Speaker 1: It predicted what we thought you would so outlook derogation
Speaker 1: into your hostility, tendency to aggress towards especially when threatened,
Speaker 1: the tendency to develop conspiratorial conspiracy theories about the thread
Speaker 1: and enemies.
Speaker 2: In this episode of the Psychology Podcast, I have a
Speaker 2: very stimulating discussion with doctor Agneshka Julik de Zavala about
Speaker 2: collective narcissism. Agneshka defines collective narcissism as a belief that
Speaker 2: the exaggerated greatness of one's group is not sufficiently recognized
Speaker 2: by others. In this episode, we dive deep into the
Speaker 2: many implications of this way of thinking, from politics to
Speaker 2: fake news, to conspiracy theories to the rise of populism
Speaker 2: seen around the world. We also discuss some potential ways
Speaker 2: of reducing collective narcissism and bringing greater solidarity among all humans,
Speaker 2: regardless of which ones you perceive as in your quote
Speaker 2: in group. I find this line of research extremely important,
Speaker 2: as I wrote about in my Atlantic article what collective
Speaker 2: narcissism does to society. I think this is a really
Speaker 2: important episode with many societal implications. So that further ado
Speaker 2: I bring you Agneshka Julik de Zavala Agneshka, it's so
Speaker 2: great to have you on this psychology podcast.
Speaker 1: Hi Scott, Hello, it's very nice to be here.
Speaker 2: Finally, Yes, finally, but I have a longtime follower of
Speaker 2: your work and congratulations on your new book. How are
Speaker 2: you feeling about about the book?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been a while since it's been published. It
Speaker 1: was the end of last year, so you know, you know,
Speaker 1: the writing happened much earlier, so I was excited while
Speaker 1: I was doing it. Now it's there and it feels
Speaker 1: like okay, so now it's let's just see how it
Speaker 1: is received. I just really had that need to put
Speaker 1: it out there. I thought it was important to summarize
Speaker 1: that research because it's quite burgeoning right now. It's coming
Speaker 1: up a lot. It seems to be relevant to a
Speaker 1: lot of different aspects of societal problems that we are experiencing.
Speaker 1: So collective narcissism seems to be a phenomenon that can
Speaker 1: explain why people vote for autra conservative populist while people
Speaker 1: support policies that ultimately will hurt their descendants and the earth.
Speaker 1: While they support policies that hurt themselves or the group
Speaker 1: members to which they belong. So I think it's quite
Speaker 1: relevant and it's important to describe this phenomenon as we
Speaker 1: understand it.
Speaker 2: Quite wide ranging in its implications. Let's take a step
Speaker 2: back for a moment now, So you study something called
Speaker 2: collective narcissism. Can you explain a little bit to our audience?
Speaker 2: What is collective narcissism? How do you define it?
Speaker 1: Right? So this is the book. It explains what it is.
Speaker 1: So it's I'll do my best to explain in a
Speaker 1: couple of words, but you know, we can take an
Speaker 1: hour to try to explain it.
Speaker 2: How do you define it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I define it as a manifestation of narcissistic
Speaker 1: need on a collective level of self, which means, in
Speaker 1: other words, that it's the belief that the superiority and
Speaker 1: greatness of our group should be but it's not sufficiently
Speaker 1: recognized by others. So it's this entitlement and deserving of
Speaker 1: special recognition and privilege that is digest and the core
Speaker 1: of the concept.
Speaker 2: Got it? How did this interest come to be? What's
Speaker 2: the what was the sort of development of your interest
Speaker 2: in this topic?
Speaker 1: Ah? Right, So you know, let's start from the very beginning,
Speaker 1: when I was a little girl in a communist Poland.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what was it like when you grew up in
Speaker 2: communist pawn Yeah, I'm curious. Well yeah, well were you
Speaker 2: interested in psychology? Were you interested in people as a kid?
Speaker 1: Okay, scoot, this is a coming out. I'm never divergent.
Speaker 1: I'm interested in people intellectually. I suppose that's why I
Speaker 1: studied psychology. But it came from the need to understand
Speaker 1: because I had problems with relating to people. And I think,
Speaker 1: and I think, now it's actually fine. I understand it now.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just like the huge better than was
Speaker 1: taken of my back. I understood that, you know, but
Speaker 1: see that. But this is also it comes from trying
Speaker 1: to understand things that I just didn't understand why it
Speaker 1: was happening. So I suppose I was really bothered by
Speaker 1: public expressions of hate. You know, I was so growing
Speaker 1: up in communists ponland. What happens? Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: you would meet violence a lot, and as from the
Speaker 1: workers type of district, I suppose, you know, like something
Speaker 1: that you would call inner city. Now, so that was
Speaker 1: one thing, but I was much more scared on the violence,
Speaker 1: politicized violence. Violence on a large scale performed by groups
Speaker 1: and societies. So when you're growing up in the communist
Speaker 1: spoonand you are like about maybe eleven years old and
Speaker 1: you're taking to ouspitz and that scares you, scar scars
Speaker 1: you for life, you know. So I suppose that's that's
Speaker 1: what made me completely confused about people. And I wanted
Speaker 1: to understand why that things like that can be perpetrated
Speaker 1: by people. And you know, actually, this term collective narcissism
Speaker 1: first appeared in the literature in the writings of the
Speaker 1: Frankfurt School scholars Soda Dorna Riich from These were German
Speaker 1: scholars of Jewish origin who were studying why hit there
Speaker 1: was so popular that the rising popularity of Nazi Party
Speaker 1: in the twenties and thirties, they managed to immigrate, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of they understood what was going on, and then
Speaker 1: they continued in states. So I didn't know when I
Speaker 1: came up with this, Ah, narcissism can be collective. I
Speaker 1: didn't actually know that this term was already existed, because
Speaker 1: although it's in their writings, it's not. It didn't make
Speaker 1: it to psychology as much as author Italian personality, for example,
Speaker 1: or escape from Freedom did but so I had to
Speaker 1: have some parts trans translated from German. Actually when I
Speaker 1: when I found out that the term was actually used
Speaker 1: by by them, but then a lot of things that
Speaker 1: they said on that theoretical sort of level white group
Speaker 1: narcissism is such a dangerous phenomenon. Then I was able
Speaker 1: to research, you know, so I was able to actually
Speaker 1: find empirical evidence that it functions as they predicted that
Speaker 1: you will function.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's great. I mean, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: I love those those those thinkers.
Speaker 1: Well that answers your question.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, it does well to a certain extent.
Speaker 2: I know that there's obviously more of the story about
Speaker 2: I think you were at PEN or something and then
Speaker 2: you saw you're at some workshop, and isn't there some
Speaker 2: origin story here?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So the more immediate story is that so I
Speaker 1: was in University of Pennsylvania and I was back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, and it was a summer institute
Speaker 1: of a nationalistic conflict. It was a great initiative by
Speaker 1: scholars from Union of pen but also other local institutions
Speaker 1: I don't remember now, but I got great finding to
Speaker 1: bring people together. And these were interesting people because these
Speaker 1: were social scientists that were interested in complete but they
Speaker 1: were also client resolution practitioners, so you know, and people
Speaker 1: who experience conflicte and then try to understand it or
Speaker 1: try to be advocated. So we had a partisan from Beerma,
Speaker 1: for example, but we had also people who work with
Speaker 1: refugees from conflict. And I had this great colleague, David Gouldwin,
Speaker 1: who was at the time he worked with refugees as therapists,
Speaker 1: so he was a clinical psychologist, and we were putting
Speaker 1: a group together that was supposed to prepare a research project,
Speaker 1: him and several other people I don't remember now because
Speaker 1: we had this exchange. Now we're talking about nationalism and
Speaker 1: how this it is. One of the understanding, the psychological
Speaker 1: understanding is that it's this need to dominate other countries. No,
Speaker 1: and David says, yeah, that the need for superiority. It's
Speaker 1: just so narcissistic. And I'm like, okay, gone, and he
Speaker 1: gives me the definition of narcissism at the time as
Speaker 1: it was understood in psychology. Narcissism on individual level, right
Speaker 1: as the personality that's over theer at this complex of
Speaker 1: grandiosity that makes you completely delusional and makes you like
Speaker 1: a really difficult person to be with, even if like
Speaker 1: superficially quite charming in the beginning, then like really revenge full,
Speaker 1: like really hostile, dominant, dominating and controlling it inter personal relations. No,
Speaker 1: so he says, yeah, these are the people who just
Speaker 1: demand that others admired them all the time, they about
Speaker 1: their heads, give them the signs of admiration and so on.
Speaker 1: And I'm here as social psychologists by training, inspired to
Speaker 1: a large extent by the European social psychology you wear
Speaker 1: social identity theory. Of social identity theory perspective is quite prominent,
Speaker 1: and we know that self has levels, and it has
Speaker 1: a personal level, but it also has a social or
Speaker 1: collective level, right, so what do you think about yourself
Speaker 1: as a group member? Some thinking, okay, so maybe it's
Speaker 1: not individual narcissism that is important here driving intergroup processes,
Speaker 1: but rather collective narcissism. So what people think about their
Speaker 1: groups and how they in that context evaluate the groups.
Speaker 1: And then I started researching. Then I came up with
Speaker 1: ador collective narcissisms in German. Yes I had that translated.
Speaker 1: And yeah, we started thinking, okay, so why don't we
Speaker 1: just try to tap it? Why don't you. We try
Speaker 1: to measure it. So I asked David for measurement of
Speaker 1: and there's a sistic personality, and then I checked out
Speaker 1: whatever measurements were used at that time. Uh. And we
Speaker 1: did very simple things but very much backed up but
Speaker 1: very important science. So we translated the measurements of individual
Speaker 1: narcissism into the collective level by simply substituted I with
Speaker 1: my group.
Speaker 2: So clever, so clever, and yeah, and if any found it,
Speaker 2: it held psychometrically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, I mean, I say, is it is?
Speaker 1: It was done that way, but yes, of course I'm
Speaker 1: minimizing that. You know, I'm self deprecating here, but I
Speaker 1: know I don't want to duprecate my colleagues. So there
Speaker 1: was a lot of work that went into it because
Speaker 1: there were lots of us. So we discussed that concept.
Speaker 1: So we did all of the validation work, the face
Speaker 1: validity of it. So we gave people the understanding of
Speaker 1: the cont construct, then the items they were supposed to
Speaker 1: tell us whether this in eyes of experts in psychology
Speaker 1: political science can't feel the resolution whever, that seems like
Speaker 1: the construct that we were trying to measure. And then
Speaker 1: we did the psychometric work on it. So we used
Speaker 1: the scale in large groups of people, shorten it and
Speaker 1: validated in it in a sort of using the empirical approach,
Speaker 1: so showing that it correlates with with what it should
Speaker 1: correlate from theory positively, negatively, that it allows us to
Speaker 1: group people you know. Yeah, and the most importantly it
Speaker 1: predicted what we thought it would so outlook relegation, an
Speaker 1: intergroup hostility, a tendency to aggress towards especially when threatened.
