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Agentic collective narcissism and communal collective narcissism: Do they predict COVID-19 pandemic-related beliefs and behaviors?
Abstract
In a multinational study (61 countries; N =15,039), we examined how collective narcissists, both agentic (ACN) and communal (CCN), reacted cognitively (through endorsement of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs) and behaviorally (via prevention, hoarding, and prosociality) to the pandemic. Higher ACN and CCN predicted greater endorsement of COVID-19 unfounded beliefs and higher likelihood of having recently engaged in pandemic-related prevention, hoarding, and prosociality. The predictive effects of ACN and CCN were inde
pendent, suggesting construct separability. Fear positively predicted endorsement of unfounded beliefs and behaviors, but the slope of that relation was flattened when ACN and CCN were particularly high. Finally, the relation between ACN or CCN and outcomes changed across countries varying in collective fear.
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Unfounded—conspiracy and health— beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = .98, RMSEA = .05, SRMR = .04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = .57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total N = 13,579), as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = .96, RMSEA= .06, SRMS = .07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = .98, RMSEA= .04, SRMS = .03) and educational levels (CFI = .98, RMSEA= .04, SRMS = .03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates.
Keywords: Unfounded beliefs; COVID-19; Conspiracy beliefs; Health beliefs; Cross-cultural
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been a source of fear around the world. We asked whether the measurement of this fear is trustworthy and comparable across countries. In particular, we explored the measurement invariance and cross-cultural replicability of the widely used Fear of COVID-19 scale (FCV-19S), testing community samples from 48 countries (N = 14,558). The findings indicate that the FCV-19S has a somewhat problematic structure, yet the one-factor solution is replicable across cultural contexts and could be used in studies that compare people who vary on gender and educational level. The validity of the scale is supported by a consistent pattern of positive correlations with perceived stress and general anxiety. However, given the unclear structure of the FCV-19S, we recommend using latent factor scores, instead of raw scores, especially in cross-cultural comparisons.
What are the psychological consequences of the increasingly politicized nature of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States relative to similar Western countries? In a two-wave study completed early (March) and later (December) in the pandemic, we found that polarization was greater in the United States ( N = 1,339) than in Canada ( N = 644) and the United Kingdom. ( N = 1,283). Political conservatism in the United States was strongly associated with engaging in weaker mitigation behaviors, lower COVID-19 risk perceptions, greater misperceptions, and stronger vaccination hesitancy. Although there was some evidence that cognitive sophistication was associated with increased polarization in the United States in December (but not March), cognitive sophistication was nonetheless consistently negatively correlated with misperceptions and vaccination hesitancy across time, countries, and party lines. Furthermore, COVID-19 skepticism in the United States was strongly correlated with distrust in liberal-leaning mainstream news outlets and trust in conservative-leaning news outlets, suggesting that polarization may be driven by differences in information environments.
Objectives: We aimed to introduce, validate, and showcase the utility of a new construct: communal collective narcissism.
Method: We conducted four studies, in which we developed a new scale for communal collective narcissism (Study 1, N = 856), tested the construct’s unique predictions (Study 2, N = 276), examined its social relevance (Study 3, N = 250), and assessed its implications for intergroup outcomes (Study 4, N = 664).
Results. In Study 1, we verified the structural soundness of the Communal Collective Narcissism Inventory. In Study 2, we obtained evidence for a defining feature of communal collective narcissism, namely that it predicts communal, but not agentic, ingroup-enhancement. In Study 3, we illustrated the social relevance of communal collective narcissism. Communal collective narcissists derogated outgroup members, if those outgroups threatened the ingroup and the threat targeted the ingroup’s communion. Finally, in Study 4, we showed that communal collective narcissism predicts intergroup outcomes in the communal domain (e.g., humanitarian aid) better than agentic collective narcissism does, whereas agentic collective narcissism predicts intergroup outcomes in the agentic domain (i.e., preferences for military aggression) better than communal collective narcissism does.
Conclusions: The construct of communal collective narcissism is conceptually and empirically distinct from classic (i.e., agentic) collective narcissism.
