The moderating role of collective narcissism in White Americans’ psychological defensiveness to the history of racism

Abstract

Since teaching about past racism in the United States often necessitates deliberations over White Americans’ ingroup transgressions, it can elicit historical defensiveness. We tested this hypothesis across three experiments (Ns = 109, 263, and 601) and further investigated if this effect was moderated by White collective narcissism. White American participants were randomly assigned to an ingroup transgression (presented with the history of racism) or an ingroup nontransgression (presented with the history of general events) condition. Across all experiments, (a) facing ingroup transgressions increased perceived ingroup responsibility among participants with low collective narcissism but not among those with high collective narcissism, and (b) among participants facing ingroup transgressions only, strong collective narcissism was consistently associated with less perceived ingroup responsibility. This research highlights the potential dangers of collective narcissism in erasing the history of racism.

Keywords

critical race theory education political psychology politics racial identity social justice Whiteness

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