A wolf in sheep's clothing? Communal narcissism and positive implicit self-views in the communal domain

Communal narcissists possess the unique belief in their capability to bring about freedom to the world, and so see themselves as “saints”. To examine if this communal self-view extends to the more automatic component of self-evaluation, that is, a person's implicit self-view, the present study (N = 701) tested the extent to which communal narcissism was associated with explicit communal self-ratings and implicit associations between the self and communal attributes. The latent correlation between communal narcissism and explicit communal self-views was strongly positive, yet no such relationship emerged for implicit communal self-views. These findings support the notion that communal narcissism may represent an effort to gain favorable appraisals from others in the absence of a genuine communal self-view.