What is Collective Narcissism? Sociopsychological Meaning, Definition, and Explanation

2 years ago
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From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_narcissism

In social psychology, collective narcissism (or group narcissism) is the tendency to exaggerate the positive image and importance of a group to which one belongs. The group may be defined by religion, social class, race, political stance, language, nationality, employment status, education level, cultural values, or any other ingroup. While the classic definition of narcissism focuses on the individual, collective narcissism extends this concept to similar excessively high opinions of a person's social group, and suggests that a group can function as a narcissistic entity.

Collective narcissism is related to ethnocentrism. While ethnocentrism is an assertion of the ingroup's supremacy, collective narcissism is a self-defensive tendency to invest unfulfilled self-entitlement into a belief about ingroup's uniqueness and greatness. Thus, the ingroup is expected to become a vehicle of actualization of frustrated self-entitlement. In addition, ethnocentrism primarily focuses on self-centeredness at an ethnic or cultural level, while collective narcissism is extended to any type of ingroup.

When applied to a national group, collective narcissism is similar to nationalism: a desire for national supremacy. Collective narcissism is associated with intergroup hostility.

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