Abstract
AbstractThe storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and voter intimidation by Donald Trump's supporters have marked significant upheaval in American democracy. In two cross‐sectional studies and one experiment, we tested the proposition that American collective narcissism is associated with support for populist leadership (particular, their message of renewed ingroup recognition) to the point of disregard for democratic procedures. In Study 1, conducted just before the 2020 presidential elections, we examined the association of American collective narcissism with support for Trump's re‐election even if he was to violate the democratic procedures while securing it. In pre‐registered Study 2, conducted just after the Capitol attack, we examined the association between American collective narcissism and support for the attacks. In Study 3, we experimentally examined a more general proposition that collective narcissism is associated with support for populist leaders and lack of support for democratic procedures, in a minimal group setting deprived of any associations with a particular political context. The results of the three studies converge to indicate that collective narcissism is most strongly (beyond variables commonly implicated in support for right‐wing populism) associated with populist leadership to the extent of disregarding democratic norms.
Highlights
In order to test Hypothesis 1, that collective narcissism would be associated with support for Donald Trump staying in power even while illegally challenging the democratic election, over and above related predictors, a multiple regression analysis was conducted including American collective narcissism as a predictor, support for Trump as the outcome variable, and all other variables as controls (Table 2)
In Study 3, we test whether the link between collective narcissism and support for populist leaders and their undemocratic message generalizes beyond the particular political context
To test Hypothesis 3 that collective narcissism would be associated with support for the populist message about the group, we ran a linear mixed model using the nlme R package (Pinheiro et al, 2017), which included random intercepts across participants to account for the leadership vignette withinfactor
Summary
$150,000–$199,999, n = 10), gender (0 = female, 1 = male), education (seven ordered categories: (1) Less than high school, n = 1; (2) High school diploma or equivalent, n = 14; (3) Some college, n = 36; (4) Associate’s degree, n = 24; (5) Bachelor’s degree, n = 182; (6) Master’s degree, n = 48; (7) Advanced degree, n = 3; recoded 1 for a bachelor’s degree and above, 0 for below), self-identified race (Black, n = 19; Asian, n = 11; Native American, n = 24; White, n = 251; Other, n = 3; coded as 1 = White ethnicity, 0 = non-white), a binary measure of national identification (1 = viewing oneself as a prototypical American), as well as a measure of national ingroup satisfaction measured by a 4-item scale (Leach et al, 2008; α = .89, M = 5.62, SD = 1.07) for example, “I am glad to be American” and “It is pleasant to be American.”.
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