Research Proposal

See Attached for assignment details, and sampling and methods document for details about topic.

Research articles attached, can use more if you need (needs to be empirical articles).

Research Proposal

The purpose of this assignment is to help you learn more about the process of proposing research. To do this you must complete several steps, which we will break down throughout the semester. Your final project will involve picking a topic, select a research question, reviewing and critiquing empirical literature, synthesizing the information gained in the review process, writing a graduate level literature review, and proposing a method to gather data to answer your research question.

Literature Review

A major portion of your final project is the literature review. Graduate level work requires you to move well beyond just reporting the “facts” and requires a deeper more comprehensive processing of the theory, methods, findings and implications of the research being reviewed.

You will find at least 4-6 empirical articles on a research topic to evaluate and synthesize into your review. Your literature review SHOULD NOT just list each article and critique it. It should SYNTHESIZE the information into content areas to describe the state of the literature to date on your topic.

Methods

You may choose quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods to answer your research question(s). You must support your choice of methods from what you learn in the class, making sure the methods match the question. Finally, you will need to suggest a method of analysis that fits with your data.

The major sections of this paper will include: [9-16 pages]

1. Formal APA Title Page [1-page] (you DO NOT need to write and abstract)

2. Literature Review [6-12 pages]

1. Statement of topic and research question (e.g., identify your topic, provide definitions if needed/appropriate, state your research question). [1-paragraph]

2. Literature search process (e.g., how did you go about identifying your articles? Detail this process – which search engine did you use, search terms, etc.). [1- paragraph]

3. Literature review with formal critique of AT LEAST 4-6 related empirical articles covering a topic of your choice. Empirical articles utilizing quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods are appropriate for this assignment. [5-10 pages]

4. Implications for clinical practice and research What are your overall conclusions? Are there clinical implications? Are there implications to education and training? This should lead into your next section supporting WHY and HOW you are proposing to further our knowledge on this topic. [1-2 paragraphs]

3. Methods [1-2 pages]

1. Research design – is this a quantitative, qualitative or mixed design? Why did you choose this design to answer this question?

2. Data collection methods – who is your sample? how will you gain access to them? is this a vulnerable population? how will you protect their rights through your process? What questions/instruments or measurements will you use?

3. Proposed data analysis – how will you analyze that data to answer your questions?

4. Reference Page [1-page]

1. Must include references for all of the articles you used in your review.

2. Include references for any other sources you utilize in addition to the articles you use in your review.

3. All references must be in APA format.

4. You can single space the reference page, with one space between each respective reference.

Narcissism, Bullying, and Social Dominance in Youth:
A Longitudinal Analysis

Albert Reijntjes & Marjolijn Vermande &
Sander Thomaes & Frits Goossens & Tjeert Olthof &
Liesbeth Aleva & Matty Van der Meulen

Published online: 3 February 2015
# The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com

Abstract A few previous studies have shown that narcissistic
traits in youth are positively associated with bullying. However,
research examining the developmental relationship between
narcissism and bullying is lacking. Moreover, it is unclear
whether narcissists constitute a homogeneous group and
whether the bullying of narcissistic youth results in establishing
social dominance over peers. The present work addresses these
gaps. Children (N=393; Mage=10.3; 51 % girls) were followed
during the last 3 years of primary school. Person-centered anal-
yses were used to examine whether groups with distinct devel-
opmental trajectories for narcissism and two bullying forms
(direct and indirect) can be identified, and how these trajectories
are related. Multiple groups emerged for all constructs exam-
ined. For girls, higher narcissism was neither related to more
intense bullying, nor to higher social dominance. In contrast,
highly narcissistic boys were more likely than their peers to
show elevated direct bullying, and in particular elevated

indirect bullying. Hence, high narcissism is a risk factor for
bullying in boys, but not in girls. However, narcissism is not
always accompanied by high bullying, given that many boys on
the high bullying trajectories were not high in narcissism.
Results show that among narcissistic youth only those who
engage in high levels of bullying are high in social dominance.

Keywords Narcissism . Bullying . Social dominance . Joint
trajectory analysis . Gender differences

During the past decades, researchers have increasingly ac-
knowledged that bullying is a strategic attempt to acquire a
central, powerful and dominant position in the peer group
(e.g., Olthof et al. 2011; Salmivalli and Peets 2009). For in-
stance, Farrington (1993) observed that when asked Bwhy do
you bully?^, the most frequently reported answers are Bto feel
powerful^ and Bto look cool^. Moreover, in early adolescence
bullies score significantly higher on status, power, and pres-
tige goals than do their peers (Sijtsema et al. 2009).

The motivation of bullies to gain power, dominance, and
prestige over others suggests that elevated narcissism might be
a contributing factor. Narcissism is a dispositional trait that
involves a sense of entitlement of privileged status over
others, the belief that one is unique and more important than
others, and an excessive need for approval and admiration
from others to feed the grandiose – but ultimately vulnerable
– self (Miller et al. 2007; Morf and Rhodewalt 2001). Similar
to adults, youth with narcissistic traits often display rather
aversive interpersonal behavior, such as arrogance, lack of
empathy, exploitativeness and aggression (Morf and
Rhodewalt 2001; Thomaes and Brummelman 2015).

According to the self-regulatory model of Morf and
Rhodewalt (2001), narcissistic individuals use several

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article
(doi:10.1007/s10802-015-9974-1) contains supplementary material,
which is available to authorized users.

A. Reijntjes (*): M. Vermande
Department of Pedagogical and Educational Sciences,
Utrecht University, PO Box 80150, Utrecht, The Netherlands
e-mail: a.h.a.reijntjes@uu.nl

S. Thomaes
University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

F. Goossens: T. Olthof
Free University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

L. Aleva
Department of Developmental Psychological,
Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

M. Van der Meulen
Groningen University, Groningen, The Netherlands

J Abnorm Child Psychol (2016) 44:63–74
DOI 10.1007/s10802-015-9974-1

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10802-015-9974-1

techniques to maintain or enhance their inflated self-esteem.
For instance, when faced with criticism, they often react aggres-
sively in an attempt to restore their self-esteem. With regard to
bullying, Salmivalli (2001) posited that the exploitativeness
and lack of empathy that figure prominently in narcissists
may lead to aggression being employed instrumentally to foster
their grandiose self-views.

During the past decade, a few studies have examined the link
between narcissistic features and bullying in youth. Taken togeth-
er, findings support Salmivalli’s (2001) hypothesis. For instance,
in an inpatient sample of youth aged 10–15, Stellwagen and Kerig
(2013) found that psychopathy-linked narcissism (i.e., the grandi-
ose self-perceptions and sense of entitlement characteristic of
youth with psychopathic traits) was concurrently positively linked
with scores for (ringleader) bullying. Similarly, Ang and col-
leagues (Ang et al. 2010) showed that narcissistic exploitativeness
in Asian youth was concurrently positively associated, albeit
weakly, with bullying. Moreover, longitudinal work among
Greek-Cypriot adolescents aged 12–14 has demonstrated that
bullying was higher and more stable among those scoring higher
on narcissism at baseline (Fanti and Kimonis 2012). In a recent
prospective study,Fanti and Henrich (2015) found that narcissistic
children with low general self-esteem are in particular likely to
bully.

Notwithstanding the merits of these studies, important re-
search gaps remain. First, except for the study of Fanti and
colleagues, there is a paucity of longitudinal research examining
the link between narcissism and bullying. Consequently, also
because Fanti and coworkers only assessed narcissism once (at
baseline), the stability of the core constructs over time is largely
unknown. Moreover, the dynamic, longitudinal relationship be-
tween narcissism and bullying remains to be investigated.

Second, previous work has almost exclusively employed a
variable-centered approach. A significant drawback of this
approach is that participants are treated as one homogeneous
group in terms of how the predictors operate on the outcomes
(Laursen and Hoff 2006). Importantly, in the case of distinct
subgroups of bullies or narcissists (e.g., when a summary sta-
tistic such as a correlation does not equally apply to all partic-
ipants), mean-level parameters may not describe any sub-
group validly (Von Eye and Bogat 2006), and they are often
least applicable to children with the most extreme scores.
Moreover, when the potential heterogeneity of narcissism
and bullying in this respect is taken into account, interventions
can be fine-tuned for specific groups of children. At his point,
it should be noted that several studies have shown that differ-
ent trajectories of bullying behavior exist (e.g., high and me-
dium) that differ in their functioning and development (e.g.,
Pepler et al. 2008; Reijntjes et al. 2013b). Although Fanti and
Henrich (2015) distinguished between bullies and Bunin-
volved^ children, they did not distinguish between potentially
different bullying trajectory subgroups, and narcissism was
treated as a continuous variable.

Third, studies examining the link between narcissism and
bullying have used instruments that do not tap all facets of the
narcissism construct. Specifically, the Antisocial Process
Screening Device (APSD), employed by Stellwagen and Kerig
(2013) as well as Fanti and Kimonis (2012), assesses narcissistic
behavior that tends to co-occur with psychopathic traits, but not
narcissistic cognitions and feelings (e.g., feelings of entitlement)
that are at the core of the narcissism construct. For this reason,
researchers using the APSD typically refer to the measured con-
struct as Bpsychopathy-linked^ narcissism (for differences be-
tween this construct and narcissism, see Thomaes and
Brummelman 2015). In a similar vein, Ang et al. (2010) only
used the BExploitativeness^ subscale of the Narcissistic
Personality Questionnaire for Children-Revised (NPQC-R). In
the present study, the Childhood Narcissism Scale (CNS;
Thomaes et al. 2008) was employed. This widely used, compre-
hensive and psychometrically sound measure indexes narcissism
as a general construct, and is well validated in Dutch samples of
youth.

Fourth, to the extent that narcissistic children high in bul-
lying pursue social dominance and power, no study has exam-
ined whether they are successful in this regard. As in resource
control theory (RCT; Hawley 1999), we construe social dom-
inance as competitive superiority, which is an aspect of rela-
tionship asymmetry. Social dominance is indexed by resource
control; i.e., having access to desirable, but scarce social and
material resources (Hawley 1999).

The present three-wave study that followed children from late
childhood into early adolescence addressed these limitations by
examining the relations between narcissism and bullying as they
unfold over time. In so doing, we distinguished between direct
and indirect bullying. Direct bullying pertains to behaviors in
which the victim is overtly harassed (e.g., physically, verbally),
while indirect bullying refers to behaviors that do not directly
confront the victim (e.g., gossiping). An important reason to
make this distinction is that both forms may be differentially
linked to both gender and narcissism. For instance, boys are more
inclined to engage in direct forms of aggression than girls, where-
as both genders are about equally likely to display indirect forms
of aggression (Card et al. 2008). Moreover, it has been argued
that for narcissistic youth the use of indirect, relational aggression
may be more effective than direct aggression in terms of acquir-
ing and preserving a dominant position in the peer group
(Golmaryami and Barry 2010). We therefore wanted to examine
whether narcissistic youth differ in the extent to which they enact
both forms of bullying. We studied children in this developmen-
tal period because during preadolescence the formation of posi-
tive peer relations is an essential developmental task (Hartup
1996), and concerns about social status figure prominently
(Fossati et al. 2010; Salmivalli 2001).

To capture potential subgroup differences in the strength
and form of the association between the constructs examined,
person-centered analyses were employed (Nagin 2005).

64 J Abnorm Child Psychol (2016) 44:63–74

Specifically, joint trajectory analyses were used to examine
whether groups with distinct developmental trajectories of
narcissism and bullying can be identified, and how these tra-
jectories are related. This person-centered approach relates the
longitudinal course of two constructs of interest (Nagin and
Tremblay 2001), thereby comprehensively investigating their
dynamic co-occurrence over time. We also examined the out-
comes of bullying and narcissism in terms of social domi-
nance. Specifically, after identifying joint trajectories of bul-
lying and narcissism, we compared the joint trajectory groups
on their resource control scores. For the reasons outlined
above, as well as research showing that the link between nar-
cissism and aggression may differ between boys and girls
(e.g., Pauletti et al. 2012), we also examined potential gender
differences.

We expected to find at least two different developmental
trajectories for both narcissism and the two types of bullying,
including a high and a low trajectory. We also expected that
only a relatively small group of participants, predominantly
boys, would engage in consistently high levels of bullying.
Similarly, given that the narcissistic traits in youth in the gen-
eral population are normally distributed, although somewhat
positively skewed (Thomaes and Brummelman 2015), we al-
so expected that relatively few children would be consistently
high in narcissism. Moreover, we hypothesized that children
following the highest narcissism trajectory would be more
likely than their peers to simultaneously follow a higher bul-
lying trajectory. Finally, we expected that social dominance
would be highest for children displaying both high bullying
and high narcissism.

Method

Participants

Participants were 393 children (51 % girls) from 12
elementary schools throughout the Netherlands. The
children were followed during their last 3 years at ele-
mentary school. At the start of the study in 2006 (T1),
all participants were in fourth grade (Mage=10.3; SD=
0.5). There was no school transition during this period,
and almost all children remained in the same classroom
with the same peers. Participation rates within classroom
were very similar across years. Although SES was not
formally assessed, the sample included pupils from a
wide range of social backgrounds. Parents received a
letter in which they were informed about the purpose
of the study. They could either provide passive consent
for their child’s participation by not communicating fur-
ther with the researchers (96 %), or refuse by returning
a preprinted objection form (4 %). Parents and children
could withdraw from the study at any time. All children

provided their own assent. We also obtained IRB ap-
proval and permission from the schools. The large ma-
jority (83 %) of the children was Caucasian (native
Dutch). Other groups represented were pupils with at
least one parent originating from Turkey, Morocco,
Surinam, or another European country.

At T2, data were available for 371 participants (94.4 % of
the original sample). At T3, the sample contained 336 partic-
ipants (85.5 %). Attrition was mainly due to participants mov-
ing to other, non-participating schools. Children not par-
ticipating at T2 and/or T3 did not differ from children
with complete data in their scores on relevant variables
at T1 (p’s>0.10).

Procedure

Children’s self-reported narcissism scores were obtained dur-
ing a classroom session run by trained research assistants.
Teachers rated children’s resource control at their own conve-
nience. The peer nominations were collected during an inter-
view by a research assistant in a quiet room at the school
grounds. Children could discontinue their participation at
any time, but no child did. To minimize interviewer effects,
research assistants were extensively trained, written research
protocols were employed, and standardized interviews were
laptop administered.

When providing peer nominations for bullying, chil-
dren used a list containing the names of their class-
mates. The number of nominations was unlimited.
Research on peer sociometric status has shown that,
relative to the limited nominations approach, the unlim-
ited nominations procedure yields a more reliable and
valid assessment (Terry 2000). We consider it likely that
this will also be the case for bullying.

Children could only nominate children from their own
classroom, and not themselves. Mixed-sex nominations were
used and nominations were conducted within classrooms rath-
er than within grade. Although in early adolescence gender
segregation is salient, in their study examining peer sociomet-
ric nominations (i.e., Blike most^ and Blike least^) in sixth
graders, Poulin and Dishion (2008) observed that including
nominations from other-sex classmates improved the predic-
tive validity of the sociometric measure. Moreover, for chil-
dren confined to a stable classroom in which they mainly
interact with their classmates and not much with other
grademates (which is the case in the Netherlands), restricting
the voting population to the classroom peers did not affect the
predictive validity of the measure.

Measures

Narcissism The Childhood Narcissism Scale (CNS; Thomaes
et al. 2008) is a 10-item self-report measure that indexes trait

J Abnorm Child Psychol (2016) 44:63–74 65

narcissism in youth aged 8 and older. The CNS has a one-
factor structure and was developed to measure narcissism as a
general construct, without distinguishing between more nar-
rowly defined dimensions or facets such as adaptive versus
maladaptive narcissism. Previous research (Thomaes et al.
2008) has shown that CNS scores have both adaptive (agentic
interpersonal orientation) and maladaptive correlates
(exploitativeness). Using a large sample (N=1020), a single-
factor model was tested in MPlus using confirmatory factor
analysis (Thomaes et al. 2008). All factor loadings were freely
estimated and no residual correlations between items were
allowed. Several measures of model fit indicated that a
single-factor model provided a good fit to the data.
Specifically, RMSEA = 0.05; CFI = 0.95; NFI =0.94.
Standardized factor loadings ranged from 0.47 to 0.64 and
all were significant. The internal consistency and the test-
retest stability of the instrument are good (see Thomaes et al.
2008).

Sample items are BI am a great example for other kids to
follow,^ and BI love showing all the things I can do.^ Items are
rated on a scale ranging from 0 (not at all true) to 3 (complete-
ly true). In the present study, sum scores were used. Research
shows that childhood narcissism has largely similar correlates
and outcomes as adult narcissism. For instance, CNS scores
are positively associated with self-appraised superiority, but
only weakly with self-esteem (see Thomaes et al. 2008;
Thomaes and Brummelman 2015). Moreover, attesting to
construct validity, scores on the CNS are positively associated
with self-esteem contingency, agentic but not communal so-
cial goals, psychopathic and Machiavellian personality traits,
aggression, and negatively with empathy (Thomaes et al.
2008). Cronbach’s alpha was adequate at all assessment points
(>0.75 for both genders).

Bullying The bullying role nomination procedure (BRNP;
Olthof et al. 2011) was used. The BRNP is a comprehensive
measure that indexes both direct forms of bullying (e.g., hit-
ting, damaging belongings of others, calling names) and indi-
rect forms of bullying (e.g., gossiping, spreading rumors,
stirring others up to exclude someone). Previous work
(Olthof et al. 2011; Reijntjes et al. 2013a, b) has shown
that bullying as indexed by the BRNP is associated in
theoretically meaningful ways with peer-nominated per-
ceived popularity, peer-rated likeability, and self-
perceived social competence.

To avoid potential interpretation differences of the term
bullying, children first received an elaborate description of
the concept, in which its three core features were explained:
intent to harm, repetition over time, and a patent power differ-
ence between perpetrator and victim (Salmivalli and Peets
2009). Children were told that bullying can occur in a number
of ways and differs from a quarrel or fight between two equal-
ly strong peers.

Subsequently, five specific types of bullying were de-
scribed (i.e., physical, possession-related, verbal, direct rela-
tional, and indirect relational) and nominations were obtained
by asking BDo you know which classmates carry out that
particular form of bullying?^, and BIf so, could you give us
their names?^ Continuous scores for both direct and indirect
bullying were computed within classrooms by dividing
the total number of nominations by the number of nom-
inators minus 1 (the participant himself; see Goossens
et al. 2006; Kärnä et al. 2011). Scores were then stan-
dardized within classes to take differences between
nominating groups into account. A total bullying score
was also calculated by summing the scores for the two
forms of bullying. Analyses were performed for the two
bullying forms separately and for the total bullying
score.

Resource Control This construct indexes social dominance
and involves having access to scarce, desirable material and
social resources (Hawley 1999). Teachers rated participants
on six items, on a scale ranging from 0 (never or almost never)
to 4 (very often). Sample items are: BTo what extent is this
child usually at the center of attention in a group of
children^?; and BTo what extent does this child usually get
what it wants?^ The ratings were averaged. The scale showed
high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha > 0.90 at all three
assessment points). To take differences between teachers into
account, the scores were standardized within each class.

Plan of Analyses

We first present descriptive data and correlational analyses.
Next, the person-centered analyses proceeded in three steps.
First, the group-based trajectory approach (Nagin 2005) was
used to estimate separate models for the developmental trajec-
tories of narcissism, the two forms of bullying, and total bul-
lying. Using MPlus version 6.11 (Muthén and Muthén 2010),
latent class growth analyses models (LCGA’s; Muthén and
Muthén 2000) were employed. Missing data for participants
who did not complete an entire measure (as opposed to indi-
vidual items) and for those who did not complete one or two
complete assessments were handled through full information
maximum likelihood (FIML).

Latent class growth analysis uses an outcome variable
measured at multiple time points to define a latent class
model in which the latent classes correspond to different
growth curves for that variable, thereby yielding clusters
of individuals who follow distinct developmental trajec-
tories. In the case of three assessment points, these tra-
jectories are identified on the basis of two parameters;
i.e., intercepts (starting values) and linear slopes. The
proportion of individuals following each of the trajecto-
ries is estimated.

66 J Abnorm Child Psychol (2016) 44:63–74

For narcissism, the two bullying forms, and total bullying a
series of models was fitted, starting with a one-trajectory mod-
el and moving to a five-trajectory model. To make a well-
founded decision regarding the optimal number of groups,
several statistical indicators were used (as recommended by
Nagin 2005), including the Bayesian Information Criterion
(BIC), the Lo-Mendell-Rubin likelihood ratio test (LMR-
LRT), and entropy.

Following Nagin (2005), we also examined whether
for all groups the average posterior probability (AvePPj)
exceeded 0.70. This signifies that, on average, the
chance that children assigned to a particular trajectory
group actually belong to that group is at least 0.70.
Second, we examined whether the odds of correct clas-
sification (OCCj) were at least 5 for all groups. Finally,
we compared the model estimated proportion of the
population following a particular trajectory group (πj)
with the corresponding proportion of the sample
assigned to that trajectory (Pj), with less discrepancy
indicating better model fit.

After determining the best fitting trajectory models for the
targeted variables separately, in the second step the joint tra-
jectories for (a) narcissism and (b) each of the two bullying
forms, as well as the total bullying score were estimated. Key
outputs of a joint model are joint probabilities and two sets of
conditional probabilities. Joint probabilities pertain to
the proportion of children estimated to belong simulta-
neously to certain trajectory groups of both variable A
and variable B (e.g., children who follow both the high
narcissism trajectory as well as the high physical bully-
ing trajectory). When j and k index the trajectory groups
associated with bullying and narcissism, the joint prob-
abilities are denoted by π jk and are provided as part of
the output. Conditional probabilities pertain to the esti-
mated probability of belonging to a specific trajectory
group for variable A (e.g., high direct bullying) given
membership of a specific trajectory group for variable B

(e.g., high narcissism), and vice versa. These probabili-

ties are denoted by π j|kand πk|j and are calculated as follows:

π j kj ¼ π

jk

πk
; with πk ¼ ∑ jπ jk; k ¼ 1; …; K and πk jj ¼ π

jk

π j ;

with π j ¼ ∑ jπ jk; j ¼ 1; …; J:
Importantly, conditional probabilities do not imply a time

order relationship but reflect the probability of simultaneously
following two trajectories during the same period. To evaluate
differences between observed probabilities, we used a
Bayesian model selection approach with (in)equality con-
straints between the parameters of interest (Klugkist et al.
2005). The results of the Bayesian approach are expressed in
terms of posterior model probabilities (PMP’s), representing
the probability that the specific model at hand receives most
support from the data among a set of models (e.g., Model 1:
probability A is larger than probability B, versus Model 2:

probability A is equal to probability B). A model was consid-
ered to outperform another model when its PMP was at least
0.95 (Klugkist et al. 2005).

Finally, we examined how social dominance scores dif-
fered as a function of the joint effects of bullying and narcis-
sism. Specifically, after identifying the joint trajectories of
narcissism and total bullying score, we compared these joint
groups on their mean resource control scores across the three
waves. We also aimed to investigate how the joint trajectories
of narcissism and the two different bullying forms separately
are related to social dominance scores. However, examining
how narcissism and each of the two bullying forms separately
contribute to social dominance proved problematic.
Specifically, when examining social dominance as a function
of narcissism and direct (indirect) bullying, one should control
for the effect of indirect (direct) bullying. Given our approach,
which yields distinct trajectory groups (latent classes) for both
types of bullying, this requires controlling for class member-
ship of indirect bullying when examining the effects of direct
bullying (and vice versa). However, whereas controlling for a
continuous covariate is possible, current software does not
allow for controlling for (the probability of) latent class
membership.

At this point, it should be noted that an additional joint
trajectory analysis showed that almost all participants who
were assigned to the high (medium, low) direct bullying tra-
jectory group, simultaneously belonged to the high (medium,
low) indirect bullying trajectory group. This finding indicates
that an observation of high (low) indirect bullying is almost
synonymous with an observation of high (low) direct bully-
ing, and vice versa. Given that both bullying forms were
strongly interwoven, we decided to examine how the joint
trajectories of narcissism and both bullying behaviors com-
bined (i.e., total bullying) relate to social dominance (resource
control) scores.

Results

Preliminary Analyses

Table 1 displays the means and standard deviations for all
variables at the three assessment points. Across waves, boys
scored higher on narcissism than did girls (p’s<0.05), al- though the differences were small (Cohen d’s<0.25). No gen- der differences were observed for resource control (p’s>0.20).
For both forms of bullying, boys consistently scored higher
than girls, except for indirect bullying at T3. Gender differ-
ences were largest for direct bullying. Across gender, the two
forms of bullying were substantially correlated at all three
assessment points (r’s>0.65; p’s<0.001; see correlation Tables in the Electronic supplementary material).

