Exploring the depths of the MAGA mind.

[Marcuse]

Pathological narcissism is a term often applied to former President Donald Trump, but it has been less examined as a potential predictor of voting for him. Trump projects a grandiose and omnipotent self-image during press conferences and rallies, and his followers at these events often respond with both effusive admiration and an inflated sense of their own self-regard, all of which are aspects of narcissism. However, while Trump’s personal narcissism has been well documented, there is little research on the narcissism of his supporters. In this study we conducted an exploratory analysis examining the hierarchical structure of pathological narcissism and which aspects of narcissism within that structure were associated with intended voting for Trump in the 2020 U.S. presidential election in a sample of U.S. residents collected online (N = 495) using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Results indicated that an eight-echelon hierarchy best fit the data. Within this hierarchy, antagonistic and indifferent aspects of narcissism within the fifth echelon best predicted intended voting for Trump over and above relevant demographic variables. These results have implications for the study of narcissism and, especially given the results of the 2020 election, the degree to which one can make use of narcissistic aspects of personality in political contests.



https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8049239/

[Doodley]

1. Thanks for posting. Will read the paper in the weekend.

[KentuckyWoman]

2. Probably should lay in a supply of bourbon first.

It looks like a good read. Thanks for posting. But honestly, I'll have to take in small bits and break it up with wine .....

[birdographer]

3. Highly recommended book

if you want to understand why trump's followers believe in him--Authoritarian Nightmare by John Dean and Bob Altemeyer. Buy it, find it at the library, read it if this is of interest to you. Well written, very readable and not dry textbook stuff. Beginning deals with how trump got like he is, and then they move to the followers and their mindset. A bit scary but helpful if you struggle with why they are like that.

[NJCher]

4. we've noticed this here

You often see posters at DU refer to the fact that his followers are as sick as he is, and that's what this article is about:

Trump’s narcissism may attract the support of those who also have narcissistic tendencies (and, additionally, may reinforce these tendencies).

If this is the case, he is more dangerous than we ever imagined. He is attracting and organizing these sick people together in a political party and in a "movement."

It's one thing to have a bunch of rando sick-o's out there. it's another to have them organized and voting.

Very interesting article. I am going to re-read it again later tonight.

[SWBTATTReg]

5. Very interesting. I am wondering, since the article is mentioning that narcistic persons tend to attract others,

I would have thought the opposite of this, that if someone is hogging all of the attention because they are narcistic, why would other narcistic persons deal w/ them? They wouldn't get any attention or the like, themselves. Perhaps I'm missing something...note, the article does mention that these narcistic persons do tend to feed off each other. Hmmm, a key to perhaps undo djt? Perhaps.

In conclusion, this is a very comprehensive article on narcissism, if you have time to read it, go ahead and read it, it's pretty geeky, lots of big words, but interesting, and does begin to scratch at the surface of tRUMP's narcistic behaviors. If you don't read it, that's fine too, by the time I was finished reading it, I was almost exhausted from the verbal comprehension my brain was undergoing, ha heh.