Stockpiling during a crisis is usually seen as a response to experienced fear or as a form of social behavior. This study aimed to explore the effects of personality traits linked to antisociality (selfishness) and prosociality (prosocial tendencies) and the context-related state factor (fear related to the pandemic) on stockpiling during the COVID-19 pandemic. The final sample included 545 participants (77.6% females) from Serbia. During the proclaimed emergency state and curfew in March and April 2020, data were collected on three aspects of selfishness (adaptive, egocentric, and pathological), six types of prosocial tendencies (altruism, dire, compliant, emotional, public, and anonymous), and the state of fear related to the pandemic. First, the results showed that gender, age, and educational level were not related to stockpiling, while household size positively correlated with stockpiling. Second, the results showed that adaptive and pathological selfishness as well as the public prosocial tendency showed low positive correlations with stockpiling, while altruism showed a low negative correlation. The obtained correlations held even when household size was controlled for. However, in the regression analysis, only adaptive selfishness showed a small but significant effect on stockpiling, over and above household size. In sum, the results showed that fear related to the pandemic was not associated with stockpiling, indicating that stockpiling could be seen as a form of selfish behavior.
The present study explored the antecedents of solidarity amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Given that solidarity during mass emergencies involves the development of a social identity encompassing those facing a common fate, we examined how national in-group satisfaction (IS, a belief that the national in-group and one’s membership in it are of high value) versus national collective narcissism (CN, a belief that the national in-group is exceptional and entitled to privileged treatment but not sufficiently recognized by others) predicted solidarity with those affected by the pandemic in Poland. The results of cross-sectional and dynamic analyses from a panel study on a representative sample of Polish adults indicate that IS predicted greater COVID-19 solidarity, whereas CN predicted reduced COVID-19 solidarity.
distinction refers to ingroup enhancement based on perceived exceptional agency (e.g., bragging about the group’s competence, ability, and ambition) or based on perceived exceptional communion (e.g., bragging about the ingroup’s helpfulness, compassion, and morality). We consider the relevance of the agency-communion model of individual narcissism for the group level. In particular, we discuss the theoretical and empirical consequences of splitting the collective narcissism into agentic and communal as well as the psychometric properties of two scales: the Collective Narcissism Scale (purported to assess agentic collective narcissism) and the Communal Collective Narcissism Inventory (purported to assess communal collective narcissism). Further, we present evidences for the scales’ reliability, validity, as well as cross-cultural and cross-group replicability. We conclude that the Collective Narcissism Scale measures predominantly agentic ingroup enhancement, whereas the Communal Collective Narcissism Inventory measures predominantly communal ingroup enhancement.
Keywords: collective narcissism; agency; communion; Collective Narcissism Scale; Communal Collective Narcissism Inventory
COVID-19 threatens lives, livelihoods, and civic institutions. Although restrictive public health behaviors such as social distancing help manage its impact, these behaviors can further sever our connections to people and institutions that affirm our identities. Three studies ( N = 1,195) validated a brief 10-item COVID-19 Threat Scale that assesses (1) realistic threats to physical or financial safety and (2) symbolic threats to one’s sociocultural identity. Studies reveal that both realistic and symbolic threats predict higher distress and lower well-being and demonstrate convergent validity with other measures of threat sensitivity. Importantly, the two kinds of threats diverge in their relationship to restrictive public health behaviors: Realistic threat predicted greater self-reported adherence, whereas symbolic threat predicted less self-reported adherence to social disconnection behaviors. Symbolic threat also predicted using creative ways to affirm identity even in isolation. Our findings highlight how social psychological theory can be leveraged to understand and predict people’s behavior in pandemics.
During the coronavirus disease pandemic rising in 2020, governments and nongovernmental organizations across the globe have taken great efforts to curb the infection rate by promoting or legally prescribing behavior that can reduce the spread of the virus. At the same time, this pandemic has given rise to speculations and conspiracy theories. Conspiracy worldviews have been connected to refusal to trust science, the biomedical model of disease, and legal means of political engagement in previous research. In three studies from the United States ( N = 220; N = 288) and the UK ( N = 298), we went beyond this focus on a general conspiracy worldview and tested the idea that different forms of conspiracy beliefs despite being positively correlated have distinct behavioral implications. Whereas conspiracy beliefs describing the pandemic as a hoax were more strongly associated with reduced containment-related behavior, conspiracy beliefs about sinister forces purposefully creating the virus related to an increase in self-centered prepping behavior.
Background
The emergence of the COVID-19 and its consequences has led to fears, worries, and anxiety among individuals worldwide. The present study developed the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) to complement the clinical efforts in preventing the spread and treating of COVID-19 cases.Methods
The sample comprised 717 Iranian participants. The items of the FCV-19S were constructed based on extensive review of existing scales on fears, expert evaluations, and participant interviews. Several psychometric tests were conducted to ascertain its reliability and validity properties.ResultsAfter panel review and corrected item-total correlation testing, seven items with acceptable corrected item-total correlation (0.47 to 0.56) were retained and further confirmed by significant and strong factor loadings (0.66 to 0.74). Also, other properties evaluated using both classical test theory and Rasch model were satisfactory on the seven-item scale. More specifically, reliability values such as internal consistency (α = .82) and test–retest reliability (ICC = .72) were acceptable. Concurrent validity was supported by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (with depression, r = 0.425 and anxiety, r = 0.511) and the Perceived Vulnerability to Disease Scale (with perceived infectability, r = 0.483 and germ aversion, r = 0.459).Conclusion
The Fear of COVID-19 Scale, a seven-item scale, has robust psychometric properties. It is reliable and valid in assessing fear of COVID-19 among the general population and will also be useful in allaying COVID-19 fears among individuals.
Collective narcissism is a belief that one’s own group (the in-group) is exceptional but not sufficiently recognized by others. It is the form of ‘in-group love’ associated with ‘out-group hate’. In contrast to private collective self-esteem (a belief that the in-group is of high value), it consistently predicts prejudice, retaliatory intergroup aggression, and rejoicing in suffering of others. The pervasive association between collective narcissism and intergroup hostility is driven by a biased perception of intergroup situations that serves to protect undermined self-worth and frustrated personal entitlement invested in the in-group’s image. Collective narcissism is associated with hypersensitivity to provocation and the belief that only hostile revenge is a desirable and rewarding response. It arises when the traditional group-based hierarchies are challenged and empowers extremists as well as populist politicians. Instead of alleviating, it re-fuels a sense of threatened self-importance. The association between collective narcissism and intergroup hostility is weakened by experiences fortifying emotional resilience (e.g., positive identification with a community).
According to social identity theory, low self-esteem motivates group members to derogate out-groups, thus achieving positive in-group distinctiveness and boosting self-esteem. According to the Frankfurt School and status politics theorists, low self-esteem motivates collective narcissism (i.e., resentment for insufficient external recognition of the in-group’s importance), which predicts out-group derogation. Empirical support for these propositions has been weak. We revisit them addressing whether (1) low self-esteem predicts out-group derogation via collective narcissism, and (2) this indirect relationship is only observed after partialling out the positive overlap between collective narcissism and in-group satisfaction (i.e., belief that the in-group is of high value and a reason to be proud). Results based on cross-sectional (Study 1, N = 427) and longitudinal (Study 2, N = 853) designs indicated that self-esteem is uniquely, negatively linked to collective narcissism and uniquely, positively linked to in-group satisfaction. Results based on cross-sectional (Study 3, N = 506; Study 4, N = 1059; Study 5, N = 471), longitudinal (Study 6, N = 410), and experimental (Study 7, N = 253) designs corroborated these inferences. Further, they revealed that the positive overlap between collective narcissism and in-group satisfaction obscures the link between self-esteem and out-group derogation.
This review provides a new integration of recent research that has formed the basis of a social identity explanation of supportive collective behaviour among survivors in emergencies and disasters. I describe a model in which a sense of common fate is the source of an emergent shared social identity among survivors, which in turn provides the motivation to give social support to others affected. In addition, by drawing on the concept of relational transformation in psychological crowds, I show how an emergent shared social identity can engender a range of further behavioural and cognitive consequences that contribute to collective self-organisation in emergencies, including expected support, coordination of behaviour, and collective efficacy. It will be argued that the model can been applied to explaining how potentially dangerous crowd events avoid disaster: shared social identity operates as the basis of spontaneous self-organisation in these cases, as in many emergencies and disasters.
Using data from a longitudinal study of American adults collected between July and November 2016, we examine the hypothesis that American collective narcissism would uniquely predict increases in conspiracy thinking during the 2016 presidential campaign. Going beyond previous findings, our results indicate that collective narcissism (but not in‐group identification) predicted growth in general conspiracy thinking—i.e., a tendency to view political events in terms of group‐based conspiracies—over the course of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. This relationship is found even after accounting for other predictors such as demographics, political knowledge, social trust, authoritarianism, and need for cognitive closure.
