Christopher Federico, University of Minnesota

Date: 

Friday, September 25, 2020, 12:00pm

Location: 

Online via Zoom. Join the WoGPoP email list to receive the link.

Collective Narcissism as a Basis for Nationalism

Christopher M. Federico
Departments of Political Science and Psychology
University of Minnesota

Abstract: Recent work suggests that collective narcissism—an exaggerated, unrealistic belief in an in-group’s greatness that demands constant external validation—is a strong predictor of a variety of political attitudes. In the present study, we use nationally-representative panel data from Poland to examine the relationship between collective narcissism and nationalism. We first demonstrate that collective narcissism, nationalism and mere satisfaction with national ingroup are distinct. In turn, in both cross-sectional and panel analyses, we find that (1) that collective narcissism is positively related to nationalism, whereas satisfaction with the national-ingroup is not; and (2) that collective narcissism is a stronger predictor of nationalism than national-ingroup satisfaction is in absolute terms. Our analyses thus provide evidence that nationalism may be rooted in an inflated, insecure exaggeration of the greatness of the national in-group.