British citizens who fear immigrants and thought they threatened their values and way of life were more likely to have voted Brexit
And the results, partly driven by narcissism, were regardless of their age, gender or level of education.
The research, published in Frontiers in Psychology, identified ‘collective narcissism’ as a new voting variable.
Scientists from the UK, Poland and Portugal measured the effect of xenophobia on voting behaviour, and found that it was strongly related to voting in favour of Brexit.
Led by Dr Agnieszka Golec de Zavala, from Goldsmiths, University of London, the researchers then tried to establish what kind of people believe that immigrants threaten the UK.
They found three distinct groups: authoritarians, who fear other groups will threaten the status quo; people who compete for their group’s dominance over immigrants; and collective narcissists, who believe the UK is entitled to privileged treatment but complain this ‘true importance and value’ is not recognised by other countries.
Importantly, the research also found that people who just valued their British identity were not more likely to reject immigrants or vote for Brexit.
Dr Golec de Zavala said this research introduces collective narcissism as a new variable to consider when making predictions for political behavior.
She said: “From Brexit, Trump and support for Vladimir Putin in Russia to the nationalist, ultra- conservative government in Poland, studies from our and other labs show that collective narcissism systematically predicts prejudice, aggression and a tendency to interpret innocent behaviors as provocation to the national group.
“Collective narcissism is not a good attitude to have.
“We should study how this becomes a group norm and find ways of preventing it from happening and spreading.
“We should vet our leaders more carefully in this respect because leaders have the power to make such attitudes normative in their groups.”
The researchers also suggest that as the study was conducted after the referendum, it may be that the ‘yes’ vote increased people’s xenophobia, and made them feel more empowered to express xenophobic attitudes.
RELATED
A QUARTER of people who voted Brexit believe they were duped by Leave campaign
Since you are here
Since you are here, we wanted to ask for your help.
Journalism in Britain is under threat. The government is becoming increasingly authoritarian and our media is run by a handful of billionaires, most of whom reside overseas and all of them have strong political allegiances and financial motivations.
Our mission is to hold the powerful to account. It is vital that free media is allowed to exist to expose hypocrisy, corruption, wrongdoing and abuse of power. But we can't do it without you.
If you can afford to contribute a small donation to the site it will help us to continue our work in the best interests of the public. We only ask you to donate what you can afford, with an option to cancel your subscription at any point.
To donate or subscribe to The London Economic, click here.
The TLE shop is also now open, with all profits going to supporting our work.
The shop can be found here.
You can also SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER .
