Psychology Colloquia Series: Professor Agnieszka Golec de Zavala

We are delighted to announce that Professor Agnieszka Golec De Zavala, Professor of Psychology, at Goldsmiths, University of London, will be presenting at our next Psychology Colloquium. Her talk is titled: Rebels without a cause or revolutionaries in reverse? Collective narcissism, populism and political polarisation.

Collective narcissism is a belief that the ingroup deserves but is denied special treatment and recognition. It is a projection of the narcissistic need to be recognised as better than others on the social level of the self. It is an aspect of ingroup identification, one of the ways group members favour their ingroup. National narcissism is associated with collective narcissism of advantaged national subgroups (e.g. Whites, men). They similarly predict discrimination of disadvantaged national subgroups (e.g. racial minorities, women) and legitimisation of group-based inequality. Members of disadvantaged groups who endorse national narcissism internalise beliefs legitimising inequality. Ultraconservative populists propagate national narcissism to undermine the political system that does not sufficiently serve the interests of advantaged groups. National narcissism predicts patriotism and nationalism. Once the three forms of national favouritism are differentiated, it becomes clear that patriotism does not come at the expense of nationalism, discrimination, societal polarisation or erosion of democracy. Instead, it may be a remedy against them.

Professor Agnieszka Golec De Zavala is the Head of the PrejudiceLab, a Professor at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK and an Associate Dead of Concilium Civitas at Collegium Civitas in Poland. Her research expertise encompasses social and political psychology, focusing on the psychological predictors of political conservatism, the role of motivated cognition in intergroup conflict and radicalisation towards political violence, social identity, social inequality, and prejudice. Her current research focuses on theory of collective narcissism, the concept she reintroduced to empirical psychology.

Recent podcast on psychology of collective narcissism can be found here

Professor De Zavala open access book on collective narcissism can be seen here

The seminar will be held online on April 25th, 12:00 – 13:00.

Please use the following link to join the seminar.

The series is organised by Dr Goffredina Spano (g.spano@kingston.ac.uk) and Dr Simona Cantarella (s.cantarella@kingston.ac.uk) from the Psychology Department. If you would like more information about the event, please feel free to email either of them.