17 September 2024
Does strong identification with conservatives vs. liberals (in Poland) or Democrats vs. Republicans (in the US) always lead to polarization?
Previous research has shown that strong political divisions are often associated with strong identification with one’s own group. However, we assumed that this occurs only when such identification is narcissistic in nature. We tested this in quantitative studies (N total = 1661) involving participants from the USA and Poland.
The results showed that individuals who were narcissistically attached to their political group were more likely to dehumanize people with opposing views. Moreover, political narcissism predicted aggressive behavior (measured with the voodoo doll task) toward individuals holding political views different from one’s own. These findings were independent of which side of the political spectrum individuals identified with (conservatives vs. liberals in Poland; Republicans vs. Democrats in the USA).
The entire article can be found in the British Journal of Social Psychology.