Speaker 1: So this is where the very early studies then we
Speaker 1: found that it predicts the sort of hypersensitivity to fred
Speaker 1: seeing thread to the group everywhere, the tendency to develop
Speaker 1: conspiratorial conspiracy theories about the thread and enemies just to
Speaker 1: have that justification for the hostility and aggression. So these
Speaker 1: are people who engage in them in that sort of
Speaker 1: vicious circle of thread and aggressive retaliation. So collective, we
Speaker 1: found that collective narcissism predicts a tendency to exaggerate perception
Speaker 1: of thread to the group, especially to the groups. We
Speaker 1: found that at the higher level levels of collective narcissism,
Speaker 1: the retaliation to in group image thread is stronger, more
Speaker 1: vicious more aggressive, and we found that thread to in
Speaker 1: group image increases collective narcissism a little bit, but it
Speaker 1: does temporarily, but it does.
Speaker 2: How do you tie a lot of this to social
Speaker 2: identity theory? What is social identity theory?
Speaker 1: Well, social identify the perspective rather brings together social identity
Speaker 1: theory and self categorization theory. So the historically first is
Speaker 1: this social identity theory that is proposed by Rita Schwell,
Speaker 1: another Holocaust survivor whose life work was to explain in
Speaker 1: the group hatred and prejudice. So he was the author
Speaker 1: of so called experiments in the minimal group paradigm with
Speaker 1: a question what does it take people to create in
Speaker 1: their heads this division between us and them and start
Speaker 1: working acting accordingly, so favoring us and disfavoring them. So
Speaker 1: he was an author of the famous experiments in which
Speaker 1: he asked people whether they prefer the painting of Paul
Speaker 1: Clare versus Vasil Kandinsky. There's actually the sort of modern painters,
Speaker 1: not huge difference between them, but it was sufficient for
Speaker 1: people to make then biased allocations to the in groups.
Speaker 1: So let's say you like Porclaire, I like Kandinsky, I
Speaker 1: make allocations of money. I'll give more money to those
Speaker 1: who have Kandinsky than you your group called like proklare No.
Speaker 1: Those studies showed that people not only would savor their group,
Speaker 1: but they also would make allocations in which they would
Speaker 1: want to maximize the difference between the in group and
Speaker 1: the outgroup. Even if they do not give the biggest
Speaker 1: money allocation to their group, what they want to do
Speaker 1: is to make their group put the group in advantage
Speaker 1: in comparison to the outgroup. So that was a very
Speaker 1: important motivation this positive distinctiveness, and tash Felt proposed that
Speaker 1: this is because we have this universal motive to maintain
Speaker 1: positive self esteem and because our social identity is a
Speaker 1: part of our identity. One of the ways of achieving
Speaker 1: and maintaining positive self esteem is to make making sure
Speaker 1: that our group is great. So, yeah, developing the positive identity.
Speaker 1: And one of the ways of developing positive social identity
Speaker 1: is by comparison to other groups. So you will be
Speaker 1: always motivated to det get out groups. So your group
Speaker 1: comes out in this comparison is better. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Why do some people care so much about being part
Speaker 2: of the group.
Speaker 1: It's evolved. We are your trust social species.
Speaker 2: Need for belonging.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, no, of course, Okay, so on very basic,
Speaker 1: on the very basic level, it's been adopted. You know,
Speaker 1: we don't have closes, we don't have been So.
Speaker 2: My specific question but their individual differences here, Why are
Speaker 2: some people way more interested in and caring so much
Speaker 2: about their group being great more so they care about
Speaker 2: their own damn selves? Why are there some people well and.
Speaker 1: Here you know, like get thatthics usually explains most of
Speaker 1: individual differences, right, So we just are that way. But
Speaker 1: I think what collective narcissism theory proposes is when it
Speaker 1: makes why it makes a difference, or how it makes
Speaker 1: a difference socially. So even if the tendency to hold
Speaker 1: collective narcissism as I believe about your group is an
Speaker 1: individual difference, so it will be a normal distribution in
Speaker 1: a population. You will always have like twenty percent of zealos,
Speaker 1: twenty percent of people who don't have it at all,
Speaker 1: and majority in the middle. That actually does not matter
Speaker 1: that much for the societal processes that we are observing
Speaker 1: and from which we started. What matters is that it's
Speaker 1: a belief about the social identity and you can share
Speaker 1: it with others. So this is when collective narcissism becomes
Speaker 1: a bet that is shared with others and starts defining
Speaker 1: what people think about the group. This is when it
Speaker 1: starts being a societal problems. And this is when groups
Speaker 1: become actors. You know, groups become collectively narcissistic because they decided, okay,
Speaker 1: we need to make our country great again and recognized
Speaker 1: again and admired again because it wasn't we sort of
Speaker 1: agree to this delusionally they believe, and once that believe
Speaker 1: serves to coordinate people within a group, then it becomes
Speaker 1: a problem. It becomes a problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it becomes a big problem.
Speaker 1: Your question to why it is so important for people
Speaker 1: to be good members is a really big question in
Speaker 1: social psychology. Then various motives that groups address, and my
Speaker 1: work is particularly interested in narcissistic motive. So a motive
Speaker 1: to have others recognize your group is better than others.
