ABSTRACT
Collective narcissism is a robust predictor of hostility and coercion in intergroup contexts. It predicts intergroup aggression, support for political extremism and violence, and endorsement of terrorist measures among radicalized groups. Collective narcissism is associated with an antagonistic mindset that contributes to chronic perception of ingroup as besieged by hostility of others and perpetuation of intergroup conflicts. This mindset is characterized by proneness to ultimate attribution error, double moral standards in evaluating actions of the ingroup and the outgroup, black-and-white conflict perceptions, meta-hatred (a belief that others hate our group), and hostile attribution bias (attributing others with hostile intentions towards the ingroup). Collective narcissists believe their ingroup is targeted by secretive plots and conspiracies, constantly facing affronts, negative comments, lack of respect, and insulting lack of recognition.. Collective narcissists are prone to retaliate to perceived or imagined threats and believe revenge is rewarding and desirable, while wrongs done to the ingroup cannot be forgiven or forgotten. They believe their aggression is defensive. The relationship between collective narcissism and intergroup threat is complex, possibly self-reinforcing. Collective narcissism generates hypersensitivity to intergroup threat. Intergroup threat increases collective narcissism and strengthens the link between collective narcissism and intergroup hostility. Once the overlap between collective narcissism and non-narcissistic ingroup satisfaction is accounted for, ingroup satisfaction predicts positive intergroup attitudes contributing to intergroup tolerance.
