They’re out to get you.
Of course they are, why the hell wouldn’t they.
Who the hell else are they going to get, some loser?
Abstract
Narcissism—a conviction about one’s superiority and entitlement to special treatment—is a robust predictor of belief in conspiracy theories. Recent developments in the study of narcissism suggest that it has three components: antagonism, agentic extraversion, and neuroticism. We argue that each of these components of narcissism might predispose people to endorse conspiracy theories due to different psychological processes. Specifically, we discuss the role of paranoia, gullibility, and the needs for dominance, control, and uniqueness. We also review parallel findings for narcissistic beliefs about one’s social groups. We consider the wider implications this research might have, especially for political leadership. We conclude by discussing outstanding questions about sharing conspiracy theories and other forms of misinformation.
Need for uniqueness
Although the orientation towards self-enhancement typical of agentic extraversion might be less predictive of paranoia or needs for dominance, it could be associated with conspiracy beliefs via different psychological processes. One such factor is the need for uniqueness [26,27], which is often associated with the admiration/agentic extraversion aspect of grandiose narcissism. High need for uniqueness likely increases the appeal of conspiracy theories because they promise access to privileged information, making one feel special [26,27]. Indeed, in the study by Kay [12], need for uniqueness emerged as a mediator between grandiose narcissism and conspiracy beliefs, and we argue this is likely due to the agentic extraversion component [cf. 14].
Gullibility
Although narcissists are typically overconfident in their abilities, judgments, and intelligence [28], they tend to be naive and less likely to engage in cognitive reflection [16,29,30]. For example, Hart and colleagues [31] found that those scoring high in narcissistic rivalry/antagonism (but not admiration/agentic extraversion) were more gullible, that is insensitive to cues of untrustworthiness and vulnerable to being manipulated. Furthermore, studies consistently show that both grandiose (especially its antagonistic, but less consistently agentic extroversive, component [12]) and vulnerable (its antagonistic and neurotic components [12]) narcissism are associated with a predisposition towards odd and unusual beliefs [32,13,14]. Conspiracy theories can be one example of such beliefs. There is also evidence that gullibility strengthens the association between narcissism and conspiracy beliefs. In a study by Ahadzadeh and colleagues [9], the link between narcissism and endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories was especially pronounced among those who were not skeptical towards social media posts in the first place. Taken together, this research suggests that narcissistic antagonism and neuroticism might predict higher gullibility, further related to conspiracy beliefs.