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In this editorial, the author notes that this issue of American Psychologist features a pair of important articles related to newly updated standards for reporting research in psychology in scientific journals, covering both quantitative (Appelbaum et al., 2018) and qualitative (Levitt et al., 2018) research. The increasing breadth and complexity of research, and the importance of communicating it effectively, requires user-friendly resources that can be applied widely to scientific studies. These two articles are intended to serve that purpose, and to encourage thoroughness and accuracy in research reporting, for psychologists and other scientists in broader academic communities. The articles, known as the Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) reports, are based on the work of a task force appointed by the American Psychological Association (APA) Publications and Communications Board in 2015.
Grandiose narcissists' global self-evaluations are characterized by exceptional self-importance, entitlement, and social power. But what are the specific content domains in which grandiose narcissists evaluate themselves so highly that they can subjectively justify their narcissistic self-evaluations at the global level? The classic view is that grandiose narcissists base their global self-evaluations on excessive self-enhancement in the agentic domain (e.g., extremely inflated self-views concerning intelligence, creativity, and scholastic aptitude), but not on excessive selfenhancement in the communal domain (e.g., no extremely inflated self-views concerning morality, prosociality, and interpersonal aptitude). We maintain that this classic view only captures one form of grandiose narcissism- agentic narcissism-at the expense of a complementary form: communal narcissism. Like agentic (i.e., classic) narcissists, communal narcissists hold global self-evaluations of exceptional self-importance, entitlement, and social power. Unlike agentic narcissists, however, communal narcissists base those global self-evaluations on excessive self-enhancement in the communal domain, not on excessive self-enhancement in the agentic domain. We review the theoretical and empirical support for communal narcissism's existence. We conclude that communal narcissism is real and that a full understanding of grandiose narcissism necessitates attention to both classic/ agentic and communal narcissism. © Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018.
Across three studies, we examined the relationship between narcissism, prosocial behaviors, and the reasons why people engaged in them. Specifically, we examined how narcissistic people engaged in charitable donations, taking advantage of a naturally occurring mass charitable donation campaign, the ALS “ice bucket challenge” (Study 1). We also examined how narcissism was related to volunteering and other types of prosocial behaviors (Studies 2 and 3). Moreover, we compared and contrasted the prosocial responses of more empathic versus more narcissistic people (Studies 2 and 3). This paper can help scholars and practitioners to determine under which circumstances, and for which reasons, narcissistic people may exhibit prosocial behaviors.
In the field of international educational surveys, equivalence of achievement scale scores across countries has received substantial attention in the academic literature; however, only a relatively recent emphasis on scale score equivalence in nonachievement education surveys has emerged. Given the current state of research in multiple-group models, findings regarding these recent measurement invariance investigations were supported with research that was limited in scope to few groups and relatively small sample sizes. To that end, this study uses data from one large-scale survey as a basis for examining the extent to which typical fit measures used in multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis are suitable for detecting measurement invariance in a large-scale survey context. Using measures validated in a smaller scale context and an empirically grounded simulation study, our findings indicate that many typical measures and associated criteria are either unsuitable in a large group and varied sample-size context or should be adjusted, particularly when the number of groups is large. We provide specific recommendations and discuss further areas for research.
The question of equivalence between two or more groups is frequently of interest to many applied
researchers. Equivalence testing is a statistical method designed to provide evidence that groups are
comparable by demonstrating that the mean differences found between groups are small enough that they are
considered practically unimportant. Few recommendations exist regarding the appropriate use of these tests
under varying data conditions. A simulation study was conducted to examine the power and Type I error
rates of the confidence interval approach to equivalence testing under conditions of equal and non-equal
sample sizes and variability when comparing two and three groups. It was found that equivalence testing
performs best when sample sizes are equal. The overall power of the test is strongly influenced by the size of
the sample, the amount of variability in the sample, and the size of the difference in the population.
Guidelines are provided regarding the use of equivalence tests when analyzing non-optimal data.
