In November 2018, I have visited Surabaya, Indonesia to give a talk at a featured symposium on Collective Narcissism, Numinous Concepts and Well-Being during the 3rd International Conference on Psychology in Health, Educational, Social and Organizational Settings (ICP-HESOS) organized by Universitas Airlangga. Me talk presented results of our newest studies on the role of gratitude in reducing the link between collective narcissism and prejudice. I presented results of two correlational and one experimental studies. The cross-sectional studies show that the link between collective narcissism and prejduice is reduced among grateful people. This pattern was replicated in Poland and the US on prejudice towards Syrian refugees and Muslims, respectively. The experimental study tested the mindful gratidude meditation prepared together with Magda Mazurkiewicz, which Magda, professional midnfulness trainer, fabulously recorded for the study. This manipulation increased state gratitude. It also reducted the link between collective narcissism and anti-Semitism in Poland.
The featured symposium was presented during the last day of the conference by a strong Polish contingent: Professor Agnieszka Golec de Zavala (co-authored by Professor Constantine Sedikides at University of Southampton), Chair and Presenter, Dr Magdalena Zemojtel-Piotrowska, Presenter, Dr Jarowslaw Piotrowski, Presenter, Artur Sawicki, PhD candidate in Warsaw, Presenter. Magdalena and Jaroslaw lead a research group at Kardynal Wyszynski University in Warsaw that studies communal collective narcissism. Magdalena and Jaroslaw presented results of a 3-wave, longitudinal study showing that collective narcissism is linked to self-reported psychological wellbeing.
The Polish contingent collaborates with fabulous Dr Rakhman Ardi, the program chair of the conference and the Head of Department of Social Psychology and Personality. Ardi translated the Collective Narcissisn Scale to Javanease. He generously shared his translation with us. It can be seen among the other translations in Research Materials on our webpage. Ardi translated the Scale in collaboration with his student Diah Budiarti who I had a pleasure to meet and with whom I shared some very interesting conversations. Some of those conversations we had over the unforgettable single origin drip coffee in one of Surabaya most trendy coffee shops.
Diah is planning to research the link between national collective narcissism in Indonesia with religious fundamentalism within Islam and support for Gerindra, the religious-nationalist political party recently gaining support in Indonesia. Another collective narcissism inspired project was mentioned to me by a staff member at Airlangga, Rizqy Amelia Zein. Amelia collaborates on a project which investigated the link between collective narcissism and preference for halal products in Indonesia. Amelia is interested in how health behaviors such as decision to vaccinate are linked to social identities and predicted by variables such as collective narcissism. She is looking to start her PhD program soon so hopefully we will see more of her soon! I am very much looking forward to collaborate with colleagues from Airlangga.
One interesting piece of knowledge I brought from Indonesia is what my last name means there. These are Wayang Golek:
