Introduction

The majority of current psychological research on collective narcissism – the belief that the exaggerated greatness of one's own group (the ingroup) is not sufficiently recognized by others – is based on the conceptualization and operationalization of collective narcissism the author presented in an empirical paper in 2009 and a subsequent theoretical paper, and a chapter in Encyclopaedia of Peace Psychology. The idea that the dynamic characterizing what people think about themselves may be paralleled in what they think about groups they belong to may be derived from self-categorization theory. This theory posits that the self can be categorized at different levels of abstraction: personal, social, and human. Status theories also inspired the prediction that collective narcissists should be susceptible to exaggerated moral panics targeting individuals or outgroups.