Global climate change is severely impacting environmental conditions and endangering human health (e.g., via food and water insecurity; Kim et al., 2014). The scientific climate models of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2022) show that the global climate change is most likely caused by human activities (e.g., emissions of greenhouse gases due to burning fossil fuels). In recent years, global climate change has thus gotten worldwide attention. As a consequence, 193 countries and the European Union joined the Paris Agreement in 2015 and committed to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. Simultaneously, environmental NGOs (e.g., Earthwatch, Greenpeace) as well as grass root movements (e.g., The Alliance for International Reforestation) are participating in the fight against climate change (e.g., by collecting signatures, financially supporting research, etc.). Currently, however, some environmental activists are using rather controversial methods to raise public awareness. For example, activists from Just Stop Oil (aka “Last Generation”) threw tomato soup on Vincent van Gogh’s painting “Sunflowers” and glued themselves to a wall in the National Gallery in London (Gayle, 2022, 14 Oct). Other activists of the same organization glued themselves to roads in London (Zakir-Hussain & Quadri, 2023, 03 Mar) and airport runways in Germany (Dye, 2023, 15 Jul) to block traffic.

While such behaviors may draw a lot of media attention, the question arises whether such intense forms of activism are actually helping the proclaimed environmental cause. Empirical evidence suggests otherwise– activism that is highly counter-normative, disruptive, or even harmful to others seems to erode public support for the respective activist movement. For example, Thomas and Louis (2014) showed that petitioning against coal-seam-gas mining (i.e., nonviolent activism) spurred greater support (and less hostility) in sympathetic bystanders than hurling projectiles. The authors concluded that violent activities “may undermine the very impression that the activists are seeking to create […].” Further, Orazani and Leidner (2019) found that individuals are rather willing to support nonviolent (vs. violent) movements. The authors argued that this effect is caused by the so called “underdog effect”: As nonviolent activist movements may be perceived as victimized by high-power entities (e.g., the government), they may also be perceived as more moral (than violent movements) leading to more support from the public. Additionally, investigating the effects of peaceful but disruptive pro-vegan protests, Menzies et al. (2023) found that these lead to more negative attitudes towards veganism than non-disruptive protests but only among female study participants (Study 1). Accordingly, the attempted public destruction of world heritage art (i.e., the painting of van Gogh) or the disruption of traffic through road blocks by the activists of Just Stop Oil may likely reduce the public’s willingness to support the activists’ environmental cause. While some activists may just not be aware of the negative side effects of such intense activistic behavior, we argue that some of the individuals who engage in such forms of environmental activism may not actually strive to save the planet from global warming but participate in environmental activism for very different reasons which are captured by the dark-ego-vehicle principle (DEVP).

The dark-ego-vehicle principle

According to the DEVP (Bertrams & Krispenz, 2024; Krispenz & Bertrams, 2023, 2024a, 2024b), individuals with pronounced dark personality traits such as narcissism are inclined to use political or social activism as a vehicle to satisfy the needs specifically associated with their dark personality (e.g., getting public attention, feeling morally superior, domineering others, engaging in social conflicts, seeking thrills etc.). Indirect support for the DEVP can be found in empirical studies which investigated the self-centered personality characteristics of narcissists. These studies show that narcissists actively seek fame, leadership positions, and social status (Greenwood et al., 2013; Grijalva et al., 2015; Mahadevan & Jordan, 2022; Nevicka, 2018) whilst displaying manipulative, exploitative, and aggressive tendencies (Hepper et al., 2014; Kjærvik & Bushman, 2021). Concerningly, narcissists seem to pretend to act out of altruistic and prosocial motivations (Greenwood et al., 2013; Konrath et al., 2016). However, they actually have lower empathy (Bushman & Thomaes, 2011) and poor ethics (Brown et al., 2010; Watts et al., 2013) even though they seem to be well able to recognize emotions (e.g., anxiety) in others (Konrath et al., 2014). In combination, all these traits could make narcissists more prone to participate in environmental activism not to save the planet but to satisfy their own ego-focused needs. At this point, there are already a few empirical studies in support of the DEVP: For example, Fazekas and Hatemi (2021) found a relationship between narcissism and participation in political activism. Other researchers (Rogoza et al., 2022) found relationships between Dark Triad traits and non-normative political activism (e.g., blocking streets, causing chaos). In line with the DEVP, Krispenz and Bertrams (2024b) found higher anti-hierarchical aggression (i.e., a component of left-wing authoritarianism; see Costello et al., 2022) to be related to higher antagonistic narcissism and psychopathy but not to altruism and social justice commitment. Based on these results, the authors argued that individuals with dark personalities may use left-wing ideology not for the alleged fight against societal injustice but for virtue signaling, domineering others, and meeting their thrills during political protests. To describe this phenomenon, Krispenz and Bertrams (2024b) coined the term DEVP.