J Abnorm Child Psychol (2016) 44:63–74 67

Repeated measures ANOVA analyses revealed substantial
stability for all constructs over time. For narcissism and re-
source control, the mean score did not change over time.
Scores for bullying were also quite stable over time. Only a
decrease in direct and total bullying was observed from T1 to
T2, and this change only applied to boys.

At all three time points, the linkage between narcissism and
resource control was low (r’s<0.13), although significant at T1 and T3 (see Electronic supplementary material). Similarly, at all three time points scores for narcissism and each of the two bullying forms and total bullying were only weakly relat- ed (r’s<0.18), albeit significantly in several instances. In con- trast, across time substantial linkages were found between resource control and both bullying types, as well as total bul- lying (r’s ranging from 0.39 to 0.49; p’s<0.01).

LCGA Analyses

Separate trajectory analyses were performed for narcissism,
direct bullying, indirect bullying, and the total bullying score.
Participants were assigned to the trajectory group for which
they showed the highest posterior probability.

Narcissism The statistical indicators provided most support
for a three-group model. Specifically, when moving from a
two-group to a three-group model, entropy increased from
0.68 to 0.70, the LMR-statistic was significant, and the BIC
value decreased from 6230.8 to 6189.3. However, when mov-
ing to a four-group model, entropy decreased to 0.61, the
LMR- statistic was not significant, and the BIC value in-
creased to 6200.3. Importantly, the fit indices for the three-
group model were good (AvePP j’s>0.83; OCC j’s>5; differ-
ences between Pj and πj less than 2 %, entropy = 0.70).

As depicted in Figure 1 (see Electronic supplementary
material), the largest group (n=184; 46.8 % of the sample)
displayed stable medium narcissism scores (intercept (I)=
9.60, p<0.001; slope (S)=0.27, p>0.20). Children in the sec-
ond largest group (n=171; 43.5 %) showed consistently low
scores (I=5.46, p<0.001; S=−0.36, p>0.20). Children in the
third and smallest group (n=37; 9.4 %) displayed the highest
scores that were stable over time (I=15.56, p<0.001; S=−0.21; p>0.20). Boys were overrepresented in the high and medium
trajectory groups (56.8 % and 55.4 %, respectively), and under-
represented in the lowest group (40.9 %): χ2(2)=8.38, p<0.02.

Direct Bullying A four-group model was selected as fitting
the data best. When moving from a three-group to a four-
group model, the LMR-statistic was significant, and the BIC
value decreased from 2318.7 to 2290.3. However, when mov-
ing to a five-group model, entropy decreased from 0.78 to
0.74, the LMR-statistic was not significant, and the BIC value
increased to 2307.7. The fit indices for the four-group model
were good (AvePP j’s>0.80; OCC j’s>5; differences between
Pj and πj less than 2 %; entropy = 0.78).

As depicted in Figure 1, children in the largest group (n=
148; 37.6 % of the sample) displayed stable low scores (I=
−0.71, p<0.001; S=0.03, p>0.30). Children in the second
largest group (n=115; 29.4 %) engaged in stable, average
levels of direct bullying (I=−0.09, p>0.20; S=0.08,
p>0.20). The scores of children in the third largest group
(n=92; 23.5 %) were medium, and they did not change over
time (I=0.74, p<0.01; S=−0.001, p>0.20). The smallest
group (n=37; 9.5 %) consisted of those children displaying
the highest scores, which were stable over time (I=1.55,
p<0.01; S=0.08, p>0.10). Boys were overrepresented in both
the high and medium trajectory groups (89.2 and 69.6 %), and
underrepresented in the average and low direct bullying tra-
jectory groups (41.7 and 24.1 %): χ2(3)=57.60, p<0.001.

Indirect Bullying A three-group model fitted the data best.
When moving from a two-group to a three-group model, the
LMR-statistic was significant, and the BIC value decreased
from 2364.0 to 2347.3. However, when moving to a four-
group model, entropy decreased from 0.76 to 0.73, the
LMR-statistic was not significant, and the BIC value in-
creased to 2391.3. The fit indices for the three-group model

Table 1 Means and standard deviations of narcissism, bullying, and
resource control

Boys Girls Total

MeanD SD Mean SD Mean SD

Narcissism

Wave1 9.111 4.75 8.162 4.83 8.62 4.81

Wave2 8.401 4.61 7.462 4.61 7.91 4.63

Wave3 8.911 4.35 7.882 4.47 8.37 4.44

Direct bullying

Wave1 0.47 1,a 0.53 0.12 2 0.21 0.29 a 0.44

Wave2 0.39 1,b 0.50 0.11 2 0.21 0.25 b 0.41

Wave3 0.40 1,b 0.54 0.11 2 0.16 0.25 b 0.41

Indirect bullying

Wave1 .101 0.12 .052 0.07 0.07 0.10

Wave2 .091 0.12 .052 0.10 0.07 0.11

Wave3 0.07 0.09 0.08 0.11 0.07 0.10

Total Bullying

Wave1 .571,a 0.64 .172 0.27 0.37 a 0.52

Wave2 0.48 1,b 0.60 .162 0.28 0.31 b 0.49

Wave3 .471,b 0.61 .192 0.25 0.33 b 0.48

Resource control

Wave 1 1.82 0.99 1.55 1.00 1.68 1.01

Wave 2 2.05 1.25 1.96 1.07 2.00 1.16

Wave 3 2.05 0.80 1.99 0.75 2.01 0.77

Note. Different subscripts (numbers) in the same row denote significant
gender differences. Different subscripts in the same column (letters) de-
note significant differences over time (p’s<0.05)

68 J Abnorm Child Psychol (2016) 44:63–74

were adequate (AvePP j’s>0.75; OCC j’s>5; differences be-
tween Pj and πj less than 3 %; entropy=0.76). Participants in
the largest group (n=260; 66.3 %) displayed the lowest
scores, which slightly increased over time (I=−0.43,
p<0.001; S=0.08, p<0.05; see Figure 1). Children in the sec- ond largest group (n=67; 17.1 %) engaged in the highest levels of indirect bullying, which did not change over time (I=1.24, p<0.001; S=0.02, p>0.20). The third group was
almost as large (n=64; 16.6), and children in this group
showed stable medium scores (I=0.61, p<0.001; S=−0.23, p>0.10). Boys were overrepresented in the high and medium
trajectory groups (62.7 and 62.5 %), but underrepresented in
the low trajectory group (42.7 %): χ2(2)=13.81, p<0.001.

Total Bullying A four-group model was selected. When mov-
ing from a three-group to a four-group model, the LMR-
statistic was significant, and the BIC value decreased from
2320.4 to 2307.5. However, when going to a five-group mod-
el, the BIC value increased to 2315.0, and the LMR-statistic
was not significant. The fit indices for the four-group model
were good (AvePP j’s>0.75; OCC j’s>5; differences between
Pj and πj less than 2 %; entropy=0.74). Children in the largest
group (n=146; 37.2 %) displayed stable low scores (I=−0.77,
p<0.001; S=0.01, p>0.20; see Figure 1). Those assigned to
the second largest group (n=109; 27.8 %) scored average on
total bullying, and their scores did not change over time (I=
−0.08; p>0.20; S=0.03; p>0.10). Children in the third largest
group (n=94; 24.0 %) showed stable scores that were medium
in magnitude (I=0.72, p<0.001; S=−0.03, p>0.15). The
smallest group (n=43; 11.0 %) consisted of participants
displaying stable high scores (I=1.55, p<0.01; S=0.07, p>0.10). Boys were overrepresented in the high and medium
trajectory groups (86.0 and 67.0 %), and underrepresented in
the average and low trajectory groups (40.4 and 34.5 %):
χ2(3)=49.88, p<0.001.

Primary Analyses

The joint analyses were initially performed for boys and girls
combined. That is, in all instances we first determined for the
entire sample the joint probabilities πjk of belonging to two
different trajectory groups simultaneously (e.g., high narcis-
sism and high indirect bullying). Results showed that these
joint probabilities differed substantially across both genders,
and that girls were underrepresented in both the high narcis-
sism trajectory group and the two high bullying trajectory
groups. Given these observations, combining both genders
when presenting the joint and conditional probabilities would
have concealed important differences between boys and girls
in terms of the dynamic overlap between narcissism and bul-
lying. We therefore considered it more appropriate to perform
these analyses separately by gender, such that for boys and
girls distinct joint and conditional probabilities were

computed and compared using the Bayesian approach
outlined above (see Plan of Analyses).

Joint Trajectories of Narcissism and Direct Bullying The top
panel of Table 2 shows the joint probabilities of trajectory
membership for narcissism and direct bullying, for boys and
girls separately. In this part of the Table, probabilities across
all cells sum to 1. The largest subgroup of boys scored medi-
um on both narcissism and direct bullying (n=46; 24 %),
while most girls scored low on both constructs (n=62;
31 %). A relatively small subgroup of the boys (n=8; 4 %),
but no girl, scored high on both constructs simultaneously.

Conditional Probabilities of Direct Bullying Given
Narcissism The middle panel of Table 2 presents the likeli-
hood of following one of the four direct bullying trajectories
conditional on membership of a specific narcissism trajectory
group. Boys on the high narcissism trajectory were much
more likely to follow the high than the low bullying trajectory
(probabilities 0.38 and 0.19, respectively; PMP > 0.95),
whereas for boys following the low narcissism trajectory these
probabilities were equally high (0.18 and 0.25, respectively).
Moreover, highly narcissistic boys were substantially more
likely than their peers medium or low in narcissism to follow
the highest bullying trajectory (PMP’s > 0.95).

For girls, findings were markedly different. Specifically,
girls in all three narcissism trajectory groups were far more
likely to follow the low than the high bullying trajectory
(PMP’s > 0.95). In fact, across the three narcissism trajectory
groups, for girls the probability to follow the low bullying
trajectory was highest, and the probability to follow the high
bullying trajectory was lowest. Taken together, contrary to
boys, results for girls indicate no systematic developmental
overlap between narcissism and direct bullying.

Conditional Probabilities of Narcissism Given Direct
Bullying The bottom panel of Table 2 presents the likelihood
of following one of the three narcissism trajectories condition-
al on membership of a specific direct bullying trajectory
group. Boys on the highest bullying trajectory were about
equally likely to follow the three narcissism trajectories (prob-
abilities ranging from 0.26 to 0.39). This finding indicates
high levels of direct bullying are also quite common among
boys who are not high in narcissism. Whereas a substantial
minority of the high bullying boys was also high in narcissism
(probability 0.26), boys assigned to the other three bullying
trajectories were much less likely to be high on narcissism
(probabilities ranging from 0 to 0.13; PMP’s > 0.95). Hence,
boys who do not score high on direct bullying are quite un-
likely to be high on narcissism.

For girls, the two sets of conditional probabilities were more
symmetrical. Specifically, for all four bullying groups the prob-
ability to belong to the high narcissism group was lowest (and

J Abnorm Child Psychol (2016) 44:63–74 69

even zero for the two highest bullying groups). Girls high or
medium on bullying were most often assigned to the medium
narcissism group, while girls in the average and low bullying
group were most likely to be simultaneously low in narcissism.

Joint Trajectories of Narcissism and Indirect Bullying Most
boys were low in indirect bullying, and simultaneously medi-
um or low in narcissism (28 and 26 %; see Table 3). The
largest subgroup of girls scored low on both constructs

Table 2 Joint and conditional probabilities of narcissism and direct bullying trajectories

Narcissism Direct bullying

High Medium Average Low

Joint probability of trajectory group membership a

High 0.04(n=8)/ – 0.05(n=9)/ – – / 0.04(n=8) 0.02(n=4)/0.05(n=9)

Medium 0.06(n=11)/0.02(n=3) 0.24(n=46)/0.02(n=13) 0.12(n=24)/0.10(n=20) 0.12(n=24)/0.19(n=37)

Low 0.06(n=12)/0.01(n=2) 0.08(n=16)/0.05(n=9) 0.11(n=22)/0.18(n=35) 0.09(n=17)/0.31(n=62)

Direct bullying
High Medium Average Low

Probabilities of direct bullying conditioned on narcissism b

High narcissism (Nb=21; Ng=17) 0.38(n=8)/ – 0.43(n=9)/ – – / 0.47(n=8) 0.19(n=4)/0.53(n=9)

Medium narcissism (Nb=105; Ng=73) 0.10(n=11)/0.04(n=3) 0.44(n=46)/0.18(n=13) 0.23(n=24)/0.27(n=20) 0.23(n=24)/0.51(n=37)

Low narcissism (Nb=67; Ng=108) 0.18(n=12)/0.02(n=2) 0.24(n=16)/0.08(n=9) 0.33(n=22)/0.32(n=35) 0.25(n=17)/0.57(n=62)

Narcissism

High Medium Low

Probabilities of narcissism conditioned on direct bullying b

High bullying (Nb=31; Ng=5) 0.26 (n=8) / – 0.35 (n=11) / 0.60 (n=3) 0.39 (n=12) / 0.40(n=2)

Medium bull. (Nb=71; Ng=22) 0.13 (n=9) / – 0.65 (n=46) / 0.59 (n=13) 0.22 (n=16) / 0.41(n=9)

Average bull. (Nb=46; Ng=63) – / 0.13 (n=8) 0.52 (n=24) / 0.32 (n=20) 0.48 (n=22) / 0.55 (n=35)

Low bullying (Nb=45; Ng=108) 0.09 (n=4) / 0.09 (n=9) 0.53 (n=24) / 0.34 (n=37) 0.38 (n=17) / 0.53 (n=62)

a Cells sum to 1. b Rows sum to 1. Figures in bold pertain to girls

Table 3 Joint and conditional probabilities of narcissism and indirect bullying trajectories

Narcissism Indirect bullying

High Medium Low
Joint probability of trajectory group membership a

High 0.06(n=12)/ – 0.01(n=2) / 0.005 (n=1) 0.03(n=6) / 0.07 (n=14)

Medium 0.08(n=15)/ 0.03(n=5) 0.19(n=37)/ 0.05 (n=10) 0.28(n=55)/ 0.29 (n=58)

Low 0.06(n=12)/ 0.02(n=3) 0.02(n=4) / 0.12 (n=23) 0.26(n=50)/ 0.42 (n=84)

Indirect bullying
High Medium Low

Probabilities of indirect bullying conditioned on narcissism b

High narcissism (Nb=20; Ng=15) 0.60 (n=12)/ – 0.10(n=2) / 0.07 (n=1) 0.30(n=6) / 0.93 (n=14)

Medium narcissism (Nb=107; Ng =73) 0.14(n=15) / 0.07(n=5) 0.35(n=37)/ 0.14 (n=10) 0.51(n=55)/ 0.79 (n=58)

Low narcissism (Nb=64; Ng=108) 0.19(n=12)/ 0.03(n=3) 0.06(n=4) / 0.21 (n=23) 0.75(n=50)/ 0.76 (n=84)

Narcissism
High Medium Low

Probabilities of narcissism conditioned on indirect bullying b

High indirect bullying (Nb=39; Ng=8) 0.31 (n=12)/ – 0.38 (n=15)/ 0.63 (n=5) 0.31 (n=12)/ 0.37 (n=3)

Medium indirect bullying (Nb=43; Ng=34) 0.05(n=2)/ 0.03(n=1) 0.86 (n=37)/ 0.29 (n=10) 0.09(n=4) / 0.68 (n=23)

Low indirect bullying (Nb=111; Ng=156) 0.05 (n=6)/ 0.09(n=14) 0.50 (n=55)/ 0.37(n=58) 0.45 (n=50)/ 0.54 (n=84)

a Cells sum to 1. b Rows sum to 1. Figures in bold pertain to girls

70 J Abnorm Child Psychol (2016) 44:63–74

(42 %). Twelve boys, but no girl, scored high on both narcis-
sism and indirect bullying simultaneously.

Conditional Probabilities of Indirect Bullying Given
Narcissism Boys on the high narcissism trajectory were much
more likely (probability 0.60) than their peers medium or low
in narcissism to follow the high bullying trajectory (probabil-
ities 0.14 and 0.19; PMP’s > 0.95; see Table 3). Boys medium
or low in narcissism were substantially more likely to follow
the lowest than the highest indirect bullying trajectory (PMP’s
> 0.95). Noteworthy, the probability of boys high on narcis-
sism to follow the high indirect bullying trajectory (0.60) was
substantially higher than was the probability of highly narcis-
sistic boys to follow the high direct bullying trajectory (prob-
ability 0.38; PMP > 0.95).

Results for girls were markedly different. Across narcis-
sism trajectory groups, girls rarely followed the high bullying
trajectory (all probabilities < 0.10). Instead, in all three narcis- sism groups girls were most likely to follow the low indirect bullying trajectory (all probabilities > 0.75). Hence, among
girls narcissism and indirect bullying were not related.

Conditional Probabilities of Narcissism Given Indirect
Bullying The bottom panel of Table 3 shows that boys on
the highest indirect bullying trajectory were about equally
likely to follow each of the three narcissism trajectories, indi-
cating that high narcissism is one of multiple factors contrib-
uting to high indirect bullying. Compared to the high bullying
boys, it was far less common for boys medium or low on
bullying to be high in narcissism (probability 0.31, versus
probability 0.05 for both groups; PMP’s > 0.95).

Girls in all indirect bullying trajectory groups were unlikely
to simultaneously belong to the high narcissism group (all

probabilities < 0.10). The eight girls high on indirect bullying were most likely to belong to the medium narcissism group, whereas the girls in the two other bullying groups were most often low in narcissism.

Single and Combined Effects of Narcissism and Total Bullying
Score on Social Dominance Outcome Scores The top panel of
Table 4 displays the number of children assigned to each of the
joint trajectories of narcissism and total bullying, for both
genders separately. The largest subgroup of boys scored me-
dium on both narcissism and total bullying (n=37; 19 %),
whereas the largest subgroup of girls scored low on both var-
iables simultaneously (n=51; 26 %). A small subgroup of the
boys (n=7; 3 %) scored high on both constructs, whereas no
girl did so.

In the bottom panel of the Table, the mean scores for re-
source control over the three assessment points for each of the
joint trajectory groups are shown. An ANOVAwas performed
with mean resource control score serving as the dependent
variable. Narcissism trajectory group, total bullying trajectory
group, and gender were the between-subjects factors. Results
revealed a main effect for bullying group: F (2, 365) = 26.40,
p<0.001. No other significant main or interaction effects emerged. Post-hoc multiple group comparisons using Tukey’s d showed that the scores of children in the highest bullying trajectory group were significantly higher than were scores for children in the medium bullying trajectory group (p<0.001). In turn, these latter scores significantly exceeded those for children in the average bullying trajectory group (p<0.001), and these children scored significantly higher than those in the low bullying trajectory group (p<0.001). Taken together, across gender and level of narcissism, more intense bullying is associated with higher resource control.

Table 4 Joint probabilities of narcissism and total bullying trajectories (upper panel) and mean resource control scores for the joint trajectory groups
(bottom panel)

Narcissism

Total bullying

High Medium Average Low
Joint probability of trajectory group membership a

High 0.03(n=7)/ – 0.04(n=8)/ 0.005(n=1) 0.01(n=2)/ 0.03(n=5) 0.02(n=4)/0.05(n=9)

Medium 0.09(n=18)/0.02(n=4) 0.19(n=37)/0.08(n=15) 0.13(n=25)/0.14(n=28) 0.11(n=21)/0.18(n=35)

Low 0.06(n=12)/0.01(n=2) 0.09(n=17)/0.08(n=16) 0.09(n=17)/0.16(n=32) 0.13(n=25)/0.26(n=51)

Total bullying
High Medium Average Low

Mean score on resource control over time b

High narcissism (Nb=21; Ng=15) 0.93 (0.50)/ – 0.38 (0.77)/ 0.24 (N/A) −0.60 (0.64) /−0.24(1.01) −0.57(1.05)/−0.47 (0.81)
Medium narcissism (Nb=101; Ng=74) 0.86 (0.68)/ 1.40 (0.32) 0.40 (0.66)/ 0.75 (0.55) −0.25 (0.72) / 0.24 (0.67) −0.66 (0.73) /−0.37 (0.62)
Low narcissism (Nb=71; Ng=101) 0.56 (0.62)/1.12(1.02) −0.12 (0.61)/ 0.47 (0.75) −0.31 (0.73) / 0.13 (0.51) −0.42 (0.69) /−0.48 (0.53)

a Cells sum to 1. b Figures in bold pertain to girls; figures between parentheses are SD’s

J Abnorm Child Psychol (2016) 44:63–74 71

Discussion

The present multi-informant study examined longitudinal link-
ages between preadolescents’ narcissistic traits and two differ-
ent forms of bullying. Moreover, we investigated to what extent
children high in narcissism are successful in obtaining social
dominance in the peer group, and how elevated bullying con-
tributes to this outcome. An important conclusion of the present
work, consistent with expectations, is that with respect to nar-
cissism children do not constitute one homogenous group, nei-
ther in terms of mean scores, nor with respect to the linkages
with bullying. Interestingly, contrary to previous work in which
no gender differences emerged (Fanti and Kimonis 2012),
marked differences between boys and girls were found with
respect to the link between narcissism and bullying.

For girls, across both forms of bullying no systematic as-
sociation with level of narcissism emerged, and girls were
quite unlikely to be assigned to the highest bullying trajectory
group. Relative to girls, boys were more likely to engage in
high levels of bullying. More important for the present pur-
poses, boys high in narcissism were substantially more likely
to display high levels of both direct and indirect bullying than
were their male peers lower in narcissism. This link with nar-
cissism was stronger for indirect than for direct bullying.
Although for boys being consistently high in narcissism is
strongly associated with being consistently high in both types
of bullying (as well as total bullying), in both instances the
reverse pattern was not observed. Narcissistic boys were also
quite successful in their pursuit of social dominance, but only
when they engaged in high levels of bullying. Below we dis-
cuss our findings in more detail.

Using a person-centered approach, for all variables exam-
ined multiple-group trajectory models fitted the data best.
Noteworthy, Fanti and Kimonis (2012) found a linkage be-
tween narcissism and more intense bullying, but they did not
distinguish between potentially different trajectory groups of
bullies or subgroups of narcissistic children. For most narcis-
sism and bullying trajectory groups, mean scores were stable
or changed only slightly over time. Only a relatively small
number of children was assigned to the high narcissism tra-
jectory group. This came as no surprise, given the almost
normal distribution of narcissism scores (although somewhat
positively skewed) and the mean score for this high narcissism
trajectory group being more than 1 SD above the mean. Boys
were moderately overrepresented in this group. In a similar
vein, for both forms of bullying relatively few children follow-
ed the highest trajectory, with the large majority being male.

For boys, the joint analysis of the narcissism and bullying
trajectories revealed a clear link between high narcissism and
high direct bullying. In fact, boys following the high narcissism
trajectory were more than twice as likely as their peers medium
or low in narcissism to be assigned to the highest direct bullying
group. Interestingly, relative to direct bullying, boys with high

levels of narcissism were even substantially more likely to be
assigned to the highest indirect bullying trajectory group.
Importantly, variable-centered approaches such as regression
analyses or SEM do not distinguish between different trajectory
groups and can therefore not capture potential differences be-
tween these groups in terms of associations between variables.

One possible explanation for this difference as a function of
bullying type is that narcissistic boys perceive indirect bullying
as being more effective in obtaining their goals of power, dom-
inance, and prestige. Alternatively, given the difficulties nar-
cissists encounter when cooperating with others (e.g., Miller
et al. 2007), it may also be that narcissistic boys preferentially
engage in the kinds of (indirect) bullying they can most easily
perform solitarily. In contrast, several forms of direct bullying
require cooperating with peers to most effectively harass a
victim. For instance, direct relational bullying often pertains
to a victim being rejected or ostracized by a group, and direct
possession-related bullying may be most effective when per-
formed collectively (e.g., hiding or damaging a bicycle togeth-
er, throwing around a schoolbag between multiple classmates).

While highly narcissistic boys were likely to be high on
both direct and indirect bullying, these relationships were not
symmetrical. In fact, the majority of the boys assigned to the
trajectory with the highest bullying scores were not on the
high narcissism trajectory. Hence, among boys high narcis-
sism is one of more factors that predict intense bullying.

