Received: 19 October 2019 | Revised: 3 November 2020 | Accepted: 4 November 2020 DOI: 10.1002/jts5.80 ORIGINAL ARTICLE The role of collective narcissism in populist attitudes and the collapse of democracy in Hungary Dorottya Lantos1 | Joseph P. Forgas2 1Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK Abstract 2School of Psychology, University of New What are the psychological processes responsible for the recent spread of populist South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia political systems and movements? All political systems essentially reflect the mental Correspondence representations of their populations, and collective narcissism has recently emerged Dorottya Lantos, Department of Psychology, as a contributing factor in the rise of populism. This article presents two studies ex- Goldsmiths, University of London, London SE14 6NW, UK. amining the role of collective narcissism in predicting populist attitudes and voting Email:
[email protected] intentions in Hungary. Hungary offers a particularly important case study of state- sponsored populism and illiberalism in Europe, as this country has gone furthest in undermining democratic principles and practices within the EU. To establish the per- vasive role of collective narcissism we first review the historical evidence, survey research, and narrative analyses of Hungarian political representations. We then pre- sent two empirical studies where we predicted and found that collective narcissism was a significant predictor of negative attitudes toward the EU (Study 1), conserva- tism, and support for the ruling populist party (Studies 1 and 2). Collective narcissism predicted these variables independently from other factors, such as in-group positiv- ity or perceived relative deprivation. However, once conservatism was controlled for the effects of collective narcissism faded out in some cases.