More identified so less envious? On the links between different types of national identity and in-group envy.

Abstract

We investigate relations between benign and malicious in-group envy and the two types of national identity (i.e. secure national identification vs. national narcissism). In two studies (Ns = 1000 and 633), we found that secure national identification was negatively linked to malicious envy, while national narcissism was positively related to both malicious and benign envy. In Study 2, we additionally analyzed how in-group envy and two types of national identity shape in-group altruism. We found that low malicious envy significantly mediated the relationship between secure identification and in-group altruism. We discuss the role of envy in shaping the links between secure (vs. narcissistic) identity and positive intragroup attitudes.