Speaker 1: It's also a motive, but people don't write about it
Speaker 1: that much. So the self esteem is a recognized motive,
Speaker 1: but narcissism not so much. There's a big literature also
Speaker 1: that differentiate self esteem and narcissism. Oh yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 1: showing that narcissism, which is non positive self.
Speaker 2: Estemian, definitely, and they have different developmental trajectories and and
Speaker 2: and and and and predictors. So what are the are narcisis?
Speaker 2: Are collective narcissistic groups comprised of individually narcissistic people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say no, so this is this is.
Speaker 2: But there's a correlation.
Speaker 1: There's a correlation, yeah.
Speaker 2: But vulnerable narcissism absolutely so.
Speaker 1: So there is a relation between individual narcissism and collective narcissism,
Speaker 1: and there are different aspects of individual narcissism. So there's
Speaker 1: this grand use narcissism where people are dominant grand use
Speaker 1: because they feel they're so great. They're just grade in everything. No,
Speaker 1: and the admiration is just the of others. It's just
Speaker 1: the right and entitlement. Vulnerable narcissists are. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a narcissism of my great suffering. Right, So these are
Speaker 1: the people who celt deprecate the people who were It's
Speaker 1: just like their assumption of greatness was not confirmed by others,
Speaker 1: and therefore they salt and they suffer. So it's this
Speaker 1: obsession with like how much I'm not recognized for my
Speaker 1: greatness and how I should be so vulnerable narcissism. Narcissists
Speaker 1: particularly focus on the lack of refognition that they are
Speaker 1: doue and I think this also is quite a defining
Speaker 1: feature of collective narcissism. So that's the hence the strong link.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think so. In the book, I
Speaker 1: put the data from various countries about it, but there
Speaker 1: is not a good cross cultural work that would look
Speaker 1: at the link between various aspects of individual narcissism and
Speaker 1: collective narcissism. I found that the link between vulnerable collective narcissism,
Speaker 1: vulnerable narcissism on individual level, and collective narcissism is quite
Speaker 1: strong in Poland, but not so strong, or at least
Speaker 1: not so consistently strong in America. And I think it's
Speaker 1: because we based our claim to our national greatness on
Speaker 1: different things. You know. So like in Poland we are
Speaker 1: the greatest nation in the world, US well for various reasons,
Speaker 1: mostly well, like we suffered so much through our history.
Speaker 1: We are like a Christ of the nation nations. We
Speaker 1: suffered for salvation and betterment of other nations. That that's
Speaker 1: the sort of narration. While in America I suppose that's
Speaker 1: not the main point. You're just the greatest because you
Speaker 1: do things and you're so efficient and you survive on
Speaker 1: Mars and yeah area, so it's argentic, it's grand duous.
Speaker 1: So hence this relationship in America might be stronger. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: the fact that the two are related, that does not
Speaker 1: mean that collectively narcissist. The groups are the groups where
Speaker 1: you have a lot of individual narcissis actually, so you know,
Speaker 1: one thing that we found very early on was that
Speaker 1: collective nurses predicts intergroup phenomena. Individual narcissism does not, or
Speaker 1: does it through collective narcissism. So, for example, when it
Speaker 1: comes to intergroup aggression and hostility, it's collective narcissism that
Speaker 1: predicts it, not individual narcissism. Why collective narcissism does not
Speaker 1: predict interpersonal hostility, which individual narcissism predicts very very strongly
Speaker 1: and robustly. So they just function on different levels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they predict the attitudes and behaviors on different levels. So
Speaker 1: that's one thing. The other thing is that individual narcissists
Speaker 1: are about their own greatness, so they use groups instrumentally well.
Speaker 1: Collective narcissists as well. But with individual narcissism, it's not like, Okay,
Speaker 1: so I am great and I belong to great groups.
Speaker 1: When my group is not great, then I will belong
Speaker 1: to that bit that is great or it is currently recognized.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hold on, there's a distinction I've never seen you make,
Speaker 2: but it seems worth making between vulnerably narcissistic groups and
Speaker 2: grandiosely narcissistic groups.
Speaker 1: I don't make this distinction, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I know. I just said I've never seen you
Speaker 2: make that distinction, but I think it's an important distinction. Well,
Speaker 2: the reason why I think it's an important distinction is
Speaker 2: because I do think there's different flavors. There are some
Speaker 2: groups who have this flavor of like, we have suffered
Speaker 2: so much, that's why we're great, whereas other groups are.
Speaker 2: We are great because we're inherently the best.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's always we are inherently the best.
Speaker 1: So collective narcissism is related to a tendency to escension
Speaker 1: like a group as well. So it comes from by
Speaker 1: our nature, our blood always. But yeah, absolutely, so, I
Speaker 1: don't differentiate. What I'm saying Scott is group members can
Speaker 1: take any reason to claim that the group is unique, superior,
Speaker 1: better than others. Sure they are, they can be nations
Speaker 1: that are. They would say, well, we're just the most
Speaker 1: genderous nation in the world with the most empathetic We
Speaker 1: always help others, right, and that's why we are due
Speaker 1: with special accomnition respect and we are not getting it,
Speaker 1: and please give it to us as soon as possible.
