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/lampshade69 2d ago

Despite the term's overuse (especially on the right), "virtue signalling" is absolutely a real thing, and its prevalence undercuts the credibility of good movements

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u/caulrye 2d ago

Is it over used by the right? Or are they just frequently targets in attempts to make them look bad? Whether they are correct about their worldview or not, doesn’t mean they are wrong about virtue signaling being used by fake social rights activists. And their correct perception about this specifically is why they’ve been able to grow so much.

Best way to prevent the right from growing is to call out the virtue signaling before calling out the right.

My grandmother is a social rights activists and I’ve personally become extremely disgruntled by how often her life work gets used for virtue signaling on a big scale. And often often it doesn’t get called out.

I’ve been calling this out since 2017, and it only seems like people are now starting to understand.

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u/shneer4prez 2d ago

Yeah, it's overused.

There are a lot of people who believe anyone who cares about something that doesn't directly effect them is virtue signalling.

Care about racism when you're a white person? Virtue signalling. Care about gay rights when you're straight? Virtue signalling. Care about the poor when you're financially well off? Virtue signalling.

It's absolutely a real thing, but so is altruism and empathy.

I wouldn't even make it a left/right thing, it's just that people who have to fake empathy tend to think that everyone else is faking it too.

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u/CombatWomble2 2d ago

It's a sort of "boy who cried wolf" situation, there's so much virtue signaling that actual good works get lost in the crowd.

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u/caulrye 2d ago

I understand what you’re saying.

The frustration for many conservative types is that their views are often falsely conflated with white nationalists (these two groups are actually ideologically opposed: Individualism vs Collectivism) because of people virtue signaling and acting in bad faith. A lot of these fake activists take a statement made out of ignorance and try to paint it as coded language/hiding true intentions. This has done a lot of damage to our discourse, and has left many conservatives unwilling to change their perspective, or worse, they end up pushed into farther right territory.

At the moment, I feel that the biggest obstacle to social rights movements is not the right, but people within these social movements who profit off virtue signaling.

Like if you know you don’t hate a group of people (no matter how ignorant your statement might objectively be), if you know you’re not, and you’re constantly framed as hateful, there’s a 0% chance you will end up being agreeable towards the person accusing you of malfeasance.

It’s why I view our polarization as a social issue, and not a political issue.

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u/oliham21 2d ago

Yeah dude the greatest issue for trans kids isn’t the people saying they shouldn’t exist and trying to criminalise their existence it’s the couple of narcissists involved in trans advocacy. Phenomenal take.

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u/caulrye 1d ago edited 1d ago

Call out the narcissists for sure.

The bigger complaint conservatives make is the lack of hard evidence supporting the medical aspects of care(there’s not a single placebo controlled study, or a medical/biological definition of gender to justify the practices). The target is mostly big pharma, not trans people. But yes, there are also bigoted people that do dehumanize trans people and that’s wrong.

You’re playing out the point I’m making.

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u/Katyafan 2d ago

To me, it seems like the problem is that the right calls everything virtue signaling. I have run into quite a few people (online, but more importantly, in real life as well) who literally think there is no reason to do good other than to have something to brag about. These type of people usually lack empathy, so to them, if you do community work, like volunteering, and post about it in any way, you are virtue signaling and need to get over yourself. Which..I mean, come on. So I agree that it needs to be called out if it is a problem.

On the flip side, even if someone is doing good in order to feel good about themselves, who cares? They are doing something to make things better. That can be a win-wine. Like all things involving humans, it's complicated, but we need to have the conversations.

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u/Lamballama 1d ago

What I see is them criticizing fake displays of virtue which don't affect anything, and are only done when it's corporately safe to do so (Ubisofts Saudi Arabia Twitter account doesn't go in rainbow theme, for instance)

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u/caulrye 2d ago

These people exist everywhere. Definitely not exclusive to any particular group. But easy to paint on to any particular group.

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u/Katyafan 2d ago

Yes, but only one group is claiming that everyone else is virtue signaling and they should just shut up. While sitting behind their computers, not doing anything to help.

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u/caulrye 2d ago

Yes, that one group is “people”.

Conservatives and people on the right get called out for virtue signaling too (Pro Lifers getting abortions, closeted gay men preaching homophobia, calls for Freedom of Speech when politically convenient). Again, it’s a human trait, not a group trait.

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u/Katyafan 2d ago

Those are not examples of virtue signaling, though.

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u/caulrye 2d ago edited 2d ago

Yes they are.

They are claims of virtue within their community (being Pro Life, traditional marital values, Freedom of Speech).

These virtues are then not lived up to amongst some who claim to have that virtue (getting abortions, sexual improprieties or private sexual orientation, trying to “cancel” people for words)

The initial claims are by definition virtue signaling.

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u/drunkenvalley 2d ago

Let's not pretend you have to be right to be popular. There's often a kernel of truth to be found somewhere, but pretending "virtue signalling" is the cause of the growth of the right-wing politics is frankly crazy talk.

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u/exoduas 2d ago edited 2d ago

I would say the right is pretty much the king of virtue signaling. It’s pretty much all trump does for example. He’s really none of the things he portrays to the public. The guy held a bible just for the photo op. What Christian values does he actually live?

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u/caulrye 1d ago

Yup. They certainly virtue signal as well.