To the extent that narcissism involves the ongoing need to
obtain admiration, and to feel powerful, it appears that highly
narcissistic boys are quite successful in nourishing their gran-
diose self. Specifically, most – but not all – highly narcissistic
boys scored above average in terms of resource control.
However, our analyses strongly suggest that bullying, rather
than narcissism as such, is the critical factor yielding high
resource control. For instance, low narcissistic boys high on
bullying were more successful in this regard than their high
narcissistic peers low in bullying. Moreover, the few girls that
showed high bullying also received high resource control
scores, although they were not high in narcissism.

Noteworthy, high scores for resource control were also ob-
served among youth medium or low in bullying, albeit less
frequently. This finding is in line with the work of Vaillancourt
and Hymel (2006), who noted Bthere are two different path-
ways to achieving status (visibility and influence) within the
peer group, one through the explicit use of aggressive behav-
ior, the other through the possession of peer-valued character-
istics^ (p. 398). Examples of these characteristics include be-
ing athletic or physically attractive.

Contrary to narcissistic boys, highly narcissistic girls were
not more likely than their peers to engage in high levels of
either direct or indirect bullying. In a similar vein, for girls no
systematic overlap between high narcissism and high resource
control was observed. These observations converge with find-
ings reported by Salmivalli and colleagues (Salmivalli et al.

72 J Abnorm Child Psychol (2016) 44:63–74

1999), who examined cross-sectional linkages between differ-
ent dimensions of self-esteem and different participant roles in
bullying situations (e.g., ringleader bully, defender) among
adolescents aged 14–15. These authors found that Bdefensive
egotism^ (assessed with items such as Balways wants to be the
center of attention^; Bcan’t take criticism^) was positively as-
sociated with bullying for boys, whereas no such linkage was
identified for girls.

What may account for this marked gender difference ob-
served in two independent studies? Salmivalli et al. (1999)
speculated that the bullying of boys is more strongly driven
by dispositional traits (e.g., narcissism), whereas girls’ bully-
ing is more contingent on situational and psychological fac-
tors such as being stimulated to bully by close friends or
Bclique^ members. However, even if narcissistic girls are less
likely than narcissistic boys to bully, how can they reconcile
their grandiose sense of self and privileged status over others
with their only average social dominance scores? One possi-
bility is that narcissistic girls do long for admiration and pres-
tige, but are somehow not successful. Alternatively, they may
try to satisfy their self-motives of grandiosity and power in
other, more communal domains. For instance, they may exag-
gerate their qualities in terms of being exceptionally (but in-
strumentally) kind and trustworthy (see Gebauer et al. 2012).

The present research has possible implications for interven-
tion. To the extent that bullying provides narcissistic boys the
position of dominance and power they aspire, they are not
likely to refrain from this successful behavior. Currently, the
treatment of narcissistic traits in youth is still in its infancy, and
not much is known about the factors that cause and maintain
these traits (Thomaes and Brummelman 2015). Hence, inter-
vention is more likely to be effective when it seeks to reduce
the rewards of bullying. The peer group is pivotal in this
regard, given that bullies can only achieve dominance and
prestige, when their actions are reinforced by peers.
Interestingly, recent work has shown that the Finnish anti-
bullying program BKiVa^ effectively weakens the link be-
tween bullying and a dominant position in the peer group
(Kärnä et al. 2011). The KiVa program aims to render bullying
an unsuccessful strategy by focusing in particular on changing
the behavior of uninvolved bystanders.

Useful extensions may be to teach narcissistic bullies that
there are also other ways to achieve social dominance (e.g., by
increasing athletic competence). Given that narcissistic indi-
viduals are typically low in empathy, and narcissism and psy-
chopathy tend to co-occur (Thomaes et al. 2008; Van
Baardewijk et al. 2008b), their bullying may be sustained by
low sensitivity to signs of distress in others. Research has
shown that making victims’ distress cues more salient, re-
duces aggression among children high in psychopathy (Van
Baardewijk et al. 2008a). Hence, confronting narcissistic
bullies more directly and explicitly with the misery they bring
about might decrease their unwanted behavior.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

Our findings are based on primarily Caucasian pre-adolescents.
To examine generalizability, future research should examine
youth from a broader age range and other ethnic groups.
Second, although a joint trajectory approach is well suited to
prospectively examine the overlap of two constructs of interest,
longitudinal designs do not permit causal inferences. Although
it appears that among boys high narcissism leads to high bul-
lying, it may also be that the rewards of bullying maintain or
further elevate their narcissism. Third, our findings do not
speak to the specificity of the results for narcissism, versus
for instance the two other Bdark triad traits^ of psychopathy
and Machiavellianism (Paulhus and Williams 2002), or general
self-esteem (Fanti and Henrich 2015). Fourth, our person-
centered approach also has disadvantages. For instance, indi-
viduals cannot be assigned to one of the distinct (latent) classes
with perfect precision. Moreover, the presence of discrete
groups is assumed, but the distribution of true scores may be
continuous instead of discrete. Hence, latent classes do not
necessarily correspond to truly existing different groups in the
population. Finally, we did not examine children’s motivation
to engage in different types of bullying, and it remains to be
investigated why elevated narcissism among boys was stronger
associated with indirect versus direct bullying. Future research
is needed to investigate why children prefer certain types of
bullying over others, and the role of narcissism in this regard.

Notwithstanding these limitations, the present study pro-
vides important new knowledge regarding the developmental
linkages between narcissism, bullying and social dominance
in youth. First, there are different trajectory groups of children
who differ in level of narcissism. Second, whereas highly
narcissistic boys show an elevated inclination to engage in
high levels of bullying, boys low and medium on narcissism
are (far) less likely to bully. Third, the link between high
narcissism and high bullying is stronger for indirect versus
direct bullying. Fourth, for girls higher narcissism is not asso-
ciated with more frequent bullying. Finally, recent research
among both adults and youth (e.g., Kuefner et al. 2013) has
shown that many narcissists are at increased risk for peer re-
jection and isolation. Although the behavior of narcissistic
youth is thus not necessarily interpersonally effective, it ap-
pears that the bullying of high narcissistic boys is instrumental
in establishing social dominance in the peer group, which may
serve to maintain or enhance their grandiose self.

Conflict of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of
interest.

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the
source are credited.

J Abnorm Child Psychol (2016) 44:63–74 73

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74 J Abnorm Child Psychol (2016) 44:63–74

http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0272431613519498

• Narcissism, Bullying, and Social Dominance in Youth: A Longitudinal Analysis

Abstract
Method
Participants
Procedure
Measures
Plan of Analyses
Results
Preliminary Analyses
LCGA Analyses
Primary Analyses
Discussion
Limitations and Directions for Future Research
References

Ahmet Hamdi Imamoglu1 , Aysegul Durak Batigun

2

DOI: 10.14744/DAJPNS.2020.0010

7

Dusunen Adam The Journal of Psychiatry and
Neurological Sciences 2020;33:388-40

1

How to cite this article: Imamoglu AH, Durak Batigun A. The assessment of the relationship between narcissism, perceiv

ed

parental rearing
styles, and defense mechanisms. Dusunen Adam The Journal of Psychiatry and Neurological Sciences 2020;33:388-401.

The assessment of the relationship between
narcissism, perceived parental rearing styles, and
defense mechanism

s

1University of Health Sciences, Institute of Health Sciences, Department of Psychology, Istanbul – Turkey
2Ankara University, Faculty of Languages History and Geography, Department of Psychology, Ankara – Turkey

Correspondence: Aysegul Durak Batigun, Ankara University, Faculty of Languages History and Geography, Department of Psychology,
Ankara – Turkey
E-mail: batigun@ankara.edu.tr
Received: June 09, 2020; Revised: July 12, 2020; Accepted: September 26, 202

0

ABSTRACT

Objective: The aim of the study was to determine the relationships between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, perceived
parental rearing styles and defense mechanisms. Besides, it was investigated how grandiose narcissism and vulnerable
narcissism scores differ in terms of demographic variables such as gender and age.

Method: The study was carried out with 508 participants between the ages of 18-65 determined by the appropriate sampling
method. 271 of the participants were female (53.3%), 237 of them were male (46.7%). The data were collected through a battery
including Demographic Information Form, Pathological Narcissism Inventory, Narcissistic Personality Inventory-16, Abbreviated
Perceived Parental Attitudes Scale-Child Form, Defense Style Questionnaire-40, and Splitting Scale.

Results: Statistical analyses revealed that while there was no significant difference in vulnerable narcissism scores between
male and female participants, male participants had significantly higher scores in grandiose narcissism. The findings indicate a
decrease in both vulnerable and grandiose narcissism as the age of the participants increase. The regression analyses showed
that grandiose narcissism scores were predicted by the paternal rejection and the maternal emotional warmth as perceived
parental attitudes, and by the immature defense style, splitting defense mechanism, and neurotic defense style as defense
styles; vulnerable narcissism scores were predicted by the paternal rejection, maternal overprotection, splitting defense, and all
forms of defense.

Conclusion: Findings that narcissistic personality may be correlated with some inadequate parental attitudes and more
frequent use of defense mechanisms were discussed within the framework of this topic. In addition, the results were elaborated
regarding the theoretical framework of narcissism, and how it can be used in clinical practice with narcissistic individuals.

Keywords: Defense mechanisms, grandiose narcissism, perceived parental rearing styles, splitting defense mechanism,
vulnerable narcissism

RESEARCH ARTICLE

INTRODUCTION

The concept of narcissism expresses the exaggerated
love that one directs at oneself and his indifference

towards others. Narcissism, which is referred to in the
literature with its unique forms of relating and
defending, has been frequently examined by theorists
particularly from the psychoanalytic tradition since the

Imamoglu et al. The assessment of the relationship between narcissism, perceived parental rearing styles, and defense mechanisms 38

9

beginning of the last century and has become one of the
popular terms of our time (1). While some individuals
with narcissistic personalities exhibit typical narcissistic
traits such as arrogance, dominance and grandiosity; it
is stated that some of them have an implicit narcissistic
nature concealed by characteristics such as shyness and
humility (2). Due to its complex structure, narcissism
has been classified in different ways by many theorists
and evaluated as a multidimensional structure (3). Cain
et al. (4) determined that these dimensions generally
reflect two themes: grandiose and vulnerable. This
distinction has also been supported by various studies
(5,6) and has been widely accepted in the narcissism
literature (7). Grandiose narcissism is basically
characterized by exploiting, low empathy, jealousy,
aggression and pretentiousness (3). It has been reported
t h at i n d i v i d u a l s w i t h g r a n d i o s e n a r c i s s i s t i c
characteristics have an intense desire to maintain their
positive self-perception and feel the need to gain the
admiration of others (8). According to Gabbard (9),
individuals with such a personality structure have a low
awareness of what kind of effect they have on others and
are insensitive to the needs of others. These individuals
also tend to have rude and arrogant attitudes in their
interpersonal relationships (10).

Vulnerable narcissism, on the other hand, includes
personality patterns that are often regarded as the
opposites of grandiose narcissistic traits. However, it is
thought that these two sub-dimensions of narcissism do
not completely exclude each other and that many
narcissistic individuals can exhibit the characteristics of
both types together (11). Individuals with vulnerable
narcissistic traits are hyper-sensitive to the reactions of
others, avoiding being the center of attention, and are
shy (9). However, it has been stated that they have
grandiose fantasies that are not clearly displayed under
their humble and shy images (12). Also, over-idealizing
others (13); embarrassment for grandiose desires (9);
excessive critical attitudes towards the self (14),
dysphoric affection and pessimism have also been
associated with vulnerable narcissism (12).

Studies show that the attitudes adopted by parents in
their interactions with their children play an important
role in the development of the child’s personality and
psychopathologies (15). Regarding the effects of
parental attitudes on the development of narcissistic
personality structure, views emphasizing excessively
tolerant, extremely intrusive or cold/strict parenting
styles come to the fore. (16). For example, according to
Kernberg (17), one of the important factors underlying
pathological narcissism is that it superficially displays

functional parental behaviors; but more fundamentally
it is the parent (usually mother) figure with an
indifferent, cold, or implicitly aggressive attitudes.
Young et al. (18) listed childhood experiences
accompanying narcissistic personality development
within a schematic model as loneliness, inadequate
boundaries, being used or directed, and conditional
approval. According to this approach, narcissistic
individuals did not acquire any true love, empathy and
closeness in their childhood. In a study conducted by
Cramer (19), vulnerable narcissism was positive with
the authoritarian parenting style of the mother; it was
found to be negatively correlated with maternal attitudes
perceived as sensitive and permissive. However,
grandiose narcissism is positive with the father’s
authoritarian parenting style and it was concluded that
there was a negative relationship with the father’s
perceived sensitive and tolerant attitudes.

Defense mechanisms are also one of the variables
whose relationship with narcissism is often discussed.
These mechanisms generally serve to keep affections
within the limits of which the individual can cope with,
to restore the psychological balance disturbed by the
increase in impulses, and to deal with life events that
create sudden and drastic changes in self-design, and
conflicts with other important people (20). However, it
has been indicated that strict, inappropriate and
excessive use of defense mechanisms are associated with
various psychopathologies and interpersonal problems
(21,22). Studies examining the relationship between
narcissism and defense mechanisms highlighted the
relationship between narcissism and immature defenses.
It has been suggested that these individuals mostly use
defense mechanisms of splitting, avoidance, denial,
outpacing, commitment, projection, and projective
identification (23). One of them, the splitting defense
mechanism has a distinct feature in its relationship to
narcissism. It is stated that narcissistic individuals often
use the defense of splitting (17,23-25). The splitting
defense mechanism refers to the separation of opposing
affections and positive and negative representations of
the self and others, and it is seen as the basic defense
mechanism of infancy when the ego still lacks the
capacity to integrate good and bad (26). In this period,
the baby wants to separate the good self and object
designs that are formed as a result of satisfying
experiences from the bad self and object designs
determined by frustration and aggressive impulses.
Thus, the splitting functions as a defense against the
anxiety created by ambivalent effects (27). It is accepted
that as a result of normal functioning developmental

Dusunen Adam The Journal of Psychiatry and Neurological Sciences 2020;33:388-401390

processes, the splitting defense mechanism is replaced by
the defense of suppression, and the effect of splitting
decreases in adulthood. However, as a result of a
development process in which self and object
representations cannot be integrated, contradictory
representations continue to be actively separated from
each other (17). This leads to sudden transitions from
emotional situations in which the outside world and the
self are perceived completely well to emotional situations
in which they are perceived as completely bad (26).

Researchers draw attention to the function of some
defense mechanisms closely related to personality
disorders such as splitting, in coping with negative
affections that occur as a result of inappropriate parental
attitudes in childhood (17,25). Research findings on the
subject are generally based on a limited number of
longitudinal studies (28) and studies measuring
perceived parental attitudes within an adult sample (29).
For example, in a study with children and adolescents,
perceived maternal acceptance was positive with mature
defense; perceived maternal and paternal acceptance
was negatively associated with the immature form of
defense (30).

Considering all these, it is noteworthy that the
studies examining the relationship between narcissism
and perceived parental attitudes in our country are
limited to some thesis and do not focus on the
relationship of narcissism and splitting defense and
forms of defenses. In most of the studies conducted
abroad, it was observed that the perceived parental
attitudes were not assessed separately for the mother
and father, and the dimension of grandiosity was
emphasized in analyzing the relationship between
defense mechanisms and narcissism. Therefore, the
objective of this study is to determine the relationship
between grandiose and vulnerable narcissistic traits and
perceived parental attitudes and defense mechanisms.
In addition, determining how grandiose narcissism and
vulnerable narcissism scores differ in terms of
demographic variables such as gender and age is the
secondary aim of the study.

METHOD

Sample
The sample of the study was reached using the
convenience sampling method, who reside in Ankara and
Istanbul provinces. Considering the features and
conditions such as the purpose of the study, research
opportunities, the number of independent variables, and
sample selection technique, it was concluded that a

sample of approximately 500 people would be sufficient.
As a result, 508 participants between the ages of 18-65
(Mean=31.17, st andard de viat ion [SD]=11.37)
constituted the sample group. 271 of the participants
were female (53.3%) and 237 were male (46.7%). 3.4%
were primary school graduates, 9.4% were high school
graduates and 29.3% were university students whereas
57.7% were university and above graduates. 62% of the
sample was single and 35.6% were married. Information
on the monthly income levels of the participants was also
received. Accordingly, 23% was below 1500 TL, 17.1%
between 1500 TL-2499 TL, 17.1% between 2500 TL- 3499
TL, 24% between 3500 TL-5000 TL, while 17.1% of them
reported that they had an income of over 5000 TL.

Measures
Demographic Information Form: It is a form prepared
by the researcher to get responses from the participants
regarding their basic demographic information (gender,
age, education level, income level, family structure,
whether the mother and father are alive, marital status,
where they live most, and whether there has been a
psychiatric diagnosis in the last six months).

Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI): It is a
6-point Likert-type self-report scale scored (0=not like
me, 5=very similar to me) developed by Pincus et al.
(31). It was adapted to Turkish was conducted by
Buyukgungor (32). In this study, the number of items
was reduced to 40 by removing 12 items in the original
scale due to item correlations and factor loadings. As a
result of the analysis, a seven-factor structure was
obtained: Contingent Self-Esteem, Denial of the
Dependency, Grandiose Fantasy, Exploitativeness,
Entitlement Rage, Self-Sacrificing, Self-enhancement.
In the Turkish version of the PNI, it was observed that 6
subscales, excluding Exploitativeness, were clustered in
the Narcissistic Vulnerability dimension and this
dimension explained 45.27% of the variance. It was
reported that the Narcissistic Grandiosity dimension,
which consists only of the Exploitativeness subscale,
explained 15.21% of the variance. The Cronbach alpha
reliability coefficient obtained for the total score of the
scale was calculated as 0.91; in the subscales, this value
was determined to range from 0.23 to 0.63. Since all
subscales except Exploitativeness are included in the
vulnerable narcissism dimension, the Turkish version of
the PNI was evaluated mainly as a tool to measure the
vulnerable appearance of narcissism (32). In the present
study, the Narcissistic Vulnerability related dimensions
of the scale were used and the Cronbach alpha reliability
coefficient was determined as 0.94.

Imamoglu et al. The assessment of the relationship between narcissism, perceived parental rearing styles, and defense mechanisms 391

Narcissistic Personality Inventory-16 (NPI-16): It
is a self-report scale developed by Raskin and Hall (33)
according to the narcissistic personality disorder criteria
in DSM-III. Ames et al. (34) formed the 16-item form of
the NPI and each of these forms has two statements.
One of them indicates a narcissistic trait. Participants
are asked to read these pairs of items and mark the
statement they think reflects them. The adaptation to
Turkish study was carried out by Atay (35), and Gungor
and Selcuk (36) revised and rearranged some of its
statements. The Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency
coefficient of the scale was calculated as 0.75 and 0.74. It
is accepted that the grandeur narcissistic traits of the
participants increase as the scores obtained from the
scale whose total score can range from 0 and 16 increase.
In the present study, the Cronbach alpha reliability
coefficient for NPI-16 was calculated as 0.71.

Defense Styles Questionnaire-40 (DSQ-40): It is a
self-report scale consisting of 40 items organized by
Andrews et al. (37). The items are scored in Likert type
between 1 (not suitable for me at all) to 9 (very suitable
for me). The adaptation study of the scale was carried
out by Yılmaz et al. (38). As a result of the study, three
dimensions; mature, neurotic, and immature defense
were obtained and the Cronbach alpha internal
consistency coefficients for these dimensions were
calculated as 0.70, 0.61 and 0.83, respectively. The
increase in the scores obtained from the scale indicates
the increase in the use of the defense style to which the
relevant defense mechanism belongs. In this study,
Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients for mature,
neurotic and immature defense style subscales were
calculated as 0.63, 0.59 and 0.79, respectively.

Perceived Parenting Attitudes in Childhood- Short
EMBU-Children Form (S-EMBU-C): It is a 23-item
scale developed by Arrindell et al. (39) to assess the
perceived parental attitudes of adult individuals regarding
their childhood. On the scale, participants evaluate the
parental attitudes they perceive during childhood
separately for both their mothers and fathers. This
assessment is scored 1-4 Likert-type items in three
dimensions: overprotection, rejection, and emotional
warmth. The Turkish adaptation study of the scale was
carried out by Dirik et al. (40). In this study, the
Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency values in the
maternal subscales were 0.71, 0.68 and 0.65 for
overprotection, rejection and emotional warmth,
respectively while it was 0.50, 0.72 and 0.73 for paternal
overprotection, rejection and emotional warmth,
respectively. High scores from subscales indicate an
increase in perceived parenting attitudes for that subscale.

In the present study, Cronbach’s alpha reliability
coefficients were calculated as 0.80, 0.83 and 0.80,
respectively for the dimensions of the S-EMBU-C of
p e r c e i v e d e m o t i o n a l w a r mt h , r e j e c t i o n a n d
overprotection regarding the mother. Cronbach’s alpha
reliability coefficients for the dimensions of perceived
p a t e r n a l e m o t i o n a l w a r m t h , r e j e c t i o n a n d
overprotection were found to be 0.82, 0.84 and 0.80,
respectively.

Splitting Scale (SS): It is a 7-point Likert-type scale
with 14 items developed by Gerson (41) to assess the
splitting defense mechanism in individuals. The scores
obtained from the scale range from 14 to 98, and higher
scores indicate more frequent use of splitting the defense
mechanism. The Turkish adaptation study of the scale
was carried out by Alkan (42), and the Cronbach alpha
interior consistency coefficient was calculated as 0.70.
The test-retest and Guttman two-half test reliability
coefficients were reported as 0.85 and 0.78, respectively.
Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient in this study was
calculated as 0.73.

Procedure
First, approval was obtained from the Ankara University
Ethics Committee (Approval no: 17/280 73921) and the
above-mentioned measurement tools were converted
into a battery. Before the study, participants were asked
to sign the informed consent form by providing written
and oral information about the scope and the ethical
framework of the study. The application was made on
an individual basis and lasted about 20-25 min.
Participants with end values and the missing data above
acceptable levels (more than 10% of the number of
items in the scale) were excluded from the data set to
make the data obtained ready for the analysis. Statistical
analyses were performed with the SPSS-21 program in
line with the research questions, after assigning new
values with an acceptable level to replace the missing
data with the mean assignment method. In order to
minimize the sequence effect, other scales were included
in the battery in a different order, with the informed
consent form and demographic information form
appeared at the beginning.

RESULTS

Analyzes on the Gender Variable
T-test analysis was conducted for independent groups
to determine whether the dependent variable scores of
the study, grandiose narcissism and vulnerable
narcissism, differed according to gender. As a result of

Dusunen Adam The Journal of Psychiatry and Neurological Sciences 2020;33:388-401392

the analysis, no significant difference was
observed in terms of vulnerable narcissism
scores (Male: Mean=2.39, SD=0.81) (Female:
Mean=2.35, SD=0.90), (t=0.40, p>0.05] while
men’s grandiose narcissism scores (Mean=5.46,
SD=3.14) was found to be significantly higher
(t=3.11, p<0.001) than women (Mean=4.62, SD=2.99).

Association Between Variables (Correlation
Analysis

)

Pe a r s on P ro du c t – Mom e nt C or re l at i on
Coefficients were calculated to determine the
association between all variables considered in
the study. Statistically, values of 0.05 and below
(p<0.05) were considered significant. In this and the following statistical analyzes, two items related to splitting defense under the immature defense style subscale of the Defense Styles Questionnaire were excluded, and the splitting defense mechanism was included in the analysis as a variable measured only by the Splitting Scale.

As a result of the correlation analysis, it
was observed that there were negative and
significant associations between the age
variable and grandiose narcissism scores and
vulnerable narcissism scores. In addition,
grandiose narcissism scores show a significant
relationship with the perceived maternal
ove r prote c t i on and p e rc e ive d p ate r na l
r e j e c t i o n . H o w e v e r, t h e c o r r e l a t i o n
coefficients between grandiose narcissism
scores and other perceived parental attitudes
were found to be not significant. However,
vulnerable narcissism showed significant
associations with all perceived parental
attitudes, except for the perceived maternal
emotional warmth.

The grandiose narcissism variable was
found to be significantly associated with
immature defense style, mature defense style
and splitting defense mechanism; while the
vulnerable narcissism variable was found to be
associated with immature defense style,
neurotic defense style, and splitting defense
m e c h a n i s m . Ho w e v e r, n o s i g n i f i c a nt
correlation was found between grandiose
narcissism and neurotic defense style, and
between vulnerable narcissism and mature
defense style. The results are shown in Table 1. T
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Imamoglu et al. The assessment of the relationship between narcissism, perceived parental rearing styles, and defense mechanisms 393

Regression Analysis
In this part of the study, two separate-stages of linear
regression analysis were conducted to determine the
variables that predicted the grandiose narcissism and
vulnerable narcissism scores of the participants. In both
regression analyzes; demographic variables (age, gender,
income level) in the first stage, perceived parental
attitudes (emotional warmth, rejection, overprotection)
in the second stage; defense styles (immature, neurotic,
mature) and splitting defense mechanism in the final
stage were included in the equation.