Speaker 2: Or so interesting you you make a distinction in your
Speaker 2: book between kind of right wing authoritarianism and left wing authoritarianism,
Speaker 2: or or you know, you have this very you have
Speaker 2: this specific argument about like when like underprivileged groups show
Speaker 2: collective narcissism, it's it's a little bit different than when
Speaker 2: the dominant group shows collective narcissism. Can you elaborate your
Speaker 2: thinking on that a little bit?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have to elaborate it separately, Okay, because I'm
Speaker 1: not sure this are related. And actually you gave me
Speaker 1: an idea to think about.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I will tell you because I'm now writing that paper
Speaker 1: I told you. I came here to write the paper.
Speaker 1: It's a paper about collective narcissism being national, collective narcissism
Speaker 1: being related simultaneously to right wing and left wing authoritarianism. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: but let me leave this aside, because actually the other
Speaker 1: topic will serve as an introduction just in case I
Speaker 1: forget left wing authoritism to remind so one thing that
Speaker 1: I should say. The early research on collective narcissism focused
Speaker 1: a lot on national narcissism, mostly because it was easier.
Speaker 1: But in the very first paper I published on that topic,
Speaker 1: there was a study in which we looked at ethnic
Speaker 1: collective narcissism. So this was a study that was conducted
Speaker 1: I think in like two thousand and six maybe in Britain,
Speaker 1: just just after that memorable meetings at Pennsylvania. And here
Speaker 1: we asked black and white British participants to answer the
Speaker 1: collective narcissism scale with reference to the ethnic group, and
Speaker 1: then we measured symbolic racism and racism denial, and we
Speaker 1: found that white collective narcissists would report higher symbolic racism
Speaker 1: and with deny that racism in the UK exists. Right,
Speaker 1: Why Black collective narcissists would report lower bodied racism and
Speaker 1: would claim that racism in UK exists. Yeah, So those
Speaker 1: findings were then a bit forgotten because we concentrated on
Speaker 1: showing various predictions predictors that collective narcissism makes, and that's
Speaker 1: sort of normalogical network of collective narcissism and other forms
Speaker 1: of thinking about your own group. So all of this
Speaker 1: validation sort of work and how it this concept is
Speaker 1: valid and important. But then mostly because of the prominence
Speaker 1: of social protests that happened in last last several years,
Speaker 1: we looked into this again and it was actually done
Speaker 1: by various relapse in independently because you know, I told
Speaker 1: you that since I proposed a scale, and the theory
Speaker 1: picked up, and various people are doing this in various
Speaker 1: places in the world. So we had studies, for example,
Speaker 1: that would that would continue this idea that collective narcissism
Speaker 1: predicts thinking something is a prejudice if it's done to
Speaker 1: your group, but if your group does the same to
Speaker 1: another group, is not prejudiced anymore. Yeah. So there's a
Speaker 1: colleague of mine showed something like that on again with
Speaker 1: British blacks and whites and also men and women. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it looks like collective narcissism makes different predictions depends
Speaker 1: on what group we're talking about, and it will also
Speaker 1: make a different idea prediction for different support for different ideologies.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, So so what we found out for example,
Speaker 1: that collective narcissism the historically disadvantage groups, right, so ethnic minorities, women,
Speaker 1: that we measure it somewhere else. I think that's where
Speaker 1: the groups that we studied it is related to a garitarianism, right,
Speaker 1: rejection of ethnic, racial, or gender inequality, and the tendency
Speaker 1: to pursue collective action for greater equality. So, for example,
Speaker 1: black collective narcissists would report higher higher tendency to engage
Speaker 1: in Black Lives Matter protests, or they would report that
Speaker 1: they engaged, and women who were high on gender collective
Speaker 1: narcissism would also go in protest for gender equality. When
Speaker 1: it comes to the historically advantage groups is the opposite.
Speaker 1: So collectively narcissistic men would not react to exclusion of
Speaker 1: women emotionally almost at all. They would be buffed by
Speaker 1: exclusion of men, but not exclusion of women. They would
Speaker 1: be sexist, and they would also endorse beliefs that legitimize
Speaker 1: gender inequality or believes that deny gender inequality exists. And
Speaker 1: it's analogous when it comes to white collective narcissists, so
Speaker 1: they would endorse their beliefs about white supremacy, they would
Speaker 1: deny that racism exists, they would uphold prejudice, and so on.
Speaker 1: So very much predictions of collective narcissism in advantage disadvantaged
Speaker 1: groups depend on those groups particular interests. Really, And what's
Speaker 1: interesting also that I need to say is that in
Speaker 1: both groups, though advantage disadvantage, collective narcissism predicts hostility and
Speaker 1: predicts zero some thinking about the relationships between those groups.
Speaker 1: So it is a variable that predicts conflict. It is
Speaker 1: a variable that, ultimately, even if we're talking in disadvantage groups,
Speaker 1: ultimately can lead to aggression to top or flip the
Speaker 1: hierarchy rather than introduce equality. And there are there is
Speaker 1: research that's been done in various countries in the world
Speaker 1: that struggle with terrorist movements that show that collective narcissism,
Speaker 1: especially in radicalized networks, predict support for terrorism as a
Speaker 1: way of a weaker or disadvantage group engaging in the
Speaker 1: power struggle. So this is one thing that shows us
Speaker 1: that collective narcissism would make different behavioral predictors, predictions and
Speaker 1: predict different ideologies depending on which group we ask about.