To explore the validity of the DEVP, the authors conducted various studies examining the relationship between narcissism and different forms of activism. They found grandiose narcissism to predict involvement in anti-sexual assault activism (Bertrams & Krispenz, 2024), feminist activism (Krispenz & Bertrams, 2024a), as well as LGBQ and gender identity activism (Krispenz & Bertrams, 2023). In a recent study, Zacher (2024) found direct empirical evidence for the validity of the DEVP in the context of climate activism. In his study, he investigated the relationships between dark triad traits (i.e., narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy), environmental activism, and left-wing authoritarianism while controlling for not only demographic variables but also Big Five characteristics, political orientation, and right-wing authoritarianism. In line with the DEVP, Zacher found positive associations between narcissism and environmental activism as well as Machiavellianism and environmental activism. Taken together, these studies suggest that some activists may not actually strive for social justice but rather participate in activist movements to satisfy their own ego-focused, sometimes even anti-social, needs.

Nevertheless, it needs to be stressed that the DEVP does not state that activism is narcissistic per se as many people are participating in the respective forms of activism due to altruistic motives (Bertrams & Krispenz, 2024; Krispenz & Bertrams, 2024b). Rather, the DEVP assumes that some narcissists may hijack a political or social activist movement, deceiving others about their prosocial motives whilst actually placing their own needs first. Thereby, they may cause serious harm to the activist movement (e.g., by reducing the public’s support). Thus, prosocial activist movements need to be made aware not only of the potential negative consequences of violent and/or disruptive activism found in previous research (Orazani & Leidner, 2019; Menzies et al., 2023; Thomas & Louis, 2014) but also of the danger of the narcissistic “enemies from within.”

The present research

Even though there is already empirical evidence supporting the DEVP (Bertrams & Krispenz, 2024; Krispenz & Bertrams, 2023, 2024a, 2024b; Zacher, 2024), it is not yet an elaborated theory. Within Borsboom et al.’s (2021) theoretical circle in the process of theory construction methodology, the research on the DEVP is still at a stage where it needs to be reliably replicated and more deeply investigated by means of data collection. Accordingly, the present research has the following two goals: Firstly, we wanted to replicate the narcissism—activism relationship found in previous studies in the context of environmental activism. Secondly– as the main goal of the present research and a novel approach– we wanted to explore the boundary conditions of the DEVP by examining differential patterns of narcissistic engagement in environmental activism.

The narcissism—activism relationship

As a first step, we aimed at replicating the narcissism—activism relationship in the context of environmental activism. According to Alisat and Riemer (2015, p. 14), environmental actions are defined as “intentional and conscious civic behaviors that are focused on systemic causes of environmental problems and the promotion of environmental sustainability through collective efforts”. Such behaviors range from self-education about environmental issues to financially supporting environmental causes to raising awareness using traditional methods (e.g., writing to politicians). However, as current events show, environmental activism can also comprise disruptive and/or violent acts (e.g., the attempted destruction of art; Gayle, 2022, 14 Oct).

The present research assumes that environmental activism may be particularly attractive for pathological grandiose narcissists. While narcissistic vulnerability is characterized by feelings of inadequacy, helplessness, low self-esteem, shame, and emotional vulnerability which can lead to the avoidance of interpersonal relationships as the individual is hypersensitive to rejection and criticism, narcissistic grandiosity entails entitlement, an inflated self-image, interpersonal exploitation, a lack of empathy, and aggressive behaviors (Wright et al., 2010). Hence, environmental activism may provide individuals high in grandiose (rather than vulnerable) narcissism with opportunities to live out their specific personality characteristics because this form of activism is accompanied by media attention and admiration from parts of society for the environmental activists as well as the self-legitimized possibility to offensively patronize others or attack their property.

In particular, participation in environmental activism may easily satisfy three very specific needs of grandiose narcissists: Firstly, the participation in environmental activism seems to provide grandiose narcissists with opportunities to meet their need for virtue signaling (Krispenz & Bertrams, 2023, 2024b). Virtue signaling is defined as the public demonstration of one’s own outstanding moral virtue without the need of the actual internalization of the respective moral values (Ok et al., 2021). Presenting oneself publicly in an outstanding positive light seems to be primarily typical of narcissism rather than other dark personality facets (such as Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism; Krispenz & Bertrams, 2024b). As environmental activism has moral-based elements, it allows environmental activist to display their moral superiority. For example, it enables environmental activists to not only demonstrate their concern for other species but also to show their disgust towards others who act environmentally irresponsible (e.g., Jia et al., 2017). The notion that virtue signaling is an important motive behind the involvement in environmental activism is also in line with the results of previous studies which have consistently related the involvement in moral-based activism to virtue signaling (Krispenz & Bertrams, 2024b).

Secondly, the participation in environmental activism may allow grandiose narcissists to dominate others. Grandiose narcissism has been related to increased dominance (i.e., the dispositional motivation to domineer others; Pincus et al., 2009). And even though previous studies have failed to find evidence of a relationship between activism and the tendency to dominate others (Krispenz & Bertrams, 2023, 2024a), we still assume that grandiose narcissists may be able to satisfy this need in today’s environmental activism, which may provide more potential for domineering others (e.g., by blocking of roads and airport runways) than other forms of activism.

Thirdly, the participation in environmental activism may quench the thirst of grandiose narcissists for sensation seeking (i.e., the tendency to seek out novel and thrilling experiences; Cyders & Smith, 2007). Not only is thrill seeking a feature of grandiose narcissism (Mahadevan & Jordan, 2022); similarly, a higher personal inclination for sensation seeking may be related to greater involvement in environmental activism as some activist actions (e.g., road blocking) are dangerous and can easily turn into aggressive situations. In conclusion, these three specific personality traits (i.e., virtue signaling, dominance, and sensations seeking) may play an important role when grandiose narcissists get involved in environmental activism.