Maximum likelihood or restricted maximum likelihood (REML) estimates of the
parameters in linear mixed-effects models can be determined using the lmer
function in the lme4 package for R. As for most model-fitting functions in R,
the model is described in an lmer call by a formula, in this case including
both fixed- and random-effects terms. The formula and data together determine a
numerical representation of the model from which the profiled deviance or the
profiled REML criterion can be evaluated as a function of some of the model
parameters. The appropriate criterion is optimized, using one of the
constrained optimization functions in R, to provide the parameter estimates. We
describe the structure of the model, the steps in evaluating the profiled
deviance or REML criterion, and the structure of classes or types that
represents such a model. Sufficient detail is included to allow specialization
of these structures by users who wish to write functions to fit specialized
linear mixed models, such as models incorporating pedigrees or smoothing
splines, that are not easily expressible in the formula language used by lmer.
Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a vast field and widely used by many applied researchers in the social and behavioral sciences. Over the years, many software pack-ages for structural equation modeling have been developed, both free and commercial. However, perhaps the best state-of-the-art software packages in this field are still closed-source and/or commercial. The R package lavaan has been developed to provide applied researchers, teachers, and statisticians, a free, fully open-source, but commercial-quality package for latent variable modeling. This paper explains the aims behind the develop-ment of the package, gives an overview of its most important features, and provides some examples to illustrate how lavaan works in practice.
An agency-communion model of narcissism distinguishes between agentic narcissists (individuals satisfying self-motives of grandiosity, esteem, entitlement, and power in agentic domains) and communal narcissists (individuals satisfying the same self-motives in communal domains). Five studies supported the model. In Study 1, participants listed their grandiose self-thoughts. Two distinct types emerged: agentic ("I am the most intelligent person") and communal ("I am the most helpful person"). In Study 2, we relied on the listed communal grandiose self-thoughts to construct the Communal Narcissism Inventory. It was psychometrically sound, stable over time, and largely independent of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory-the standard measure of agentic narcissism. In Studies 3 and 4, agentic and communal narcissists shared the same self-motives, while crucially differing in their means for need satisfaction: Agentic narcissists capitalized on agentic means, communal narcissists on communal means. Study 5 revisited the puzzle of low self-other agreement regarding communal traits and behaviors. Attesting to the broader significance of our model, this low self-other agreement was partly due to communal narcissists: They saw themselves as high, but were seen by others as low, in communion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
Do narcissists have insight into the negative aspects of their personality and reputation? Using both clinical and subclinical measures of narcissism, the authors examined others' perceptions, self-perceptions, and meta-perceptions of narcissists across a wide range of traits for a new acquaintance and close other (Study 1), longitudinally with a group of new acquaintances (Study 2), and among coworkers (Study 3). Results bring 3 surprising conclusions about narcissists: (a) they understand that others see them less positively than they see themselves (i.e., their meta-perceptions are less biased than are their self-perceptions), (b) they have some insight into the fact that they make positive first impressions that deteriorate over time, and (c) they have insight into their narcissistic personality (e.g., they describe themselves as arrogant). These findings shed light on some of the psychological mechanisms underlying narcissism.
This article introduces the concept of collective narcissism--an emotional investment in an unrealistic belief about the in group's greatness--aiming to explain how feelings about an ingroup shape a tendency to aggress against outgroups. The results of 5 studies indicate that collective, but not individual, narcissism predicts intergroup aggressiveness. Collective narcissism is related to high private and low public collective self-esteem and low implicit group esteem. It predicts perceived threat from outgroups, unwillingness to forgive outgroups, preference for military aggression over and above social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, and blind patriotism. The relationship between collective narcissism and aggressiveness is mediated by perceived threat from outgroups and perceived insult to the ingroup. In sum, the results indicate that collective narcissism is a form of high but ambivalent group esteem related to sensitivity to threats to the ingroup's image and retaliatory aggression.
We examined the internal and external validity of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI). Study 1 explored the internal structure of the NPI responses of 1,018 subjects. Using principal-components analysis, we analyzed the tetrachoric correlations among the NPI item responses and found evidence for a general construct of narcissism as well as seven first-order components, identified as Authority, Exhibitionism, Superiority, Vanity, Exploitativeness, Entitlement, and Self-Sufficiency. Study 2 explored the NPI's construct validity with respect to a variety of indexes derived from observational and self-report data in a sample of 57 subjects. Study 3 investigated the NPI's construct validity with respect to 128 subject's self and ideal self-descriptions, and their congruency, on the Leary Interpersonal Check List. The results from Studies 2 and 3 tend to support the construct validity of the full-scale NPI and its component scales.
