Electoral College votes, Donald Trump has come under increased criticism and faced an
impeachment trial for his rhetoric inciting his followers towards violence (Connolly & Riotta,
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 4
2021). In particular, Trump‘s message since the election—an allegation that the presidency
was unjustly stolen from him in a fraudulent, irregular contest that should be reversed—has
been identified as a major factor in leading supporters to endorse his rejection of democratic
procedures and results (Woodward, 2021). Donald Trump is an accomplished populist leader
(Reicher & Haslam, 2016), who mobilizes his supporters by defining American national
identity in terms of vulnerable greatness and threatened entitlement (Hogg & Gøtzsche-
Astrup, 2021; Kruglanski et al., 2021). He proposes himself as a warrant of national renewal
to re-establish the national superiority that is supposedly threatened or lost (Federico & Golec
de Zavala, 2018; Golec de Zavala & Federico, 2018).
Earlier work identified American collective narcissism—a belief that the national
ingroup‘s exaggerated greatness is insufficiently recognized by others (Golec de Zavala et al.,
2009; 2019; Golec de Zavala & Lantos, 20202)—as a major predictor of support for Trump‘s
presidential candidacy in the 2016 elections (Federico & Golec de Zavala, 2018). Since then,
national collective narcissism has been linked to support for illiberal right-wing populist
leaders, parties and policies worldwide (for reviews see Golec de Zavala & Keenan, 2020;
Golec de Zavala, Lantos & Keenan, 2020) and moral double standards in evaluating such
leaders (Bocian et al., 2021). As collective narcissism is associated with an exclusive
definition of the ingroup and readiness for intergroup hostility (for recent reviews see Golec
de Zavala et al., 2019; Golec de Zavala & Lantos, 2020), the previous studies predicted that
Trump‘s presidency and an increased, mainstream presence of collective narcissism as a
dominant narrative about national identity, would mobilise its adherents around the promise
of renewed ingroup recognition. The Capitol attack can be seen as an effect and illustration of
such a construction of national identity, particularly when this identity was threatened by its
representative‘s loss of power. We claim that it happened because collective narcissism is
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 5
associated with support for populist leaders to the point of disregard for democratic
procedures, seen as an obstacle to the shared national identity.
In line with this prediction studies show that national collective narcissism is robustly
associated with right-wing authoritarianism (i.e., obedience to convention and authority, and
the rejection of deviants; Altemeyer, 1988) and thus, it is likely to predict support for
undemocratic leadership defined by strength and centralization of power (Golec de Zavala et
al., 2009; 2019). Authors also agree that the belief that others constantly threaten the
ingroup‘s exceptionality is used to justify group-centrism i.e., hierarchical organization of the
group with tightly controlled norms and authoritarian leadership defined by strength (Hogg &
Gøtzsche-Astrup, 2021). In the present research we examine collective narcissism‘s
associations with support for Donald Trump using undemocratic methods to stay in power
before the elections, support for Capitol attacks after the elections and support for a generic
political candidate advocating renewal of national greatness even by means that may
undermine the rule of law.
Collective narcissism as basis of populist attitudes
Collective narcissism forms the basis of populist attitudes as it puts the perceived
needs (i.e., concerning proper recognition) of a narrowly construed national ingroup, over
that of the wider national membership or society (e.g., Brexit; Golec de Zavala et al., 2017).
National collective narcissism expresses concerns over the national ingroup losing (or having
lost), what it was entitled to have: the recognition of its supremacy and admiration of others
(Golec de Zavala et al., 2009). Collective narcissism is associated with negative, highly
sensitive emotionality and low self-esteem (Golec de Zavala, 2019; Golec de Zavala et al.,
2020), hypervigilance to any threats to the group and retaliatory aggression even to
ambiguous or imagined (e.g., conspiratorial) threats (Golec de Zavala et al., 2016; Golec de
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 6
Zavala & Lantos, 2020). This suggests that the main concern associated with collective
narcissism is the external perception of the national image rather than the legal organization
of the state that serves the nation. Indeed, democratic organization may be seen as ineffective
in preserving or renewing the allegedly undermined external recognition of national
greatness.
Democratic systems which involve incremental change through diverse group
decisions are likely to be seen as ineffective by those who perceive their ingroup‘s privilege
under threat. Instead, a strong leader capable of doing what is needed to restore the nation‘s
proper place and external recognition will be preferred (Sprong et al., 2019; Spruyt et al.,
2016). Populist leaders act to represent this exclusive version of the group, coordinating and
mobilizing its members around renewing ingroup recognition; the bond that results for its
members driving aggression against those outside the ‗national community‘ (Kunst et al.,
2019). Protecting the ingroup‘s desired external recognition can be used to harshly sanction
excluded group members, for example, women who do not conform to traditional gender
roles (Golec de Zavala & Bierwiaczonek, 2021) and sexual minorities (Mole et al., 2022).
A narrow and exclusive ingroup construal drives anti-democratic collective action in
order to protect and bolster traditional ingroup hierarchies (e.g., of race) through reactionary
right-wing movements (Capelos & Katsanidou, 2018; Selvanathan et al., 2021). Collective
narcissism shares with authoritarianism this narrow normative view of the group, and with
social dominance orientation (a preference for maintaining group-based hierarchies; Pratto et
al., 1994) its justification of group inequality (Golec de Zavala et al., 2019), which are both
associated with anti-democratic attitudes. A group-centric definition of American identity
predicts support for Donald Trump enacting antidemocratic policies, such as the registering
of all Muslim Americans under the pretext of anti-terrorism (Dunwoody & Plane, 2019), and
autocratic attitudes (e.g., abolishing elections so the president can decide everything) allow
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 7
for the subordinating of low status groups so higher status groups can maintain and further
their position (Bartusevičius et al., 2020). Therefore, collective narcissism should be
associated with action which violates democratic procedures. Though, when this action is
seen to secure the ingroup‘s recognition, as promised by the populist message, we expect
collective narcissism to be independently and more strongly associated with support for
populist leadership (over and above, right wing authoritarianism and social dominance
orientation).
