National Narcissism predicts the Belief in and the Dissemination of Conspiracy Theories During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence From 56 Countries

National Narcissism predicts the Belief in and the Dissemination of Conspiracy Theories During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence From 56 Countries. Anni Sternisko et al. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, December 7, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672211054947

Abstract: Conspiracy theories related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have propagated around the globe, leading the World Health Organization to declare the spread of misinformation an “Infodemic.” We tested the hypothesis that national narcissism—a belief in the greatness of one’s nation that requires external recognition—is associated with the spread of conspiracy theories during the COVID-19 pandemic. In two large-scale national surveys (NTotal = 950) conducted in the United States and the United Kingdom, and secondary analysis of data from 56 countries (N = 50,757), we found a robust, positive relationship between national narcissism and proneness to believe and disseminate conspiracy theories related to COVID-19. Furthermore, belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories was related to less engagement in health behaviors and less support for public-health policies to combat COVID-19. Our findings illustrate the importance of social identity factors in the spread of conspiracy theories and provide insights into the psychological processes underlying the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19, conspiracy theories, collective narcissism, social identity, public health

General Discussion

In three studies, with data from 51,707 participants from 56 countries, we examined the relationships between national narcissism, COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and health behaviors and policy attitudes. Across culturally diverse samples, we found that greater national narcissism was associated with stronger belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories (Studies 1–3). In the United States and the United Kingdom, national narcissism was also positively related to intentions to disseminate COVID-19 conspiracy theories (Studies 1 and 2). This relationship was mediated by greater belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories (Studies 1 and 2). These relationships were very robust¹² and persisted when we adjusted for a series of relevant covariates. National narcissism might be an important risk factor for the spread of conspiracy theories during the pandemic.

We found correlational evidence suggesting that belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories may have serious consequences for the global containment of the pandemic. Across 56 countries, belief in COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs were related to less adherence to public health guidelines (i.e., physical hygiene, physical distancing; Study 3) and less support for public health policies (Studies 2 and 3). These effects were generally small which may partly be due to restricted variance. People reported high engagement in health behavior and policy support but low belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories. Given the globality and contagiousness of the virus, however, even subtle negligence can be detrimental. We also found that COVID-19 conspiracy theory beliefs mediated a negative relationship between national narcissism and engagement in health behaviors (Study 3) and policy support (Studies 2 and 3).

Theoretical Contributions and Implications

Our study expands previous work on conspiracy theories and public health by examining the role of social identity processes. We found that national narcissism—a defensive belief in the greatness of one’s nation that requires external recognition—was positively related to the readiness to believe and disseminate COVID-19 conspiracy theories. Critically, neither general ingroup positivity (Studies 1–3) nor individual narcissism (Study 3) could fully account for our findings. It was the defensive love for the nation—captured in national narcissism—that seemed to be crucial.

Furthermore, the relationship between national narcissism and belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories persisted when adjusting for participants’ belief in conspiracy theories unrelated to COVID-19 (Study 1), suggesting that national narcissists are not drawn to simply any kind of conspiracy theories (see Bertin et al., 2021; Cichocka, Marchlewska, & Golec de Zavala, 2016). In fact, national narcissism was unrelated to belief in conspiracy theories about topics like politics (e.g., 9/11 inside job) and other public health issues (e.g., HIV, vaccines; see Supplement Table 9.1). This suggests that at the time of data collection COVID-19 conspiracy theories corresponded to a specific social identity need (Enders & Uscinski, 2021; Sternisko et al., 2020, Uscinski et al., 2020), presumably the desire to deny or deflect national shortcomings exposed by the pandemic.

Even though belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories and national narcissism were associated with reflexive open-mindedness (Study 1) and low reflection (Study 3), the association between national narcissism and belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories remained significant when we adjusted for these factors, as well as factual knowledge about COVID-19 (Study 2). These findings highlight that conspiracy theory beliefs among national narcissists are not simply a product of limited cognitive effort and gullibility (Van Bavel & Pereira, 2018; Zmigrod et al., 2018). Certain strategies to reduce the spread of misinformation like accuracy nudges (Pennycook et al., 2020) and media education (Basol et al., 2020) may therefore prove less effective for national narcissists.

