Collective narcissism and in-group satisfaction are alternative beliefs about one’s own group (for detailed comparison see our recent review, Golec de Zavala, Dyduch-Hazar and Lantos, 2019). Collective narcissism is a belief in-group is exceptional but insufficiently recognized by others, whereas in-group satisfaction is a belief that the in-group is a reason to be proud of (Leach et al., 2008). Those two beliefs overlap, but when their overlap is partialled out, they show different associations with variables pertaining to intergroup attitudes (Dyduch-Hazar, Mrozinski, Simao and Golec de Zavala, 2019, in review; Golec de Zavala, Cichocka and Bilewicz, 2013; Golec de Zavala et al., 2019, in press). Collective narcissism is related to outgroup hostility, while in-group satisfaction is linked to outgroup tolerance.
In our recently published paper (Dyduch-Hazar, Mrozinski and Golec de Zavala, 2019), we investigated why collective narcissism and in-group satisfaction predict opposite attitudes toward outgroup members. We focused on hostility toward Syrian refugees, who are perceived as threatening in contemporary Poland (Hall and Mikulska-Jolles, 2016). Two large cross-sectional studies provided converging evidence that the relationship between collective narcissisms and in-group satisfaction and hostility toward refugees is driven by hostile attribution bias i.e. perception of refugees as harbouring hostile intentions against Poles.
Collective narcissism was positively, whereas in-group satisfaction was negatively associated with a tendency to perceive Syrian refugees as hostile toward Poles. Those opposite indirect associations could only be observed after the positive overlap between collective narcissism and in-group satisfaction was partialled out. In addition, collective narcissism and in-group satisfaction suppressed each other’s opposite associations with hostile attribution bias and hostility toward refugees.
Our results indicate that as long as in-group satisfaction is related to collective narcissism, the relationship between collective narcissism and hostile attribution bias, and therefore intergroup hostility, is reduced. When people who hold the collective narcissistic belief about the in-group are also satisfied and proud members of their in-group, they perceive out-group members as harbouring hostile intentions against their in-group to a lesser extent. However, our results also indicate that as long as in-group satisfaction is related to collective narcissism, its negative relationship with hostile attribution bias is diminished. Thus, the overlap with collective narcissism may increase hostile tendencies of satisfied in-group members.
Are you interested in our research? Listen to us at our symposium “Predictors of attitudes towards otherness” during XVI Congress of Polish Association for Social Psychology in Poznań!