The message of the populist leader
The populist message should empower and mobilise those who hold the narcissistic
belief about the national ingroup, where individual group members can rally behind an
identity leader and forge a shared direction (Golec de Zavala & Keenan, 2020; Mols & Jetten,
2020), allowing for collective action such as the Capitol Hill raid. In its content, the populist
message constructs politics as a conflict between the morally true ‗common people‘ and the
morally corrupt politicians and ‗elites‘ who only represent their own interests (Mudde &
Kaltwasser, 2018). The inclusion of contesting groups‘ viewpoints and accountability of
state power is an obstacle to populist leaders as the direct embodiment of the will of the
‗people‘ (Kaltwasser, 2012). Reicher and Haslam (2016) argue that Donald Trump uses the
frame of the American Jeremiad to present his platform organized around ‗Make America
Great Again‘.
Jeremiad identifies a point in history from which the nation started to decline. The
message promises to remake the group‘s significance and to make us special—people are
drawn to the cause of a renewed, exceptional group membership (see also Mols & Jetten,
2014; Wohl & Stefaniak, 2020). The message is based on a theme that others should be awed
by the ingroup, but not only are they falling short of being awed, but are in fact disrespectful
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 8
and constantly wronging the group. This messaging both validates and promises to rectify the
narcissistic belief about the group, so that others will be made to recognize the group‘s
significance. As such this message may be convincing to people who endorse national
collective narcissism. Indeed, studies show that national collective narcissism predicts
support for populist politicians, parties and politics worldwide (Golec de Zavala & Keenan,
2020; Golec de Zavala et al., 2017; 2021; Marchlewska et al., 2018). As populist leaders
legitimise collective narcissism as a form of shared national identity, hostile reactions (e.g.,
the Capitol Hill raid) to perceived threat to this identity (e.g., through the election loss of its
empowering representative) become a matter of time.
Current research
In three cross sectional studies we tested whether collective narcissism predicts acceptance
for the violation of democratic procedures in support of populist leadership. With ecological
validity in mind, we first tested this prediction using Donald Trump as an exemplar populist
leader (Reicher & Haslam, 2016). We collected data in two time points around the American
presidential election: Study 1 just before in November 2020 and Study 2 several months after
in March, 2021. In Study 1, we tested whether American collective narcissism was positively
associated with support for Trump using undemocratic means to extend his presidency
(Hypothesis 1). Given that Trump is a prime representative of the populist message, this
closely approximates how renewed ingroup recognition is given precedence to the detriment
of democratic procedures. In Study 2, we tested whether American collective narcissism was
positively associated with favourable attitudes towards the Capitol Hill, a direct challenge to
the results of the democratic election (Hypothesis 2). Given the raid was to protest the results
of a democratic election, this captures the extent to which violating democratic norms is
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 9
justified if it‘s in the explicit interests of renewed ingroup recognition. This hypothesis was
pre-registered (see https://aspredicted.org/42665.pdf )
1
.
Next, in Study 3, with external validity in mind, we tested whether collective
narcissism predicted support for a leader expressing an undemocratic populist message in a
minimal group context (see e.g., Jetten et al., 2015) devoid of associations with any particular
political context including American politics. This allowed us to assess the relationship
without the influence of additional factors implicated in candidate support (i.e., politically
motivated cognition; Leeper & Slothuus, 2014), such as one‘s party membership. We tested
whether people who endorse collective narcissism were attracted to the content of the
populist leader‘s message (i.e., regaining collective significance is worth it by any means
necessary) vs the messages of authoritarian (emphasising national security and control over
norms), nationalistic (emphasising international supremacy) or democratic (emphasizing
political inclusion and equality) leaders. We expected collective narcissism to be related to
endorsement of the populist message (especially in comparison to the democratic message)
even in this scant context (Hypothesis 3).
Across the three studies we aimed at establishing that the hypothesized association is
specific to collective narcissism over and above relevant predictors of support for populist
leaders identified by the literature. In Studies 1 & 2, we controlled for demographic variables,
such as age, gender, income, and ethnicity, education, and national identification (viewing
oneself as a prototypical of the national group) as these have been implicated in support for
Trump‘s candidacy (Cook et al., 2017). We also controlled variables that are associated with
a right-wing orientation and have predicted support for Trump: racial resentment
(Abramowitz & McCoy, 2019), political conservatism and Republican party identification
1
The preregistration specified an additional study design and hypotheses which was made impossible
because of participant attrition.
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 10
(Sides et al., 2018). In Studies, 2 & 3 we include measures of right-wing authoritarianism and
social dominance orientation also associated with support for populism, and Donald Trump in
particular (e.g., Womick et al., 2019). In all studies, we also controlled for ingroup positivity,
measured using the national ingroup satisfaction scale (positive feelings about one‘s group
membership; Leach et al., 2008) as American identity is often defined by positive emotional
attachment to the national group (Citrin et al., 2001), which has been associated with support
for Trump (Hanson & O‘Dwyer, 2019).
