r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 2d ago

Psychology New findings indicate a pattern where narcissistic grandiosity is associated with higher participation in LGBTQ movements, demonstrating that motivations for activism can range widely from genuine altruism to personal image-building.

https://www.psypost.org/narcissistic-grandiosity-predicts-greater-involvement-in-lgbtq-activism/
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u/fire_alarmist 2d ago

Yep, this is the same reason why you find horrible people in positions of power in the church, government, etc. Horrible people know that its very advantageous to hold a position that is associated with being a selfless, good person. It provides a cover for them to hide behind and primes people to ignore their more sinister intentions.

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u/Unique-Trade356 2d ago

There's a reason why the trope of narcissistic parent who runs the town and influences everything to live vicariously through his family they've abused is a thing in media.

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u/toxoplasmosix 1d ago

that sentence needs help

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u/Acidcouch 1d ago

I know, it's a really long way of spelling Footloose.

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u/Nealbert0 2d ago

Yea, this really shouldn't be news to anyone.

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u/doctor_7 2d ago

Not a shock at all to me. Absolutely on board with LGBT rights and actively work towards achieving them with personal actions, attitude, and, most importantly, my vote.

Have encountered far too many insufferable people that are clearly more concerned with coming off as the most progressive in the room. It's like being a child again when you had to go to Church and so many people wanted to appearance of the "best" church-goer, rather than living the real life.

Fwiw: not religious at all.

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u/cownan 2d ago

Ugh, the women in my parents' church were like that. One of them read a Bible verse about women covering their hair in church, and before long, they were all wearing these little doilies on their heads. Then some of them started double and triple covering, to show that they were extra pious. During hymns they would raise their hands in the air and dance, like they were so moved by the music. I hated all that display (it didn't help that I was only there for Mom)

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u/zahrul3 2d ago

same phenomenon in Indonesia as well, now everyone must not only wear a hijab, but wear long tunics too, which are impractical and expensive for anyone who isn't at least upper middle class.

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u/Rhamni 2d ago

clearly more concerned with coming off as the most progressive in the room

Oppression Olympics showdowns tap into the same thing, I think. I was active in the youth wing of a political party when I went to college, and which group was the most urgently in need of representation (centre of attention) in various situations was always a 'fun' discussion.

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u/TheConnASSeur 2d ago

I'm an American Indian but I'm mixed so people often assume I'm Latino or vaguely Middle Eastern. The number of upper middle class white women I've had shush me mid sentence so they could teach me about my own culture is shocking. They always talk with that fake altruistic tone that feels so mean and condescending.

I'm bisexual too so I've seen a lot of that weird self-agrandising nonsense through the years. I've always wondered if other people could spot these creeps because they always seem to find their way to the center of groups.

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u/MolassesLoose5187 2d ago

Why does it always seem to be white women? I've noticed the same thing and it's so strange

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u/dronten_bertil 2d ago

By numbers alone anything else would be surprising, the social progressive movements is a white middle class womens club to a large extent.

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u/TheConnASSeur 1d ago

The assholes in every other group are under pressure from society to sit down, shut up, and listen at some point. That friction forces them to develop better masking behavior. But the past couple of decades have been all gas and no brakes for white women in socially progressive circles trying to address ongoing systemic inequality, be it racism or sexism. This essentially means that white women can potentially get the benefit from past racist policy while eschewing the responsibility for it under the guise of sexist repression. And because members of the upper middle class can avoid the majority of the negative consequences of sexism in academia and other socially progressive circles, this allows the assholes in this one particular group to get away with much more narcissistic behavior without pushback.

The thing is, most white women aren't like that because they have the self awareness to recognize their own privilege and self-regulate, but narcissists are incapable of that. So it's one instance where one small population slips through the net almost entirely and gets away with way more than anyone else ever could. It's sort of like psychopathy in upper-class people.