We assume that pathological (rather than non-pathological) narcissism may lead to problematic expressions of environmental activism. Even though pathological and nonclinical measures of narcissistic grandiosity have been found to be highly correlated (Miller et al., 2016), nonpathological narcissism seems to be more adaptive while pathological grandiose narcissism is undoubtedly dysfunctional (Pincus et al., 2009). In particular, pathological narcissistic grandiosity has been related to hostility, suspiciousness, cognitive/perceptual dysregulation, emotional lability, irresponsibility, eccentricity, and rigid perfectionism (Miller et al., 2014). Such traits may elicit cognitions, emotions, and behaviors that are difficult to reconcile with democratic principles (e.g., finding compromises by mediating between different positions). Moreover, such traits may severely undermine the declared prosocial goals of (environmental) activism.

For all of these reasons, we assumed that pathological narcissistic grandiosity is related to higher involvement in environmental activism, thereby going beyond the frequent focus of research on nonpathological conceptions of dark personalities in Dark Triad/Tetrad research (Furnham et al., 2013). This assumption is also supported by the results of previous studies which found pathological narcissistic grandiosity (but not narcissistic vulnerability) to predict involvement in feminist (Krispenz & Bertrams, 2024a), LGBQ, and gender identity activism (Krispenz & Bertrams, 2023).

Boundary conditions of the DEVP

Secondly– as the main goal of the present research and a novel approach– we wanted to explore a boundary condition of the DEVP. In line with the DEVP, we believe that different forms of activism may be more or less suitable for narcissists to use as a dark-ego vehicle (Krispenz & Bertrams, 2024b). Specifically, we think that– as a minimum requirement– the respective activism needs to provide at least some benefits that narcissists can repurpose to satisfy their dark personalities’ needs; otherwise, this form of activism should be irrelevant for narcissists. For example, activistic causes receiving little to no public interest may be far less attractive to narcissists than other forms of activism which are widely noticed.

The context of environmental activism allows us to take these assumptions to the empirical test. According to Alisat and Riemer (2015, p. 14), environmental actions include low-level participatory civic action (e.g., looking up information about environmental issues, signing petitions, donating money) as well as high-involvement political leadership actions (e.g., organizing protests). While participatory actions are rather of simple and supportive nature, leadership actions require more engagement as well as distinct competences and leadership skills. For example, individuals might actively seek a leadership position and organize political groups and activist events (e.g., boycotts, protests), thereby demonstrating a high commitment to the cause.

We assumed the positive relationship between pathological narcissistic grandiosity and environmental activism to be more intense regarding individuals’ engagement in environmental leadership actions than regarding their engagement in environmental participatory actions for the following reasons: Firstly, empirical studies found that narcissists desire fame, social status, and leadership positions (Greenwood et al., 2013; Grijalva et al., 2015; Mahadevan & Jordan, 2022; Nevicka, 2018). Hence, we expected that pathological grandiose narcissists are more drawn to leadership behavior when it comes to environmental activism than to participatory behaviors which grandiose narcissists may consider “beneath them.” Further, as a leadership position is typically accompanied by higher public visibility and more power, environmental leadership actions may also entail more opportunities to satisfy the narcissistic desires for (1) virtue signaling, (2) domineering others, and (3) sensation seeking. Because leaders are likely to be particularly known (even by name) to the media and opponents of their activism, a leadership position allows for extensive opportunities to display moral superiority. Further, a leadership position may enable narcissistic individuals to instigate disruptive acts (such as road blocks) in the name of the cause by which they can dominate others (e.g., bystanders who are blocked from traveling), and encounter exciting situations (e.g., media interviews, conflicts with bystanders). Hence, the leadership (vs. the participatory) action aspect of environmental activism can be assumed to be more attractive to grandiose narcissistic individuals due to its potential for satisfying grandiose narcissistic needs.

Research hypotheses

Hence, we pre-registered and tested the following two main hypotheses: (1) Pathological narcissistic grandiosity is positively related to engagement in environmental leadership actions, and (2) pathological narcissistic grandiosity is more strongly positively related to engagement in environmental leadership actions than to engagement in environmental participatory actions.

Additionally, we conducted several secondary analyses. Note, that none of these secondary analyses were pre-registered as we considered them as auxiliary. Firstly, analogous to previous research (Krispenz & Bertrams, 2023– Study 1, 2024a), we also examined whether higher pathological narcissistic grandiosity is related to greater involvement in leadership actions of environmental activism over and above relevant covariates (i.e., pathological narcissistic vulnerability, age, and gender). According to the recommendation of Pincus (2023), we included pathological narcissistic vulnerability to account for its overlap with pathological narcissistic grandiosity. Further, age and gender have been found to be related to both narcissism and activism (e.g., Krispenz & Bertrams, 2024a), providing potential alternative explanations for the assumed relationship between pathological narcissistic grandiosity and involvement in environmental activism. However, in those prior studies, grandiose narcissism and involvement in activism were always related beyond these covariates. Hence, we presumed higher pathological narcissistic grandiosity to be related to greater involvement in leadership actions of environmental activism over and above pathological narcissistic vulnerability, age, and gender.