Lack of a suitable measuring device hampered the empirical study of narcissism until Raskin and Hall (1979) developed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI). The NPI possesses desirable psychometric properties, and in this article I used the scale in a variety of studies. Factor analysis of the scale replicated the four-factor solution found by Emmons (1984): Leadership/Authority, Self-Absorption/Self-Admiration, Superiority/Arrogance, and Exploitiveness/Entitlement. The Exploitiveness/Entitlement subscale was found to correlate with measures of pathological narcissism and affective intensity and variability. The relevance of Linville's (1982) theory of self-complexity-affect intensity for understanding aspects of narcissism is outlined. Implications of the study of narcissism for attribution theory and research are discussed.
Five studies established that normal narcissism is correlated with good psychological health. Specifically, narcissism is (a) inversely related to daily sadness and dispositional depression, (b) inversely related to daily and dispositional loneliness, (c) positively related to daily and dispositional subjective well-being as well as couple well-being, (d) inversely related to daily anxiety, and (e) inversely related to dispositional neuroticism. More important, self-esteem fully accounted for the relation between narcissism and psychological health. Thus, narcissism is beneficial for psychological health only insofar as it is associated with high self-esteem. Explanations of the main and mediational findings in terms of response or social desirability biases (e.g., defensiveness, repression, impression management) were ruled out. Supplementary analysis showed that the links among narcissism, self-esteem, and psychological health were preponderantly linear.
Narcissism—a conviction about one’s superiority and entitlement to special treatment—is a robust predictor of belief in conspiracy theories. Recent developments in the study of narcissism suggest that it has three components: antagonism, agentic extraversion, and neuroticism. We argue that each of these components of narcissism might predispose people to endorse conspiracy theories due to different psychological processes. Specifically, we discuss the role of paranoia, gullibility, and the needs for dominance, control, and uniqueness. We also review parallel findings for narcissistic beliefs about one’s social groups. We consider the wider implications this research might have, especially for political leadership. We conclude by discussing outstanding questions about sharing conspiracy theories and other forms of misinformation.
Conspiracy theories related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have propagated around the globe, leading the World Health Organization to declare the spread of misinformation an “Infodemic.” We tested the hypothesis that national narcissism—a belief in the greatness of one’s nation that requires external recognition—is associated with the spread of conspiracy theories during the COVID-19 pandemic. In two large-scale national surveys ( N Total = 950) conducted in the United States and the United Kingdom, and secondary analysis of data from 56 countries ( N = 50,757), we found a robust, positive relationship between national narcissism and proneness to believe and disseminate conspiracy theories related to COVID-19. Furthermore, belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories was related to less engagement in health behaviors and less support for public-health policies to combat COVID-19. Our findings illustrate the importance of social identity factors in the spread of conspiracy theories and provide insights into the psychological processes underlying the COVID-19 pandemic.
Collective narcissists are hostile towards outgroup members, especially in response to threats against one's group. In the current study (N = 662; community sample of Poles), we examined the associations between collective narcissism and intergroup relations referring to the agency-communion model of collective narcissism during the initial weeks of the COVID-19 threat in Poland. Assuming the COVID-19 threat is agentic (i.e., related to biological and economic danger towards oneself), we expected it would be unrelated to the communal aspect of collective narcissism. We also expected the way collective narcissists would enhance their ingroup image would be to modify the effects of the COVID-19 threat on intergroup relations. In general, collective narcissism was related to less favorable attitudes toward the European Union, more favorable attitudes toward China, and a willingness to help Italians. In addition, the agentic aspect of narcissism was unrelated to intergroup prosocialness, while the communal aspect of narcissism was unrelated to attitudes toward the European Union. The COVID threat suppressed unfavorable attitudes towards the European Union among collective narcissists. Therefore, the COVID threat has limited, yet unexpected effects on attitudes toward outgroups among collective narcissists.
Narcissism is a polyhedric construct. It assumes different forms: grandiose versus vulnerable, agentic versus communal, admirative versus rivalrous, collective versus individual. These predict unique outcomes, but can be integrated under structural models that contribute predictive power or process models that contribute explanatory power.
The narcissistic nucleus may be unstable, especially for some forms (vulnerable, collective).
