New psychological research suggests that an overwhelming desire to gain social value and a belief in the superiority of one’s group may lay the foundation for the formation of extreme personalities. This study highlights how these strong inner drives can lead individuals to sacrifice their own well-being for specific goals and values. These findings were recently published in the journal Frontiers in Social Psychology.
Extremism is traditionally seen as strict adherence to an external political or religious ideology. In recent years, psychology has added a new perspective to the debate, proposing an underlying motivational mechanism called extreme personality. According to this framework, a moderate lifestyle is defined by a balance of motivations, in which a person distributes his or her attention relatively evenly among various daily needs and social obligations. In contrast, an extreme personality emerges when a single motive is greatly overamplified, leading a person to neglect other aspects of their life in order to satisfy a single obsession.
Lead author Pedro Altunzi, a researcher at the Europa University of Madrid, and an international team of colleagues wanted to understand the specific psychological factors that lead people to this extreme state of mind. They built their research on the foundations of a theoretical framework that traces radicalization to a deep personal desire for significance, or the “search for meaning.” This concept represents the basic human desire to have an important, respected, and recognized position in society. Although this is considered a universal motive, it can be dangerously enhanced under certain conditions.
The research team distinguished between two aspects of this psychological need. One is a long-term, stable drive for approval, known as the dispositional quest for significance. The other is a sudden, reactive state called loss of significance. This acute feeling arises when a person has recently experienced an episode of humiliation, failure, or discrimination and is hungry to regain lost social status.
To restore a sense of their own importance, individuals often turn to their social identity. This can lead to collective narcissism, which is the belief that one’s group is exceptional but is treated unfairly and unappreciated by outsiders. The researchers hypothesized that an unstable mix of individual anxiety and group superiority may lead people to endure enormous physical or emotional self-sacrifice. Furthermore, they predicted that this combination of traits would correspond to higher scores on measures of extreme personality.
To test these ideas, Altunzi and his team analyzed survey responses from two different groups in Spain. The first group consisted of 328 adults from the general population recruited through an online platform. The second group included 222 inmates residing in Spanish prisons who had not been convicted of terrorism-related crimes. This comparison allowed the researchers to see whether the psychological pathways to extremism are similar for the general public and those who already engage in severe antisocial behavior.
Participants completed a series of psychological assessments to measure their personal habits and beliefs. They answered questions that track common extreme personality tendencies, such as whether they pursue a goal as if their life depended on it. The survey also measured long-term needs for social importance, as well as recent feelings of humiliation and invisibility. Finally, subjects rated their level of collective narcissism, indicating how willing they were to surrender to their highest personal values or main reference group.
Researchers discovered distinct linkages of traits in the general population by using statistical models to look for predictive patterns. The data showed that both a stable need for significance and a sudden loss of social value were associated with higher levels of extreme personality traits. People who feel a strong need to feel important are also more likely to exhibit collective narcissism. This exaggerated pride in their group went hand in hand with a readiness to sacrifice personal safety and comfort for their core values.
Statistical analysis revealed two unique behavioral sequences described by the authors. The researchers named the first sequence the dispositional path. This slow-burning trajectory begins with a long-term desire for social status and gradually strengthens the belief that one’s peer group is inherently superior to other groups. This inflated sense of collective identity makes individuals willing to suffer for the group’s highest ideals, greatly shaping the behavior associated with extreme personality traits.
When subjects coped with the sudden loss of personal status, another psychological response, called the reaction pathway, emerged. When people had recently felt humiliated, they were more likely to report a willingness to suffer immediately for core values, bypassing intermediate steps to establish group superiority. The authors suggest that making dramatic sacrifices may function as an impulsive coping mechanism. This allows individuals to quickly restore damaged reputations and broadcast valuable messages to their social peers.
Findings from the prison sample reveal a slightly different psychological landscape. Although a desire for personal significance and a strong sense of collective narcissism still predicted prisoners’ extreme personalities, their willingness to sacrifice did not. In the statistical model, abandoning the well-being of a group or values had no statistical relationship to extreme personality scores among prisoners.
The study authors suggest several possible explanations for the absence of incarcerated respondents. Prisoners may feel that they have already paid a heavy price for the actions that led to their arrest and conviction. Because they now have less freedom, they may be much less interested in making any further personal sacrifices. Rehabilitation programs in the Spanish prison system may also be successful in changing these people’s views on the usefulness of their destructive choices.
This psychological study has several limitations. This study relies on completely cross-sectional data. That is, all information was reported by participants at a single point in time. Because of this design, the researchers cannot conclusively prove that the desire for social value strictly causes extreme personality development. To establish true cause and effect, we need to follow individuals over time to see which specific traits emerge first.
The measurement strategy itself has some caveats. Data collection relies on self-report questionnaires, a method in which individuals are expected to be completely honest and objective about their innermost beliefs. Participants may intentionally or unintentionally change their answers to appear more socially desirable to the analyst. This bias is known to be particularly common among prison populations, and there is a need to understand secondary motivations and watch inmate reactions.
The study population was also overwhelmingly male, with men accounting for over 90% of both the general public and prison groups. This severe gender imbalance makes it difficult to project current results onto women. Women often experience unique social pressures, gender norms, and cultural schooling. Future research will require more balanced demographics. A wider geographic scope is also needed to test whether these psychological patterns hold across different countries and linguistic backgrounds.
Identifying the mechanisms underlying extreme personality traits can help psychologists address social radicalization before it leads to criminal behavior. If unmet critical needs remain a core driver of extremism, providing marginalized groups with constructive spaces to gain respect may help break that dangerous trajectory. Helping individuals restore their social worth through active community involvement can serve as a powerful buffer against the temptation of ideological self-harm.
The study, “How Personal Importance, Collective Narcissism, and the Willingness to Sacrifice Shape Extreme Personality,” was authored by Pedro Altunzi, Ashley Navarro-McCarthy, Rocio Lana-Blonde, Sara Liebana, Luis Carlos Haume, Ewa Szumowska, Erika Molinario, Ángel Gómez, and Aly W. Kruglanski.