The studies were reviewed and accepted by the Research Ethics Committee at
Goldsmiths, University of London. All participants provided informed consent and were fully
debriefed. A priori sample size estimation was carried out using G*Power for multiple
regression analysis with eleven predictors. We conservatively assumed a medium effect size
of f2 = .19, based on the smallest effects size for the association between collective narcissism
and populism found in the literature: R2 contribution to support for Brexit vote (Marchlewska
et al., 2018). The sample estimate (based 80% power at α = .05) was n = 99 for study one, n =
106 for study two (with the inclusion of two additional predictors). In study three, we set the
α = .01 considering repeated comparisons across multiple outcome measures, the sample
estimate was n = 105, with five predictors. We oversampled in each study following the
suggestion that correlation sizes stabilize at around n = 250 (Schönbrodt & Perugini, 2013).
Study 1
Participants and design
Participants (n = 308; female = 136, male = 172; Age: M = 38.81, SD = 12.57. range:
21-81) were Amazon MTurk workers who were adult citizens of the United States who took
part in a cross-sectional survey programmed on Qualtrics. Participants who failed attention
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 11
checks during participation were redirected away from the survey to ensure only high-quality
data was collected.
Measures
Unless otherwise indicated the continuous variables were measured using a seven-
point scale for each item ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
Collective narcissism (α = 0.90, M = 4.72, SD = 1.45) was measured using a five-item
version of the Collective Narcissism Scale (Golec de Zavala et al., 2009, used in previous
studies e.g., Golec de Zavala et al., 2013; 2020), e.g., ―The United States deserves special
treatment‖.
A measure of support for Trump‘s candidacy regardless of democratic procedures was
constructed for the purpose of this study. A confirmatory factor analysis with robust
maximum likelihood estimation validated a one factor scale with good fit, CFI = .996;
RMSEA = .05, 90% CI [0.00, 0.10], pclose = .447 (Table 1) The 5-item measure tapped
support for Trump‘s autocratic challenge to 2020 U.S election scale (α = .94 M = 4.35 SD =
1.73). The full list of items can be found in the Supplemental Materials, the items presented
are those selected on face validity as most consistent with the concept of interest.
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 12
Control variables
Following previous research (Federico & Golec de Zavala, 2018), we included as
control variables: age (rescaled to five ordered categories: (1) 18-24, n = 5; (2) 25-35, n =
153; 36-45, n = 62; 46-55, n = 42; 56+, n = 46), income (nine ordered categories: (1) less
than $10,000, n = 16; (2) $10,000-$14,999, n = 15; (3) $15,000-$24,999, n = 28; (4)
$25,000-$34,999, n = 38; (5) $35,000-$49,999, n = 54; (6) $50,000-$74,999, n = 92; (7)
$75,000-$99,999, n = 37; (8) $100,000-$149,999, n = 18; (9) $150,000-$199,999, n = 10),
gender (0 = female, 1 = male), education (seven ordered categories: (1) Less than high
school, n = 1; (2) High school diploma or equivalent, n = 14; (3) Some college, n = 36; (4)
Associate’s degree, n = 24; (5) Bachelor’s degree, n = 182; (6) Master’s degree, n = 48; (7)
Advanced degree, n = 3; recoded 1 for a Bachelor‘s degree and above, 0 for below), self-
identified race (Black, n = 19; Asian, n = 11; Native American, n = 24; White, n = 251;
Other, n = 3; coded as 1 = White ethnicity, 0 = Non-white), a binary measure of national
identification (1 = viewing oneself as a prototypical American), as well as a measure of
Table 1.
Factor analysis for Trump election challenge measure
Items
Factor
loadings
1. President Trump expressed the will to stay in the Oval Office beyond his
constitutionally allotted two terms. He should be able to if he wants to.
.913
2. If we have a good President, we should not hold presidential elections every 4
years.
.912
3. I would like President Trump to win the elections even if he had to
compromise the rule of law.
.902
4. I would like my candidate to win the presidential election even if it meant he
had to bend the rules of democracy.
.871
5. I would like President Trump to win the elections even if the Supreme Court
had to go against the popular vote.
.758
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 13
national ingroup satisfaction measured by a four-item scale (Leach et al., 2008) (α = .89, M =
5.62, SD = 1.07) e.g., ―I am glad to be American‖ and ―It is pleasant to be American.‖. We
also controlled for two political predispositions: seven-point measure of conservative (vs.
liberal) self-placement (M = 4.36, SD = 1.79) and partisanship which was binary coded (1)
for Republican (including 11 republican leaners; n = 146) and (0) for Democrats (including
16 leaners, and 11 who supported neither; n = 161).
Results and discussion
Predictors
b
95%CI
LL,UL
p
(Intercept)
-0.37
-0.66,-0.08
.460
Age
-0.01
-0.08,0.06
.798
Male
-0.00
-0.15,0.14
.975
Income
-0.10
-0.17,-0.03
.005
College educated
0.32
0.09,0.55
.006
White ethnicity
-0.04
-0.21,0.12
.618
National membership
0.23
0.00,0.45
.050
Racial resentment
0.04
-0.07,0.14
.507
Ingroup satisfaction
-0.14
-0.22,-0.05
.001
National collective narcissism
0.73
0.62,0.84
<.001
Table 2.
Multiple regression analysis of predictors on support for Trump election challenge
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 14
Conservatism
0.14
0.06,0.22
.001
Republican
-0.09
-0.23,0.05
.202
Observations
308
R2 / R2 adjusted
0.668 / 0.655
Note. The standardized regression coefficients presented are from robust estimation
using heteroscedasticity-consistent standard errors.
