Brexit and Polexit: Collective Narcissism Predicts Support for Leaving the European Union

After 40 years of gradual expansion, the European Union (EU) is becoming smaller for the first time. Although officially the UK remains the only member state to ever negotiate its EU exit, its decision has started a widespread discussion on membership conditions among other member states. How can we understand these centrifugal tendencies which may eventually transform the world as we know it? Commentators pointed to the key role of identity in explaining why people supported the UK leaving the EU (e.g., Goodwin, 2016). Tackling this question from a social psychological standpoint, we suggest that the attitude toward the EU among the citizens of member states would depend on the way they identify with their own nation. Drawing on work on different forms of social identification (e.g., Amiot & Aubin, 2013; Cichocka, 2016), we hypothesize that negative evaluation of membership in transnational organizations should be positively predicted by national collective narcissism, but not by conventional in-group identification (without the narcissistic component). Collective narcissism is a belief in in-group greatness accompanied by a conviction that others do not appreciate the in-group enough (Golec de Zavala, Cichocka, Eidelson, & Jayawickreme, 2009). Preliminary work indicated that British collective narcissism was associated with support for Brexit (e.g., Marchlewska, Cichocka, Panayiotou, Castellanos, & Batayneh, in press). In the current research, we clarify the mechanism behind this link and show that it might apply beyond the context of Brexit. We predict that the grandiosity of collective narcissism would result in the belief in relative in-group membership disadvantage, which would drive the effect of national collective narcissism on preferences for leaving the EU. These predictions were tested in three studies. Study 1 used a representative sample of Polish adults (N = 635). Study 2 was conducted among 219 Polish students. Study 3 was conducted among employees and associates of the British Embassy in Poland (60 British, 73 Polish). In all studies national collective narcissism and national identification were measured as predictors of voting in the presumed Brexit and Polexit referenda, controlling for political orientation and demographics (age and gender). In Studies 2 and 3 perceived UK’s and Poland’s disadvantage of EU membership was measured as a mediator. The results of the all studies converged to show that national collective narcissism was a strong positive predictor of a preference to leave the EU, over and above the effects of demographics and political orientation. We did not observe similar effects for the mere strength of national identity. The effects of national collective narcissism on Polexit and Brexit attitudes were mediated by the perceived relative disadvantage (Studies 2 and 3). Crucially, in Study 3 we observed a similar pattern both among citizens of the country that is leaving the EU (the UK) and the country that has not yet officially signaled its intention to do so (Poland). Thus, the current findings clarify the role national identity plays in predicting support for membership in supranational organizations. We discuss factors fostering national collective narcissism and implications for the European integration.