Speaker 1: But now the coming back to our largest body of
Speaker 1: evidence is the national narcissism. And people would would tend
Speaker 1: to think, oh, you know, like that this argument about
Speaker 1: and recognized greatness of our nation, there is a very
Speaker 1: sort of ultra conservative right doing argument populist perhaps, but yeah,
Speaker 1: the associated with the ultra conservative populism, the one that
Speaker 1: argues that, yeah, we need to achieve our greatness. But
Speaker 1: coming back to black age, the dark ages, Yeah, like
Speaker 1: the grangeos ideal, idealized past that didn't exist, right, So
Speaker 1: that and and and actually there's lots of research that
Speaker 1: would show that, for example, the supporters of those utra
Speaker 1: conservative politicians have a higher national narcissism that supporters are
Speaker 1: more liberal or centrist politicians. So there is one finding
Speaker 1: that you see in the literature. But the other one
Speaker 1: is that we've been lately dealing with is with this
Speaker 1: concept of right wing and left wing autorianism, and this
Speaker 1: is national narcissism. So we keep group constant here. We
Speaker 1: don't don't mess up with group membership. It's just we
Speaker 1: always measure national narcissism and uh, and then we measure
Speaker 1: ideology ideological beliefs. So we measure whether people identify as
Speaker 1: left liberal, conservatives and then we ask them the questions
Speaker 1: about right and left wing conservatism. So maybe it's time
Speaker 1: to explain what those phenomena are the way we approach
Speaker 1: leaders and the group norms. This is what they have
Speaker 1: in common. So the right wing the authoritarianism is a
Speaker 1: cluster of authoritarian submission, conventionalism, and authoritarian aggression. So these
Speaker 1: are attitudes that it's a reverence for authorities, especially the
Speaker 1: authorities that are coursive and defined by power, sticking to
Speaker 1: the norms and being punitive towards those who don't, and
Speaker 1: then engaging in aggression to punish devians and to punish
Speaker 1: those who authorities indicate should be punished. Right when autogenism
Speaker 1: is a variable that is conceptualized as a need for
Speaker 1: order and stability. So what's behind it is this fear
Speaker 1: that if we don't have the those authorities and norms,
Speaker 1: then yeah, the bad things will will happen. So it's
Speaker 1: really a tendency to maintain existing uh social systems, while
Speaker 1: left auto dignity is actually the opposite. It's it's an argument.
Speaker 2: Towards uh chaosts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so like you need to follow your leaders and
Speaker 1: norm groups. But the purpose is to destroy the system. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to change the system too well, to bring down those
Speaker 1: who rule right, and to destroy existing hierarchies. And now
Speaker 1: the association of collective narcissism we've both is interesting and worrism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so those two types of authoritarianism are either negatively associated
Speaker 1: or not associated. And now you have the finding in
Speaker 1: which this particular way of thinking about the group and
Speaker 1: those one or the other. For me, that means that
Speaker 1: collective narcissism represent the readiness to follow the more ruthless leader,
Speaker 1: the leader. So we can these are people who will go, Okay,
Speaker 1: we follow this leader. They're established leader in the system
Speaker 1: in which we function as long as the system serves
Speaker 1: our privileged, serves our entitled group entitlements. But as soon
Speaker 1: as another leader emerges and shows us a way to
Speaker 1: better serve our group entitlements, even for destruction of what exists,
Speaker 1: even through World War, then we go for this leader.
Speaker 1: And it's really the preference for the better justification of
Speaker 1: ruthlessness and aggression really what the thing matters. And to
Speaker 1: add on to this, we also found that that national
Speaker 1: narcissism is related to anti establishment orientation, and that is
Speaker 1: an orientation that is orthogonal to left and right. It's
Speaker 1: it's not related. It's just support systems. Don't support system.
Speaker 2: Now now both both to me, suck? Is there? Like
Speaker 2: a is there?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Is there such thing as secure collective healthy collect is there?
Speaker 2: Does that exist? Healthy collective value?
Speaker 1: God?
Speaker 2: Not non narcissistic?
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean, come on, I started from Auschwitz, so
Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's abomination. So I started from being interested
Speaker 1: in extreme and relatively rare. Yeah, So the mobilization of
Speaker 1: collective narcissism happens historically, but it does not really happen often.
Speaker 1: We seem to write a history for wars, so we
Speaker 1: think it's it's a very frequent happening, but it is
Speaker 1: actually no more avoidable, and we engage in that. But
Speaker 1: it's definitely the sort of belief that that helps societies
Speaker 1: in conflict and helps societies to get to conflict. But
Speaker 1: there are other aspects of in glubidentification, and there are
Speaker 1: other aspects of positive in glob identification, So there are
Speaker 1: other aspects of positive evaluation of your own group. So
Speaker 1: at some point we mentioned the distinction between self esteem
Speaker 1: and narcissism. You can love you yourself, you can demand
Speaker 1: that other recognize your greatness. Two different things, but they're
Speaker 1: related with the fact that you generally have a positive
Speaker 1: opinion about yourself or at least express it on a surface.
Speaker 1: So similar with collective narcissism, there is a non narcissistic
Speaker 1: in group positivity possible and actually differentiating collective narcissism made
Speaker 1: us appreciated because as with self estimate nacialism, those things
Speaker 1: are positively related, so they have an overlap. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: there is I tend to name to name this variable
Speaker 1: in group satisfaction. It has been also labeled collective self esteem,
Speaker 1: but it goes down to two feelings. Yeah. It is
Speaker 1: a feeling of satisfaction of being a member and pride
Speaker 1: of being a member of a valuable group. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: it's not narcissistic demands for this group to be recognized
Speaker 1: as better, have any special entitlements of privileges. You're just
Speaker 1: happy you're a member of a valuable collective. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: the fact of you positively evaluating your group and collective
Speaker 1: overlaps with collective narcissism. That positive yogle upset and takes
Speaker 1: it further with this entirement and recognition issues. But when
Speaker 1: you measure one and the other in the same study.
