The Conspiracy of Us: Political Narcissism Promotes Ascription of Conspiracy Intentions to In-group Members

This research explores how political collective narcissists endorse conspiracy beliefs, particularly those that portray both in-group and out-group members as conspiring agents. We hypothesized that individuals high in political narcissism would be more likely to endorse conspiracy theories that accuse both out-group and in-group members of intentional, secret, and coordinated actions. In Study 1 (n = 735), we found that political narcissism (but not political identification) among conservatives and liberals predicted belief in both anti-liberal and anti-conservative conspiracy theories. In Study 2 (n = 658), we introduced a novel measure that more directly portrays liberals and conservatives as conspiring agents and found that political narcissism was positively associated with believing in conspiracies, accusing both out-group and in-group members. In Study 3 (n = 1197), we demonstrated that the relationship between political collective narcissism (both among liberals and conservatives) and belief in conspiracy theories with in-group members as conspiring agents was mediated by the party-over-nation orientation. Our findings suggest that collective narcissists not only endorse out-group conspiracies but also in-group conspiracy beliefs, especially when such beliefs serve strategic goals.