Finally, we investigated the relationships between pathological narcissistic grandiosity as well as involvement in environmental activism and the inclinations for virtue signaling, dominance, and sensation seeking. Based on the above-mentioned considerations, we assumed positive relationships for pathological narcissistic grandiosity, involvement in environmental activism, and these three variables respectively.

Method

Open science and ethical standards

The study was approved by the ethics commission of the University of Bern (Switzerland) (no. 2022-05-00006). All participants provided informed consent prior to participation. The data collections were registered at https://aspredicted.org. The pre-registrations, complete materials, and raw data are available at https://researchbox.org/1739 (with the Prolific IDs deleted from the raw data files to protect participants’ rights).

Participants and procedure

Prior to the present research, we had conducted a study with two points of measurement (https://researchbox.org/1681). This previous research was conducted online– all instructions and measures were provided via the survey software Qualtrics. Participants were recruited via the research platform Prolific (https://www.prolific.co). Prolific is an online-crowdsourcing system which allows for the collection of representative and high quality data (Douglas et al., 2023) from samples recruited in the US (for detailed information, see Costello et al., 2022). Adhering to our pre-registered criteria, we excluded the data of participants which could not be matched (due to missing Prolific IDs), failed the attention check, and/or were identified as duplicate respondents. The final sample of this previous study consisted of N = 1,265 participants.

For the present study, we re-invited the participants of the previous study, with N = 1,166 following the re-invitation. Adhering to our pre-registered criteria, we excluded n = 19 participants from this sample as their Prolific IDs were missing (i.e., their previous and newly collected data could not be matched). Of the remaining participants (n = 1,147), we were able to match the previous and the newly collected data of n = 1,145 participants (i.e., 90.5% of the original sample), which is the final sample size of the present study (for the socio-demographic data, see Table 1). According to a power analysis using G*Power 3.1 (Faul et al., 2009), with this sample size, correlation analyses would be sensitive to effects of r = 0.09 (α = 0.025 [two-tailed]; 1 − β = 0.80).

Table 1 Sample demographics
Full size table

As described above, the measures for the previous and the current study were distributed over three points of measurement. This approach was chosen to address the problem of common method variance. This bias can occur when self-reports are assessed at the same point in time (i.e., in cross-sectional studies; Chang et al., 2010; Lindell & Whitney, 2001) which can lead to an artificial inflation of the investigated relationships. At the first time of measurement, social justice commitment and left-wing authoritarianism were assessed for the previous study. About 2.5 weeks later, at the second time of measurement, involvement in seven different forms of activism (including environmental activism) was assessed for the previous study. The measures for the seven forms of social-justice activism were presented in a random order. About another 2.5 weeks later, at the third time of measurement, all other variables relevant for the current study were assessed which included pathological narcissism, virtue signaling, dominance, and sensation seeking. This time, the measures of virtue signaling, dominance, and sensation seeking were presented in random order.

Measures

Involvement in environmental activism

We applied the Environmental Action Scale (EAS) of Alisat and Riemer (2015). This scale comprises two subscales: leadership actions (8 items; e.g., “Organized an environmental protest/rally”) and participatory actions (10 items; e.g., “Financially supported an environmental cause”). The instruction for both subscales reads “In the last six months, how often, if at all, have you engaged in the following environmental activities and actions?”. Responses are given on five-point scales from 0 (never) to 4 (frequently). We calculated mean scores for both subscales and a total mean score across all 18 items. Higher scores represent greater involvement in environmental activism. The scales showed excellent internal consistency (leadership actions: McDonald’s ω = 0.94; participatory actions: McDonald’s ω = 0.92; total score: McDonald’s ω = 0.95).Footnote 1

Pathological narcissism

The Pathological Narcissism Inventory (Pincus et al., 2009; Wright et al., 2010) was used to measure pathological narcissistic grandiosity with the respective subscale (18 items; e.g., “I try to show what a good person I am through my sacrifices”). Another 34 items assess pathological narcissistic vulnerability (e.g., “It irritates me when people don’t notice how good a person I am”). All 52 items can also be combined to a total score of pathological narcissism. The items were answered on six-point scales from 0 (not at all like me) to 5 (very much like me). We averaged the respective responses to create the two subscale scores and a total score. For all scores, higher values represent higher narcissism. The scales showed good to excellent internal consistencies (grandiosity: McDonald’s ω = 0.89; vulnerability: McDonald’s ω = 0.95; PNI total score: McDonald’s ω = 0.95).

Virtue signaling

We followed the procedure described by Ok et al. (2021) to measure the inclination for virtue signaling. As a first step, the participants completed the Moral Identity Scale (Aquino & Reed, 2002) which assesses two subdimensions: moral identity internalization and moral identity symbolization. The internalization subdimension captures the extent to which certain morality-related traits are central to one’s self-concept whereas the symbolization subdimension refers to the tendency to publicly express one’s moral identity. On top of each subscale, the participants were presented with a list of nine different positive and morality-related traits (i.e., caring, compassionate, fair, friendly, generous, hardworking, helpful, honest, and kind) and asked to visualize how individuals having these traits would think, feel, and act. Their internalization tendency (e.g., “It would make me feel good to be a person who has these characteristics”) and their symbolization tendency (e.g., “I often wear clothes that identify me as having these characteristics”) were assessed with five items each. Each item had a five-point response scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Separate scores were calculated for the internalization and the symbolization subdimensions by averaging the respective five items. The internalization subscale showed satisfying (McDonald’s ω = 0.79) and the symbolization subscale good internal consistency (McDonald’s ω = 0.87). In a second step and using linear regression analysis, we predicted the participants’ symbolization scores by their internalization scores and saved the unstandardized residuals as each participant’s final virtue signaling score. These scores represent how strongly someone tends to publicly demonstrate morality independently of their internalized moral values with higher scores indicating a higher inclination to virtue signaling.