Analyses were conducted in R v4.0.2 (R Core Team, 2013) with use of the tidyverse
(Wickham et al., 2019) for data preparation and the sjPlot package (Lüdecke, 2021) for tables
and figures. In order to test Hypothesis 1, that collective narcissism would be associated with
Figure 1.
Partial correlation coefficients for each variable with support for Trump election challenge
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 15
support for Donald Trump staying in power even while illegally challenging the democratic
election, over and above related predictors, a multiple regression analysis was conducted
including American collective narcissism as a predictor, support for Trump as the outcome
variable and all other variables as controls (Table 2). To account for heteroscedasticity and
non-normality in the residuals, the multiple regression was adjusted to have robust standard
errors through heteroscedasticity-consistent covariance matrix estimation (Mackinnon &
Whitehead, 1985), which produces reliable interval estimates under non-normality (Pek et al.,
2018). Partial correlation coefficients were also calculated (Figure 1), providing a comparable
effect size for the bivariate relationships of each variable with the outcome measure, while
accounting for the overlap between all other variables. Consistent with Hypothesis 1, the
results show that American collective narcissism is associated with endorsing Trump
extending his presidency using undemocratic means. Moreover, standardized coefficients
show that collective narcissism is by far the strongest predictor.
Study 2
Participants and design
Participants (N = 302; male = 182, female = 119, other =1, Age: M = 38.53 SD =
11.29, range=19.00-73.00) were Amazon MTurk workers who were adult citizens of the
United States took part in a cross-sectional survey programmed on Qualtrics. As in study 1,
participants who failed attention checks during participation were redirected away from the
survey.
Measurements
Participants responded using a seven-point scale for each item ranging from strongly
disagree (1) to strongly agree (7).
Collective narcissism scale (α = .92 M = 3.98 SD = 1.62) was measured as in Study 1.
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 16
A scale (α = .91 M = 3.38, SD 1.90) measuring attitudes endorsing the US Capitol
raid was constructed for purposes of this study. It was based on the populist rhetoric
surrounding the attack, regarding Trump‘s claim the election was stolen from him and that
his presidency is necessary for national renewal (Aggarwal, 2021). A confirmatory factor
analysis with robust maximum likelihood estimation validated a one factor with good fit, CFI
= .993, RMSEA = .09, 90% CI [0.03, 0.15], pclose = .135 (Table 3). The full list of items can
be found in the Supplemental Materials; the items presented are those selected on face
validity as most consistent with the concept of interest.
We included the following controls: age (rescaled to five ordered categories: (1) 18-
24, n = 11; (2) 25-35, n = 145; (3) 36-45, n = 76; (4) 46-55, n = 41; (5) 56+, n = 29), income
(nine ordered categories: (1) less than $10,000, n = 5; (2) $10,000-$14,999, n = 12; (3)
$15,000-$24,999, n = 21; (4) $25,000-$34,999, n = 35; (5) $35,000-$49,999, n = 43; (6)
$50,000-$74,999, n = 91; (7) $75,000-$99,999, n = 44; (8) $100,000-$149,999, n = 33; (9)
$150,000-$199,999, n = 18), gender (0 = female, 1 = male), education (seven ordered
categories: (1) Less than high school, n = 0; (2) High school diploma or equivalent, n = 22;
(3) Some college, n = 37; (4) Associate’s degree, n = 20; (5) Bachelor’s degree, n = 159; (6)
Table 3.
Factor analysis for attitudes towards US Capitol raid
Items
Factor
loadings
1. Those who stormed the Capitol on 6th of January 2021 were true
Americans.
.928
2. The breaking into the Capitol was motivated by the love of freedom.
.879
3. The breaking into the Capitol makes America great again.
.872
4. The breaking into the Capitol was the opposition to injustice.
.719
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 17
Master’s degree, n = 57; (7) Advanced degree, n = 7; recoded 1 for a Bachelor‘s degree and
above, 0 for below), self-identified race (Black, n = 32; Asian, n = 11; Native American, n =
9; White, n = 247; Other, n = 3; recoded as 1 = White ethnicity, 0 = Non-white), a binary
measure of national identification (1 = viewing oneself as a prototypical American), and
ingroup satisfaction (α = .94 M = 5.34 SD =1.33) measured as in Study 1.
We controlled for two political predispositions: seven-point measure of conservative
(vs. liberal) self-placement (M = 3.94, SD =1.91) and partisanship which was binary coded
(1) for Republican (including 11 republican leaners; n = 104) and (0) for Democrats
(including 23 leaners, and 22 who supported neither; n = 198). Furthermore, we controlled
for authoritarianism (α = .86, M=5.59, SD =1.05) measured with childrearing scale (Feldman
& Stenner, 1997) where participants rated their agreement for desirable qualities in children
(e.g., respect for elders, obedience). We also controlled for social dominance orientation (α =
.80, M = 2.82, SD = 1.46) measured with the short 4-item measure (Pratto et al., 2013), e.g.,
―Superior groups should dominate inferior groups‖.
Results and discussion
Predictors
b
95% CI
LL,UL
p
(Intercept)
-0.23
-0.58,0.12
0.311
Age
-0.08
-0.15,-0.01
0.031
Male
0.03
-0.10,0.16
0.698
Income
-0.08
-0.15,-0.01
0.026
College educated
0.15
-0.03,0.33
0.104
White ethnicity
-0.10
-0.27,0.08
0.289
National membership
0.20
-0.05,0.45
0.121
Table 4.