In the first regression analysis in which grandiose
narcissism was considered as the dependent variable
(Table 2), the first predictor variable was age and
explained 2% of the variance (F=11.05, p<0.001). It was observed that the gender variable included in the equation in the same step increased the explained variance to 4% (F=11.11, p<0.001). Among the perceived parental attitudes included in the second stage in the analysis, the perceived paternal rejection increased the explained variance to 5% (F=10.60, p<0.001), while the perceived maternal emotional warmth to 6% (F=9.56, p<0.001). In the final step, defense styles and splitting defense were included in the analysis. Among these variables, the variance explained by the immature defense style reached 11% (F=13.98, p<0.001). While 12% of the variance (F=12.69, p<0.001) was explained by the addition of the splitting defense mechanism, it was observed that the total variance explained by the neurotic defense style increased to 13% (F=12.04, p<0.001). Examining the beta values, it was observed that the strongest predictor was the immature defense style (β=0.22) followed by the perceived maternal emotional warmth (β=0.16).

In the second regression analysis in which vulnerable
narcissism was considered as the dependent variable
(Table 3), only age was found to have a significant
predictive effect among the demographic variables
included in the first step and explained 5% of the
variance (F=27.68, p<0.001). In the second step, the explained variance increased to 13% (F=37.10, p<0.001) by the inclusion of the perceived paternal rejection from the parental attitudes in the analysis. The perceived maternal overprotection increased the explained variance to 16% (F=31.97, p<0.001). In the final step of the regression analysis, the splitting defense mechanism and defense styles were involved. At this step, the splitting defense mechanism increased the explained variance to 48% (F=115.11, p<0.001). It was then obser ved that the explained variance was 50 % (F=102.78, p<0.001) by the inclusion of the immature

defense style to the model. With the contribution of the
neurotic defense style, this rate reached 51% (F=88.68,
p<0.001). Finally, it was determined that the predictive effect of mature defense style was significant and the total explained variance increased to 52% (F=78.07, p<0.001) with this variable. When the beta values were examined, it was observed that the strongest predictor was the splitting defense mechanism (β=0.46) followed by the immature defense style (β=0.16).

DISCUSSION

In the study, it was first examined whether the grandiose
narcissism and vulnerable narcissism scores differ by
gender and age. According to the findings, while the
vulnerable narcissism scores of the participants showed
no significant difference in terms of gender variable, the
grandiose narcissism scores of the men were observed
to be significantly higher than those of women.
Reviewing the literature, some studies show no gender
difference (43,44) while in some studies, men’s scores of
grandiose narcissism are significantly higher than those
of women, similar to the findings in this study (45-48).
There are several explanations as to why grandiose
narcissism is more common among men. For example,
Wardetzki (49) asserted that although men and women
basically have the same narcissistic disorder; the gender-
related social norms are shaping how this narcissistic
nature is expressed. According to him, while the
narcissistic personality of women tends to be concealed
more harmoniously within the cultural structure, the
narcissistic personality of the men is formed to be
expressed more grandiose and omnipotent way by the
cultural structure. According to Morf and Rhodewalt
(50), since some characteristics such as exploitativeness,
dominance and grandiosity are regarded as socially
more acceptable to men, women meet their narcissistic
needs more implicitly and indirectly per their gender
roles. In addition to these approaches; it has been
suggested that men might have acquired these
characteristics more than women in the evolutionary
process due to the advantages of grandiose narcissistic
traits such as leadership, aggression and competitiveness
in terms of continuity of species and biology (51). For
all these possible reasons, more stereotypic narcissistic
traits, such as grandiose narcissistic personality features,
may be more common in men.

In this study, age was considered as a variable besides
gender. As a result of the correlation and regression
analyzes, it was obser ved that as the age of the
individuals increased, their grandiose and vulnerable

Dusunen Adam The Journal of Psychiatry and Neurological Sciences 2020;33:388-401394

Ta
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2

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Imamoglu et al. The assessment of the relationship between narcissism, perceived parental rearing styles, and defense mechanisms 395

narcissistic scores decreased. The findings both in our
countr y (43) and abroad (47,52,53) suggest that
narcissistic characteristics are reported less as the age
gets older. Besides the period-specific developmental
factors; it may be a result of differences between
generations. As Ronningstam (10) stated, developmental
difficulties specific to the transition period from
adolescence to adulthood may cause narcissistic
disorders to be seen more frequently in these
individuals. Some studies were also reported that
narcissism has been increasing among younger
generations in western cultures (54,55). In parallel with
t his incre as e, emphasis on individua lism and
egocentrism in many cultural elements such as
advertisements, magazines and songs; there has also
been an increase in the use of the ‘I’ pronoun (56,57).
Therefore, it can be argued that there is a possible
increase in the symptoms of the narcissistic personality
or at least the fact that these features can be expressed
more clearly among the young generations with this
intergenerational difference, which indicates the
increasing trend of individualism in Turkish culture.

Examining the regression analysis, it is observed
that the grandiose narcissism scores of the individuals
increase as the perceived maternal emotional warmth
and the perceived paternal rejection increases. When
the literature on the subject is examined, some studies
reveal that perceived parenting attitudes (such as
maternal emotional warmth and paternal rejection),
which can be considered at the opposite poles, may
predict grandiose narcissism, similar to the current
study. For example, Otway and Vignoles (58) found
that perception towards both over-valuing and
rejecting attitudes of the parents was associated with
grandiose narcissism, and evaluated this situation as
the fact that the overvalued attitudes may contain
implicitly rejecting messages. Similarly, Huxley and
Bizumic (59) found that parental attitudes, perceived
as high-level rejecting and low-level cold, predicted
grandiose narcissism. However, it should be kept in
mind that most of the studies in the literature do not
evaluate perceived parental attitudes towards mother
and father separately. It seems that the development of
grandiose narcissistic traits may be influenced by
different, and sometimes even opposite attitudes of the
mother and father.

Wh e n t h e d e fe n s e m e c h an i s m s pre d i c t i n g
grandiose narcissism are examined, it is observed that
the immature and neurotic defense styles and splitting
defens e me chanism are sig nif ic ant pre dic tors.
Moreover, it is remarkable that the immature defense T

ab
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Dusunen Adam The Journal of Psychiatry and Neurological Sciences 2020;33:388-401396

Ta
b

le
3

: V
ar
ia
b
le
s
P
re
d
ic
ti
n

g
V

u
ln
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le
N

ar
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ss
is
m
S
co
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s
(L
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M
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N
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Imamoglu et al. The assessment of the relationship between narcissism, perceived parental rearing styles, and defense mechanisms 397

style is the strongest variable (β=0.22) predicting
grandiose narcissism. There are several studies in the
literature revealing the association of narcissistic
personality traits with immature defense mechanisms
such as projection, denial, rationalization, projective
identification, and devaluation (60-64). Similarly,
findings are supporting the relationship between the
splitting defense mechanism and narcissism (65,66).
Most of the narcissistic individuals tend to deny their
weaknesses, glorify their self, and devalue stimuli that
pose a threat to their self-worth (5); therefore, it is
possible to assess all of these processes as defense
mechanisms used to regulate self-esteem, which is
highly affected by interpersonal relationships. On the
other hand, as this study shows, there is no evidence in
the literature that less use of neurotic defenses
contributes to grandiose narcissistic traits. This
finding may be due to the characteristics of the
Defense Styles Questionnaire used. That is, in the
neurotic defense style dimension of the test, the
defenses of pseudo-altruism, undoing, idealization,
and adverse reaction formation were measured. One of
these defense mechanisms, idealization is generally
associated with vulnerable narcissistic characteristics
(23). In addition, the fact that neurotic defense
mechanisms are generally aimed at resolving internal
conf licts rather than problems in interpersonal
relationships (67) may have led to this result.

When the regression analysis of vulnerable
narcissism is examined, it is observed that the variables
of perceived parental attitudes, paternal rejection and
maternal overprotection, are significant predictors.
When examined in the literature, it is possible to come
across studies revealing vulnerable narcissism is
associated with parents’ perceived overprotective and
rejecting attitudes or similar dimensions (46,58,59).
Ev a lu at i ng t h e c ont r i but i on of t h e m ate r n a l
overprotection to vulnerable narcissistic traits from a
theoretical point of view, Kohut’s approach comes to the
fore. Kohut (24) considered one of the important factors
in the development of the narcissistic personality
structure as the lack of “optimal frustration” experiences.
These non-traumatic experiences, such as minor
disappointments, blockings, or empathic inadequacies
of the mother at an acceptable level, play an important
role in harmonizing the illusion of omnipotence in the
child with reality. However, since the mother’s
overprotective attitudes may mean that the child is
deprived of the occasions to experience these
frustrations, it seems possible that feelings of grandiosity
are indirectly transferred into adulthood, as in T

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Dusunen Adam The Journal of Psychiatry and Neurological Sciences 2020;33:388-401398

vulnerable narcissistic individuals. However, according
to the findings of this study, perceiving the father as
more rejecting also contributes to the vulnerable
narcissistic traits. As mentioned before, in the findings
about grandiose narcissism, exposure to rejecting
attitudes is a condition that some theorists often
highlighted in the developmental processes of
narcissistic individuals.

According to the findings, the overuse of immature
and neurotic defense styles along with the splitting
defense; and low use of mature defense style predicts
vulnerable narcissistic traits. Although it has been
reported in the literature that individuals with
vulnerable narcissistic characteristics use defensive
strategies in their interpersonal relationships (68),
there is no study revealing specifically the relationship
b e t w e e n v u l n e r a b l e n a r c i s s i s m a n d d e f e n s e
mechanisms. However, as seen in the studies edited by
Perry et al. (69), narcissistic personality traits are
associated with the use of many immature defense
mechanisms, including splitting. This relationship, as
stated b efore, is als o compatible with various
perspectives that narcissistic individuals generally
resort to other immature defense mechanisms,
particularly the splitting defense (23,26). The splitting
defense mechanism (β=0.46), which appears to be the
strongest predictor of vulnerable narcissism in this
study, functions to distinguish the opposing affections
of g r an d i o s it y / s up e r i or it y an d i n s u f f i c i e n c y /
inferiority from each other in narcissistic individuals
(70). However, Masterson (23) stated that unlike
grandiose narcissism, emotional investments focus on
the idealized object in the split intrapsychic structures
o f i n d i v i d u a l s w i t h v u l n e r a b l e n a r c i s s i s t i c
characteristics; in other words, they felt valued
through the relationships they established with
idealized important people by suppressing their
grandiose feelings. As a matter of fact, it is mentioned
in this study that these individuals often resort to the
idealization defense under the neurotic defense style
(13). On the other hand, the findings of this study
reveal that less use of mature defense mechanisms also
contributes to vulnerable narcissistic characteristics.
In other words, the overall findings indicate that
individuals with vulnerable narcissistic characteristics
are more likely to use lower-level defense mechanisms
while resorting less to mature defense mechanisms.
Therefore, it can be asser ted that the defense
mechanisms used by these individuals in reporting
more psychological problems (71) and difficulty in
regulating emotions (43) may play a role.

It is often emphasized by clinicians from both the
psychoanalytic and the cognitive therapy traditions that
clinical practices with narcissistic individuals are a
challenging process (72). In this study, some findings
were obtained that may play an important role in
clinical practices with individuals having narcissistic
personality disorder symptoms or who experience
intense narcissistic vulnerability or narcissistic
grandiosity. First of all, it has once again revealed that
the distinction (4) between the grandiose and vulnerable
narcissistic traits should not be overlooked by the
therapist in clinical practice in line with the views of
recent studies and theorists. As seen in this study, the
vulnerable and grandiose narcissistic traits share some
commonalities as well as some differences in terms of
perceived parental attitudes and defense mechanisms.
In this regard, it seems important to consider that
vulnerable narcissistic traits (73), particularly those
confus ed with b orderline p ers onality dis order
symptoms, may have a hidden appearance behind the
defense mechanisms of narcissism.

According to the findings of this study, both
grandiose and vulnerable narcissism shows significant
associations with some perceived parental attitudes
related to mother and father, the splitting defense
mechanism, and some defense styles. Therefore, in the
therapeutic process, it is thought that evaluating the
relationships of narcissistic individuals with their
parents separately for the mother and father, interpreting
these relationships within the framework of the
transference reactions in therapy and the ways of
establishing relationships with other people, and
focusing on the affection and cognitive processes that
arise in this context may play an important role in the
clinical practice process. On the other hand, it can be
thought that focusing on other immature defense
mechanisms used by these individuals, especially the
splitting defense mechanism, in order to keep affections
and cognitions away from conscious awareness may
contribute to clinical applications. In addition, based on
the relationship between adequate and appropriate
parenting styles and more mature defense mechanisms,
it is thought that education, counseling and therapy
services for parents may also have a protective function
for narcissistic disorders in terms of their contribution
to children’s developmental processes.

The study has some limitations. The most important
of these is that the measurement tools applied consist of
self-report style scales. In self-report scales, the degree
to which answers reflect reality is limited by the
perception of the participants. Many factors, such as the

Imamoglu et al. The assessment of the relationship between narcissism, perceived parental rearing styles, and defense mechanisms 399

desire to display oneself better or worse, cognitive
distortions, the individual’s mood and defensive
attitudes can influence the responses of the participants.
It is possible to say that the measurement tools in this
study are also open to such an effect in terms of the
measured variables. Another factor that may affect
participants’ responses is thought to be the scale battery,
which contains too many items to cause boredom and
fatigue.

Another point that can be considered among the
limitations of the study is related to the demographic
characteristics of the sample. For example, it is observed
that the participants are predominantly middle-class
income level and higher education level. Therefore,
these factors should be taken into account in the
interpretation of the research findings.

Another limitation of the study arises from the
problems exp er ience d in conceptu a lizing and
measuring narcissism. For example, it is a matter of
debate to what extent the vulnerable narcissism
dimension, which indicates an implicit structure
compared to grandiose narcissism, differs from the
symptoms of other psychiatric diagnoses. Although the
diagnosis of vulnerable narcissism is explicitly included
in the psychoanalytic tradition and its subsequent
approaches (74), it is possible to say that the vulnerable
narcissism dimension may not have revealed a clear
conceptualization in this study conducted with a non-
clinical sample, and using self-report scales.

Finally, although the theoretical framework on
which the research is based points to some causal factors
between parental attitudes and narcissism, this research
does not suggest such causality in terms of its cross-
sectional structure.

Contribution Categories Author Initials

Category 1

Concept/Design A.H.I., A.D.B.

Data acquisition A.H.I.

Data analysis/Interpretation A.H.I., A.D.B.

Category 2
Drafting manuscript A.H.I.

Critical revision of manuscript A.D.B.

Category 3 Final approval and accountability A.H.I., A.D.B.

Other
Technical or material support N/A

Supervision A.D.B.

Ethics Committee Approval: This study was approved by the
Ankara University Ethics Committee (Approval no: 17/280 73921).

Informed Consent: Written informed consent obtained.

Peer-review: Externally peer-reviewed.

Conflict of Interest: There is no conflict of interest.

Financial Disclosure: There is no financial disclosure.

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prohibited without permission.

Raising Children With High Self-Esteem (But Not
Narcissism)

Eddie Brummelman,
1

and Constantine Sedikides
2

1University of Amsterdam and 2University of Southampton

ABSTRACT—With the rise of individualism since the 1960s,

Western parents have become increasingly concerned with

raising their children’s self-esteem. This is understandable,

given the benefits of self-esteem for children’s psychologi-

cal health. However, parents’ well-intentioned attempts to

raise self-esteem, such as through inflated praise, may

inadvertently breed narcissism. How can parents raise

self-esteem without breeding narcissism? In this article,

we propose a tripartite model of self-regard, which holds

that the development of self-esteem without narcissism

can be cultivated through realistic feedback (rather than

inflated praise), a focus on growth (rather than on outper-

forming others), and unconditional regard (rather than

regard that is conditional). We review evidence in support

of these practices and outline promising directions for

research. Our model integrates existing research, stimu-

lates the development of theory, and identifies leverage

points for intervention to raise self-esteem and curtail nar-

cissism from a young age.

KEYWORDS—narcissism; self-esteem; development; social-

ization

In the late 20th century, with the rise of individualism, self-es-

teem became a touchstone of Western parenting. Most Western

parents believe that children need self-esteem to achieve suc-

cess and happiness in life, and that parents play a crucial role

in building their children’s self-esteem (Miller & Cho, 2018).

Although parents are right that self-esteem is important (Orth &

Robins, 2014), their ideas about how to instill it may be mis-

guided. In particular, parents’ well-intentioned attempts to raise

self-esteem, such as lavishing children with praise, may inadver-

tently cultivate narcissism (Brummelman, Thomaes, & Sedi-

kides, 2016). Narcissism is a subclinical personality trait that

predicts considerable maladjustment in children, ranging from

anxiety and depression to rage and aggression (Thomaes &

Brummelman, 2016). In 4%–15% of children, narcissism devel-
ops into Narcissistic Personality Disorder (Bernstein et al.,

1993).

How can parents raise children’s self-esteem without breeding

narcissism? Building on a burgeoning literature, we propose a

tripartite model, which holds that self-esteem without narcissism

is cultivated through realistic feedback, a focus on growth, and

unconditional regard. We review evidence in support of this

model and discuss implications.

PILLARS OF NARCISSISM AND SELF-ESTEEM

Self-esteem is defined as a sense of one’s worth as a person

(Orth & Robins, 2014), whereas narcissism is defined as an

inflated sense of one’s importance and deservingness (Krizan &

Herlache, 2018). From childhood, narcissism can manifest as

grandiose (characterized by boldness, extraversion, and boastful-

ness) or vulnerable (characterized by neuroticism, shyness, and

withdrawal; Derry, Ohan, & Bayliss, 2019). Here, we focus on

grandiose narcissism.

Eddie Brummelman, Research Institute of Child Development
and Education, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Constan-
tine Sedikides, Center for Research on Self and Identity, Psychology
Department, University of Southampton, Southampton, United
Kingdom.

We thank Peggy Miller for encouraging us to situate narcissism
and self-esteem in a sociocultural context.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Eddie Brummelman, Research Institute of Child Development and
Education, University of Amsterdam, P.O. Box 15780, 1001 NG
Amsterdam, The Netherlands; e-mail: e.brummelman@uva.nl.

© 2020 The Authors

Child Development Perspectives published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society

for Research in Child Development

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution

License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the

original work is properly cited.

DOI: 10.1111/cdep.12362

Volume 14, Number 2, 2020, Pages 83–89

CHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES

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A common belief is that narcissism is simply an extreme form

of self-esteem. Psychologists have characterized narcissism as

inflated, exaggerated, or excessive self-esteem, or even as “the

dark side of high self-esteem” (Baumeister, Smart, & Boden,

1996, p. 5). These labels suggest that self-esteem represents a

continuum, with narcissism at its end. If this is so, narcissism

and self-esteem should correlate highly and there should be no

narcissists with low self-esteem. However, narcissism and self-

esteem are only weakly positively correlated, and about as many

narcissists have high self-esteem as low self-esteem (Brummel-

man et al., 2016). Thus, narcissism and self-esteem are indepen-

dent dimensions of the self.

How do narcissism and self-esteem differ? Researchers have

begun to identify differences in terms of underlying components

and the socialization experiences that give rise to them (Brum-

melman et al., 2016; Donnellan, Trzesniewski, Robins, Moffitt,

& Caspi, 2005; Hyatt et al., 2018; Tracy, Cheng, Robins, &

Trzesniewski, 2009). Here, we propose the first developmental

model that integrates these findings. The model describes the

distinct components, or pillars, that underlie narcissism and

self-esteem, and identifies the socialization practices that culti-

vate the development of these pillars. Our model seeks to

explain how narcissism and self-esteem differ in their underly-

ing components and socialization so it can address how parents

can raise self-esteem without breeding narcissism.

We theorize that narcissism and self-esteem are each based

on three distinct pillars (see Figure 1). In particular, we theorize

that narcissistic children have unrealistically positive views of

themselves (illusion), strive for superiority (superiority), and

oscillate between hubris and shame (fragility). By contrast, chil-

dren with high self-esteem have positive but realistic views of

themselves (realism), strive for self-improvement (growth), and

feel intrinsically worthy, even in the face of setbacks (robust-

ness). Our model describes general patterns rather than univer-

sal laws. For example, most children with high self-esteem

strive for self-improvement, but some do not (Waschull & Ker-

nis, 1996).

Realism

Narcissistic children hold exalted views of themselves. An 11-

year-old narcissistic boy “unhesitatingly shared his certainty of

becoming president of the United States as soon as he graduated

from college with degrees in nuclear physics and brain surgery”

(Bleiberg, 1984, p. 508). Narcissistic children uphold such

views, even in the face of disconfirming evidence. For example,

after failing to complete challenging puzzles, narcissistic chil-

dren still believe that they performed extraordinarily well (Derry

et al., 2019). Such grandiose self-views persist into adulthood.

Adult narcissists see themselves as geniuses, even if their IQ

scores are average; they think they are superb leaders, even if

they disrupt group performance; and they believe they are

attractive, even if others disagree (Grijalva & Zhang, 2016). By

contrast, children with high self-esteem have positive self-views,

but those views tend to be more grounded in reality. For exam-

ple, they do not overestimate their performance as much as nar-

cissistic children do (Derry et al., 2019). Thus, narcissism is

marked by illusion, whereas self-esteem is marked by realism.

Growth

Narcissistic children strive for superiority. Narcissism is rooted

in the desire to stand out from and get ahead of others (Grapsas,

Brummelman, Back, & Denissen, 2020). In the service of supe-

riority, narcissistic children may look down on others and com-

pare themselves favorably to others (Thomaes & Brummelman,

2016). As narcissistic children look down on others, they may

feel little care, concern, or empathy for them (Thomaes, Stegge,

Bushman, Olthof, & Denissen, 2008). By contrast, children with

high self-esteem are more interested in improving themselves

than in outperforming others. For example, they believe they

can hone their abilities through effort and education (Robins &

Pals, 2002). Consequently, they are curious, interested, and

ready to assume challenging tasks to better themselves

(Waschull & Kernis, 1996). Children with high self-esteem may

not habitually compare themselves to others, but instead tend to

reflect on how they have improved over time (cf. G€urel, Brum-
melman, Sedikides, & Overbeek, 2020). Thus, narcissism is

marked by a striving for superiority, whereas self-esteem is

marked by a striving for growth.

Robustness

Narcissistic children have fragile feelings about themselves.

According to attribution theory, narcissistic children are

inclined to make stable and global self-attributions of both suc-

cesses and failures, causing them to oscillate between hubris

and shame (Lewis, 1992; Tracy et al., 2009). For example, when

narcissistic children receive negative feedback, they feel disap-

pointed in themselves and may even blush—a hallmark of
shame (Brummelman, Nikoli�c, & B€ogels, 2018). In response to
shame, narcissistic children may lash out angrily or aggressively

(Donnellan et al., 2005). Over time, shame may spiral into anxi-

ety and depression (Barry & Malkin, 2010). By contrast, chil-

dren with high self-esteem have relatively robust feelings about

themselves. They feel worthy, even in the face of failure (Kernis,

Brown, & Brody, 2000; Tracy et al., 2009). Consequently, they

are unlikely to feel ashamed, and hence to become angry or

aggressive (Donnellan et al., 2005). These children are at

reduced risk of developing anxiety and depression (Orth &

Robins, 2014). Thus, narcissism is marked by fragility, whereas

self-esteem is marked by robustness.

Discussion

Our model holds that narcissism and self-esteem are built on

distinct pillars. Why then are narcissism and self-esteem weakly

but positively correlated? First, they share an agentic core—a
tendency to focus on oneself and the pursuit of one’s goals

(Hyatt et al., 2018). Like their counterparts with high self-

Child Development Perspectives, Volume 14, Number 2, 2020, Pages 83–89

84 Eddie Brummelman and Constantine Sedikides

esteem, narcissists value competence and achievement (Hyatt

et al., 2018). Second, the pillars of narcissism and self-esteem

are not mutually exclusive. For example, some children might

strive for both growth and superiority, and others might strive

for neither. Thus, narcissism and self-esteem are not opposites

and can fluctuate independently of one another. Our thesis is

that pillars are foundational, that is, they precede the develop-

ment of narcissism and self-esteem. Of course, given the recur-

sive character of developmental processes, pillars may also

appear to simply co-occur with narcissism and

self-esteem.