Dominance

The inclination for dominance was measured with the Dominance Scale (Zurek et al., 2022). The scale consists of five items (e.g., “Everything usually turns out to be as I want”) and are responded to on five-point scales from 1 (I definitely disagree) to 5 (I definitely agree). We calculated a mean total score with higher scores representing a higher dominance. The scale showed good internal consistency (McDonald’s ω = 0.82).

Sensation seeking

We used the sensation seeking subscale of the UPPS-P Impulsive Behavior Scale (Cyders et al., 2014) to assess individuals’ disposition for sensation seeking. The four items (e.g., “I quite enjoy taking risks”) were responded to on a four-point scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). The responses to the four items were averaged. Higher mean values represent higher sensation seeking. The scale showed satisfying internal consistency (McDonald’s ω = 0.75).

Data analysis strategy

To investigate the relationship between pathological narcissistic grandiosity and engagement in environmental leadership actions, we used Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient as pre-registered. This approach allowed us to follow Peterson’s (2009) idea of minimally sufficient research because it minimized our degrees of interpretative freedom: From our previous research, we knew that the distribution of involvement in activism variables is typically skewed. Our approach circumvents post-hoc data transformations to achieve normal distribution (and any post-data-collection decision making from our side). Also, from a theoretical standpoint, pathological narcissistic grandiosity and engagement in environmental leadership actions should at least be monotonically related. Therefore, we believe Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient to be sufficient to put the DEVP to the test.

Further, we used Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient to determine the relationship between pathological narcissistic grandiosity and engagement in environmental participatory actions. Based on the compelling results of a Monte Carlo simulation study of Myers and Sirois (2006), we then applied Fisher’s r-to-z transformation to test the difference between the two relationships (i.e., the relationship between pathological narcissistic grandiosity and environmental activistic leadership vs. participatory actions). To compare the two correlations, we used the tool provided by Lee and Preacher (2013). For the two correlation coefficients, we applied a Bonferroni-adjusted significance level of 0.025 (two-tailed test); for the comparison of the two correlations, we applied the conventional p = 0.050 significance level. To further ensure the robustness of the correlation coefficients, we also report bias-corrected and accelerated (BCa) bootstrap 95% confidence intervals (CI) based on 1,000 bootstrap samples (cf. Field, 2018).

In addition, we supplemented our pre-registered main analyses with a non-preregistered multiple regression analysis regressing the leadership aspect on pathological narcissistic grandiosity and several covariates (pathological narcissistic vulnerability, age, gender). Again, we report BCa bootstrap 95% CIs based on 1,000 bootstrap samples. As complimentary data analyses, we also report multiple regression analyses regressing (1) the participatory aspect and (2) the total score of involvement in environmental activism for interested readers.

To analyze the assumed relationships between pathological narcissistic grandiosity as well as involvement in environmental activism and virtue signaling, dominance, and sensation seeking, we also applied Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient using the 0.05 (two-tailed test) significance level. Considering the number of additional correlations of interest, there is an increased risk of alpha error inflation. Therefore, for the interpretation of the results, we also classified the size of the correlations according to a general standard. Following the effect size guidelines for individual differences researchers (Gignac & Szodorai, 2016), we considered correlations of 0.10/0.20/0.30 as relatively small/typical/relatively large. This classification is in line with recent findings according to which the typical effect sizes in social psychology and individual differences research are r̄ = 0.21 and r̄ = 0.19, respectively (Gignac & Szodorai, 2016; Richard et al., 2003). Also, note that for pre-registered psychological studies as ours the typical effect size is even smaller (median r = 0.16; Schäfer & Schwarz, 2019).

As additional analyses, which were not pre-registered, we explored whether the narcissistic needs mentioned above (i.e., virtue signaling, domination, and sensation seeking) mediate the relationship between pathological narcissistic grandiosity and involvement in environmental activism. For this purpose, we conducted three separate mediation analyses using the software PROCESS (model 4; Hayes, 2022). For these analyses, we report 95% bootstrapped confidence intervals (BCIs) and standard errors based on 5,000 bootstrap samples and the percentile method.