Speaker 1: You can actually tease a lot of things out. So
Speaker 1: we have statistical methods that help us deal with the
Speaker 1: what these variables have in common and sort of look
Speaker 1: at what they predict when you take this common thing
Speaker 1: from them. So, in other words, we can get this
Speaker 1: collective narcissism without the happiness of being a member of
Speaker 1: the of the great group, and we have the genuine
Speaker 1: collective self esteem that is not narcissistic. And study after
Speaker 1: study we show that they predict opposite things. So collective
Speaker 1: narcissism without in group satisfaction is related to low selves
Speaker 1: and individual narcissism. The non narcissistic inproup positivity is related
Speaker 1: to high self esteem and negatively to narcissism. Right, so
Speaker 1: on individual level, those already are different types of people.
Speaker 1: Then in satisfaction without collective narcissism protecting integroup tolerance. So
Speaker 1: the fact that they overlap actually attenuates the hostility of
Speaker 1: collective narcissisms. Wow wow. So one thing that I take
Speaker 1: out of it is because they appear together, so like
Speaker 1: you have more people that have both, then you have
Speaker 1: people that have just collective narcissism or just in group satisfaction. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so in a way you can capitalize on this overlap
Speaker 1: and to address collective narcissis, especially especially on a group level.
Speaker 1: That is possible because you could imagine groups. Maybe ourselves
Speaker 1: are a little bit like that, but it's much more
Speaker 1: obvious in groups that they members of groups talk, they negotiate.
Speaker 1: They all the time sort of agree what they should
Speaker 1: think about reality, what they should think about the group.
Speaker 1: So they negotiate also what it means to be a
Speaker 1: member of this given group. So you have your Republicans
Speaker 1: and Democratic right simple system in which they discuss what
Speaker 1: it means to be American, and they have quite different
Speaker 1: visions quite often, not especially now, I guess. So then
Speaker 1: whoever sells the vision to the voters would make this
Speaker 1: vision normative and dominant. If you make collective narcissism win,
Speaker 1: then you have collective narcissistic clitics and the consequences of Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like social polarization or fake news and conspiratorial theories
Speaker 1: and so on. But if you make in group satisfaction
Speaker 1: over collective narcissism, you would have people who are orientated
Speaker 1: towards making the collective that they highly value better and happier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's actually research that shows that collective narcissism would
Speaker 1: predict support for politics that ultimately hurt in group members,
Speaker 1: but in group satisfaction without collective narcissism would predict the
Speaker 1: rejection of politics that would hurt in group members. So
Speaker 1: that there was actually COVID pandemic was a context in
Speaker 1: which lots of studies on collective narcissism were run, for example,
Speaker 1: to demonstrate those sort of very different behavior and they're
Speaker 1: very different attitudes towards the in group members and for
Speaker 1: collective predicted by collective narcissism and in group satisfaction. So,
Speaker 1: because defining the in group business society is a social
Speaker 1: process is a process of negotiation, the way of attenuating
Speaker 1: the negative consequences of collective narcissism will be to make
Speaker 1: the positive, non narcissistic in group satisfaction prevail in this negotiation.
Speaker 1: I hope that makes sense. I don't know exactly how
Speaker 1: to do it, but I'm sure there are ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, if you can figure that out, you should
Speaker 2: want a Nobel prize. But look, I think that's a
Speaker 2: very important project. And I would also add on to that,
Speaker 2: we need to find a way for multiple groups to
Speaker 2: not see themselves as competing with each other. There not,
Speaker 2: not all groups have to compete with each other. We
Speaker 2: have to find some way where there can be a coexistence.
Speaker 1: But absolutely we survived for cooperation rather. But I wanted
Speaker 1: to say one more thing is good when it comes
Speaker 1: to attenuating negative consequences of collective narcissism. Things that I
Speaker 1: kind of am bringing together with what I just said
Speaker 1: to you. As a project, we had research that shows
Speaker 1: that mindfulness is one way that also attend you it's
Speaker 1: collective narcissistic hostility. So this is a very different kind
Speaker 1: of intervention. Huh. Then then focusing on in group satisfaction,
Speaker 1: but it works in the same way. So when we
Speaker 1: when we train people in mindfulness skills, that reduced the
Speaker 1: link between elective narcissism and prejudice across like six different
Speaker 1: forms of prejudice that we measure. Very difficult study. It
Speaker 1: was just published in Psychological Science. Some very graduation. Absolutely
Speaker 1: and I but but you know, there is something about
Speaker 1: that that is already recognized. So like I've read that
Speaker 1: British politicians actually participated in mindfulness trainings. There is there
Speaker 1: is a group in Britain that that or as an
Speaker 1: mindfulness institute that organized that and does research. So the
Speaker 1: political importance of being mindful and not very active is recognized,
Speaker 1: and I think the research coming from from my lab
Speaker 1: would suggest that, yeah, more work here should be done.
Speaker 1: Even if it's individual level intervention, it seems to have
Speaker 1: the profound society.
Speaker 2: I think to be a part of DEI programs, it
Speaker 2: should be should.