SOCIALIZATION OF NARCISSISM AND SELF-ESTEEM

By delineating the distinct pillars underlying narcissism and

self-esteem, our model opens the possibility of identifying

socialization experiences that cultivate self-esteem without

breeding narcissism. Psychologists have focused mostly on the

reverse—the socialization experiences that breed narcissism.
According to some psychoanalytic theories, narcissism develops

in response to lack of parental warmth (Kernberg, 1975). Chil-

dren raised this way are thought to develop deep-seated, uncon-

scious shame and self-loathing, and to engage in narcissistic

ideation to ward off these discomforting states (Lewis, 1987).

However, there is no evidence that narcissism is cultivated by

lack of parental warmth (Brummelman, Thomaes, Nelemans,

Orobio de Castro, Overbeek, et al., 2015; Wetzel & Robins,

2016) or that narcissists harbor unconscious shame or self-loath-

ing (Bosson et al., 2008).

Recent studies indicate that narcissism is cultivated, in part,

by parental overvaluation. In longitudinal research, 7- to 11-year

olds and their parents were studied prospectively over four mea-

surement waves (Brummelman, Thomaes, Nelemans, Orobio de

Castro, Overbeek, et al., 2015). Narcissism was predicted by

parental overvaluation—how much parents saw their child as a
special individual entitled to privileges. Cross-sectional research

has replicated these findings (Derry, 2018; Nguyen & Shaw,

2020).

How exactly do overvaluing parents cultivate narcissism in

children? Conversely, how can parents raise children’s self-es-

teem without breeding narcissism? Our model suggests that nar-

cissism and self-esteem are cultivated by three classes of

socialization practices, corresponding to the three pillars (see

Figure 1). The model applies to children ages 7 and older, who

are aware that others, such as parents, evaluate them from an

external perspective (Harter, 2012). These evaluations can be

internalized and develop into stable self-evaluations. Indeed,

stable individual differences in narcissism and self-esteem can

be assessed reliably from age 7 (Thomaes & Brummelman,

2016).

Realistic Feedback

Overvaluing parents may foster narcissism by cultivating illu-

sion. These parents overestimate, overclaim, and overpraise their

children’s qualities (Brummelman, Thomaes, Nelemans, Orobio

de Castro, & Bushman, 2015). For example, they believe that

their children are smarter than others, even when their chil-

dren’s IQ scores are average. They claim that their children

know about a wide range of topics, even ones that do not exist

(e.g., the fictional book, The Tale of Benson Bunny). Also, they

praise their children more often than other parents do, even

when the children do not perform well.

Overvaluing parents may express their overestimation through

inflated praise. Praise is inflated when it contains an adverb

(e.g., incredibly) or adjective (e.g., amazing) signaling an extre-

mely positive evaluation, such as “You did incredibly well!” In
a longitudinal observational study (Brummelman, Nelemans,

Figure 1. The hypothesized pillars of self-esteem (left) and narcissism (right), and the socialization experiences hypothesized to cultivate them. The circles’
overlap reflects the weak but positive correlation between self-esteem and narcissism.

Child Development Perspectives, Volume 14, Number 2, 2020, Pages 83–89

Tripartite Model 85

Thomaes, & Orobio de Castro, 2017), parents’ inflated praise

was coded from parent–child interactions; in a subgroup of chil-
dren, parents’ inflated praise predicted higher narcissism 6, 12,

and 18 months after the observations.

By contrast, parents may foster self-esteem by cultivating real-

ism. They can do so by providing children with realistic feed-

back (i.e., feedback that is relatively close to objective

benchmarks), which can help children understand themselves

more accurately. Because children prefer positive over negative

feedback, they may be inclined to dismiss negative feedback,

even if is diagnostic, because such feedback hurts (Sedikides,

2018). Yet, children may benefit more from moderately positive

feedback than from inflated praise. Although researchers have

not examined the causal link between realistic feedback and the

development of self-esteem, correlational evidence supports this

link. For example, when parents gave children realistic praise

(rather than overpraised or underpraised them), children earned

higher grade point averages and had fewer symptoms of depres-

sion (Lee, Kim, Kesebir, & Han, 2017). When children felt that

their parents’ praise was slightly but not greatly overstated, they

benefited as much as they did from realistic praise. Such find-

ings tentatively suggest that positive feedback helps children if

it closely matches reality.

Focus on Growth

Overvaluing parents may foster narcissism by cultivating chil-

dren’s striving for superiority. Such parents may pressure chil-

dren to stand out from others. For example, overvaluing parents

are likely to give their children uncommon first names (Brum-

melman, Thomaes, Nelemans, Orobio de Castro, & Bushman,

2015). Also, these parents are emotionally invested in their chil-

dren’s social status (Grapsas, Brummelman, et al., 2020). For

example, while monitoring children’s status on social media,

overvaluing parents smiled when their child gained status, but

frowned when their child lost status, as revealed by their facial

muscle activity (Grapsas, Denissen, Lee, Bos, & Brummelman,

2020). Encouraging children to think they are better than others

triggers their narcissistic desire to be superior to others at the

expense of their desire to grow and learn (G€urel et al., 2020).

By contrast, parents may foster self-esteem by cultivating chil-

dren’s striving for growth. For example, when children succeed

at a task, parents may praise children’s effort and strategies

(e.g., “You found a good way to do it!”) to acknowledge the suc-
cess but highlight that it was the result of hard work and effi-

cient strategies. When children receive such praise, they are

more likely to embrace challenges and persist in the face of set-

backs (Mueller & Dweck, 1998). Similarly, when children fail,

parents may talk to them about what they can learn from the

experience, how they can study their mistakes to improve, and

how they might ask for help. Over time, these practices can help

children embrace learning and growth rather than superiority

(Haimovitz & Dweck, 2016). Encouraging children to reflect on

their growth (e.g., how their skills have improved) raises their

self-esteem and sparks their desire for self-improvement without

triggering narcissistic strivings for superiority (G€urel et al.,

2020).

Unconditional Regard

Overvaluing parents may foster narcissism by cultivating fragi-

lity. They can do so by making their regard conditional on the

child living up to their narcissistic standards. Overvaluing par-

ents state, “I would find it disappointing if my child was just a

‘regular’ child” (Brummelman, Thomaes, Nelemans, Orobio de

Castro, & Bushman, 2015, p. 678). Indeed, when the child

stands out from others, overvaluing parents may feel proud,

basking in the child’s reflected glory. However, when the child

is just “regular,” overvaluing parents may become disappointed

or even hostile (see Wetzel & Robins, 2016). Consequently, nar-

cissistic children may infer that their worth hinges on them

meeting their parents’ standards (Tracy et al., 2009), leading

them to attribute successes and failures to their whole selves

(Lewis, 1992). Although causal evidence on the link between

conditional regard and the development of narcissism is lacking,

correlational research shows that children who experienced con-

ditional regard from their parents displayed more narcissistic

traits, such as self-aggrandizement after success and self-devalu-

ation after failure (Assor & Tal, 2012).

By contrast, parents may foster self-esteem by cultivating ro-

bustness. They can do so by giving children unconditional

regard. This does not mean that parents lavish their children

with praise no matter what they do; rather, it means that parents

accept children for who they are, even when the children fail

(Harter, Marold, Whitesell, & Cobbs, 1996). For example, when

children misbehave, parents may express unconditional regard

by correcting children’s behavior while continuing to be warm

and accepting toward them as a person (Kernis et al., 2000).

Similarly, when children work toward an achievement, parents

may express unconditional regard by valuing children regardless

of the outcome of their efforts. When parents express such

unconditional regard, children feel more connected to their true

selves (Harter et al., 1996) and have higher as well as more

stable self-esteem (Kernis et al., 2000). Extending these find-

ings, in a randomized intervention, children were invited to

reflect on times when they were accepted and valued by others

unconditionally (Brummelman et al., 2014). Three weeks later,

children received their first report card of the school year. With-

out the intervention, children who received low grades felt

ashamed; with it, these painful feelings faded. Thus, uncondi-

tional regard made children’s feelings about themselves more

robust.

Discussion

The tripartite model posits that parents can raise self-esteem

without breeding narcissism by providing children with realistic

feedback (rather than inflated praise), focusing on growth (rather

than on outperforming others), and giving unconditional regard

Child Development Perspectives, Volume 14, Number 2, 2020, Pages 83–89

86 Eddie Brummelman and Constantine Sedikides

(rather than regard that is conditional). The model focuses on

the independent effects of these practices, but joint effects are

certainly possible. For example, parents’ realistic feedback may

be most effective in raising self-esteem when paired with uncon-

ditional regard, teaching children that critical feedback on their

behavior does not signal lack of regard for them as a person.

Although evidence for these three classes of socialization

experiences has been accumulating, the field faces three major

challenges. First, the bulk of the literature has relied on subjec-

tive reports of socialization experiences. We call for observa-

tional and experience sampling methods to track socialization

experiences in children’s everyday lives. Second, most research

is cross-sectional or longitudinal. We call for experiments that

examine causal effects of socialization experiences. Third, no

interventions have sought to change socialization practices to

raise children’s self-esteem without breeding narcissism. We

call for research into the effectiveness of parenting interventions

that teach realistic feedback, a focus on growth, and uncondi-

tional regard. By addressing these challenges, the field can

build a more precise understanding of what does—and does not
—contribute to children’s development of healthy self-esteem.

LOOKING AHEAD

The tripartite model generates new directions for research on

self-esteem interventions, the heterogeneity of narcissism and

self-esteem, and the sociocultural foundations of narcissism and

self-esteem.

Interventions

Our model can be used to rethink self-esteem interventions and

better understand their effectiveness. Our model suggests that

interventions can raise self-esteem by targeting its pillars—real-
ism, growth, and robustness. A challenge is that parents of nar-

cissistic children, who are most in need of such interventions,

are often narcissistic themselves (Brummelman, Thomaes, Nele-

mans, Orobio de Castro, & Bushman, 2015; Miller & Campbell,

2008). Given their inflated views of themselves and their chil-

dren, narcissistic parents may believe they do not need interven-

tion. Interventions can circumvent these concerns by changing

parenting through nudges, such as text messages suggesting

short, simple, specific activities for parents to do with their chil-

dren (York, Loeb, & Doss, 2019). These nudges, even as they

change how parents behave, may not be seen as interventions

and therefore may engage even narcissistic parents.

Heterogeneity

Our model can unravel the heterogeneity of narcissism and self-

esteem. For example, narcissism can be manifested in both

grandiose and vulnerable ways (Derry et al., 2019). From the

perspective of the tripartite model, both manifestations are

marked by striving for superiority, but may differ in terms of

illusion and fragility. Would vulnerable narcissism be

characterized less by illusion and more by fragility than its

grandiose counterpart, as initial evidence indicates (Derry et al.,

2019)? If so, would inflated praise be more likely to predict

grandiose narcissism and conditional regard be more likely to

predict vulnerable narcissism? Addressing these questions will

help us understand why grandiose and vulnerable narcissism,

despite their shared foundation, manifest differently.

Sociocultural Foundations

Our model can examine the sociocultural foundations of narcis-

sism and self-esteem. Narcissism is more common in Western

cultures than in other cultures because these cultures embrace

individualism (Thomaes & Brummelman, 2016). Parents’ under-

standing of individualism reflects the specific needs, values,

beliefs, and concerns of their local worlds (Kusserow, 1999).

Working-class and low-income parents often adopt hard individ-

ualism, teaching their children to be tough and resilient in a

world of scarcity. Middle- and upper-class parents often adopt

soft individualism, helping children cultivate their unique talents

and abilities in a world of opportunity—a process known as con-
certed cultivation (Lareau, 2011). Unsurprisingly, middle- and

upper-class parents are more likely to cultivate narcissism in

their children than are working-class or low-income parents

(Martin, Côt�e, & Woodruff, 2016). Do these parents do so by

lavishing children with praise, comparing them favorably to

others who are less well-off, or making approval conditional on

worldly successes? Also, are these class-based practices more

common in unequal societies, where parents are more concerned

about their children’s relative standing? To address these ques-

tions, researchers need to expand their methodological reper-

toire because most studies are monocultural and include

predominantly Western middle-class participants.

CONCLUSION

Raising children’s self-esteem has become an important goal for

parents throughout Western society. Scholars and policymakers

have long feared that, in raising children’s self-esteem exces-

sively, parents may have risked turning them into narcissists

(Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003). However, evi-

dence indicates that narcissism and self-esteem are more dis-

tinct than previously thought. Our model shows that narcissism

and self-esteem are built on distinct pillars and that it is possi-

ble to raise children’s self-esteem without breeding narcissism.

We hope our model not only provides researchers with a frame-

work to study the origins and nature of narcissism and self-es-

teem but also helps parents build a strong foundation for their

children’s self-esteem.

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Are Paren

t

ing Practices Associated with the Development of
Narcissism? Findings from a Longitudinal Study of Mexican

–

origin Youth

Eunike Wetzel1,2 and Richard W. Robins

2

1Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz

2Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis

Abstrac

t

Narcissism is an important and consequential aspect of personality, yet we know little about its

developmental origins. Using data from a longitudinal study of 674 Mexican-origin families, we

examined cross-lagged relations between parenting behaviors (warmth, hostility, monitoring) and

narcissism (superiority, exploitativeness). Parental hostility at age 12 was associated with higher

levels of exploitativeness at age 14, whereas parental monitoring at age 12 was associated with

lower levels of exploitativeness at age 14. These effects replicated across three different parenting

measures: child reports, spouse reports, and behavioral coding of parent-child interactions. None

of the parenting dimensions was related to superiority, suggesting that parenting practices are more

strongly related to the maladaptive than the adaptive component of

narcissism

.

Keywords

narcissism; exploitativeness; superiority; parental warmth; parental hostility; parental monitoring

Narcissism encompasses a wide range of characteristics, including feelings of superiority, a

sense of grandiosity, exhibitionism, exploitative behaviors in the interpersonal domain,

feelings of entitlement, fantasies of unlimited power, success, or beauty, and a lack of

empathy. Despite the abiding, and even growing, interest in narcissism, we know little about

its developmental origins and childhood correlates. Given the link between narcissism and

adjustment problems during childhood and adolescence (Barry, Frick, Adler, & Grafeman,

2007; Barry, Frick, & Killian, 2003; Washburn, McMahon, King, Reinecke, & Silver, 2004),

it is important to understand the socialization processes that contribute to the development of

narcissism. A large body of theoretical and empirical work suggests that parent socialization

practices play a central role in shaping children’s developmental trajectories (Bornstein,

2006; Parke & Buriel, 2006).

Corresponding Author: Eunike Wetzel, Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany,
eunike.wetzel@uni-konstanz.de.

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Author manuscript

J Res Pers. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2017 August 01.

Published in final edited form as:
J Res Pers. 2016 August ; 63: 84–94. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2016.05.005.

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The present study uses longitudinal data from 674 Mexican-origin families to examine

prospective effects of parenting on the development of narcissism. There are strong

theoretical reasons to expect that parenting practices play an important role in shaping

narcissistic tendencies. The first influential theory linking parenting to narcissism is based

on psychodynamic theory and was articulated by Kohut (1971, 1977) and Kernberg (1975),

although it can be traced back to Freud (1914). According to Kohut and Kernberg, parental

hostility and excessive criticism, along with a lack of warmth and responsiveness, lead to

feelings of inadequacy in children and impede the development of positive self-regard.

Children try to compensate for these feelings of inadequacy by inflating their self-worth and

constantly seeking approval and admiration from others. Narcissism can thus be seen as a

defensive reaction to parenting behaviors that convey disapproval and lack of acceptance and

support. The second influential theory, social learning theory, also posits that parenting

practices shape the development of child narcissism. In contrast to psychodynamic theory,

this perspective based on work by Millon (1969, 1981) posits that extremely permissive

parenting behavior, and in particular excessive parental indulgence and approval, are

responsible for the development of narcissistic tendencies. According to social learning

theory, children directly learn the behavior modeled by their parents and internalize their

parents’ beliefs that they are superior to others and entitled to special treatment and therefore

develop increased narcissism.

Despite the rich theoretical literature on parenting and narcissism, we know of only two

longitudinal studies on the topic. Cramer (2011) showed that children raised by authoritative
and permissive parents (high responsiveness) exhibited more adaptive narcissistic
tendencies, such as superiority and grandiosity, whereas children raised by authoritarian
parents (low responsiveness) were less likely to exhibit such traits. In contrast, Cramer did

not find any main effects of parenting on the more maladaptive components of narcissism,

such as exploitativeness and entitlement. However, this study relied on self-reports of

parenting and involved a very small sample (e.g., 89 mothers reported on their parenting).

In a more recent longitudinal study, Brummelman et al. (2015) examined the influence of

parental indulgence (termed “parental overvaluation” in their study) and parental warmth on

the development of narcissism in late childhood. Parental indulgence (assessed via parent

self-report) predicted increases in narcissism from age 10 to 12, whereas parental warmth

(assessed via child-report and parent self-report) was not related to narcissism. No reciprocal

effects of child narcissism on parenting were found, suggesting the association is

unidirectional, going from parenting to narcissism rather than vice versa. Note, however, that

Brummelman et al. examined overall narcissism levels and did not differentiate between

facets of narcissism. An emerging body of research suggests that different facets of

narcissism have highly divergent antecedents and consequences. Facets encompassing

feelings of superiority and having a grandiose self-concept appear to be at least partially

adaptive since they have been linked to positive outcomes such as high self-esteem and

emotional stability and low loneliness and depression (Rhodewalt & Morf, 1995; Sedikides,

Rudich, Gregg, Kumashiro, & Rusbult, 2004; Trzesniewski, Donnellan, & Robins, 2008). In

contrast, facets encompassing a sense of entitlement and exploitativeness appear to be

maladaptive since they have been linked to negative outcomes such as trait anger,

aggression, counterproductive work behaviors, and dysfunctional interpersonal relationships

Wetzel and Robins Page 2

J Res Pers. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2017 August 01.

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(Bushman & Baumeister, 1998; Campbell & Campbell, 2009; Campbell, Foster, & Finkel,

2002; Miller et al., 2009). These findings highlight the need to distinguish the facets of

narcissism.

In addition to examining facets of narcissism, it is also important to consider self-esteem

when studying narcissism. Narcissism and self-esteem are conceptually related but distinct

traits. Although both entail a positive evaluation of the self, individuals with high self-

esteem are assumed to generally like and accept themselves, whereas narcissists are assumed

to have inflated views of their worth, and a compulsive need to be better than others,

presumably as a defense against underlying feelings of inadequacy. Consequently, whereas

high self-esteem involves seeing oneself as “a person of worth, at least on an equal basis

with others” (sample item from the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale; Rosenberg, 1979),

narcissism involves feeling superior to others, and carries with it a pattern of interpersonally

toxic tendencies such as exploitativeness and contempt toward others. Not surprisingly,

although measures of the two constructs tend to be moderately correlated (e.g., Brown &

Zeigler-Hill, 2004; Paulhus, Robins, Trzesniewski, & Tracy, 2004), they have quite different

relations with other constructs; for example, antisocial behavior, aggression, and hostility are

positively related to narcissism, but negatively related to self-esteem (Tracy, Cheng, Robins,

& Trzesniewski, 2009). The conceptual and empirical overlap between narcissism and self-

esteem raises the possibility that prior findings concerning the association between parenting

and narcissism may have been confounded by self-esteem. Neither Cramer (2011) nor

Brummelman et al. (2015) controlled for self-esteem when they examined associations

between parenting and narcissism, raising the possibility that their findings were driven by

the variance in narcissism that reflects genuine self-esteem rather than narcissistic

tendencies1. Narcissism with self-esteem partialed out can be conceptualized as a more pure

measure of narcissistic tendencies, with any aspects of genuine self-esteem removed. Thus,

in our models investigating parenting practices and narcissism, we will include self-esteem

as a control variable. By doing so, we will ensure that any observed associations with

narcissism are due to narcissism itself, and not its overlap with self-esteem.

The present study extends previous research on the development of narcissism by

investigating longitudinal relations between parenting practices and narcissism, using data

from a sample of 674 Mexican-origin youth followed from age 12 to 16. We extend previous

research in several important ways. First, we examined a more comprehensive set of

parenting dimensions, including the three most commonly studied components of parenting

(hostility, warmth, monitoring). Second, we assessed parenting using three different

methods: child report, spouse report, and behavioral coding of parent-child interactions.

Third, we examined effects separately for two important components of narcissism,

exploitativeness and superiority, as well as for overall narcissism levels. Fourth, we analyzed

data collected in a cohort-sequential longitudinal design with three waves of data spanning

five years. Fifth, we applied latent variable modeling techniques to investigate reciprocal

relations between parenting practices and narcissism, thereby controlling for measurement

1Although Brummelman et al. (2015) did not control for self-esteem when they examined the association between parenting and
narcissism, they did examine relations between parenting and self-esteem, and found that child-reported (but not parent-reported)
parental warmth was reciprocally related to self-esteem.

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error. Sixth, we examined the effects of narcissism while controlling for its overlap with

self-esteem. Finally, we investigated the association between parenting and narcissism in an

important but understudied ethnic minority group, Mexican-origin families.

Hypothes

es

We hypothesized that higher levels of parental hostility would be related to higher levels of

narcissism in adolescents, based on psychodynamic theories about the origins of narcissism

(Kernberg, 1975; Kohut, 1977). Although we know no empirical studies (longitudinal or

cross-sectional) that have investigated the effects of parental hostility, a study on parental

coldness, which is conceptually similar to parental hostility, found a positive association

with narcissism (Otway & Vignoles, 2006). Note, however, that if parental hostility is

assumed to be simply the converse of overvaluing a child, then we might expect hostility to

be related to lower levels of narcissism, based on Brummelman et al.’s (2015) finding that

overvaluation is related to higher narcissism. This is a situation where the social learning

perspective conflicts with the psychodynamic perspective. The former assumes a relatively

direct translation of feedback from one’s parents (“my parents think I’m perfect therefore I

think I’m perfect”; “my parents think I’m terrible therefore I think I’m terrible”), whereas

the latter assumes a defensive reaction (“my parents think I’m terrible, and that makes me

feel worthless so I am going to try to convince myself and others that I’m perfect”). Thus,

our hypothesis of a positive relationship between parental hostility and narcissism is derived

from psychodynamic perspective.

We also hypothesized that higher levels of parental monitoring would be related to lower

levels of narcissism. This hypothesis is based on concurrent studies documenting this

association (Barry et al., 2007; Horton, Bleau, & Drwecki, 2006; Miller & Campbell, 2008).

Furthermore, a lack of monitoring can be understood as part of a permissive, indulgent

parenting style (Horton, 2011). Thus, a negative relationship between parental monitoring

and narcissism can also be predicted from social learning theory and Brummelman et al.’s

finding that parental indulgence is positively associated with narcissism. A large body of

research has demonstrated that parental monitoring decreases risk for a wide range of

negative adolescent outcomes, and thus we would expect it to impede the development of

narcissistic tendencies (Barber, Olsen, & Shagle, 1994; Dishion & McMahon, 1998; Pettit,

Laird, Dodge, Bates, & Criss, 2001), at least the maladaptive component. Finally, we did not

expect to find a relation between parental warmth and narcissism, based on Brummelman et

al.

In sum, we hypothesized:

H1: Parental hostility at age 12 and 14 will be positively related to narcissism

at age 14 and 16, even after controlling for prior levels of narcissism and

concurrent associations with parental hostility.

H2: Parental monitoring at age 12 and 14 will be negatively related to

narcissism at age 14 and 16, even after controlling for prior levels of

narcissism and concurrent associations with parental

monitoring.

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H3: The effects specified in

Hypotheses

1 and 2 will hold after controlling for

self-esteem and gender.

We did not make separate predictions for the exploitativeness and superiority facets because

prior research and theory concerning the effects of parenting has focused on the overall

narcissistic profile. Note that these hypotheses are based on the assumption that narcissism is

still undergoing development during adolescence. If narcissism emerges and stabilizes

earlier than the time period examined in the present study, we would not expect any of the

parenting measures to predict narcissism. However, it seems likely that the socialization

processes specified by both social learning theory and psychodynamic theory continue into

adolescence. For example, the socialization processes described by social learning theory

imply that narcissistic tendencies are likely to continue to develop across the lifespan, and

certainly within the late childhood to adolescence period covered by the present study.