Multiple regression analysis of predictors on support for Capitol Hill raid
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 18
Racial resentment
-0.02
-0.11,0.07
0.710
Ingroup satisfaction
-0.01
-0.13,0.11
0.855
Collective narcissism
0.47
0.34,0.60
<0.001
Conservatism
0.15
0.05,0.24
0.002
Republican
0.07
-0.11,0.25
0.456
Right-wing authoritarianism
-0.06
-0.18,0.06
0.308
Social dominance orientation
0.34
0.22,0.45
<0.001
Observations
302
R2 / R2 adjusted
0.701 / 0.688
Note. The standardized regression coefficients presented are from robust estimation
using heteroscedasticity-consistent standard errors.
Figure 2.
Partial correlation coefficients for each variable with support for Capitol breach
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 19
In order to test Hypothesis 2 that collective narcissism is associated with support for
the Capitol Hill raid, over and above control variables, we conducted a multiple regression
analysis entering American collective narcissism as a predictor, support for Capitol Hill raid
as the outcome variable and all other variables as controls. Given heteroscedasticity and non-
normality in the residuals, adjustment for robust standard errors was made as in Study 1.
Consistent with our prediction, the analysis revealed a significant association between
collective narcissism and support for the Capitol Hill raid. Standardized regression
coefficients and partial correlations again showed collective narcissism to be the strongest
predictor, ahead of the other two significant conceptual predictors: social dominance
orientation, and conservatism (Table 4, Figure 2)
Results of Studies 1 and 2 are consistent with the expectations that people who
endorse a narcissistic belief about America support Donald Trump‘s antidemocratic
incitements and his staying in power while violating democratic procedures. In Study 3, we
test whether the link between collective narcissism and support for populist leaders and their
undemocratic message generalizes beyond the particular political context.
Study 3
Method
Participants
Participants were Amazon MTurk workers with an additional convenience sample of
48 participants (N = 217; female = 93, male = 121, other = 3; Age: M = 31.49, SD = 11,
range: 18-86); the survey was programmed using Qualtrics. The survey did not ask for details
of participants nationality as it was focused on their fictional group membership. One
hundred participants were excluded on the basis of incomplete responses.
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 20
Design
A within-participants experimental design was used, with the leadership vignettes
taken as the experimental factor with four levels (Populist, Authoritarian, Nationalist,
Democrat) across five conceptually related covariates: ingroup satisfaction, conservatism,
collective narcissism, social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism. Age and
gender were also included as control variables. Leadership endorsement was taken as the
dependent variable.
Procedure
Participants expressed informed consent to participate in the study that allegedly
tested how emotions influenced participation in a text-based role-playing game. As part of an
alleged mental visualization task, participants were introduced to a fantasy land that had two
neighbouring countries - Bray and Minay. Participants then gave their preference for one of
two abstract paintings and responded to a bogus personality test, which allegedly helped to
assign them as members of Minay. Participants were then asked to give their opinion on
being new members of Minay and completed the collective narcissism and ingroup
satisfaction measures with reference to the nation of Minay. Next, participants took part in a
naming ceremony, giving themselves a name that they would use as a group member, and
‗met‘ other members of Minay in narrative format. This was followed by completion of the
right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation measures, having been told the
‗other members‘ were interested in their political views. They were then told they would take
part in the elections that were taking place. They viewed the leadership profiles on a single
page and provided the endorsement scores for all competing leaders. Finally, they were
probed for guessing (nobody guessed the hypothesis), thanked and debriefed.
Measures
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 21
Covariates:
We controlled for demographic variables: age and gender.
Conservatism (M = 4.96, SD = 2.95) measured on a 1-10 scale from very liberal to
very conservative.
Responses on all covariates below were coded on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to
7 (strongly agree).
Ingroup satisfaction measured using the ingroup satisfaction scale (α = .84 , M = 5.69,
SD = 0.99), e.g., ―I think that the Minayzirith have a lot to be proud of.‖. ―I am glad to be
Minayzirith).
Right-wing authoritarianism (α = 0.89, M = 3.53, SD = 1.08) was measured using an
18-item scale (Duckitt et al., 2010) e.g., ‗The ―old-fashioned ways‖ and ―old-fashioned
values‖ still show the best way to live.‘
Social dominance orientation (α = 0.83, M = 3.11, SD = 1.27) was measured using the
8-item scale (Ho et al., 2015), e.g., ‗An ideal society requires some groups to be on top and
others to be on the bottom.‘.
Collective narcissism (α = .92, M = 4.30, SD = 1.68) was measured on the 5-item
collective narcissism scale (Golec de Zavala et al., 2009) with reference to the make believe
ingroup, e.g., ―The Minayzirith deserve special treatment.‖, ―I will not be satisfied until
Minay get all that it deserves.‖. Responses were coded on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree)
to 7 (strongly agree).
Dependent variable:
Leadership endorsement was measured on two separate ratings indexing ‗feelings of
warmth‘ and ‗likelihood to vote for‘ the respective leadership profiles. Participants responded
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 22
on 0-100 visual analogue scales for both ratings. These two scores were averaged to give a
composite measure of leader endorsement: populist (r = .83, p < .001; M = 44.46, SD =
28.57), authoritarian (r = .89, p < .001; M = 46.10, SD = 28.73), nationalist (r = .88, p < .001;
M = 40.48, SD = 30.64) and democratic (r = .77, p < .001; M = 70.10, SD = 20.16). These
measures was transformed into long format in the dataset to create the four level within-factor
and the single leadership endorsement outcome measure.
