Narcissistic grandiosity predicts greater involvement in LGBTQ activism

The Archives of Sexual Behavior recently published research that examines the role of dark personality traits in activism. The 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.

The researchers were driven to explore these motivations to better understand a concept they proposed: the dark-ego-vehicle principle, a theoretical framework suggesting that some individuals might exploit social activism for self-serving purposes. According to this principle, individuals with “dark” personality traits—such as narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, or sadism—may engage in activism not to advance its altruistic goals but to satisfy their own self-serving needs. These individuals exploit activism as a “vehicle” to fulfill desires for attention, status, or power.

“The DEVP assumes that individuals with high levels of dark traits may inauthentically and selfishly use prosocial activism to satisfy their own ego-focused dark needs (e.g., the need to signal one’s own moral virtue, a behavior that has been coined virtue signaling),” explained study authors Ann Krispenz, a postdoctoral associate, and Alex Bertrams, the head of the Educational Psychology Lab at the University of Bern.

“As narcissistic people are particularly keen to gain attention, fame, and prestige, certain forms of activism that are currently prominently covered by the media are likely to be particularly attractive to them. We consider LGBQ and gender-identity activism as forms of activism getting a high level of public attention.”

The researchers carried out two pre-registered studies, each focusing on different aspects of activism and involving distinct participant samples.

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Study 1: Narcissistic traits and LGBQ activism

In the first study, the researchers recruited 446 participants from the United States using a research-oriented crowdsourcing platform known as Prolific. Participants completed self-report questionnaires measuring pathological narcissistic grandiosity, narcissistic vulnerability, altruism, and their level of involvement in activism. These measures also included assessments of participants’ tendencies toward virtue signaling—symbolic displays of morality meant to elicit favorable judgments from others—and social dominance, which involves using coercion or intimidation to gain influence.

The findings showed a significant relationship between higher levels of narcissistic grandiosity and greater involvement in LGBQ activism. Notably, this relationship persisted even when controlling for altruistic motives, suggesting that some individuals engage in activism not solely for prosocial reasons but to satisfy self-serving needs.

The study also revealed that virtue signaling was a key factor linking narcissistic grandiosity to activism. This finding suggests that individuals with high narcissistic tendencies may be drawn to activism as an opportunity to publicly showcase their moral superiority. Contrary to expectations, the researchers found little evidence that dominance played a significant role in the narcissism-activism relationship. These results provided strong initial support for the dark-ego-vehicle principle in the context of LGBQ activism.

“We assumed that people with dark personalities are attracted to activism as it may give them opportunities to domineer others and act out their inclination for aggression, but we did not find evidence for that,” Krispenz and Bertrams told PsyPost. “This came as a surprise to us because in a previous study we had found correlations between engagement in environmental activism and the tendency to dominate others”

Study 2: Extending findings to gender identity activism

In the second study, the researchers aimed to replicate and extend their findings by focusing specifically on gender identity activism, including advocacy for transgender and nonbinary individuals. For this study, 837 participants from the United Kingdom were recruited using the same crowdsourcing platform.

The results confirmed that narcissistic grandiosity was related to greater involvement in gender identity activism, mirroring the previous findings. Virtue signaling again emerged as a mediating factor, reinforcing the idea that individuals with narcissistic traits may use activism as a platform to display moral superiority. Together, the two studies provided robust evidence for the dark-ego-vehicle principle, particularly in the context of high-visibility social justice movements.

“We interpret these findings such that some individuals will participate in LGBQ and gender-identity activism not for prosocial reasons but to satisfy their own ego-focused needs,”  Krispenz and Bertrams said. “In line with this argument, we also found indications that the respective individuals use their participation in activism to signal their self-accredited grandiose moral superiority and virtue.”

The role of psychopathy

The researchers also examined the role of psychopathic personality traits, but found contrasting results. “In Study 1, we found an association between involvement in LGBQ activism and psychopathy as a dark-personality trait,” the researchers explained. “We related this finding to incidents during pride rallies in different countries where signs, shirts, or shouts and respective social media statements were spotted calling for violence against TERFs (an acronym referring to trans-exclusionary radical feminists that is often used in a derogatory fashion).”

“From the perspective of the DEVP, we propose that such behaviours are indicative of the opportunities that gender-identity activism may give psychopathic individuals who enjoy inflicting harm on others. However, using a different measure of psychopathy, we could not replicate the psychopathy–activism relationship in Study 2.”

Broader implications of the dark-ego-vehicle principle

The researchers said that the findings have practical implications for understanding and evaluating the dynamics of activism.

“We believe that our findings are a reminder for everyone to take a closer look before making a judgment and supporting or rejecting a specific form of prosocial activism,” they explained. “Some manifestations of activism may have less to do with the cause itself and more to do with the personalities of certain actors who come to the fore.”

“In such cases, it is likely that these people are thinking more about their personal gains in terms of money, prestige, attention, or satisfaction in the exploitation of others. Also, they will probably reduce their activistic efforts as soon as the media reports less about the issue and/or the topic evokes fewer reactions on social media. However, behind there are also many individuals who authentically and empathetically work for the activist cause but who are less in the foreground, and could thus be easily overlooked.”