Although classic psychodynamic theories imply that narcissism first emerges earlier, the

defensive processes that theoretically give rise to narcissistic tendencies are likely to be

particularly relevant during and following the transition into adolescence (the time period

covered by the present study), when youth face considerable socioemotional difficulties that

often trigger feelings of insecurity and inadequacy.

Method

Sample

Data come from the California Families Project, an ongoing longitudinal study of 674

Mexican-origin children (50% female) and their families. The children were drawn at

random from student rosters provided by two school districts in metropolitan areas of

Northern California. The focal child had to be in the 5th grade, of Mexican origin, and living

with his or her biological mother. Of the eligible families, 73% agreed to participate. The

sample has been assessed annually since 2006, when the children were 10.8 (SD = .61) years
of age on average. Trained interviewers visited the participants at home. The interviews were

conducted either in Spanish or in English, depending on the preference of the participant.

The present study used data collected when the children were 12, 14, and 16 years old, when

most of the key measures were available. The retention rate in the age 16 assessment was

90% (relative to the original sample of 674). Attrition analyses showed that families who

participated in the age 16 assessment did not differ significantly from nonparticipating

families in child gender, parent education, and family income, all ps > .05, or on any of the
constructs investigated in this study, namely narcissism (overall and facet-level), parental

warmth, parental hostility, parental monitoring, and self-esteem (all ps > .05).

Measures

Descriptive statistics and alpha reliability coefficients for all measures are shown in

Table 1

.

All measures were available at ages 12, 14, and 16, except for the narcissism scale, which

was available at ages 14 and 16, and the observational assessments of parenting, which were

available at age 12.

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Narcissistic Personality Questionnaire for Children – Revised (NPQC-R)—The
NPQC-R (Ang & Raine, 2008) is a self-report instrument designed to assess narcissism in

children and adolescents. It includes two subscales, Superiority and Exploitativeness, which

are assessed with six items each. Superiority captures the grandiose aspects of narcissism

including feelings of superiority, vanity, and inflated self-views. A sample item on the

superiority scale is “I am going to be a great person.” Exploitativeness captures the

interpersonally maladaptive aspects of narcissism including interpersonal exploitativeness,

feelings of entitlement, and manipulativeness. A sample item on the exploitativeness scale is

“I am good at getting people to do things my way.” Participants responded on a five-point

rating scale ranging from not at all like me (1) to completely like me (5).

Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (RSE)—The RSE (Rosenberg, 1965, 1979) consists of
10 items assessing global self-esteem such as “On the whole, I am satisfied with myself”.

Participants rated how well the items described them on a scale ranging from totally disagree
(1) to totally agree (4).

Behavioral Affect Rating Scale (BARS)—The BARS (Conger, 1989a) assesses
parental warmth (9 items) and parental hostility (13 items). The parental warmth scale
reflects how often the parent displayed warmth toward the child, for example by listening

carefully to the child’s point of view. The parental hostility scale reflects the frequency of
hostile behavior toward the child, for example by ignoring the child when the child tries to

talk to the parent. Responses to the BARS items were collected from two informants: the

child and the spouse. That is, the mother’s parenting behaviors were rated by the child and

father whereas the father’s parenting behaviors were rated by the child and mother. The

ratings were made with respect to behavior displayed during the past three months on a

response scale from almost never or never (1) to almost always or always (4).

Iowa Parenting Scale (IPS)—The IPS (Conger, 1989b) assesses parenting practices
mainly with respect to discipline. Parental warmth (9 items) was assessed by combining
items related to positive reinforcement (e.g., “When you have done something your mom

likes or approves of, how often does she let you know she is pleased about it?”) and

inductive reasoning(e.g., “How often does your mom give you reasons for her decisions?”).

The rating scale was the same as the BARS rating scale. As with the BARS, ratings by the

child and the spouse were collected. For the child-report data, the correlation of IPS

maternal (paternal) warmth with BARS maternal (paternal) warmth ranged from .72 to .75 (.

79 to .80) across assessments. For the parent-reports, the correlation of IPS maternal

(paternal) warmth with BARS maternal (paternal) warmth ranged from .65 to .76 (.78 to .81)

across assessments.

Parental Monitoring of Child (PMC)—The PMC (Small & Kerns, 1993) assesses the
extent to which the parents are informed about how and with whom their child spends their

time (e.g., “Your mom knew who your friends were.”, “Your mom knew where you were

and what you were doing.”). For 9 out of the 14 items, a four-point rating scale ranging from

almost never or never to almost always or always was used. For five items addressing the
parent’s monitoring of social plans such as “If you were going to get home late, you were

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expected to call her”, a fifth response category was introduced to reflect that the child was

not allowed to show the described behavior (e.g., not allowed to stay out late). Parental

monitoring was assessed with respect to the past three months via child-report, parent self-

report, and spouse-report.

Observational assessments of parenting—During the interviewer visits, structured
interaction tasks (mother-child, father-child) were videotaped in the families’ homes and

later rated by trained coders on a wide range of behavioral dimensions adapted from the

Iowa Family Interaction Rating Scales (Melby et al., 1998). Different coders rated each

parent’s behavior.

To parallel the BARS, IPS, and PMC scales, we used the observational data to assess

parenting behaviors related to hostility, warmth, and monitoring. Hostility reflects the degree
to which the focal parent displayed hostile, angry, critical, or disapproving behavior toward

the child during the interaction. Warmth reflects the degree to which the focal parent

expressed liking, appreciation, praise, care, concern, or support for the child. Monitoring

reflects the degree to which the parent displayed knowledge of and pursued information

about the child’s life and daily activities during the interaction.

All scales were rated on a nine-point scale ranging from not at all characteristic (1) to
mainly characteristic (9). Most interactions were rated by a single coder. For a random
selection of 25% of the interaction tasks, ratings from two coders were available in which

case the averaged score across raters was analyzed. The intraclass correlation between

coders was .86 (.85) for maternal (paternal) hostility, .80 (.66) for maternal (paternal)

warmth, and .68 (.67) for maternal (paternal) monitoring.

Analyses

Overview—We first tested for longitudinal measurement invariance and then estimated
latent cross-lagged panel models to investigate reciprocal relations between narcissism (total

score, superiority, exploitativeness) and parenting practices. All analyses were conducted in

Mplus (Version 7.11; Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2014) using maximum likelihood estimation

robust to non-normality (denoted MLR in Mplus). To deal with missing data, we used full

information maximum likelihood estimation to fit models directly to the raw data (Schafer &

Graham, 2002). Model fit was evaluated by the comparative fit index (CFI; Bentler, 1990),

the Tucker-Lewis index (TLI; Tucker & Lewis, 1973), and the root mean square error of

approximation (RMSEA; Steiger, 1990). Good fit is indicated by values above .95 for the

CFI and TLI, and values below .05 for the RMSEA (Hu & Bentler, 1999).

Longitudinal measurement invariance—Measurement invariance was evaluated
following the procedure outlined in Meredith (1993) and Widaman and Reise (1997). That

is, starting with a baseline model of configural invariance where all parameters were free to

vary across waves of assessment, we first constrained the factor loadings to be equal across

ages (metric invariance) and then additionally constrained the indicator intercepts to be

equal across ages (scalar invariance). These nested models were tested using a χ2 difference
test based on rescaled log-likelihood values (due to the MLR estimator) and the difference in

CFI between models (ΔCFI). If the χ2 difference test indicated that the more restrictive

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model fit significantly worse than the less restrictive model at α = .01 and ΔCFI was > .002
(Meade, Johnson, & Braddy, 2008), one parameter at a time was freed based on the

modification indices and the χ2 difference test and check of ΔCFI were repeated until both
criteria were fulfilled.

With respect to child-report data, full scalar invariance held for overall narcissism,

superiority, exploitativeness, BARS maternal warmth, BARS maternal hostility, BARS

paternal warmth, BARS paternal hostility, and maternal monitoring. Partial scalar invariance

held for self-esteem, IPS maternal warmth, IPS paternal warmth, and paternal monitoring.

With respect to the parent-report data, mother-report of paternal monitoring showed full

scalar invariance and all other constructs (BARS, IPS, and PMC parenting scales) showed

partial scalar invariance. Thus, overall, the same constructs were being measured over time,

although for some constructs one or two of the indicators were not fully invariant across

waves.

Latent cross-lagged panel models (LCLP)—

Figure 1

shows the basic structure of the
models to be tested. Each model includes one of the three parenting dimensions at age 12,

14, and 16 and either overall narcissism or the two narcissism facets at age 14 and 16.

Three parcels consisting of two to five items (depending on the length of the scale) were

used as indicators for each latent variable. The items were randomly assigned to parcels.

Indicators based on the same items were correlated across waves (e.g., indicator 1 for

exploitativeness at age 14 was correlated with indicator 1 for exploitativeness at age 16).

First-order and second-order stability paths were included (e.g., maternal warmth at age 12

predicted maternal warmth at age 14 and maternal warmth at age 16). First-order cross-

lagged regression paths were modeled between constructs, for example narcissism at age 16

was regressed on maternal warmth at age 14 and maternal warmth at age 16 was regressed

on narcissism at age 14. Different constructs within a wave were correlated (e.g., narcissism

at age 14 with maternal warmth at age 14). The regression paths were allowed to vary over

time because model comparisons showed that the constraint of time-invariant paths

deteriorated model fit.

The analyses were conducted separately for child-report and parent-report of BARS, IPS,

and PMC scales as well as for observational assessments of parental warmth, parental

hostility, and parental monitoring. Gender and self-esteem were included as covariates in all

models. Latent variables for self-esteem at age 12, age 14, and age 16 were included in the

latent cross-lagged panel models. Thus, self-esteem is a time varying covariate.

Results

Gender Differences and Stability over Time

Narcissism did not show any gender differences, either at the overall or facet level. At all

ages, girls reported higher paternal warmth than boys on the BARS (but not IPS) scale and

higher maternal warmth on the IPS (but not BARS) scale; however, neither gender difference

held for parent reported warmth. Girls reported higher maternal monitoring than boys at all

ages and higher paternal monitoring at ages 14 and 16. For the mothers’ self-report of their

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monitoring of the child, monitoring scores were also higher for girls at age 14 and 16. No

significant gender differences were found for mothers reporting on paternal monitoring or

fathers reporting on their own monitoring and maternal monitoring. Boys reported higher

self-esteem than girls at age 14 (t = −2.87, p = .004), but not at age 12 or at age 16.

Overall narcissism and the superiority facet were moderately stable from age 14 to 16, with

average stability coefficients of .58 (range .57 – .59) for the total scale and .61 (range .61 – .

62) for the superiority facet. In contrast, the exploitativeness facet was less stable with an

average stability coefficient of .46 (range .46 – .47). The first-order (age 12 to 14 and 14 to

16) stability coefficients for the parenting dimensions ranged (across waves and child- and

parent-reports) from .44 to .75 for paternal hostility, .31 to .63 for maternal hostility, .45 to .

75 for paternal warmth, .42 to .53 for maternal warmth, .46 to .72 for paternal monitoring,

and .41 to .63 for maternal monitoring. The second-order stability coefficients, spanning age

12 to 16, were, as expected given that they control for the 1st order stabilities, much lower,

with an average of .20 for parental hostility, .24 for parental warmth, and .19 for parental

monitoring.

Reciprocal Relations between Parenting and Narcissism

As shown in

Table 2

, the overall fit of all models tested was good (CFI ≥ .96, TLI ≥ .95,

RMSEA ≤ .04). Standardized regression coefficients for cross-lagged effects from all

models are depicted in Tables 3–5. Below we organize the results by parenting dimension;

within each section, we describe the results separately for the narcissism total score,

exploitativeness, and superiority.

Parental hostility—Parental hostility at age 12 predicted narcissism at age 14 for both
mothers and fathers. Importantly, this effect was consistent across child- and parent-report as

well as observational data, although in the observational data the effect was only significant

for maternal hostility. Thus, higher parental hostility at age 12 was associated with children

reporting higher narcissism at age 14. Thus, H1 was partly confirmed since this relationship

held for age 12 to age 14, but not age 14 to age 16. Furthermore, H3 was confirmed since

this effect was significant with both gender and self-esteem entered as control variables.

Facet-level analyses revealed that this effect was mainly attributable to the exploitativeness

facet of narcissism: Consistently a cross-lagged effect between parental hostility at age 12

and exploitativeness at age 14 appeared in models differentiating the two narcissism facets

(see

Table 3

). Thus, for both mothers and fathers, a higher degree of hostility towards their

child at age 12 was related to their child reporting being more exploitative at age 14. As for

overall narcissism, this finding held not only across maternal and paternal hostility, but also

across different informants on the BARS (child and spouse) as well as for the observational

data, though the effect was only marginally significant for observational data on paternal

hostility (β = .10, p = .12). For example, for maternal hostility, the child-report BARS
yielded a beta of .29, the parent-report BARS yielded a beta of .18 and the observational

rating yielded a beta of .17. Parental hostility at age 14 did not significantly predict

exploitativeness or overall narcissism at age 16. Furthermore, the cross-lagged regressions

between parental hostility and superiority were non-significant in all cases. There were no

notable differences, in either effect sizes or significance levels, between the models

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including self-esteem as a control variable and the models not including self-esteem as a

control variable.

Parental warmth—Parental warmth was not related to overall narcissism, as expected. At
the facet-level, there were also no consistent cross-lagged effects on either exploitativeness

or superiority. One effect that replicated across the BARS and IPS scales was a negative

relationship between paternal warmth at age 12 and exploitativeness at age 14 (β = −.12, p
= .015 for BARS and β = −.11, p = .036 for IPS). However, this effect was only significant
for the spouse-report of paternal warmth and not for the child-report and it was also not

found in the observational data. Parental warmth at age 12 predicted superiority at age 14 for

IPS maternal warmth (β = .14, p = .035), for IPS paternal warmth (β = .19, p = .001), and
for BARS paternal warmth (β = .12, p = .031). However, in this case, the effect was only
present for child-report data and not for parent-report data and it was also not present in the

observational ratings of parental warmth (see

Table 4

). In some (but not all) of the models

without self-esteem as a control variable, parental warmth at age 12 positively predicted

superiority at age 14 (e.g., β = .15, p = .019 for BARS maternal warmth in the spouse-report
data).

Parental monitoring—Our prediction (H2) that parental monitoring would be associated
with overall narcissism levels was not confirmed. However, when narcissism was

differentiated into the two facets exploitativeness and superiority, we found that both

maternal and paternal monitoring at age 12 were negatively related to exploitativeness at age

14. For example, the standardized regression coefficient for the child-report of parental

monitoring was −.16 for paternal monitoring and −.14 for maternal monitoring. In the

models without self-esteem as a control variable, the effect was slightly smaller for maternal

monitoring (β = −.10) and did not reach significance (p = .072). This result also held for
parent-report data (e.g., β = −.10, p = .049 for mother-report of paternal monitoring),
although not all effects were large enough to reach significance (e.g., β = −.07, p = .28 for
father-report of maternal monitoring). For the data from observational assessments this

effect was confirmed for paternal monitoring, but not maternal monitoring (see

Table 5

). The

superiority facet was not related to parental monitoring in models including self-esteem. In

models without self-esteem, a positive association between superiority and parental

monitoring was found when monitoring was assessed via parent and child reports (e.g., β = .
15, p = .006 for mother-report of paternal monitoring), but not using the observational data.
Thus, it appears that adolescents who were monitored less closely at age 12 tended to have

higher exploitativeness levels over time compared to adolescents who were monitored more

closely at age 12.

Supplemental Analyses

In supplemental analyses, we examined reciprocal cross-lagged relations between the

narcissism facets and self-esteem. Higher self-esteem at age 12 was related to higher

superiority at age 14 (β = .43, p < .001), whereas superiority at age 12 was not related to self-esteem at age 14. Exploitativeness and self-esteem were not related. These effects

consistently held when each of the parenting dimensions was added to the model. We also

tested whether the parenting dimensions had interactive effects on narcissism. We found that

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the association between paternal hostility and exploitativeness was stronger for higher levels

of monitoring (interaction effect b = .17, p<.001) and for higher levels of warmth (interaction effect b = .14, p < .001). In addition, we found that the association between paternal hostility and superiority was stronger for higher levels of monitoring, (interaction

effect, b = .10, p = .041). Thus, it appears that monitoring tends to magnify the effects of
parenting on narcissism, at least for fathers.

Lastly, we tested whether nativity (born in Mexico vs. the U.S.) moderated the relations

between parenting and narcissism. We found two significant effects: nativity moderated the

association between observed maternal hostility and superiority and between observed

maternal warmth and exploitativeness. However, we do not believe these interaction effects

merit interpretation because: (a) we conducted a total of 72 interactions tests and two

significant effects is less than would be expected by chance; (b) the interaction effects held

only for observational assessments of parenting and did not replicate for either child or

parent reports, and (c) the effects did not replicate for any measure of paternal hostility and

warmth. Overall, then, the results suggest that our basic findings hold for youth who were

born in Mexico as well as those born in the United States. Moreover, all of the significant

findings remained significant after controlling for nativity; that is, after nativity was entered

as a covariate in the models.

Discussion

The present study investigated the association between parenting practices and the

development of narcissism using data from a large longitudinal study of Mexican-origin

children and their parents. The two most robust predictors were parental hostility and

parental monitoring, with hostility associated with higher exploitativeness from age 12 to 14

and parental monitoring associated with lower exploitativeness from age 12 to 14. These

effects replicated across three different parenting measures (child reports, spouse reports,

and behavioral coding of parent-child interactions), and held for youth born in Mexico and

the United States. Surprisingly, none of the parenting dimensions was related to superiority,

suggesting that parenting practices are more strongly related to the maladaptive than the

adaptive component of narcissism. Below we discuss the implications of the findings for

theory, research, and practice.

The tendency for youth raised by hostile parents to develop higher levels of exploitativeness

is consistent with psychodynamic theory. Specifically, psychodynamic theory posits that

children exposed to hostile and overly critical parents will develop feelings of inadequacy

that they will try to compensate for by exploiting and seeking admiration from others

(Kernberg, 1975; Kohut, 1977). However, psychodynamic theory also posits that a lack of

parental warmth plays an important role in the development of narcissism. This prediction

was not confirmed in our study since we found no relationship between parental warmth and

narcissism, neither at the level of overall narcissism nor at the level of the exploitativeness

and superiority facets. Interestingly, when we explored interactions among the parenting

dimensions, we found that the effect of paternal hostility on exploitativeness was stronger

for higher levels of warmth, as well as for higher levels of monitoring. Especially the

interaction between parental hostility and parental warmth is consistent with the idea

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grounded in psychodynamic theory that parental behavior characterized by first elevating

children with love and support and then tearing them down with excessive criticism fosters

the development of narcissism. Although these results should be interpreted with caution,

since neither effect replicated for parent-report or observational assessments of parenting,

they do suggest that the association between parenting practices and narcissism is likely to

be more complex than what can be captured by unidimensional measures of parenting.

Finally, it is important to note that most theories of the origins of narcissism do not specify

distinct developmental pathways to the specific facets of narcissism. The moderate stability

coefficients at the level of overall narcissism and at the facet level indicate that narcissism

and in particular the exploitativeness facet have not fully stabilized by adolescence. It is

mainly the maladaptive components of narcissism such as exploitativeness that are related to

a number of adjustment problems in adolescence (e.g., Washburn et al., 2004). Thus, more

conceptual work is needed to extend current theories to the development of the maladaptive

and adaptive components of narcissism, taking into account different developmental periods

from childhood to adolescence.

Most of our findings are consistent with prior research. For example, our finding that overall

narcissism was not related to parental warmth is consistent with Brummelman et al. (2015).

In some of our models without self-esteem as a control variable, parental warmth was related

to the adaptive superiority facet. This is in line with Cramer (2011) who found that parenting

styles characterized by high responsiveness (an aspect of warmth) were related to higher

levels of adaptive narcissistic traits, although we did not find this relationship when we

controlled for self-esteem. We found that high parental monitoring was related to lower

levels of exploitativeness, but not to higher levels of superiority. This is consistent with

cross-sectional research showing a negative relationship between parental monitoring and

overall narcissism (Barry et al., 2007; Horton et al., 2006; Miller & Campbell, 2008). The

convergence of our results with previous research suggests that the relationship between

parenting behaviors and narcissism is similar across different cultural contexts, such as

Mexican-origin and European background youth living in the United States and Dutch

youth. This is substantiated by our finding that nativity did not influence the relations

between parenting and narcissism. Nevertheless, the degree to which the cultural context

plays a role in the developmental processes involved in narcissism is an empirical question

that merits further research.

Controlling for self-esteem was an important extension of the analyses conducted in

previous studies. Superiority and self-esteem were positively related, with self-esteem at age

12 predicting superiority at age 14. This overlap between superiority and self-esteem

produced differences between the effects found in models that controlled vs. did not control

for self-esteem. For example, in models investigating the narcissism facets and parental

monitoring without controlling for self-esteem, parental monitoring at age 12 predicted

superiority at age 14. When self-esteem was added to the model, this relationship was

diminished greatly and no longer statistically significant, illustrating that the initial effect

was only due to the confounding of superiority and self-esteem. The same pattern occurred

in some models examining the association between parental warmth and superiority. Thus,

relationships between positive parenting dimensions and superiority appear to be attributable

to the shared variance between superiority and self-esteem; when the variance associated

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with self-esteem is statistically removed, the resulting more pure measure of narcissistic

self-aggrandizement is not related to the positive parenting dimensions of warmth and

monitoring. This finding highlights the importance of controlling for self-esteem when

examining the effects of narcissism, and vice versa. Note that as exploitativeness was not

correlated with self-esteem, all observed associations between parenting and exploitativeness

were robust across models that included or did not include self-esteem as a control.

The present study also extended previous research by investigating the codevelopment of the

two facets of narcissism. With regard to general patterns of change, both facets showed

virtually no mean-level change from age 14 to 16 and moderately high rank-order stability,

with superiority showing somewhat higher stability than exploitativeness. Interestingly,

when we examined prospective cross-lagged associations between the two facets, we found

that superiority at age 14 predicted exploitativeness at age 16, but exploitativeness at age 14

did not predict superiority at age 16. It is possible that a certain degree of superiority is

needed in order to exhibit exploitative behaviors; that is, a sense of superiority can engender

feelings of entitlement and help rationalize exploiting others. Thus, superiority may be a

developmental precursor of exploitativeness, with both facets merging into a coherent

narcissistic style later in development. In line with this possibility, the concurrent correlation

between the two facets of narcissism was significantly higher at age 16 (latent r = .55)
compared to age 14 (latent r = .38), implying that superiority and exploitativeness levels
were more aligned at age 16 than at age 14. In general, the divergent pattern of findings for

superiority and exploitativeness, and the fact that superiority is prospectively associated with

exploitativeness, illustrate the importance of investigating narcissism at the facet level.

The present findings have important practical implications. In particular, they highlight two

promising targets of intervention: parental hostility and monitoring. Specifically, parenting

interventions that reduce hostility and improve monitoring could potentially disrupt the

developmental pathways that lead to exploitativeness, a maladaptive component of

narcissism that has been linked to adjustment and behavioral problems in childhood and

adolescence (Barry et al., 2007; Barry et al., 2003; Washburn et al., 2004).

Limitations of the Study

Several limitations merit attention. First, narcissism was assessed on two occasions during

adolescence. Both narcissism facets showed moderate rank-order stability during this time

period, raising the possibility that some of the processes that contribute to the development

of narcissism have already unfolded by adolescence. Stronger links to parenting practices

could be expected earlier in development when narcissism levels are presumably undergoing

greater change. Nevertheless, our results indicate that the socialization processes involved in

the development of narcissism continue into adolescence. That is, an adolescent

experiencing hostile feedback from his/her parents is likely to exhibit the same feelings of

inadequacy, and compensate for these feelings by inflating his/her self-worth, in the same

way as a child receiving such feedback, and consequently the socialization processes

through which hostile parenting influences narcissism are likely to persist across

adolescence. Similarly, from a social learning perspective, it seems likely that the relatively

straightforward process of learning about oneself via feedback from parents is likely to

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persist across adolescence. It would be important to investigate the effects of parenting on

narcissism in a longitudinal study where both constructs are assessed at younger ages,

preferably using informant assessments of narcissism given the problems with self-reports

by young children. Even if parent socialization processes persist into adolescence, as we

believe they do, they may be more consequential earlier in development; that is, there may

be a sensitive period in the development of narcissism.