Parental overvaluation may predict grandiose narcissism, although the role of parental inconsistency in predicting other forms of narcissism (e.g., vulnerable) is worth investigating.
Narcissism may entail some intrapersonal benefits for narcissists (especially grandiose ones), such as psychological health, serving as a buffer against adversity, and motivating better performance.
Given that narcissism entails interpersonal and social costs, laboratory techniques have addressed ways to curtail it, although long-term and behaviour-oriented interventions are needed.
In a nationally representative sample from Poland (N = 755), we examined the relationships between the Dark Triad traits (i.e., psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism) and collective narcissism (i.e., agentic and communal) on the one hand, and behaviors related to the COVID-19 pandemic at (1) the zero-order level, at (2) the latent variance level, and (3) indirectly through health beliefs about the virus (i.e., the health belief model) on the other. We focused on preventive and hoarding behaviors as common reactions toward the pandemic. Participants characterized by the Dark Triad traits engaged less in prevention and more in hoarding, whereas those characterized by collective narcissism engaged in more hoarding only. Coronavirus-related health beliefs mediated patterns of prevention (fully) and hoarding (partially) in the latent Dark Triad (Dark Core) and collective narcissism. However, specific beliefs worked in opposite directions, resulting in a weak indirect effect for prevention and a null indirect effect for hoarding. The results point to the utility of health beliefs in predicting behaviors during the pandemic, explaining (at least in part) problematic behaviors associated with the dark personalities (i.e., Dark Triad, collective narcissism).
The outbreak of novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), later named as a pandemic affecting nearly 210 countries and territories has led to negative emotions of fear and agony in the general population and healthcare staff professionals. The healthcare regulators and the governments have imposed emergencies and lockdowns in their countries which has led to an adverse effect on the mental health of people ultimately leading to a rise in anxiety, depression, and associated mental illness. The fear and uncertainty increased by the COVID-19 crisis are putting extreme pressure on our finite resources. This report aims to synthesis the dilemma of mental illness as a result of pandemic and initiates suggestions to help the general public, healthcare professionals, and workers mitigate the negative emotions to improve the mental wellbeing in this detached period of isolation.
We examined the associations between the need for personal control, different types of ingroup commitment, and group‐related outcomes: (1) defensive responses to ingroup criticism, (2) ingroup disloyalty, and (3) outgroup attitudes. We assumed that collective narcissism (i.e., a belief in ingroup’s greatness which is contingent on external validation and stems from frustrated individual needs) should be concerned with defending the ingroup image and derogating outgroups, but not necessarily with being loyal to the ingroup. Secure ingroup identification (i.e., a confidently held ingroup evaluation, which stems from satisfied needs), in contrast, should predict greater ingroup loyalty and positive outgroup attitudes. We expected these effects to be especially strong once we account for the overlap between collective narcissism and group‐level self‐investment – a key component of ingroup identification. In a nationally representative sample of Polish adults (n = 1,007), collective narcissism (net of group‐level self‐investment) mediated between low personal control and ingroup image defense, lower group loyalty, and less positive outgroup attitudes. Secure ingroup identification (group‐level self‐investment net of collective narcissism) mediated between high personal control and ingroup loyalty and positive outgroup attitudes. It was not associated with ingroup image defense. Implications for understanding the role of identification in inter‐ and intra‐group relations are discussed.
Recalling a memory often prompts an emotional response. Research examining the fading affect bias (FAB) indicates that the emotional response prompted by positive memories often tends to be stronger than the emotional response prompted by negative memories. This chapter presents an overview of research that has explored the FAB effect. This overview indicates that the FAB reflects two trends: (1) over time, the affect associated with positive memories tends to fade more slowly from event occurrence to event recall than the affect associated with negative memories, and (2) it is more often the case that events that were negative at their occurrence will ultimately come to prompt positive affect-at-recall than it is the case that events that were positive at their occurrence will come to prompt negative affect-at-recall. Research has also revealed that the FAB can be altered by event moderators, situational moderators, and individual-difference moderators. The chapter uses this research review to highlight several needed directions for future research, suggest some theoretical ideas that may underlie the FAB, and discuss some ways in which the FAB might be important to life in a social world.