Results

For the descriptive statistics and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients (ρ) for all relationships between the analyzed variables, see Table 2. In line with our first pre-registered main hypothesis, we found a positive association between pathological narcissistic grandiosity and the leadership aspect of involvement in environmental activism (ρ = 0.24, BCa 95% CI [0.18, 0.30], p < 0.001). Contrary to our second pre-registered main hypothesis, pathological narcissistic grandiosity was even more strongly related to the participatory aspect of involvement in environmental activism (ρ = 0.28, BCa 95% CI [0.22, 0.33], p < 0.001). The results of Fisher’s r-to-z transformation test revealed that the difference between these two correlations just missed the statistical significance, z = 1.95, p = 0.051.Footnote 2

Table 2 Descriptive statistics and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients between involvement in environmental activism, pathological narcissism, and auxiliary variables
Full size table

The relationship between pathological narcissistic grandiosity and the leadership aspect of involvement in environmental activism was also statistically significant (β = 0.30, p <.001) over and above the covariates (i.e., age, gender, and pathological narcissistic vulnerability). The same was true for the relationship between pathological narcissistic grandiosity and the participatory aspect (β = 0.38, p <.001) and the total score of involvement in environmental activism (β = 0.37, p <.001). For all results of these regression analyses, see Table 3.

Table 3 Multiple regression analyses regressing the leadership aspect (model 1), the participatory aspect (model 2), and the total score (model 3) of involvement in environmental activism
Full size table

Consistent with our assumptions, virtue signaling was not only related to pathological narcissistic grandiosity (ρ = 0.41, BCa 95% CI [0.37, 0.47]), but also to the leadership aspect (ρ = 0.37, BCa 95% CI [0.32, 0.42]), the participatory aspect (ρ = 0.38, BCa 95% CI [0.33, 0.44]), and the total score (ρ = 0.39, BCa 95% CI [0.33, 0.44]) of involvement in environmental activism (all ps < 0.001). Similarly, the correlation coefficients for the relationships between dominance and pathological narcissistic grandiosity (ρ = 0.42, BCa 95% CI [0.36, 0.47]), as well as the leadership aspect (ρ = 0.19, BCa 95% CI [0.14, 0.25]), the participatory aspect (ρ = 0.17, BCa 95% CI [0.11, 0.23]), and the total score (ρ = 0.17, BCa 95% CI [0.11, 0.24]) of involvement in environmental activism were statistically significant (all ps < 0.001). Finally, results showed that sensation seeking was positively related not only to pathological narcissistic grandiosity (ρ = 0.34, BCa 95% CI [0.29, 0.39]), but also to the leadership aspect (ρ = 0.24, BCa 95% CI [0.18, 0.29]), the participatory aspect (ρ = 0.29, BCa 95% CI [0.23, 0.34]), and the total score (ρ = 0.28, BCa 95% CI [0.23, 0.34]) of involvement in environmental activism (all ps < 0.001).

The results of our exploratory mediation analyses showed a statistically significant effect of pathological narcissistic grandiosity on virtue signaling (a = 0.48, 95% BCI [0.42, 0.54]) and a direct effect of pathological narcissistic grandiosity on involvement in environmental activism (c’ = 0.16, 95% BCI [0.11, 0.21]). Also, we found a significant indirect effect of pathological narcissistic grandiosity on involvement in environmental activism via virtue signaling (ab = 0.14, 95% BCI [0.11, 0.18]). Secondly, we found pathological narcissistic grandiosity to significantly predict individuals’ inclination for dominance (a = 0.42, 95% BCI [0.37, 0.47]) and involvement in environmental activism (c’ = 0.26, 95% BCI [0.20, 0.31]). Results also revealed a significant indirect effect of pathological narcissistic grandiosity on involvement in environmental activism via dominance (ab = 0.05, 95% BCI [0.02, 0.07]). Thirdly, results showed that pathological narcissistic grandiosity significantly predicted sensation seeking (a = 0.30, 95% BCI [0.26, 0.35]) and involvement in environmental activism (c’ = 0.23, 95% BCI [0.18, 0.28]). Again, we found an indirect effect of pathological narcissistic grandiosity on involvement in environmental activism but this time via sensation seeking (ab = 0.08, 95% BCI [0.05, 0.10]). For all results of the mediation analyses see Table 4.

Table 4 Multiple regression analyses for engagement in environmental activism via virtue signaling, dominance, and sensation seeking
Full size table

Discussion

With the present study, we sought to falsify the DEVP. For this purpose, we went beyond the scope of previous studies (Bertrams & Krispenz, 2024; Krispenz & Bertrams, 2023, 2024a, 2024b) by investigating the validity of the DEVP in the context of environmental activism (see also Zacher, 2024, for similar research). Further, we explored potential boundary conditions of the DEVP.