Second, the study design does not allow for strong conclusions regarding the causal effect of

parenting on narcissism. As in all passive observational designs, effects between factors may

be caused by third variables that were not assessed (Finkel, 1995). Nevertheless, longitudinal

analyses are useful because they can indicate whether the data are consistent with a causal

model of the relation between the variables.

Third, the results do not allow for firm conclusions with regard to the clinical category of

narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). The narcissism measure used in the present research

was designed to assess individual differences in the normal range of narcissistic tendencies,

but conclusions about the antecedents of NPD should be based on diagnoses from clinical

interviews. Moreover, our analyses are based on a nonclinical sample, which do not allow

for valid conclusions about narcissistic tendencies in clinical populations.

Conclusion

Considering the detrimental effects of narcissism in the interpersonal domain, investigating

the development of narcissism is an important endeavor. Our study showed that parental

hostility and parental monitoring were related to adolescents’ exploitativeness two years

later, indicating that parenting practices play a central role in the development of narcissism

during adolescence. Nevertheless, there are many open questions, including identifying the

developmental precursors of the superiority facet of narcissism and understanding how

parenting practices shape the development of narcissism in younger children.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a post-doc fellowship awarded to Eunike Wetzel by the German Academic
Exchange Service (DAAD) and a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on
Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (DA017902) to Richard W. Robins and Rand D. Conger. We thank the participating
families, staff, and research assistants who took part in this study.

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http://www.statmodel.com

Highlights

– We investigated the longitudinal relations between parenting and
narcissism.

– Data from a sample of Mexican-origin youth spanning ages 12 to 16 were
analyzed.

– Parental hostility was associated with higher levels of exploitativeness at
age 14.

– Parental monitoring was associated with lower levels of exploitativeness at
age 14.

– None of the parenting dimensions was related to superiority.

– Findings replicated across child-report, spouse-report, and behavioral
codings

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Figure 1.
Latent cross-lagged panel model with narcissism and a parenting scale (parental hostility,

parental warmth, or parental monitoring). In the facet-level analyses, the overall narcissism

construct was replaced by exploitativeness and superiority.

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J Res Pers. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2017 August 01.

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Wetzel and Robins Page 20

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J Res Pers. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2017 August 01.

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Wetzel and Robins Page 21

Ta
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J Res Pers. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2017 August 01.

A
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Wetzel and Robins Page 22

F
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J Res Pers. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2017 August 01.

A
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Wetzel and Robins Page 23

F
it
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J Res Pers. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2017 August 01.

A
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Wetzel and Robins Page 24

Ta
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J Res Pers. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2017 August 01.

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Wetzel and Robins Page 26

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J Res Pers. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2017 August 01.

• Abstract

Hypotheses
Method
Sample
Measures
Narcissistic Personality Questionnaire for Children – Revised (NPQC-R)
Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (RSE)
Behavioral Affect Rating Scale (BARS)
Iowa Parenting Scale (IPS)
Parental Monitoring of Child (PMC)
Observational assessments of parenting
Analyses
Overview
Longitudinal measurement invariance
Latent cross-lagged panel models (LCLP)

Results
Gender Differences and Stability over Time
Reciprocal Relations between Parenting and Narcissism
Parental hostility
Parental warmth
Parental monitoring
Supplemental Analyses
Discussion
Limitations of the Study
Conclusion
References
Figure 1
Table 1
Table 2
Table 3
Table 4
Table 5

Origins of narcissism in children
Eddie Brummelmana,b,1, Sander Thomaesb,c, Stefanie A. Nelemansd, Bram Orobio de Castrob, Geertjan Overbeeka,
and Brad J. Bushmane,f

aResearch Institute of Child Development and Education, Department of Educational Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1001 NG, The
Netherlands; bDepartment of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht 3584 CS, The Netherlands; cCenter for Research on Self and Identity,
Department of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, England; dResearch Centre Adolescent Development, Department of Youth
and Family, Utrecht University, Utrecht 3584 CS, The Netherlands; eDepartment of Communication and Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus,
OH 43210-1339; and fDepartment of Communication Science, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1081 HV, The Netherlands

Edited by Susan T. Fiske, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved February 12, 2015 (received for review November 7, 2014)

Narcissism levels have been increasing among Western youth, and
contribute to societal problems such as aggression and violence.
The origins of narcissism, however, are not well understood. Here,
we report, to our knowledge, the first prospective longitudinal
evidence on the origins of narcissism in children. We compared
two perspectives: social learning theory (positing that narcissism is
cultivated by parental overvaluation) and psychoanalytic theory
(positing that narcissism is cultivated by lack of parental warmth).
We timed the study in late childhood (ages 7–12), when individual
differences in narcissism first emerge. In four 6-mo waves, 565
children and their parents reported child narcissism, child self-
esteem, parental overvaluation, and parental warmth. Four-wave
cross-lagged panel models were conducted. Results support social
learning theory and contradict psychoanalytic theory: Narcissism
was predicted by parental overvaluation, not by lack of parental
warmth. Thus, children seem to acquire narcissism, in part, by in-
ternalizing parents’ inflated views of them (e.g., “I am superior to
others” and “I am entitled to privileges”). Attesting to the speci-
ficity of this finding, self-esteem was predicted by parental
warmth, not by parental overvaluation. These findings uncover
early socialization experiences that cultivate narcissism, and may
inform interventions to curtail narcissistic development at an
early age.

childhood narcissism | childhood self-esteem | parental overvaluation |
parental warmth | socialization

The mythological figure Narcissus was a handsome, self-absorbed, and vain young man who passionately fell in love
with his own reflection in the water. “I burn with love for—me!”
Narcissus cried, “the spark I kindle is the torch I carry.” Narcissus
was unable to stop looking at his own reflection, and he
ultimately pined away by the waterside. Psychologists have come
to know Narcissus’ personality as narcissism. Although well
known in its extreme form as Narcissistic Personality Disorder,
narcissism is a personality trait in which people in the general
population differ from one another. Narcissists feel superior to
others, fantasize about personal successes, and believe they de-
serve special treatment (1). When narcissists feel humiliated,
they are prone to lash out aggressively (2, 3) or even violently (4).
Narcissists are also at increased risk for mental health problems,
including drug addiction, depression, and anxiety (5). Research
shows that narcissism is higher in Western than non-Western
countries (6), and suggests that narcissism levels have been
steadily increasing among Western youth over the past few
decades (7; see ref. 8 for an alternative view).
The origins of narcissism, however, are not well understood.

Here, we report, to our knowledge, the first prospective longi-
tudinal evidence on the origins of narcissism in children. We
pitted two major theories against each other: social learning
theory and psychoanalytic theory. Social learning theory holds
that children are likely to grow up to be narcissistic when their
parents overvalue them: when their parents see them as more
special and more entitled than other children (9). When parents
overvalue their child, they see their child as “God’s gift to man”

(9) and “are under a compulsion to ascribe every perfection to
the child—which sober observation would find no occasion to
do” (10). Consequently, children might internalize the belief that
they are special individuals who are entitled to privileges. In
contrast, psychoanalytic theory holds that children are likely to
grow up to be narcissistic when their parents lack warmth toward
them (11, 12). When parents lack warmth, they express little
affection, appreciation, and positive affect toward their child,
and they show little enjoyment of their child (13). In such an
upbringing, children might place themselves on a pedestal to try
to obtain from others the approval they did not receive from
their parents.
Both theories have received preliminary support. Cross-sec-

tional research finds that adult narcissists are more likely than
nonnarcissists to remember their parents as overvaluing and
lacking warmth in childhood (14; for overviews, see refs. 15 and
16). These findings are inconclusive, however. First, the studies
were cross-sectional, and were therefore unable to investigate
direction of effects. Second, the studies were often limited to
samples of college students or adults, whereas the origins of
narcissism lie in childhood (17, 18). Third, the studies often re-
lied on adults’ retrospective reports of early socialization expe-
riences. It is no surprise that adult narcissists remember their
parents overvaluing them: narcissists typically feel admired by
many others, even in the face of disconfirming evidence (19).
Addressing these limitations, we conducted a four-wave multi-

informant prospective longitudinal study on the origins of
narcissism in children. We timed the study in late childhood, ages

Significance

Narcissistic individuals feel superior to others, fantasize about
personal successes, and believe they deserve special treatment.
When they feel humiliated, they often lash out aggressively or
even violently. Unfortunately, little is known about the origins
of narcissism. Such knowledge is important for designing
interventions to curtail narcissistic development. We demon-
strate that narcissism in children is cultivated by parental
overvaluation: parents believing their child to be more special
and more entitled than others. In contrast, high self-esteem in
children is cultivated by parental warmth: parents expressing
affection and appreciation toward their child. These findings
show that narcissism is partly rooted in early socialization
experiences, and suggest that parent-training interventions
can help curtail narcissistic development and reduce its costs
for society.

Author contributions: E.B., S.T., B.O.d.C., and G.O. designed research; E.B. performed
research; E.B. and S.A.N. analyzed data; and E.B., S.T., S.A.N., B.O.d.C., G.O., and B.J.B.
wrote the paper.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: e.brummelman@uva.nl.

This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.
1073/pnas.1420870112/-/DCSupplemental.

www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1420870112 PNAS | March 24, 2015 | vol. 112 | no. 12 | 3659–3662

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mailto:e.brummelman@uva.nl

http://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1420870112/-/DCSupplemental

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7–12, a key developmental phase during which individual dif-
ferences in narcissism first emerge (17, 18). Indeed, research
finds that, from this age, narcissism can be assessed validly
(17, 18). Children this age are able to form the global evaluations
of themselves as a person (e.g., “I am a special person”) (20) that
underlie narcissism. Additionally, they have typically outgrown the
unrealistically positive, inflated self-views that are normative for
younger children (20), making narcissistic self-views nonnormative.
Although narcissists feel superior to others and feel entitled to

privileges, they are not necessarily satisfied with themselves as
a person. That is, narcissism and self-esteem capture two dif-
ferent dimensions of the self (21, 22). As scholars put it, “High
self-esteem means thinking well of oneself, whereas narcissism
involves passionately wanting to think well of oneself” (2). Ad-
ditionally, high self-esteem, unlike narcissism, predicts lower
levels of anxiety and depression over time (23). An important
question, therefore, is whether the socialization experiences that
may cultivate narcissism (e.g., parental overvaluation, lack of
parental warmth) also foster high self-esteem. We therefore
compared the socialization of narcissism with the socialization
of self-esteem.
Participants were 565 children (ages 7–11 at wave 1) and their

parents, 415 mothers and 290 fathers. The study consisted of four
6-mo waves. In each wave, children completed well-established
questionnaires to assess narcissism (e.g., “kids like me deserve
something extra”) (17), self-esteem (e.g., “kids like me are happy
with themselves as a person”) (24), and parental warmth sepa-
rately for mothers and fathers (e.g., “my father/mother lets me
know he/she loves me”) (25); parents completed well-established
questionnaires to assess parental overvaluation (e.g., “my child is
more special than other children”) (26) and parental warmth
(e.g., “I let my child know I love him/her”) (25).

Results
We conducted cross-lagged panel models in Mplus v7.11 (27) to
examine whether parental socialization (overvaluation, warmth)
predicts subsequent changes in children’s self-views (narcissism,
self-esteem), and vice versa (Materials and Methods).
Consistent with social learning theory, parental overvaluation

predicted child narcissism over time, but not vice versa (Fig. 1).
Paternal overvaluation predicted child narcissism one wave later
(B = 0.066, β = 0.067–0.068, P = 0.021), but child narcissism did
not predict paternal overvaluation one wave later (B = –0.019,
P = 0.496). Similarly, maternal overvaluation predicted child
narcissism one wave later (B = 0.068, β = 0.063–0.071, P =
0.003), but child narcissism did not predict maternal over-
valuation one wave later (B = 0.026, P = 0.166).
Attesting to the specificity of these findings, parental over-

valuation did not predict child self-esteem over time. Paternal
overvaluation did not predict child self-esteem one wave later
(B = –0.036, P = 0.210), nor did child self-esteem predict pa-
ternal overvaluation one wave later (B = –0.045, P = 0.090).
Similarly, maternal overvaluation did not predict child self-
esteem one wave later (B = 0.005, P = 0.807), nor did child self-

esteem predict maternal overvaluation one wave later (B =
–0.006, P = 0.758). Thus, parental overvaluation did not predict
children’s positive self-views in general; it predicted children’s
narcissistic self-views in particular.
Inconsistent with psychoanalytic theory, lack of parental warmth

did not predict narcissism over time. Neither child-reported nor
parent-reported parental warmth predicted child narcissism one
wave later (P values > 0.276), nor did child narcissism predict
child-reported or parent-reported parental warmth one wave later
(P values > 0.157).
In contrast, parental warmth did predict child self-esteem.

More specifically, child-reported parental warmth, unlike parent-
reported parental warmth (P values >0.129), predicted child self-
esteem over time, and vice versa (Fig. 2). The finding that
children’s self-esteem is predicted by child-reported but not
parent-reported parental warmth is consistent with sociometer
theory (28), which holds that it is perceptions of social accep-
tance, not social acceptance itself, that shape self-esteem. Child-
reported paternal warmth predicted child self-esteem one wave
later (B = 0.108, β = 0.104–0.106, P < 0.001), and child self- esteem predicted child-reported paternal warmth one wave later (B = 0.072, β = 0.078–0.084, P = 0.001). Similarly, child-reported maternal warmth predicted child self-esteem one wave later (B = 0.064, β = 0.052–0.055, P = 0.019), and child self-esteem pre- dicted child-reported maternal warmth one wave later (B = 0.046, β = 0.060–0.063, P = 0.010). Thus, overvaluation specifi- cally predicted narcissism, not self-esteem, whereas warmth specifically predicted self-esteem, not narcissism.

Discussion
What are the origins of narcissism? This question has a long
history, both in the field of psychology and in popular culture,
but conclusive evidence has been lacking. Our longitudinal
findings support social learning theory and contradict psycho-
analytic theory: Narcissism was predicted by parental over-
valuation, not by lack of parental warmth. Attesting to the
specificity of this finding, self-esteem was predicted by parental
warmth, not by parental overvaluation. These findings are con-
sistent with the view that children come to see themselves as they
believe to be seen by significant others, as if they learn to see
themselves through others’ eyes (29). “Each to each a looking-
glass, reflects the other that doth pass,” as Charles Cooley (29)
described it. When children are seen by their parents as being
more special and more entitled than other children, they may
internalize the view that they are superior individuals, a view that
is at the core of narcissism. However, when children are treated
by their parents with affection and appreciation, they may in-
ternalize the view that they are valuable individuals, a view that is
at the core of self-esteem.
An alternative interpretation of our findings might be that

parents who overvalue their children are likely to be narcissistic
themselves: Parental overvaluation, then, might predict children’s
narcissism merely because children mimic or inherit parents’
narcissism levels. Additional analyses, however, refute this

Fig. 1. Standardized longitudinal associations between parental overvaluation and child narcissism. Only significant cross-lagged paths and one-wave
stability paths are displayed. Associations for mothers and fathers are displayed on the left and right side of the forward slash, respectively.

3660 | www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1420870112 Brummelman et al.

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interpretation (SI Text). Parental narcissism and overvaluation
were only weakly-to-moderately correlated. Additionally, even
when controlling for parental narcissism, parental overvaluation
still robustly and significantly predicted increased child narcis-
sism over time. Thus, parental overvaluation contributes to the
development of narcissism in children above and beyond parents’
own narcissism levels.
The findings also add to the literature showing that self-

esteem is associated with perceived social acceptance (30–32).
Our longitudinal findings show bidirectional associations be-
tween children’s self-esteem and one key form of perceived so-
cial acceptance: how much parental warmth children experience.
An interesting possibility, then, is that self-esteem represents an
internal gauge (or “sociometer”) of one’s social acceptance, and
that it is not self-esteem itself but rather the underlying per-
ception of being accepted by others that confers benefits to
children (e.g., lower levels of anxiety and depression) (28).
The findings may also inform intervention efforts. As of yet,

proof-effective interventions to prevent or reduce narcissism in
youth are lacking. A critical step toward such interventions is
knowledge about the processes that lead up to narcissism (16).
Given that narcissism is cultivated by parental overvaluation,
parent-training interventions might be one effective means to
curtail narcissistic development. Such interventions can help
parents convey affection and appreciation to children without
conveying to children that they are superior to others.
Of course, parental overvaluation is not the sole origin of

narcissism. The prospective association between parental over-
valuation and narcissism was modest in size. Like other per-
sonality traits, narcissism is moderately heritable and partly
rooted in early emerging temperamental traits (33). Some chil-
dren, because of their temperamental traits, might be more likely
than others to become narcissistic when exposed to parental
overvaluation (16, 21). An important task for future work is to
identify these person-by-environment interactions.
Narcissism is a growing problem in Western society. Since the

1980s, Western society has become increasingly concerned with
raising children’s self-esteem (34), and proof-effective self-esteem
interventions have been developed (35). However, in their attempts
to raise self-esteem, parents often intuitively rely on lavishing
children with praise, telling them that they are special and
unique, and giving them exceptional treatment (26, 36). Our
results show that, rather than raising self-esteem, such “over-
valuing” practices might inadvertently raise narcissism in chil-
dren. Collective efforts to reduce parental overvaluation, therefore,
hold promise in curbing the societal rise in narcissism.

Materials and Methods
Participants. Participants were 565 children (7–11 y old at wave 1; mean =
9.56 y, SD = 0.93; 54% girls; 89% of Dutch origin) and their parents: 290
fathers (mean = 44.67 y, SD = 4.60; 94% of Dutch origin) and 415 mothers
(mean = 42.24 y, SD = 3.97; 92% of Dutch origin). Participants were recruited
from 17 elementary schools in the Netherlands serving lower-to-upper
middle class neighborhoods. The school boards supported all procedures. Of
all children who were approached, 75% received active parental consent

and participated in the study. All children gave their assent. The study
consisted of four 6-mo waves (T1–T4). The study was conducted under
a protocol approved by the research ethics committee of Social and Be-
havioral Sciences of Utrecht University. Children completed questionnaires in
their classes under the supervision of trained research assistants; parents
completed questionnaires at home. Attrition entailed an average of 4% of
children, 18% of fathers, and 16% of mothers per wave. Little’s Missing
Completely at Random test produced a normed χ2 (χ2/df) of 1.03, [χ2(2,847) =
2939.004, P = 0.112], suggesting that attrition was random (37). Missing data
were handled in Mplus using the Full Information Maximum-Likelihood
procedure (27).

Measures. Each construct was assessed each wave using well-established
questionnaires. For each construct, responses were averaged across items.
Table S1 displays descriptive statistics.

Child narcissism was measured via child-report using the ten-item Child-
hood Narcissism Scale (e.g., “I like to think about how incredibly nice I am”
and “kids like me deserve something extra”; 0 = not at all true, 3 = com-
pletely true) (17).

Child self-esteem was measured via child-report using the six-item Global
Self-Worth subscale of the Self-Perception Profile for Children (e.g., “some
kids are happy with themselves as a person” and “some kids like the kind of
person they are”; 0 = I am not like these kids at all, 3 = I am exactly like these
kids) (24).

Parental overvaluation was measured via parent-report using the seven-
item Parental Overvaluation Scale (e.g., “my child is more special than other
children” and “my child deserves special treatment”; 0 = not at all true, 3 =
completely true) (26).

Parental warmth was measured via both parent-report and child-report
using the eight-item Warmth Subscale of the Short Form of the Parental
Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire (e.g., parent report: “I let my child know
I love him/her” and “I treat my child gently and with kindness”; child report:
“my father/mother lets me know he/she loves me” and “my father/mother
treats me gently and with kindness”; 0 = not at all true, 3 = completely true)
(25). Children reported about their father and mother separately. Responses
were averaged across items. Consistent with previous research (38), agree-
ment between parent-reported and child-reported warmth was small to
moderate (0.04 < R values < 0.27).

Descriptive Data Analysis. Table S2 presents the zero-order correlations be-
tween study variables at the first wave. Demonstrating the independence of
child narcissism and child self-esteem, within-wave correlations between these
constructs were weak, ranging from 0.06 to 0.15. Demonstrating the in-
dependence of parental overvaluation and parental warmth, within wave cor-
relations between these constructs were weak, both for fathers and for
mothers, both for child-report and for parent-report, ranging from –0.11 to 0.08.

At each wave, self-esteem and narcissism were higher in boys than in girls,
overvaluation was higher in fathers than in mothers, and warmth was higher in
mothers than in fathers. However, controlling for children’s sex did not affect the
study findings, and separate analyses were conducted for fathers and mothers.

All constructs were relatively stable over time: Correlations between
successive waves ranged from 0.61 to 0.77 for paternal overvaluation, from
0.72 to 0.78 for maternal overvaluation, from 0.59 to 0.61 for parent-reported
paternal warmth, from 0.68 to 0.70 for parent-reported maternal warmth,
from 0.53 to 0.58 for child-reported paternal warmth, from 0.52 to 0.57 for
child-reported maternal warmth, from 0.54 to 0.67 for child narcissism, and
from 0.47 to 0.61 for child self-esteem.

Longitudinal Data Analysis. We conducted four-wave cross-lagged panel
models in Mplus v7.11 (27) using maximum-likelihood estimation with SEs

Fig. 2. Standardized longitudinal associations between parental warmth and child self-esteem. Only significant cross-lagged paths and one-wave stability
paths are displayed. Associations for mothers and fathers are displayed on the left and right side of the forward slash, respectively.

Brummelman et al. PNAS | March 24, 2015 | vol. 112 | no. 12 | 3661

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and χ2 robust to nonnormality (MLR estimator). We conducted separate
analyses for fathers and mothers, for parental overvaluation and parental
warmth, and for child narcissism and child self-esteem. We ran all analyses
with and without children’s sex and age as covariates (i.e., as predictors of all
variables across all waves) and with and without family as a clustering var-
iable (i.e., removing variance because of some children being from the same
family using the TYPE = COMPLEX command) (27). Because neither the
covariates nor family clustering affected any of the cross-lagged paths, we
reported the most parsimonious models (i.e., those without covariates and
family clustering).

Cross-lagged panel models were examined in two steps. First, we examined
whether the fully constrained baseline model demonstrated an adequate fit
to the data. This model included all one-wave stability paths, all two-wave
stability paths (i.e., from T1 to T3, and from T2 to T4), all within-wave cor-
relations, and all one-wave cross-lagged paths. To create a parsimonious
model, we constrained all longitudinal parameters to be time invariant (i.e.,
equal over time) (39). Second, for each model, we examined whether freeing
all parameters of interest (i.e., the cross-lagged paths) improved model fit.
Because it did not improve model fit for any model [Δχ2SB(4)s < 6.79, P values >
0.148], the longitudinal cross-lagged paths parameters were set to be time
invariant (39).

Model fit was assessed with the comparative fit index (CFI), the root mean
squared error of approximation (RMSEA) and 90% confidence interval (CI),
and the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR). CFI values ≥ 0.90,
RMSEA values ≤ 0.08, and SRMR values < 0.10 indicate acceptable model fit, whereas CFI values ≥ 0.95, RMSEA values ≤ 0.05, and SRMR values < 0.08 indicate good model fit (39–41). The comparative fit between nested models was tested with the Satorra–Bentler (SB) scaled χ2 difference test (42). All statistical tests were two-sided at the α = 0.05 significance level. Parental overvaluation and child narcissism. The fully constrained baseline model for parental overvaluation and child narcissism demonstrated good fit to the data for both fathers [χ2SB(20) = 27.275, CFI = 0.991, RMSEA (90% CI) = 0.033

(0.000, 0.061), SRMR = 0.046] and mothers [χ2SB(20) = 27.942, CFI = 0.994,
RMSEA (90% CI) = 0.029 (0.000, 0.052), SRMR = 0.035].
Parental warmth and child narcissism. The fully constrained baseline model for
parental warmth and child narcissism demonstrated good fit to the data for
child-reported paternal warmth [χ2SB(20) = 38.943, CFI = 0.981, RMSEA
(90% CI) = 0.041 (0.021, 0.060), SRMR = 0.044], for child-reported maternal
warmth [χ2SB(20) = 34.163, CFI = 0.986, RMSEA (90% CI) = 0.035 (0.013,
0.055), SRMR = 0.037], and for parent-reported paternal warmth [χ2SB(20) =
33.903, CFI = 0.976, RMSEA (90% CI) = 0.046 (0.016, 0.071), SRMR = 0.080],
and acceptable fit to the data for parent-reported maternal warmth [χ2SB(20) =
65.133, CFI = 0.956, RMSEA (90% CI) = 0.069 (0.051, 0.088), SRMR = 0.112].
Parental overvaluation and child self-esteem. The fully constrained baseline
model for parental overvaluation and child self-esteem demonstrated good
fit to the data for both fathers [χ2SB(20) = 26.019, CFI = 0.992, RMSEA
(90% CI) = 0.030 (0.000, 0.059), SRMR = 0.043], and mothers [χ2SB(20) = 35.519,
CFI = 0.987, RMSEA (90% CI) = 0.040 (0.017, 0.062), SRMR = 0.043].
Parental warmth and child self-esteem. The fully constrained baseline model for
parental warmth and child self-esteem demonstrated good fit to the data for
child-reported paternal warmth [χ2SB(20) = 42.038, CFI = 0.975, RMSEA
(90% CI) = 0.044 (0.025, 0.063), SRMR = 0.048], and for child-reported maternal
warmth [χ2SB(20) = 32.465, CFI = 0.986, RMSEA (90% CI) = 0.033 (0.008,
0.053), SRMR = 0.036], and acceptable fit to the data for parent-reported
paternal warmth [χ2SB(20) = 42.310, CFI = 0.959, RMSEA (90% CI) = 0.058
(0.033, 0.082), SRMR = 0.084], and for parent-reported maternal warmth
[χ2SB(20) = 66.858, CFI = 0.954, RMSEA (90% CI) = 0.070 (0.052, 0.089),
SRMR = 0.113].

