Tuesday 17 February 2015

On Patriotic Narcissism (or Narcissistic Patriotism?)



An opinion piece in Kathimerini, Takis Theodoropoulos

"In Greece in 2015...patriotic narcissism was a democratically shared commodity".

The term is new to me, but could be applied to many groups of people in many countries.

USA, attitudes towards immigrants (Popular Science)

"A combination of group-level narcissism, or feeling an inflated sense of superiority on a collective level, combined with strong national in-group identification—when a person's identity hinges on being part of a group like Americans—may cause negative attitudes towards undocumented Latino immigrants".

Collective Narcissism

Song by Raul Scacchi: Narcissus (YouTube)

Some research paper citations

Narcissism and Nationalism: The Relationship between self-esteem and national identity

Abstract:

"Few studies have examined the role of personal self-regard in different forms of national attachment. Although Social Identity Theory (SIT: Tajfel, 1981; Tajfel & Turner, 1986) suggests that one of the motives for in-group positivity is the need for positive personal self-regard, research has not explored the ways this motive might function. We argue that two distinguishable forms of collective identity, nationalism and patriotism, might be analogous to different manifestations of self-regard, specifically secure self-esteem and two forms of insecure self-esteem, specifically overt and covert narcissism.
Three studies investigated the relationships between self-esteem, overt and covert narcissism, and nationalistic and patriotic national identity. In all three studies, overt narcissism uniquely predicted nationalism. In Studies 1 and 2, patriotism was unrelated to any of the factors of interest whereas in Study 3, it was related to personal self-esteem. The inclusion of conditions in which either personal or collective self-esteem was affirmed or threatened allowed an examination of the functions that nationalism and patriotism might serve for individuals. In Study 2, nationalism was related to overt narcissism when personal self-esteem was threatened but not when it was affirmed. In Study 3, patriotism was related to personal self-esteem and nationalism to covert narcissism when collective self-esteem was affirmed. Together, the results highlight the functions which patriotic and nationalistic national identity for individuals".


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