Stimuli
Participants read profiles (for verbatim see Supplemental Material) for the different
candidates. The candidates emphasized political directions for the group of Minay, providing
the gist of its intended national and foreign policy. These different messages about the group
follow from research which shows that framing issues congruent with the worldviews of the
audience leads to greater endorsement (Crawford et al., 2013). The profiles were provided on
a single page which had the warmth and likelihood to vote measures under each vignette.
This followed on from being told that they had gained ‗full membership‘ as a ‗Minayzirith‘
(national citizen) and it was now important to give their opinion on political candidates for an
upcoming election.
The populist candidate vignette emphasized the paramount importance of ingroup
renewal so that the ingroup would finally be seen as exceptional, and that this might require
taking action ‗by any means‘, against those who do not recognize the ingroup‘s uniqueness.
The authoritarian candidate vignette followed from the model of authoritarian governance
emphasizing collective security and tightly controlled group norms, suggesting the
reasonableness of using force against those who threaten the group‘s safety and values
(Harms et al., 2018). The nationalist candidate vignette followed nationalist attitudes which
emphasizes the importance of power and status, and suggests that military assertiveness over
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 23
other nations was reasonable (Kosterman & Feshbach, 1989; Osborne et al., 2017). The
democratic message followed a theoretical model of democratic governance, focusing on
political equality and national inclusion of diverse groups, where cooperation is an important
value (Dahl, 2008).
Results
Interactions
Leadership endorsement
Covariates
Populist (-) vs. :
b
95%CI
LL,UL
p
Ingroup satisfaction
Authoritarian
0.05
-0.02,0.12
.141
Nationalist
-0.03
-0.12,0.05
.473
Democrat
0.08
-0.02,0.17
.102
Conservatism
Authoritarian
0.02
-0.06,0.11
.625
Nationalist
0.21
0.10,0.32
<.001
Democrat
-0.14
-0.26,-0.02
.019
Authoritarianism
Authoritarian
0.03
-0.12,0.17
.711
Nationalist
-0.23
-0.35,-0.11
<.001
Democrat
-0.54
-0.72,-0.37
<.001
Social dominance
orientation
Authoritarian
0.05
-0.07,0.16
.411
Nationalist
0.21
0.08,0.34
.002
Democrat
-0.34
-0.52,-0.15
<.001
Collective narcissism
Authoritarian
-0.10
-0.21,0.01
.062
Nationalist
-0.09
-0.20,0.01
.085
Democrat
-0.25
-0.38,-0.11
<.001
Note. Estimates are standardized regression coefficients with associated confidence intervals
and p values, from robust standard errors.
Table 5.
Linear mixed model for within-participant interactions across the covariates on leadership
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 24
Assumption checks indicated non-normality in the residuals
2
; standard errors were
adjusted through cluster-robust variance estimation with the clubSandwich R package
(Pustejovsky and Tipton, 2018). To test Hypothesis 3, that collective narcissism would be
associated with support for the populist message (vs. the other leader messages, especially the
democratic message) about the group, we ran a linear mixed model using the nlme R package
(Pinheiro et al., 2017) which included random intercepts across participants to account for the
leadership vignette within-factor. We dummy coded the factor variable so the populist leader
was treated as the base level across three pairwise comparisons with the other levels (i.e., vs.
authoritarian, nationalist, and democratic). We Bonferroni adjusted the alpha level to .01 to
conservatively account for inflated type 1 errors from the repeated analyses. We included age
and gender variables as controls, along with the predictor variables and their interaction terms
across the levels of the factor variable, with leadership endorsement ratings taken as the
dependent variable. The results for the interactions are shown in Table 5, where negative
coefficients indicate a positive rating of the populist leader relative to the other leaders.
Consistent with Hypothesis 3, collective narcissism significantly favoured the populist leader
over the democratic leader, independently of the other covariates. Right-wing
authoritarianism and social dominance orientation also significantly favoured the populist
leader over the democratic leader, consistent with previous research. Ingroup satisfaction
was non significantly associated with democratic leader (vs. populist), though the confidence
intervals indicate a leaning towards the democratic leader. This is consistent with our
expectation that it is narcissistic group identification (vs. non-contingent forms of positive
identification) that predicts endorsement of populist leadership. Collective narcissism was
non-significantly associated with the populist leader compared to either the authoritarian or
2
The same analysis was also ran excluding the single identified outlier, with no meaningful changes to
the estimates. The results of this analysis can be found in the Supplemental Materials.
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 25
the nationalist leader, however the confidence intervals indicate a strong leaning towards the
populist leader.
Conservatism and social dominance orientation significantly favoured the nationalist
leader over the populist. This indicates that realistic group superiority is more important to
self-rated conservatives and social dominators than symbolic recognition of the group‘s
superiority. Right-wing authoritarianism significantly favoured the populist over the
nationalist. It was positively, but non-significantly associated with the authoritarian leader.
This suggests that both authoritarian leaders and populist leaders are highly relatable for
right-wing authoritarians and collective narcissists.
General discussion
The raid of the US Capitol Hill building on January 6th 2021 was an act of political
violence that sought to overturn the result of democratic election. We suggested that this
attack was justified by endorsement of national narcissism which had been mobilised by
Donald Trump during his presidency. The theme of the constant wrong done to the national
ingroup (narrowed down to Trump‘s supporters) and the need to regain external recognition
of national significance continued with Trump‘s incitement that his electoral loss to Joe
Biden “the destroyer of American greatness‖ was fraudulent (Riley-Smith, 2020).
