Narcissists people prefer countries to be run by the military or strong leaders.
Narcissists are not fans of democracy, research finds.
People with narcissistic self-views prefer countries to be run by the military or strong leaders.
Narcissists think that democratically elected governments are not good at maintaining order.
The results of the study are probably explained by the fact that narcissists do not tolerate views that differ from their own.
As the study’s title has it, narcissists believe that: “It’s my way or the highway.”
People with high self-esteem, though, tend to support democracies.
The study’s authors write:
“Narcissists have high feelings of self-worth, but tend to be defensive: They are easily threatened by criticisms or conflicting views.”
In contrast, non-narcissists tend to be willing to trust others and have higher self-esteem.
The conclusions come from surveys of 407 people in the US and 405 in Poland.
The results of both found that people with high self-esteem tended to support democracies.
Narcissists, though, who often have low self-esteem, did not generally support democracy.
Dr Aleksandra Cichocka, study co-author, said:
“The jury is out on whether the new generations are becoming more narcissistic than previous ones, but it is important to monitor how societal changes can affect the self.
We need to make sure we are not fostering feelings of entitlement or expectations of special treatment.
In the end, these processes may have important implications for our social and political attitudes.”
The study was published in the British Journal of Social Psychology (Marchlewska et al., 2018).
