Defensive pride and consensus: strength in imaginary numbers.

TLDR

Compensatory consensus is a defensive self‑affirmation strategy used by defensively proud individuals to shield themselves from distressing thoughts. Across four studies, failure, attachment separation thoughts, and system‑injustice threats produced exaggerated consensus estimates among defensively proud individuals, with narcissism amplifying the effect and imagined consensus diminishing the salience of troubling thoughts.

Abstract

Failure (Study 1) and attachment separation thoughts (Study 2) caused exaggerated consensus estimates for personal beliefs about unrelated social issues. This compensatory consensus effect was most pronounced among defensively proud individuals, that is, among those with the combination of high explicit and low implicit self-esteem (Study 1) and the combination of high attachment avoidance and low attachment anxiety (Study 2). In Study 3, another form of defensive pride, narcissism, was associated with exaggerated consensual worldview defense after a system-injustice threat. In Study 4, imagined consensus reduced subjective salience of proud individuals' troubling thoughts. Compensatory consensus is seen as a kind of defensive self-affirmation that defensively proud people turn to for insulation from distressing thoughts.