Anti-democratic and illiberal right-wing populism has established its presence around
the globe. Some mainstream parties (e.g., the US Republican party and UK Conservatives;
Bale, 2018; Sides et al., 2018) have adopted populism and countries in Eastern Europe have
rejected liberal democracy in favour of populist governments (e.g., Hungary or Poland;
Forgas & Lantos, 2020; Golec de Zavala, Lantos & Keenan, 2021). There is resurgent
support for France‘s populist party National Front (Tidman, 2021), and Trump himself is
running for re-election (Aggarwal, 2021). Central to populists‘ influence is their ability to
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 26
successfully communicate to the collective narcissist belief about the national group. This
coordinates the group with a collective goal of regaining its public significance (Golec de
Zavala & Keenan, 2020). Furthermore, this goal allows for preestablished democratic norms
to be broken if perceived as an obstacle.
The results of the present studies converge to indicate that collective narcissism is
associated with support for populist leaders to the point of accepting violations to democracy
to keep them in power. In Study 1, conducted before the 2020 presidential elections,
American collective narcissism predicted support for Trump illegally challenging the election
if the results were not in his favour (e.g. did not win the popular vote), and extending his
presidency even if it meant ‗bending the rule of law‘. Results of Study 2 affirmed this
finding. They indicated that American collective narcissism was most strongly associated
with support for the Capitol Hill raid, viewing it as in America‘s interest, namely in ‗making
America great again‘ and not as an insurrection against the result of a democratic election. In
Study 3, this was further supported by the relationship between collective narcissism and
favouring populist leader over the democratic leader. This relationship was significantly
different from another form of ingroup positivity (i.e., ingroup satisfaction), which showed a
leaning towards the democratic leader. This relationship was also independent of the related
predictors of conservatism, social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism.
This suggests that collective narcissism is a conception of the group that does not hold
democratic norms as valuable. A key finding of this research is that collective narcissism is
associated with support for a populist leader who rejects (or holds as unimportant) established
democratic norms and enables polarization and political violence in the name of renewing the
external recognition of the national ingroup‘s greatness. This shows that the potential for
autocracy is not only driven by the internal status pursuit of group members (i.e., as is
associated with social dominance orientation; Bartusevičius et al., 2020), but can be
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 27
mobilised through pursuit of the external recognition of a shared vision of collective
significance.
Furthermore, collective narcissism was the strongest predictor of support for populist
leadership across studies 1 & 2, over and above all control variables: demographics,
conservative political orientation, and other forms of national identification, such as
prototypical membership and ingroup satisfaction. This attests to right-wing populism as
predominantly a social identity based process revolving around a particular framing of the
group as deprived and wronged by others (Bos et al., 2020), which is clarified when
collective narcissism is included as a predictor (e.g., in its association over national
identification). Collective narcissism may be a key ‗thickener‘ (e.g., over conservatism) to
populism as a ‗thin-centred ideology‘ (i.e., lacking ideological breadth or development;
Hawkins & Kaltwasser, 2017). When populism draws on a narcissistic story about the
national ingroup, it becomes configured (or thickened) to form a right-wing movement
involving preference for inequality, tradition, and national superiority (Golec de Zavala et al.,
2021). We would therefore expect collective narcissism to be closely associated with other
normative views of the ingroup which predict right-wing populism, such as collective
psychological ownership (i.e., the national ingroup as ‗belonging‘ to a certain set of group
members; Selvanathan et al., 2021), and antagonistic forms of collective nostalgia (e.g., a
past time when the ingroup allowed the verbal hurting of others; Lammers & Baldwin, 2020)
The findings from studies 2 and (partially from) 3 corroborate the view that collective
narcissism underpins a unique feature of right-wing populism as it predicts support for the
populist message over and above (or more consistently than) right-wing authoritarianism and
social dominance orientation. In the dual process account of ideology (Duckitt, 2001), right-
wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation distinguish different motivational
underpinnings of right-wing political orientation: respectively, ingroup security (from
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 28
viewing the world as a dangerous place) and realistic competition (from viewing the world as
competitive jungle). Importantly, this model shows how distinct sets of motivational goals
can are associated with different (though related, e.g., as prejudicial attitudes) political
outcomes (Duckitt & Sibley, 2010). Accordingly, national collective narcissism expresses a
motivation to regain national ingroup significance (from the worldview of the group as
constantly disrespected by others) with implications for right-wing populist ideology, namely
that collective narcissism is most strongly responsive to a populist framing of the group. The
findings extend research where authoritarians and social dominators more strongly endorse
candidates that frame issues (e.g., abortion) in ways consistent with their beliefs (for instance,
as a threat to religious values or to men‘s group status, Crawford et al., 2013). This taps the
notion of ‗elective affinities‘ or relative strength of association between particular
motivations and political ideas (and their representatives) (Jost et al., 2009). Specifically,
results from study 3 that self-rated conservatism and social dominance orientation favour the
nationalist leader, while right-wing authoritarianism and collective narcissism favour the
populist, suggest that populism is more ingroup-oriented (e.g., tight, conservative group
boundaries) compared to nationalism‘s intergroup-orientation (e.g., competitive,
expansionary) (see Osborne et al., 2017). Furthermore, collective narcissism, though ingroup-
oriented, may explain why right-wing populists become mobilised ostensibly as ‗anti-
establishment‘ and against the mainstream of the group (Mondon & Winter, 2020). This
form of collective action is stimulated by reactionism or ―resentful affectivity with the
forceful desire to return to the past‖ (Capelos & Katsanidou, 2018, p. 1272). Indeed,
collective narcissists are constantly resentful over their negative belief about how others view
the group, and show negative emotional profiles (Golec de Zavala, 2019). This is unlike
authoritarianism which can promote or buffer wellbeing through just-world beliefs (Napier et
al., 2020). We would expect collective narcissism to be associated with negative group-based
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 29
emotions which predict right-wing populism (see e.g., Marchlewska et al., 2018), such as
group relative deprivation (Sengupta et al., 2019) and ‗anomie‘ (i.e., pessimism about
society; Sprong et al., 2019).