The findings also have practical implications for those involved in activism. While many activists are genuinely altruistic, others may exploit activism as a means to fulfill narcissistic needs, potentially harming the movement’s reputation and effectiveness by prioritizing their own self-interest.

“Sometimes, we see similar behavior in two people, such as participation in activism, but their (hidden) motives can be fundamentally different,” Krispenz and Bertrams told PsyPost. “While one person may perceive a societal problem and be altruistically motivated to support other people, another person may not be empathetic at all and merely see their participation in the activism as a temporary vehicle to satisfy their desire for virtue signaling, etc.”

“This may also explain why we (just like other researchers before us) have found an association between prosocial activism and the tendency to behave altruistically, while we also found the expected relationship between the same kind of activism and self-interested narcissism. These findings suggest that the activism examined here is not narcissistic per se, but carried out by altruistic people who want to achieve the claimed prosocial goals, while at the same time other people may hijack and exploit this activism as a vehicle to satisfy narcissistic needs.

“This creates the risk that narcissistic people publicly behave in a narcissistic fashion but do so in the name of the activism (e.g., by spreading condescending content in the social media), thereby harming the respective form of activism as many may naturally feel repelled by such a mode of expression,” the researchers continued. “Hence, we believe that those who want to protect the rights of the LGBQ community should know about the phenomenon the DEVP proposes.”

“Narcissists may also strive for an influential position in the activist movement, get access to its financial resources and use those resources to satisfy their self-centered needs. Such self-serving behaviors do not only prevent the activist movement from spending these resources for the prosocial cause but may also result in irreparable financial and reputational harm inevitably reducing public support. Therefore, minority groups and their true allies need to be made aware of the narcissistic ‘enemies from within’ so they can take adequate measures to protect the movement.”

The researchers also cautioned against misinterpreting the findings to cast aspersions on minority groups.

“The DEVP does not mean that activism is narcissistic per se, as many people participate in LGBQ activism due to altruistic motives (which we also found in our data),” Krispenz and Bertrams said. “Most importantly, the DEVP does not state that individuals belonging to the respective minority (e.g., members of the LGBQ community) are particularly narcissistic. The assumption is rather that some(!) people involved in activism may actually have narcissistic motives.”

Perceptions of the dark-ego-vehicle principle in academic and activist spaces

Given the sensitive nature of the research, one might anticipate significant backlash, yet the researchers report that the response to the DEVP has been largely positive.

“The reactions are mixed but more positive overall, which somewhat surprised us,” Krispenz and Bertrams said. “Many find the assumptions of the DEVP intuitive and timely. We believe that we have succeeded in communicating in our publications that we are not doing something completely absurd like ‘research against minorities.’ Fortunately, many people seem to be good at differentiating. We do not yet know whether our research has reached the respective activism groups and the people affected and how it will be perceived there. We hope that it will not be misinterpreted as an attack but rather as a helpful gain in knowledge.”

“Rarely, we receive dismissive or supercilious reactions, particularly during the peer- review process. We have also experienced that some do not want to constructively critique but to cancel our research. Nevertheless, we believe that our research is very relevant in the present political climate. To ensure the integrity of our (maybe for some people controversial) research, we pre-register our hypotheses and adhere to the standards of open science. This allows others to reproduce our results and to form their own opinion.”

Limitations and future research directions

The new research contributes to a growing body of research exploring the interplay between personality traits and social activism. One notable strength is the pre-registration of hypotheses and the use of open science practices, such as publishing study materials and raw data, which enhance transparency and reproducibility.

However, the study is not without limitations. A primary constraint is the reliance on self-report measures, which can introduce biases such as social desirability or inaccuracies in self-perception. Additionally, the cross-sectional design of the studies limits the ability to draw causal inferences about the relationship between personality traits and activism involvement. While the researchers accounted for several covariates, unmeasured factors—such as cultural or contextual influences—may also play a role in shaping the observed relationships.

For future research, longitudinal studies could help establish causality and determine whether narcissistic individuals maintain their involvement in activism over time or retreat when public attention diminishes. Expanding the scope of research to include other forms of activism, such as the anti-abortion movement, could test the applicability of the dark-ego-vehicle principle across diverse contexts.

“There still are many open conceptual questions regarding the DEVP: For which kinds of activism is the DEVP (not) valid?” Krispenz and Bertrams said. “Do different forms of activism provide different vehicles for dark personalities due to the specific social norms prevalent in different forms of activism? Which other dark personality factors next to narcissism and psychopathy are relevant for which kind of activism, and why? In addition, an important next step is to empirically investigate the causal assumptions of the DEVP, which we have not yet done.”

“We would invite other researchers to test the validity of our results with their own data. Objectives for future research on the DEVP are to determine variables
moderating the narcissism–activism relationship. We also believe that the DEVP holds independently of any political orientation. To test this assumption, future research should investigate the validity of the DEVP including individuals on both sides of the political spectrum.”

“Apart from prosocial activism, we think that the DEVP is also applicable to political radicalism and extremism on the outwardly different ideological sides,” the researchers added. “Further, we will soon publish a study investigating the DEVP in the context of antisemitism.”

The study, “Further evidence for the Dark-Ego-Vehicle Principle: Higher pathological narcissistic grandiosity and virtue signaling are related to greater involvement in LGBQ and gender identity activism,” was published December 2, 2024.