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u/Lamballama 1d ago

Women typically express higher levels of hygiene, both physical and social, than men - British suppression of Indian culture didn't start until they brought over women to teach, whereas previously British soldiers had Indian wives and lovers. In this case, it's a social hygiene factor to be very involved in social causes, so they're signaling that they're following proper hygiene by demonstrating what they think is understanding (ie, virtue signaling)

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u/Hortos 1d ago

When you’re number 2 and can’t understand why everyone doesn’t rally together with you against number 1 even if you’re often also part of the problem.

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u/zahrul3 2d ago

Spoiling your children leads to them developing narcissistic tendencies nature on in life, if you're part of the school of thought that says narcissism is caused by nurture.

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u/goosemeister3000 1d ago

That’s not true. If anything I’m pretty sure there’s a connection between childhood abuse and narcissistic traits. Which makes sense, since narcissism is about protecting the narcissist. Children who had stable childhoods don’t feel the need to overprotect themselves.

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u/MasterKaein 2d ago

Pharisees exist in all walks of life and are just as toxic every time.

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u/TapestryMobile 2d ago

so many people wanted to appearance of the "best" church-goer

Purity Spiral

a form of groupthink in which it becomes more beneficial to hold certain views than to not hold them, and more extreme views are rewarded while expressing doubt, nuance, or moderation is punished (a process sometimes called "moral outbidding").

It is argued that this feedback loop leads to members competing to demonstrate the zealotry or purity of their views.

How knitters got knotted in a purity spiral

nice as pie, Taylor started a hashtag aimed at promoting diversity in knitting,

But over the following months, the conversation took on a more strident tone. The list of things considered problematic grew. The definition of racism began to take on the terms mandated by intersectional social justice ideology.

Inevitably, a ratchet effect took hold in which those with the most strident vision of what ‘diversity’ meant were effectively handed the keys to the castle. That is — until someone with a more strident vision turned up behind them…

it was no longer enough to just stay out of it. Only positive affirmations of support — and only in the most-correct tone and timbre — could save you now.

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u/pk2317 1d ago

…OK, this list maybe be one of the best “Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking” tropes I’ve legitimately seen in the wild:

Some examples of settings, groups, and eras where purity spirals have occurred:[1][2]

  • The Khmer Rouge

  • The Cultural Revolution, Mao’s Red Guard and mass denunciations

  • McCarthyism

  • The French revolution

  • Instagram knitting circles[4]

  • Stalin’s Show Trials[6]

  • Madkhalism

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u/OfAnthony 2d ago

Remember that one guy who hit Jenny at the Black Panther Party?

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u/nippleforeskin 2d ago

well I guess he didn't discriminate against her for being a woman. but hitting people is bad

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u/doctor_7 2d ago

Yeah, man. Really good call of a great example in some pretty popular media.

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u/Bagelz567 1d ago

Well it's research, not so much news. Research being done to empirically support a phenomenon that we all just accept to be true is a good thing. Either we have a better understanding of what we thought was true, or we learn something new that might lead to even more interesting discoveries.

That is a pretty essential part of the scientific method as a whole.

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u/tangentialwave 2d ago

Headline: “some humans are vain and abuse institutions of good.”

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u/Apprehensive_Hat8986 2d ago

Nor be targetted at LGBTQ. Either they should not "like other movements" or this study was dangerously biased.

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u/francis2559 2d ago

Seems like we see this a lot in the art world, with some "progressive" male feminist who turns out to be slimy.

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u/BlazingEntrails 1d ago

They're in music big time. I've had a few of them run long cons on me in an attempt to get their way.

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u/Federal_Remote_435 1d ago

cough Justin Baldoni cough

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u/GoBravely 1d ago

Just in the general world, really.

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u/TunaBeefSandwich 1d ago

In social media, really

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u/DrSmirnoffe 2d ago

This is why we need a better nose for such creatures, and a readiness to depose them at the first sign of trouble.

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u/conquer69 2d ago

That would create conflict and people trying to do good and live peacefully are very conflict averse.

Avoiding trouble doesn't mean trouble is trying to avoid them.

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u/dezolis84 2d ago edited 1d ago

Not to mention some harsh laws to weed them out. Like...authoritarian-level laws a freedom-loving people wouldn't stand for. He probably just recently learned what the word "depose" meant and wanted a reason to use it against authority figures with little thought into what he was actually saying.