Replication of the narcissism—activism relationship

In line with our pre-registered first main hypothesis, we found a positive association between pathological narcissistic grandiosity and the leadership aspect of involvement in environmental activism. The strength of this association (ρ = 0.24) was slightly above the typical effect size in social and individual differences psychology (r̄ = 0.21; Gignac & Szodorai, 2016; r̄ = 0.19; Richard et al., 2003) as well as the median effect found in pre-registered psychological studies (r = 0.16; Schäfer & Schwarz, 2019). The relationship between pathological narcissistic grandiosity and the leadership aspect of involvement in environmental activism also held when we controlled for relevant covariates (i.e., age, gender, and pathological narcissistic vulnerability). We consider these results as further empirical evidence for the validity of the DEVP (Bertrams & Krispenz, 2024; Krispenz & Bertrams, 2023, 2024a, 2024b). According to the DEVP, individuals with so called dark personalities are drawn to political or social activism as long as they can use it as a vehicle to satisfy their specific needs. In the literature, narcissistic grandiosity has been related to specific personality characteristics (i.e., entitlement, an inflated self-image, interpersonal exploitation, a lack of empathy, and aggressive behaviors; Wright et al., 2010). Those characteristics may severely undermine the declared prosocial goals of environmental activism. Environmental activism focuses on systemic causes of environmental challenges by offering collective efforts to promote environmental sustainability (Alisat & Riemer, 2015). To reach those goals, environmental activists may educate themselves about environmental issues, donate money or time to support environmental causes, and raise awareness for the cause. As current events show (e.g., Dye, 2023, 15 Jul; Gayle, 2022, 14 Oct; Zakir-Hussain & Quadri, 2023, 03 Mar) environmental activism can also lead to massive media attention for environmental activists who use rather disruptive and/or violent behavior in the name of the cause. Hence, (such forms of) environmental activism may be especially attractive to individuals high in grandiose narcissism. In particular, participation in environmental activism seems to satisfy three very specific narcissistic motives:

Firstly, the participation in environmental activism may quench the narcissistic need for virtue signaling as it allows narcissistic individuals to display their moral superiority above others (e.g., people who act environmentally irresponsible; Jia et al., 2017). In line with the results of previous studies (Krispenz & Bertrams, 2023, 2024b), the results of the present study again showed that virtue signaling was not only strongly related to pathological narcissistic grandiosity but also to the different aspects of involvement in environmental activism.

Secondly, the participation in environmental activism may enable narcissists to satisfy their need for dominance. Narcissistic grandiosity has been related to increased dominance before (Pincus et al., 2009) and the results of the present study provide further evidence for a strong relationship between pathological narcissistic grandiosity and dominance. In contrast to previous studies (Krispenz & Bertrams, 2023, 2024a), the results of the present study also revealed a statistically significant association between involvement in environmental activism and the tendency to dominate others. These results indicate that today’s environmental activism provides more potential for domineering others (e.g., through blocking of traffic) than other forms of activism. However, it is worth mentioning that the size of the found relationships was small compared to previous psychological research (r̄ = 0.21; Gignac & Szodorai, 2016; r̄ = 0.19; Richard et al., 2003) but slightly above the typical effect size found in pre-registered studies (median r = 0.16; Schäfer & Schwarz, 2019).

Thirdly, grandiose narcissists may participate in environmental activism due to their thirst for thrills and sensations. Supporting previous evidence (Mahadevan & Jordan, 2022), the results of the present study showed that pathological narcissistic grandiosity is related to a higher personal inclination for sensation seeking. In addition, we found a relationship between sensation seeking and involvement in environmental activism which was relatively strong according to the classification guidelines we use in this study (r̄ = 0.21; Gignac & Szodorai, 2016; r̄ = 0.19; Richard et al., 2003) and considerably stronger than the typical effect found in pre-registered studies (median r = 0.16; Schäfer & Schwarz, 2019). These results hint that some environmental activist may enjoy the participation in dangerous and aggressive activist behaviors. Based on the results, we argue that some of the individuals who engage in environmental activism may not actually strive to focus on systemic causes of environmental problems and the promotion of environmental sustainability but to satisfy their own ego-centered needs.

Boundary conditions of the DEVP

In line with the DEVP, we argue that different forms of political and social activism may be more or less suitable for narcissists to satisfy the needs associated to their dark personality traits (Krispenz & Bertrams, 2024b). Conversely, we believe that any form of activism that fails to provide at least some ego-centered benefits should be irrelevant for narcissists. In line with this argument, Bertrams and Krispenz (2024) found narcissistic involvement in anti-sexual assault activism to be more pronounced for women than for men. The authors argued that this result may be due to the fact that– in the context of anti-sexual assault activism– narcissistic males could be accused of mansplaining, thus, preventing a satisfaction of ego-focused needs (e.g., for admiration). In the present study, we tested whether different aspects of environmental activism– leadership vs. participatory actions– may provide narcissists with more vs. less opportunities to satisfy their own ego-focused needs (e.g., for virtue signaling, domineering others, and sensation seeking). Specifically, we pre-registered the assumption that the positive relationship between pathological narcissistic grandiosity and involvement in environmental activism is more intense for individuals’ engagement in leadership than participatory actions.

Contrary to our second pre-registered main hypothesis, the results of the present study showed that pathological narcissistic grandiosity was even more strongly related to the participatory aspect of involvement in environmental activism (ρ = 0.28) than to the leadership aspect (ρ = 0.24). Even though the difference between the two correlations was statistically not significant, it just barely missed the mark. This result seems to contradict the empirical evidence which found narcissists desire fame, social status, and leadership positions (Greenwood et al., 2013; Grijalva et al., 2015; Mahadevan & Jordan, 2022; Nevicka, 2018), which had initially led us to the assumption that narcissistic individuals should be more strongly drawn to leadership behaviors than to participatory behaviors in environmental activism. One possible explanation for the found result could be that leadership actions (e.g., organizing a protest) require more engagement and commitment as such actions are far more complex than simple and supportive participatory actions (e.g., donating money to an environmental cause; cf. Alisat & Riemer, 2015). Nevertheless, many of those simple participatory actions may still allow narcissistic individuals to satisfy their ego-focused needs even without a time- and resource-consuming leadership position. For example, financially supporting an environmental cause may still allow a narcissistic individual to quench their thirst for virtue signaling (e.g., by telling others about the donation– in person or on social media). And talking to others (e.g., friends who eat meat) about environmental issues (e.g., the negative environmental consequences of eating meat) may additionally allow narcissistic individuals to dominate those others (e.g., by expressing alleged morally superior vegan attitudes). Moreover, such participatory actions may be even more convenient for narcissistic individuals as they do not require any strong commitment or effort from them. Therefore, simple participatory actions may even be more attractive for narcissistic individuals than a stressful leadership position. Nevertheless, future research is needed to further explore the validity of this explanation when investigating the boundary conditions of the DEVP.