Furthermore, we found that the relationship between national narcissism and conspiracy theory beliefs occurs outside the context of intergroup conflict. We found that national narcissists latched onto conspiracy theories specifically related to COVID-19, regardless of who is the alleged conspirator. This suggests that conspiracy theories are a generalized maladaptive ingroup defense strategy among national narcissists (Cislak et al., 2021; Marchlewska et al., 2019).

Little research has examined the psychological risk factors for the spread of conspiracy theories. We found that national narcissism may be a risk factor for the dissemination of conspiracy theories (Hughes & Machan, 2021). At first, our findings may seem obvious: people with stronger conspiracy theory beliefs—people high in national narcissism—should also be more likely to disseminate them. However, the formation and dissemination of people’s public beliefs are much more complex (León-Medina et al., 2020). For instance, people anticipate negative judgment and social exclusion for publicly supporting conspiracy theories (Lantian et al., 2018). In such situations, private and public opinions often become misaligned (León-Medina et al., 2020). Our findings hint at an interesting psychological phenomenon worth future investigation: National narcissists may be more willing than others to imperil their personal image in the interest of defending their ingroup’s image.

Exploratory analyses found evidence that national narcissists’ stronger belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories is linked to less engagement in health behaviors and less support for policies mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic. However, looking at the total and direct effects of national narcissism a more complicated picture emerged. In Study 2, national narcissism was negatively related to policy support after adjusting for national identification. However, national narcissism was positively albeit weakly, related to policy support and physical hygiene and was not related to physical distancing in Study 3 (Van Bavel, Cichocka et al., 2020). When we accounted for conspiracy theories in our mediation models, the direct relationships remained positive, yet weak. These findings suggest that while national narcissism might be associated with lower willingness to adhere to pandemic related guidelines via conspiracy beliefs, other psychological processes might be operating in parallel motivating national narcissists to support policies and regulations to the extent they view them as beneficial to maintaining the positive ingroup image (Cislak et al., 2021; Gronfeldt et al., 2021). More research is needed to unpack these relationships.

Limitations and Future Directions

We found that the relationship between national narcissism and belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories was relatively robust across contexts. Nevertheless, some countries deviated from general trends, suggesting that our findings are not universally true. Furthermore, participants from Africa and the Middle East were still underrepresented in our studies. In addition, we only measured dissemination intentions in Studies 1 and 2, both of which were conducted in Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (W.E.I.R.D) countries. This limits the generalizability of the corresponding findings. We encourage research to replicate our findings with these populations and also explore potential moderators (see Supplement Tables S1.7, S1.8, S2.7, S2.8, S3.4 on gender and ethnicity). We also highlight that all measures relied on self-report and slightly varied across studies. Despite these variations in measurements, our results were consistent across studies which lends further confidence in our conclusions. Last, we note that beliefs in conspiracy theories were quite low. As such, our work is best understood as examining the underlying motives of those who depart from a norm of skepticism towards conspiracy theories.

Since national narcissism is relatively stable over time (Cichocka et al., 2018), we suspect that national narcissism motivates the belief in and dissemination of COVID-19 conspiracy theories, which translates into adverse health behaviors and attitudes rather than the reverse. However, our data is cross-sectional. More work is needed to justify this interpretation. If future research finds evidence that national narcissism increases people’s proneness to believe and disseminate COVID-19 conspiracy theories, practical implications are worthwhile exploring. For instance, underscoring that the national in-group is disadvantaged in fighting the pandemic might heighten the need to assert the image of the group and further fuel conspiracy theories (Marchlewska et al., 2018). Conversely, public health messages might benefit from stressing that the adherence to health guidelines such as getting the COVID-19 vaccine helps protect the nation’s image.