Narcissism and Prejudice: The Moderating Impact of Personal Threat

According to realistic conflict theory, social identity mechanics are heightened in situations where threat to an ingroup is evident (e.g., Jackson, 1993). In the present study, we predicted that narcissistic antagonism variables would predict ingroup biases to the extent that a collective threat presented a real or perceived individual threat to the individual. To test this, 252 participants were randomly assigned to read a policy proposal, one that was threatening to the ingroup and one that was not. Results revealed that under high threat, narcissistic distrust, narcissistic lack of empathy, anti-egalitarianism, and ingroup satisfaction predicted reduced policy support. Under low threat, an interaction between threat and narcissistic distrust also reduced support. The who score higher on narcissistic antagonism exhibited ingroup bias under threat, but did not do so under low threat.No embargoAcademic Major: Psycholog