Another approach involves a shift in perspective of collective narcissism as specific to
individual differences in motivation, to being more broadly situated in social processes
(Reynolds et al., 2010). Collective narcissism indicates a certain subjectively held social
identity (i.e., concerning its unrecognised greatness), which can be shared across the societal
context (Elcheroth et al., 2011). Social identities vary in content, for instance, in the
interpretation of the group‘s history and defining qualities (Ashmore et al., 2004; Pehrson et
al., 2009), emotions (Smith & Mackie, 2015), values and traits (Pagliaro et al., 2011; Turner-
Zwinkels et al., 2015). It is expected that collective narcissism would be associated with
social identity content that serves to legitimise group inequality, for example, a religious
content which motivates sexism against women perceived to destabilize the group (Golec de
Zavala & Bierwiaczonek, 2021).
Particularly, collective narcissism‘s emphasis on the ingroup‘s lack of recognition
might serve as a common rubric for experiences of loss of entitlement (e.g., from the
expansion of rights for minority groups; Golec de Zavala & Keenan, 2020) and facilitate the
alignment of subgroup identities (i.e., social sorting; Mason & Wronski, 2018) within a
simplified, highly exclusive national identity. Identity alignment is used by identity
entrepreneurs who broaden their appeal by increasing perceptions of group coherence and
hierarchical stability (Hogg & Gøtzsche-Astrup, 2021), where populist leaders coordinate and
represent particular subgroup norms as part of the national identity (McCoy et al., 2018). For
example, Republican identity alignment with the religious right-wing by negotiation of ‗pro-
life‘ as a value and policy (Williams, 2011) or the simplification of class identity to the more
exclusive ‗white working class‘ (i.e., denoting racial privilege; Mondon & Winter, 2019).
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 30
This would appeal to collective narcissists, for instance, U.S. collective narcissists are likely
agree that historically dominant groups are most ingroup prototypical (and so most deserving;
see Golec de Zavala et al., 2019). The sharing of the narcissistic view of the group fosters
perceived loss of entitlements at the collective group level—what is deserved (but unmet) as
the ‗true‘ national group members—construed as lack of proper recognition for the national
ingroup, which can then be further mobilised with the populist message of renewed ingroup
recognition. This has its real ‗world-making‘ consequences through collective action and
political support (Elcheroth et al., 2011).
Limitations and future directions
Although the present results allow for important insights into the specific ideological
predictors of the Capitol attacks and into the role of national collective narcissism in inspiring
support for populist leader to the point of acceptance of undemocratic procedures, the
presented results are correlational. As such they do not allow for any firm statements
regarding the directionality of the relationship between collective narcissism and support for
populist leaders and their undemocratic means.
Study 3 provides an indication of the relative impact of leaders‘ messaging across
variables that have shown to motivate voting preferences, which was central to our
hypothesis. However, the design used only allowed us to assess these messages
comparatively, and allows for relatively uniform preferences across the leadership messages.
Furthermore, assessing the differences between predictors was exploratory; comparisons
between collective narcissism, right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation
should be replicated and extended by future studies. Future research could also use a
categorical outcome measure (i.e., a ballot box) to distinguish for the different preferences.
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 31
Our data do not allow for any insight into the ‗chicken-and-egg‘ problem involved in
the identity leadership dynamic (e.g., social identities considered both as cognitive
representations as well as social communication and practice; Elcheroth et al., 2011), with
leaders both ‗reading‘ the motivations involved in different social identities and ‗shaping‘ the
content of those identities (Mols & Jetten, 2020). The performative opportunities for social
identity enactment have been put forward to resolve this problem, for example, at Trump
rallies where the conception of the group is played out and shared (e.g., through violence to
protestors, mocking the media), which can then be expressed at the national level (Reicher et
al., 2018). With this in mind, collective narcissism research would profit from longitudinal
studies conducted during populists‘ election campaigns (e.g., France‘s upcoming election). It
is expected that as populists foster threat to collective significance, collective narcissism
would increase alongside aggression towards minorities and support for the populist party.
This follows from research that shows collective narcissism increases following social
identity threat to ingroup distinctiveness (Guerra et al., 2020).
Lastly, further research is needed on the social conditions which increase collective
narcissism. Research into the antecedents of populism indicate that it is more strongly
endorsed by higher status groups who are threatened by a ‗fear of falling‘ i.e., by a loss of
privilege through status instability, such as increases in economic inequality (Jay et al., 2019;
Jetten, 2019). If this is the case, we would expect collective narcissism to increase under
these conditions. This effect might be moderated by individual narcissism (a predictor of
collective narcissism), with its emphasis on self-enhancement and competitive social
comparisons (Campbell et al., 2000).
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COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 45
Oliver Keenan is a doctoral student at the Department of Psychology at Goldsmiths,
University of London, conducting research at Prejudice Lab.
Agnieszka Golec de Zavala is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Psychology at
Goldsmiths. She is lead investigator at Prejudice Lab, http://collectivenarcissism.com/.