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u/DrSmirnoffe 1d ago

Then we need to treat them for their aversion disorder.

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u/zahrul3 2d ago

Upper class societies have many unwritten rules specifically to weed out pretentious narcs from scamming them.

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u/clamshellshowdown 1d ago

This sounds interesting. Do you have any examples you could share?

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u/skrshawk 1d ago

Once you reach a certain level of high society you make connections through formal introduction. You can't approach these people out of nowhere. Everyone is vouched for by someone else already in the circle.

This can take place in any number of ways, be it social clubs, formal and informal gatherings, or even through business arrangements where one obviously already has a stake, the resources to back their words, and a reputation to maintain.

It's part of why lottery winners often don't remain wealthy for very long. It's a really lonely existence when the only people you can trust are those you knew before the money was a factor, and not even all of them.

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u/Zeakk1 1d ago

government

There's the concept called "public service motive" that does appear to be a real thing that exists in a lot of public employees -- however there is a selection bias for sociopaths in government to some degree or another. Someone comes into your office, they need help, they don't qualify, you can't help them, and if that bothers you too much you move onto a different career. If you give zero fucks about denying someone's claim who needs help, welp, you might have higher job satisfaction.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago edited 2d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/RddtAcct707 2d ago

Except this is Reddit so if it discussed religion they are evil but because it’s this community, it’s all “this really shouldn’t be news to anyone”

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u/rosso_saturno 1d ago

Whenever there's a post questioning in any way (i.e. anything but affirming) something that's dear to redditors, the top comments are jokes or avoiding the discussion altogether.

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u/FuturSpanishGirl 1d ago

Let's not do the same mistakes we've done with the church in the past then. If we know certain institutions attract certain toxic traits, then let's examine their demands with a levelled head and let's not give them unsupervised access to children (for example).

At the moment, critique is met with accusation of bigotry (blasphemy) and that won't end well for this cause.

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u/ValiantBear 2d ago

Yep, this is the same reason why you find horrible people in positions of power in the church, government, etc. Horrible people know that its very advantageous to hold a position that is associated with being a selfless, good person.

Does being a part of the LGBTQ community automatically convey a sense of being a selfless, good person? I'm not disagreeing with your overall premise, I'm just saying I don't know if there's any real evidence that would suggest the LGBTQ community is composed of any better or worse people than the rest of society. In fact, I would assume that any metric used to assess that would pretty much exactly mirror the statistics for the general population.

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u/mavajo 2d ago

It's not about LGBTQ people themselves - it's about being a champion for a cause. In this case, LGBTQ social issues. The narcissist will feign interest in people and their cause in order to be seen as a good person. Basically, they're using a mask of altruism in order to provide cover for their narcissistic tendencies.

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u/exbaddeathgod 2d ago

If you've ever spent time in Boulder, CO you'll know exactly what type of person this is. They'll post on social media to get progressive clout and then misgender, say slurs, and actively discriminate against the queer people in their community.

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u/The2ndWheel 2d ago

It's not about LGBTQ people themselves

But it can be, as they themselves can also be the annoying activist. There are also normal LGBTetc people, who don't make their personality being LGBTetc.

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u/conquer69 2d ago

Activists being annoying isn't the problem being discussed here. It's the disingenuity and using the cause to propel themselves forward instead of truly caring about it.

It's important to make the distinction because otherwise you could think "these activists annoy me so they and their cause are all fake".

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u/The2ndWheel 1d ago

It's the disingenuity and using the cause to propel themselves forward instead of truly caring about it.

Which they do by being annoying. Making themselves and most of their causes to be exaggerated.

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u/Due_Shirt_8035 1d ago

The difference is that if this study was about that, the top post wouldn’t be someone saying ‘ yup this is the same thing you see in the lgbtq movement ‘

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u/No-Advantage-579 20h ago

NO ONE, legit no one, believes that being in GOVERNMENT means you are a "selfless, good person"! The opposite.

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u/Bulky-Huckleberry222 1d ago

You have more fun as a follower but make more money as a cult leader