Rebels Without a Cause: Collective Narcissism and Political Contrarianism

In this paper, we examine the relationship between collective and individual forms of narcissism and two contrarian political orientations that are oppositional, suspicious, and purposefully destructive—need for chaos and anti-establishment orientation. In three studies (total N=4144), we demonstrate that (1) national collective narcissism predicts higher levels of need for chaos and anti-establishment orientation, after accounting for non-narcissistic ingroup satisfaction (which is inversely related to both contrarian orientations after accounting for collective narcissism), (2) grandiose narcissism predicts need for chaos but not anti-establishment orientation, whereas vulnerable narcissism predicts both outcomes; (3) initial levels of national collective narcissism predict greater over-time increases in need for chaos and anti-establishment orientation, after accounting for initial ingroup satisfaction (which predicts smaller over-time increases in contrarian orientations after accounting for initial collective narcissism). Together, these findings suggest contrarian orientations may reflect a (frustrated) narcissistic demand to be recognized as better than others, both collectively and individually.