Are narcissists all the same? A new study by Vatvota and Schroeder-Abe, published in the October issue of the Journal of Personality Research, examines whether communal narcissists differ from other narcissists. What is communal narcissism? Before answering that question, let me first clarify what commonality and narcissism mean.

What is commonality?

In his 1966 book, Bakan proposed two basic modes of human existence—agency and communion.2

Agency refers to aspects of existence related to the individual, such as self-assertion, decisiveness, and competence. Partnership refers to aspects of life-related to the community, such as helpfulness, cooperation, and trustworthiness.

What is narcissism?

In social psychology, narcissism is often synonymous with grandiose narcissism—a personality trait characterized by inflated views of oneself, a sense of entitlement, exploitativeness, and limited empathy.

Narcissists’ grandiose views of themselves are reinforced by self-evaluations related to agency (e.g., I am brilliant, competent, attractive, and personable).

However, narcissists only consider themselves exceptional in traits related to agency (e.g., competence, intelligence)—not communication (e.g., honesty, friendliness, helpfulness).

A narcissist may therefore think of himself or herself as the most intelligent, beautiful, attractive, or competent person; but not the most friendly, compassionate, considerate, or supportive person.

What is collective narcissism?

In a 2012 paper, Gebauer and colleagues proposed the agency-partnership model, suggesting that there are two types of narcissists: agentic narcissists (i.e., prototypical narcissists) and collective narcissists.

The authors did not suggest that some narcissists are highly cooperative and trustworthy. No, collective narcissists also have great self-interest. However, the authors suggested that collective narcissists differ from agentic narcissists in that they use collective means to meet the same great needs.

To illustrate this difference, let’s use an example to see how these two types of narcissists justify their sense of entitlement.

Imagine the case of a man who always expects his friends’ gatherings to be planned according to his availability and preferences—even though he rarely stays long and sometimes doesn’t show up at all.

If he is a proxy narcissist (i.e., a typical narcissist), he might justify the current situation by saying, “I deserve special treatment because I am brilliant. I am an expert on almost any topic of conversation.”

A collective narcissist, however, might reason this way: “I deserve special treatment because I am unusually warm-hearted, trustworthy, and helpful; everyone feels comfortable telling me all their problems.”

Community in Words Only?

A collective narcissist is likely to rate themselves highly on social behavior, but does this translate into actual social tendencies, such as being trustworthy, working well with others, listening to others’ problems, and offering support?

According to the people they interact with, communal narcissists have low social traits and communal behaviors. So what’s going on? If communal narcissists are not more social than other individuals, are they lying to others? Or are they lying to themselves?

According to Schroeder-Abe and Vatvota, one way to answer these questions is to measure narcissists’ implicit and explicit self-perceptions.

Implicit/Explicit Self-Views in Collective Narcissism

Explicit self-views describe deliberate evaluations of what makes one different from others. For example, you might think you look better than the average person (in your class).

Implicit self-views refer to evaluations that are made unconsciously. Because they are unconscious, these evaluations are less likely to be influenced by self-presentation concerns and are therefore more honest reflections of your feelings. For example, even though you think you are more handsome than the average person, testing your implicit self-views might reveal that deep down you have doubts about your appearance.

Similarly, a collective narcissist who consciously believes that he or she is unusually helpful might not feel that way at all on an unconscious level. So his or her explicit and implicit views of himself or herself will be quite different.

If so, for collective narcissists, the collective may represent “lip service in the form of hypocritical self-advertisement.”

Current Study of Collective Narcissism

The current study was conducted to examine the implicit and explicit self-views of collective narcissists. The sample included 630 individuals (164 males and 466 females, mean age of 23 years).

Collective narcissism was measured using the 16-item Collective Narcissism Inventory, which includes items such as “I am a great listener” and “I will be the best parent on the planet.”

Implicit and explicit collective self-views were assessed using a modified version of the Implicit Association Test, a computerized behavioral test that measures implicit associations based on reaction times.

Analysis of the results showed support for the authors’ hypothesis. Collective narcissism was associated with explicit collective self-views only.

Concluding Thoughts on Collective Narcissism

Collective narcissists differ from agentic narcissists in that they rely on collective means to meet their self-related needs. The study reviewed in this post suggests that collective narcissists may not, at an unconscious level, believe that they are highly pro-social. Other findings have shown that collective narcissists’ claims to be pro-social do not match their pro-social actions.

However, the results of this investigation do not suggest that collective narcissists are intentionally deceiving the public. Collective narcissists’ beliefs may reflect self-deception, rather than simply public impression management. Narcissists may be trying to convince the public to deceive themselves. They may unconsciously say, “I need to believe that I am exceptional. If you all believe that, then maybe I can truly believe that too.” More research is needed to shed light on the unconscious beliefs of communal narcissists.