When the group is too important to you. Collective narcissism mediates the relationship between social identity centrality and negative intergroup outcomes

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Research on collective narcissism has overlooked the complex nature of identity, treating narcissism as an alternative rather than a consequence of group identification. In three studies (N = 979, N = 1016, and N = 111), we thoroughly examined the relations of three dimensions of social identity, collective narcissism and negative intergroup phenomena. We proposed that collective narcissism should be considered more a result of the high centrality of social identity rather than an alternative form of identity, whereas the strength of ties, an aspect unrelated to narcissism, should have positive outcomes. Our results revealed that narcissism mediates the relationship between centrality and negative intergroup phenomena. In an experiment, we provided evidence that narcissism is a consequence of high centrality. Moreover, we have shown that the strength of ties has no relationship with narcissism. Our findings suggest a need to reconsider the perspectives on identification and narcissism.