Two aspects of translation were investigated: (1) factors that affect translation quality, and (2) how equivalence between source and target versions can be evaluated. The variables of language, content, and difficulty were studied through an analysis of variance design. Ninety-four bilinguals from the University of Guam, representing ten languages, translated or back-translated six essays incorporating three content areas and two levels of difficulty. The five criteria for equivalence were based on comparisons of meaning or predictions of similar responses to original or translated versions. The factors of content, difficulty, language and content-language interaction were significant, and the five equivalence criteria proved workable. Conclusions are that translation quality can be predicted, and that a functionally equivalent translation can be demonstrated when responses to the original and target versions are studied.
Survey and longitudinal studies in the social and behavioral sciences generally contain missing data. Mean and covariance structure models play an important role in analyzing such data. Two promising methods for dealing with missing data are a direct maximum-likelihood and a two-stage approach based on the unstructured mean and covariance estimates obtained by the EM-algorithm. Typical assumptions under these two methods are ignorable nonresponse and normality of data. However, data sets in social and behavioral sciences are seldom normal, and experience with these procedures indicates that normal theory based methods for nonnormal data very often lead to incorrect model evaluations. By dropping the normal distribution assumption, we develop more accurate procedures for model inference. Based on the theory of generalized estimating equations, a way to obtain consistent standard errors of the two-stage estimates is given. The asymptotic efficiencies of different estimators are compared under various assumptions. We also propose a minimum chi-square approach and show that the estimator obtained by this approach is asymptotically at least as efficient as the two likelihood-based estimators for either normal or nonnormal data. The major contribution of this paper is that for each estimator, we give a test statistic whose asymptotic distribution is chi-square as long as the underlying sampling distribution enjoys finite fourth-order moments. We also give a characterization for each of the two likelihood ratio test statistics when the underlying distribution is nonnormal. Modifications to the likelihood ratio statistics are also given. Our working assumption is that the missing data mechanism is missing completely at random. Examples and Monte Carlo studies indicate that, for commonly encountered nonnormal distributions, the procedures developed in this paper are quite reliable even for samples with missing data that are missing at random.
This article examines the adequacy of the “rules of thumb” conventional cutoff criteria and several new alternatives for various fit indexes used to evaluate model fit in practice. Using a 2‐index presentation strategy, which includes using the maximum likelihood (ML)‐based standardized root mean squared residual (SRMR) and supplementing it with either Tucker‐Lewis Index (TLI), Bollen's (1989) Fit Index (BL89), Relative Noncentrality Index (RNI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Gamma Hat, McDonald's Centrality Index (Mc), or root mean squared error of approximation (RMSEA), various combinations of cutoff values from selected ranges of cutoff criteria for the ML‐based SRMR and a given supplemental fit index were used to calculate rejection rates for various types of true‐population and misspecified models; that is, models with misspecified factor covariance(s) and models with misspecified factor loading(s). The results suggest that, for the ML method, a cutoff value close to .95 for TLI, BL89, CFI, RNI, and Gamma Hat; a cutoff value close to .90 for Mc; a cutoff value close to .08 for SRMR; and a cutoff value close to .06 for RMSEA are needed before we can conclude that there is a relatively good fit between the hypothesized model and the observed data. Furthermore, the 2‐index presentation strategy is required to reject reasonable proportions of various types of true‐population and misspecified models. Finally, using the proposed cutoff criteria, the ML‐based TLI, Mc, and RMSEA tend to overreject true‐population models at small sample size and thus are less preferable when sample size is small.
To determine the accuracy of self-reported health care utilization and absence reported on health risk assessments against administrative claims and human resource records.
Self-reported values of health care utilization and absenteeism were analyzed for concordance to administrative claims values. Percent agreement, Pearson's correlations, and multivariate logistic regression models examined the level of agreement and characteristics of participants with concordance.
Self-report and administrative data showed greater concordance for monthly compared with yearly health care utilization metrics. Percent agreement ranged from 30% to 99% with annual doctor visits having the lowest percent agreement. Younger people, males, those with higher education, and healthier individuals more accurately reported their health care utilization and absenteeism.
Self-reported health care utilization and absenteeism may be used as a proxy when medical claims and administrative data are unavailable, particularly for shorter recall periods.
Collective narcissism: How being narcissistic about your groups shapes politics, group processes and intergroup relations
- Eker
Hoarding in the age of COVID-19
- Baddeley