Speaker 1: Should be. Yeah, should you qualify you to be to
Speaker 1: be a politician? Right? You have to you have to
Speaker 1: pass smart.
Speaker 2: Well, you you you found you found mindfulness? You haven't
Speaker 2: you found some other factors too, like self compassion.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, so so this is yeah, but here we
Speaker 1: would go into the literature and mindfulness that is it's
Speaker 1: so complex. But so mindfulness has this understanding or meaning
Speaker 1: of like focusing or managing your attention to focus on
Speaker 1: the present. But the mindfulness studies actually show that it
Speaker 1: is important on what you focus on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's true, it's true.
Speaker 1: No, but Lis said, some mindfulness interventions are just like
Speaker 1: you focus on managing your attention or your focus. But
Speaker 1: the other say, and then on your you pay attention
Speaker 1: to your emotions and you choose to pay attention to
Speaker 1: emotions that are pro social or self transcendent suggess, gratitude,
Speaker 1: or compassion or loving kindness in our in our research,
Speaker 1: it was particularly gratitude because we figured that it would
Speaker 1: be the least difficult for collective narcissist to process because
Speaker 1: they there's also research that shows that collective narcissism is
Speaker 1: related to negative emotionality, lots of self criticism, low self compassion,
Speaker 1: So self compassion and passion might be difficult emotions for
Speaker 1: collective narcissist. So with focus on gratitude and specifically the
Speaker 1: mindful mindful how did we call it mindful gratitude training
Speaker 1: as opposed to just attention intervention work. It's the content
Speaker 1: of emotions that we experience is very important and can
Speaker 1: actually break the linked in collective narcissism and hostility. And
Speaker 1: this is also what I wanted to say about the
Speaker 1: disadvantage groups. Okay, because members of these advantage groups, they
Speaker 1: of course experience very difficult experience of being the tempered discrimination,
Speaker 1: but through collective action, they also have access to a
Speaker 1: lot of self transcended emotions because collective action is the
Speaker 1: action of solidarity. So that also I was saying that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: collective narcissists in those advantage groups would in fact want
Speaker 1: to flick the hierarchy rather than really work for equality.
Speaker 1: They are still aggressive and have the as and the divisions,
Speaker 1: but also they would be experiencing pro social self transcendent
Speaker 1: emotions which may tempare the hostility. So collective narcissists that
Speaker 1: went through experience of collective action and that feeling of
Speaker 1: solidarity and achievements for collective action may be very different collective.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the problem is the what the collective action
Speaker 1: is met with. Yes, so the response of the advantage
Speaker 1: groups is important because that the crashing of protests only
Speaker 1: that decalyzes collective narcissists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, yes, your your work is so important and
Speaker 2: relevant in the world today. It seems to me like
Speaker 2: collective narcissism is synonymous with collective victimhood. I would almost
Speaker 2: use the two almost synonymously with each other. I think
Speaker 2: they were.
Speaker 1: Research that show show that they related. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a great intuition because thank you. But there
Speaker 1: you go thinking for the very concept and what I
Speaker 1: was saying in the beginning. These are people who see
Speaker 1: enemies everywhere. Everyone is against them and conspires against them
Speaker 1: and hates them. So yeah, they are the ultimate victims.
Speaker 2: It makes a lot of sense. And and we're not
Speaker 2: gonna pull out of this quagmire we're in society right
Speaker 2: now unless people and groups start viewing each other not
Speaker 2: as any means, but but as something as at least
Speaker 2: neutral a look.
Speaker 1: At least we identified one big factor that makes them,
Speaker 1: that makes Siency a person enemies, and we can now
Speaker 1: work on this factor.
Speaker 2: It's a great start. It's a great well, it's it's
Speaker 2: it's more than a start. Well, congratulate, congratulations on your book,
Speaker 2: and tell people the name of your book and where
Speaker 2: they can buy it.
Speaker 1: Okay, right. It is called the Psychology of Collective Narcissism
Speaker 1: The Insights from Social Identity Perspective. It's published by Ratledge,
Speaker 1: and it's open. It's available in open access, So if
Speaker 1: you google the Psychology of Collective Narcissism Ratledge, you can
Speaker 1: find a link to the open access so you don't
Speaker 1: have to buy anything. You can just download it and yeah,
Speaker 1: check it out.
Speaker 2: Wonderful. It's an academic book, but it is very valuable
Speaker 2: and I think a lot of people would still be
Speaker 2: able to understand it even if they're not scientists.
Speaker 1: I think so. But I'm actually working on something more.
Speaker 2: Has something in the in the pots you stir in there?
Speaker 2: She got something she's stirring in the podcast. Okay, well
Speaker 2: we'll have to look out for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, and I would ask you for advice.
Speaker 2: Well, I'd be happy to. You know, I'm a big
Speaker 2: fan of yours. I'm a big fan. I wrote about
Speaker 2: you in the Atlantic. I wrote about you in the Atlantic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was so great.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for coming on my podcast.
Speaker 3: The emailing me frantically on my Greek holidays, I remember,
Speaker 3: I loved I mean, they were so great.
Speaker 1: I wish academic journals were so detailed this time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the corpywriters were working for them. Thank you. It
Speaker 2: was intense, It was that was an intense project, to
Speaker 2: be honest. But thanks for you so much for your help. Yeah,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for your help.
Speaker 1: And well, thank you for inviting me. Scott.
Speaker 2: My pleasure.