Strengths and limitations

The results of the present study regarding our first pre-registered main hypothesis as well as the results of previous studies (Bertrams & Krispenz, 2024; Krispenz & Bertrams, 2023, 2024a, 2024b; Zacher, 2024) fundamentally speak to validity of DEVP. In several large samples and for several forms of activism, those results consistently demonstrated a reliable relationship between higher narcissism and greater involvement in various forms of social justice activism. All of our studies conducted on the DEVP were pre-registered. Also, there is no indication of a declining effect (i.e., an initially discovered effect diminishes with time; Schooler, 2011). These facts lend high credibility to the research on the DEVP (cf. Jussim et al., 2019).

However, the results regarding our second main hypothesis showed that more research is still needed to deepen the understanding of the (boundary conditions of the) DEVP. Remaining research questions are whether there are any kinds of social or political activism for which the DEVP is not valid and the reasons behind it. Further, there is still research needed to explore whether different forms of activism provide different vehicles for narcissistic individuals as they are based on different specific social norms. A related question is whether specific dark-personality types (e.g., narcissism vs. psychopathy) are more drawn to specific forms of activism than others. Accordingly, we believe that the research on the DEVP is still at a stage where it needs to be reliably replicated and more deeply investigated by means of data collection.

Finally, three methodological limitations of the present study need to be addressed. Firstly, the measure used in the present study to assess individuals’ engagement in environmental activism (i.e., the EAS; Alisat & Riemer, 2015) was not constructed to measure violent or disruptive forms of environmental activism. Even though the EAS asks about the participation in and/or the organization of protests which may potentially give some individuals opportunities to demonstrate violence, the EAS was meant to measures peaceful and constructive activist engagement (e.g., signing petitions, education about environmental issues). Therefore, future research on the validity of the DEVP would profit from (additional) measures of disruptive and violent engagement in environmental activism. However, to our knowledge, such measures do not yet exist. Secondly, the data for the present study was collected via the crowd-sourcing platform Prolific. Therefore, we cannot exclude the possibility of a self-selection bias (i.e., regarding participants with specific characteristics regarding their ethnicity, education, and/or income). Thirdly, we want to acknowledge the limitations of self-reports with regard to individuals’ tendency to answer in a socially desirable way (Stöber et al., 2002) as some individuals participating in the present study may have tried to present themselves in a favorable way when answering the survey.

Practical implications

Global climate change is severely impacting environmental conditions and endangering human health and civic action is needed to tackle these challenges. Currently, however, some environmental activists (e.g., from groups like “Just Stop Oil” aka “Last Generation”) are using rather controversial methods to raise public awareness (e.g., Dye, 2023, 15 Jul; Gayle, 2022, 14 Oct; Zakir-Hussain & Quadri, 2023, 03 Mar). Some researchers (e.g., Zacher, 2024) discuss whether such radical environmental activism may be needed to shift the discourse in the right direction because it may be more effective in changing peoples’ attitudes and behavior. However, while such behaviors may draw a lot of media attention, a large body of research has shown that violent and/or disruptive forms of activism can have detrimental effects. In particular, such forms of activist behavior seems to rather erode public support for the respective activist movement (Orazani & Leidner, 2019; Menzies et al., 2023; Thomas & Louis, 2014), thereby undermining the environmental cause.

While some activists may just not be aware of the negative side effects of such activistic behavior, the results of the present study indicate that some activists may hijack an activist movement by deceiving others about their prosocial motives whilst actually placing their own needs first. The results of the present study are especially concerning because they relate to pathological narcissistic grandiosity. This form of narcissism is undoubtedly dysfunctional (Pincus et al., 2009)– it is associated with hostility, suspiciousness, cognitive/perceptual dysregulation, emotional lability, irresponsibility, eccentricity, and rigid perfectionism (Miller et al., 2014). Such traits may elicit cognitions, emotions, and behaviors that are difficult when it comes to solution-oriented approaches (e.g., finding democratic compromises when arguing about environmental issues). Therefore, pathological narcissists may not even be interested in even finding any solutions but rather in perpetuating (environmental) problems as those problems provide them with further opportunities to satisfy their ego-centered needs. Thus, prosocial activist movements need to be made aware not only of the potential negative consequences of violent and/or disruptive activism but also of the danger of the narcissistic “enemies from within.” In this regard, however, we explicitly want to underline that the DEVP does not state that activism is narcissistic per se– many individuals are participating in (environmental) activism due to their altruistic motives (cf. Bertrams & Krispenz, 2024; Krispenz & Bertrams, 2024a).