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank Peter A. Bos and Constantine Sedikides for
their valuable comments on the manuscript. This research was part of E.B.’s
doctoral dissertation, which was completed at the Department of Develop-
mental Psychology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. The research was
supported by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research
(Grant 431-09-022).

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3662 | www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1420870112 Brummelman et al.

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Overparenting and Young Adult Narcissism: Psychological Control Overparenting and Young Adult Narcissism:

Psychological Control

and Interpersonal Dependency as Mediators and Interpersonal Dependency as Mediators

Nathan Alexander Winner

University of Southern Mississippi

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OVERPARENTING AND YOUNG ADULT NARCISSISM:

PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTROL AND INTERPERSONAL

DEPENDENCY AS MEDIATORS

by

Nathan Alexander Winner

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate School,

the College of Education and Psychology,

and the Department of Psychology

at The University of Southern Mississippi

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

August 2019

OVERPARENTING AND YOUNG ADULT NARCISSISM:
PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTROL AND INTERPERSONAL
DEPENDENCY AS MEDIATORS

by Nathan Alexander Winner

August 20

19

Approved by:

________________________________________________

Dr. Bonnie C. Nicholson, Committee Chair

Associate Professor, Psychology

________________________________________________

Dr. Eric R. Dahlen, Committee Member

Associate Professor, Psychology

________________________________________________

Dr. Ashley B. Batastini, Committee Member

Assistant Professor, Psychology

________________________________________________

Dr. Richard S. Mohn, Committee Member

Associate Professor, Educational Research and Administration

________________________________________________

Dr. D. Joe Olmi

Chair, Department of Psychology

________________________________________________

Dr. Karen S. Coats

Dean of the Graduate School

COPYRIGHT BY

Nathan Alexander Winner
2019

Published by the Graduate School

ii

ABSTRACT

OVERPARENTING AND YOUNG ADULT NARCISSISM: PSYCHOLOGICAL

CONTROL AND INTERPERSONAL DEPENDENCY AS MEDIATORS

by Nathan Alexander Winner
August 2019

Overparenting, or “helicopter parenting,” is a unique style of parenting

characterized by parents’ well-intentioned but age-inappropriate over-involvement and

intrusiveness in their children’s lives. Recent research has linked overparenting to the

development of narcissistic traits in young adults, although the mechanisms of this

relationship remain unclear. Two plausible mechanisms include the parenting behavior of

psychological control and the increased interpersonal dependency of the child.

Psychological control is a construct that overlaps with overparenting and has been linked

to both dependent and narcissistic traits. Similarly, interpersonal dependency is a key

predictor of narcissistic traits. Therefore, the present study sought to examine

psychological control and interpersonal dependency as sequential mediators in the

relationship between overparenting and young adult narcissistic traits. It was

hypothesized that greater levels of overparenting would be mediated by both greater

levels of parental psychological control and greater levels of interpersonal dependency

among young adult children in predicting narcissistic traits. Additionally, it was predicted

that these mediating relationships would be more pronounced when examining vulnerable

narcissistic traits compared to grandiose narcissistic traits. Results supported these

hypotheses. These findings highlight the mechanisms by which overparenting predicts

narcissistic traits, as well as shed light on the multifaceted nature of narcissism.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project could not have been accomplished without the support and

encouragement of my major professor, Dr. Nicholson, as well as the members of my

committee, including Dr. Dahlen, Dr. Batastini, and Dr. Mohn. Finally, I wish to thank all

of my peers and colleagues for their support, and especially those on the Positive

Parenting Research Team, who have encouraged me throughout this process.

i

v

DEDICATION

This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, for their unwavering love,

encouragement, and support.

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ……………………………………………………………………………………. iii

DEDICATION ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. iv

LIST OF TABLES ………………………………………………………………………………………………

vii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ……………………………………………………………………………….

viii

CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………………………..

1

CHAPTER II – METHODOLOGY ………………………………………………………………………. 2

2

Measures ………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

23

Demographic Questionnaire …………………………………………………………………………. 23

Helicopter Parenting Instrument (HPI) …………………………………………………………… 2

4

Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI) ………………………………………………………..

24

Psychological Control Scale- Youth Self-Report (PCS-YSR) …………………………… 2

6

Interpersonal Dependency Inventory (IDI) ……………………………………………………… 2

7

CHAPTER III – RESULTS …………………………………………………………………………………..

29

CHAPTER IV – DISCUSSION…………………………………………………………………………….

37

Limitations ……………………………………………………………………………………………………..

39

Areas for Future Research ………………………………………………………………………………..

40

Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………………………..

41

APPENDIX A – IRB Approval Letter …………………………………………………………………… 43

vi

APPENDIX B – Electronic Informed Consent ………………………………………………………..

44

REFERENCES …………………………………………………………………………………………………..

46

vii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Means, Standard Deviations, and Bivariate Correlations for Study Measures …. 29

viii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1. Differences in Effect of Overparenting on Narcissistic Phenotypes. …………….

30

Figure 2. Mediation of Parental Psychological Control between Overparenting and

Narcissistic Phenotypes. ………………………………………………………………………………………

32

Figure 3. Mediation of Young Adult Interpersonal Dependency between

Overparenting

and Narcissistic Traits. …………………………………………………………………………………………

33

Figure 4. Mediation of Young Adult Interpersonal Dependency between Overparenting

and Narcissistic Phenotypes. …………………………………………………………………………………

34

Figure 5. Parallel Mediation of Parental Psychological Control and Young Adult

Interpersonal Dependency between Overparenting and Narcissistic Traits. ……………….. 3

5

Figure 6. Parallel Mediation of Parental Psychological Control and Young Adult

Interpersonal Dependency between Overparenting and Narcissistic Phenotypes. ………..

36

1

CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION

Narcissism, broadly defined as an interpersonal pattern characterized by a sense

of entitlement, an unhealthy need for admiration, and a general lack of empathy (Miller &

Campbell, 2008; Pincus, 2013), has undergone conceptual scrutiny in recent years (Cain,

Pincus, & Ansell, 2008), including researchers arguing for the existence of different

narcissistic phenotypes (Miller et al., 2011; Pincus, 2013). More specifically, grandiose

narcissism is regarded as narcissism manifesting as more overt, domineering, and

arrogant behavior in interactions with others (Miller et al., 2011; Ronningstam, 2009),

while vulnerable narcissism appears to characterize individuals who exhibit more shame,

defensiveness, oversensitivity, and low self-esteem (Dickinson & Pincus, 2003; Miller et

al., 2011). Additionally, a number of etiological theories on the development of

narcissism have been posited over the last several decades, and these theories suggest

different pathways in regards to the development of predominantly grandiose (Capron,

2004; Imbesi, 1999) and vulnerable (Horton, Bleau, & Drwecki, 2006; Rothstein, 1979)

narcissistic traits.

Overparenting, or “helicopter parenting,” is a construct which has garnered a

great deal of recent media attention (e.g., Kantrowitz & Tyre, 2006), and is regarded as

parenting which is over-involved (i.e., “hovering”), albeit well-intentioned, in the lives of

young adult children (Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2012; Schiffrin et al., 2014). Recent

research has also noted a number of problematic outcomes related to overparenting

(Bradley-Geist & Olson-Buchanan, 2014; LeMoyne & Buchanan, 2011; Schiffrin et al.,

2014), including the development of narcissistic traits (Segrin, Woszidlo, Givertz, Bauer,

& Murphy, 2012; Segrin, Woszildo, Givertz, & Montgomery, 2013). There are a number

2

of plausible mechanisms by which overparenting may predict narcissistic traits, including

the mediating roles of psychological control and interpersonal dependency. Psychological

control, a category of parenting behaviors related to overparenting (Padilla-Walker &

Nelson, 2012), is indicative of parenting which is over-involved, intrusive, and fostering

of dependence (Barber, 1996). Relatedly, interpersonal dependency among young adult

children, which has recently been linked to both overparenting (Odenweller, Booth-

Butterfield, & Weber, 2014) and narcissism (Sonnenberg, 2013), is a pattern of

interpersonal behavior characterized by overreliance on others (Bornstein, 2012), which

is a trait related to an external locus of self, typical of narcissism (Pincus, 2013).

Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to examine the mediating roles of

psychological control and interpersonal dependency in the relationship between

overparenting and narcissistic traits. It was hypothesized that greater levels of both

parental psychological control and young adult child interpersonal dependency would

mediate the relationship between overparenting and pathological narcissism among

young adults. Additionally, given the mechanism by which overparenting was

hypothesized to predict narcissism (i.e., over-involvement rather than permissiveness;

Horton, Bleau, & Drwecki, 2006), it was also hypothesized that these mediating

relationships would be more pronounced among vulnerable (rather than grandiose)

narcissism. This study helps clarify the manner in which overparenting may lead to

narcissistic traits in young adults (Segrin, Woszildo et al., 2013), as well as cast light on

the societal implications of this emerging style of parenting.

3

Narcissism

While the clinical definition of narcissism has been subject to a great deal of

scrutiny and evolution (Cain, Pincus, & Ansell, 2008), researchers broadly characterize

narcissism as consisting of a pattern of entitlement, a strong desire for admiration

from

others, and a dearth of empathy resulting in a generally dysfunctional interpersonal

pattern (Cain, Pincus, & Ansell, 2008; Miller et al., 2011; Miller & Campbell, 2008;

Pincus, 2013; American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Similarly, while the Diagnostic

and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has undergone a number of changes over the

decades (Cain et al., 2008), Narcissistic Personality Disorder is currently defined as “a

pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy,” with an estimated

prevalence rate ranging 0% to 6.2% in non-clinical populations (American Psychiatric

Association, 2013, p. 645). However, given that everyone possesses some degree of

narcissistic traits (Cain et al., 2008; Raskin & Hall, 1979), research examining narcissism

typically conceptualizes this personality pattern as occurring along a continuum, where it

is unnecessary to meet formal criteria for a personality disorder.

Recently, research has begun to explore different subtypes of narcissism (i.e.,

grandiose narcissism and vulnerable narcissism;

Miller et al., 2011; Pincus, 2013).

Grandiose narcissism is characterized by a greater degree of interpersonal domination

and aggression (Miller et al., 2011), with these individuals often perceived as more brash,

arrogant, and overt in their domineering patterns with others (

Ronningstam, 2009).

Grandiose narcissistic individuals have even been regarded as “oblivious” (Gabbard,

1989), given their propensity for denying their own weaknesses and shortcomings, in

order to sustain their exaggerated, yet fragile sense of self (Gabbard, 1989; Kernberg,

4

1974; Kernberg, 1998). This conceptualization is consistent with research demonstrating

grandiose narcissistic individuals as less likely to report distress related to their relational

patterns, despite acknowledging interpersonal difficulties related to their domineering

behavior (Dickinson & Pincus, 2003). Furthermore, some researchers have noted that

aspects of this type of narcissism may be perceived as adaptive given the positive

association between grandiose narcissism, trait self-esteem (Horton et al., 2006) and

subjective well-being (Sedikides, Rudich, Gregg, Kumashiro, & Rusbult, 2004). Of

course, these seemingly adaptive traits serve to belie an underlying instability in the self-

image of grandiose narcissistic individuals (Ronningstam, 2009).

Conversely, vulnerable narcissism manifests in a socially avoidant manner

(Dickinson & Pincus, 2003), with these individuals better characterized as “shame-ridden

and hypersensitive” (Ronningstam, 2009; p. 113). These individuals often exhibit an

exaggerated defensiveness, which serves to obfuscate a low self-esteem and feelings of

insecurity (Miller et al., 2011). Whereas grandiose narcissistic individuals are able to

compensate for their insecurity through their own overt and domineering behavior,

vulnerable narcissistic individuals are more dependent on the explicit validation of others

(Dickinson & Pincus, 2003). Given this distinction, vulnerable narcissists have been

shown to be more likely than grandiose narcissists to acknowledge distress related to

their interpersonal difficulties (Dickinson & Pincus, 2003). This chronic pattern of

distress in interpersonal relationships leads to a larger pattern of hypersensitivity, and

even anxious-avoidant tendencies (Miller et al., 2011; Dickinson & Pincus, 2003).

Furthermore, while grandiose and vulnerable narcissism differ in their expressions of

self-esteem, both of these constructs can be characterized by self-esteem that is unstable

5

and oversensitive, and dependent on external sources of validation (Pincus 2013;

Ronningstam, 2009).

The presence of narcissistic traits varies along a continuum (Raskin & Hall,

1979), and some narcissistic characteristics may even be viewed as adaptive in certain

circumstances (e.g., when paired with trait self-esteem; Horton et al., 2006). This has

created some inconsistencies in the conceptualization of this construct, which is further

compounded by variability in the method of assessment used by researchers (e.g., Miller

et al., 2011; Pincus, 2013; Raskin & Hall, 1979). However, generally speaking,

narcissistic traits are considered pathological. In fact, Pincus (2013) has distinguished

pathological narcissism from more normative narcissistic traits by an emphasis on

“intense needs for validation and admiration” which are “extreme and coupled with

impaired regulatory capacities,” and “that energize the person to seek out self-

enhancement experiences” (Pincus, 2013, p. 95). This understanding of pathological

narcissism has been associated with a range of negative outcomes (Cain et al., 2008),

including alcohol and substance abuse (Ronningstam, 1996; Vaglum, 1999), delinquency

among adolescents (Barry, Grafeman, Adler, & Pickard, 2007; Barry & Wallace, 2010),

and maladaptive relational styles among adolescents and young adults (Campbell, Foster,

& Finkel, 2002; Dickinson & Pincus, 2003; Grafeman, Barry, Marcus, & Leachman,

2015; Lamkin, Clifton, Campbell, & Miller, 2014). Pathological narcissism has also been

linked to antisocial traits and behaviors in adults more broadly (Book, Visser, & Volk,

2015; Paulhus & Williams, 2002), including sexual coercion and violence specifically

(Baumeister, Catanese, & Wallace, 2002; Bushman, Bonacci, van Dijk, & Baumeister,

2003). Psychiatric patients exhibiting pathological narcissism have even demonstrated

6

unpredictable suicidal behavior, including suicidal behavior without the presence of

depressive symptoms (Links, Gould, & Ratnayake, 2003; Ronningstam & Maltsberger,

1998). The overlap between narcissistic traits and other problematic personality patterns,

including antisocial, histrionic, and borderline traits, has also been well-documented

(American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

A number of studies have also examined outcomes associated with narcissism

among young adults specifically. In assessing college students, Campbell, Foster, and

Finkel (2002) found individuals endorsing greater narcissistic traits to be more likely to

view romantic relationships as a “game,” and display less commitment. Finzi-Dottan and

Cohen (2011) demonstrated that narcissism among young adults is predictive of greater

conflict among siblings, with this conflict most profound when combined with

disfavorable treatment from fathers. In examining differences between vulnerable and

grandiose narcissistic subtypes, Ksinan and Vazsonyi (2016) found a preference for

online social interactions to mediate the relationships between vulnerable narcissism and

social anxiety and inefficacy. Similar mediations were not found for grandiose

narcissism. Studies have also linked narcissistic traits among young adults with a

childhood history of abuse and neglect (Bachar et al., 2015; Van Buren & Meehan,

2015), as well as aggressive driving behavior (Edwards, Warren, Tubré, Zyphur, &

Hoffner-Prillaman, 2013) and aggressive retaliation (Bushman & Baumeister, 1998).

However, while emerging research has begun to distinguish between grandiose

and vulnerable narcissistic subtypes in exploring correlates (e.g., Ksinan & Vazsonyi,

2016; Lamkin et al., 2014; Van Buren & Meehan, 2015), due in large part to recent

advances in assessment of these traits (Pincus, 2013), progress in examining this

7

distinction is still lacking. Further exploration of this distinction is likely warranted, due

to the phenotypic variation and hypothesized differences in associated outcomes between

these two subtypes (Miller et al., 2011). Furthermore, while researchers differ in their

understanding of the etiology of narcissism (e.g., the role of multiple interacting social

systems; Washburn & Paskar, 2011), several studies have implicated specific parenting

practices in the development of narcissistic traits, including parenting practices which

may differ relative to narcissistic phenotypes (Horton et al., 2006).

Parenting and Narcissism

A great deal of research has examined the impact of parenting and childhood

experiences on the development of narcissism (Norton, 2011). In fact, Horton et al.

(2006) outlined a number of views of parenting on the etiology of narcissism, two of

which are particularly relevant for the present study. Both of these theories have their

foundation in Kohut’s (1977) self-psychology. Kohut (1977) theorized that a child’s

development of self-identity is dependent upon: 1) parental responsiveness to the child’s

desires, emotions, and behaviors, as well as 2) the child’s idealizing of their parents as a

model of interpersonal behavior to be emulated. So long as parents respond appropriately

and empathically to their children, and children idealize this pattern of interaction, a

healthy sense of self, including a sense of self distinct from their parents’ self, may be

developed. Kohut (1977) also emphasized the role of “optimal frustrations” (i.e.,

occasions where the child is forced to confront challenges independently from their

parents), which he theorized were necessary for the child to limit his/her sense of

grandiosity to an appropriate level. Therefore, the failure to appropriately experience

8

“optimal frustrations” can lead to the expression of narcissistic traits; however, this

failure can be achieved in multiple ways, and with different results.

One view of the etiology of narcissism, posited by Imbesi (1999), emphasizes the

role of parental permissiveness, which is a style of parenting characterized by a low level

of parental control, involvement, and discipline (Baumrind, 1966; 1967; 1971). Imbesi

(1999) theorized that permissive parents fail to ensure sufficient opportunities for

“optimal frustrations” for their children, due to their relative lack of discipline and

control. This failure to ensure “optimal frustrations” results in an unrealistically elevated

grandiose self by the child, as the child is not given appropriate feedback as to their own

limits and responsibilities. The resulting exaggerated grandiosity is a key component of

pathological narcissism, and specifically of grandiose narcissism (Miller et al., 2011;

Pincus, 2013). Additionally, this theoretical understanding of the etiology of narcissism

converges with other theories, including social learning theory, which argues that

children learn from permissive parenting that they are superior and deserving of

preferential treatment (Horton, 2011; Millon & Everly, 1985), and Young’s (1990)

Schema-Focused Cognitive Approach, which emphasizes the need for children to

internalize their own “limits,” which can only result from appropriate parental discipline.

Therefore, while theories on the development of narcissism may differ as to the specific

mechanism of action, there appears to be convergence in implicating permissive

parenting as an important mechanism in the development of these grandiose traits

(Horton et al., 2006). In fact, research has supported this perspective, including linking

permissive parenting (Baumrind, 1967) and “pampering” to the development of

grandiose narcissistic traits in adolescents (Mechanic & Berry, 2015) and young adults

9

(Capron, 2004; Ramsey, Watson, Biderman, & Reeves, 1996; Watson, Little, &

Biderman, 1992). However, the present study will more closely examine a second

theoretical understanding of the development of narcissism, which focuses on excessive

parental control, rather than permissiveness.

Whereas Imbesi (1999) emphasized parenting so permissive that it leads to

uninhibited grandiosity, a second perspective emphasizes parenting so restrictive that it

inhibits the development of an independent sense of self. In keeping with Kohut’s (1977)

self-psychology theory, these parents also fail to provide “optimal frustrations” for their

children; however, this failure is instead due to inappropriate and intrusive over-

involvement, rather than permissiveness, on the part of the parent. This style of

“overinvolved enmeshment” (Horton et al., 2006; p. 350), rather than leading to

unimpeded grandiosity, leads to children who are dependent on external sources for their

sense of identity and worth, which is a pattern also consistent with pathological

narcissism, and especially vulnerable narcissism (Miller et al., 2011; Pincus, 2013).

This theoretical approach also converges with additional theoretical perspectives

(e.g., Millon & Everly, 1985; Rothstein, 1979), and research examining excessive

parental control practices (e.g., authoritarian parenting; Baumrind, 1966; 1967; 1971),

have demonstrated a link with narcissistic traits (Watson et al., 1992), including

vulnerable narcissistic traits specifically (Cramer, 2015). Additionally, parenting

practices related to psychological control (e.g., withholding love and approval in order to

influence and manipulate children), have been empirically linked in several studies to

unhealthy narcissism in adolescents and young adults (Givertz & Segrin, 2014; Horton, et

al., 2006; Horton & Tritch, 2014).

10

Where these two theories appear to diverge is in their explanation of narcissism as

it relates to either the grandiose or vulnerable type. While parental permissiveness

appears to predict children’s unimpeded grandiosity (Capron, 2004; Imbesi, 1999),

parental over-control and intrusiveness appears more closely linked to individuals’

narcissistic dependency and insecurity (Horton et al., 2006; Rothstein, 1979), which are

traits more closely associated with narcissistic vulnerability (Miller et al., 2011;

Dickinson & Pincus, 2003). Given the degree to which these phenotypes of narcissism

may differ in their presentation and related outcomes, future research should distinguish

between these related, but distinct constructs (Miller et al., 2011). Additionally, more

contemporary patterns of parenting behavior should be examined, including

overparenting (i.e., “helicopter parenting”), which is a style of parenting that exhibits

well-intentioned over-control and intrusiveness (Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2012), and

which has recently been linked to pathological narcissism among young adults (Segrin et

al., 2012; Segrin, Woszildo et al., 2013). Therefore, the present study will seek to build

on the research exploring parenting and narcissism, by examining the emerging body of

research on overparenting, including its relationship to both grandiose and vulnerable

narcissistic phenotypes.

Overparenting

Overparenting, often referred by media as “helicopter parenting” (e.g., Kantrowitz

& Tyre, 2006), is a distinct style of parenting characterized by parental over-involvement

(i.e., “hovering”) in young adult children’s lives (Schiffrin et al., 2014). This includes

parents’ withholding of autonomy and excessive doling of support (Padilla-Walker &

Nelson, 2012; Segrin, Givertz, Swaitkowski, & Montgomery, 2013). Researchers have

11

argued that this style of parental intrusiveness may stem from parents’ excessive fears

and anxiety that, while well-intentioned, may ultimately impede appropriate child

development (Nelson, 2010; Segrin, Givertz et al., 2013). While parental involvement has

traditionally been conceptualized as positive (Combs-Orme, Wilson, Cain, Page, &

Kirby, 2003; Lamborn, Mounts, Steinberg, & Dornbusch, 1991), recent research has

highlighted the risks of developmentally inappropriate parental over-involvement on

individuals’ emotional health (Gar & Hudson, 2008; Marano, 2008) and adjustment upon

entering adolescence (Grolnick, Kurowski, Dunlap, & Hevey, 2000). In fact, researchers

have noted the similarity of overparenting among young adults to overprotective, or over-

solicitous parenting, in young children (Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2012). For example,

over-solicitous parents often intrude in their children’s play activities, and exhibit an

excess of affection incongruent with the situational context (Rubin, Hastings, Stewart,

Henderson, & Chen, 1997). Similar research has also linked over-solicitous parenting

practices with anxiety and depressive symptoms among young children (Bayer, Sanson,

& Hemphill, 2006; McShane & Hastings, 2009) and social inhibition among toddlers

(Rubin, Burgess, & Hastings, 2002). Taken together, these studies suggest that parental

over-involvement, despite being well-intentioned, may prove detrimental at any stage of

development (Padilla-Walker & Nelson,

2012).

However, in some ways parental over-involvement may be uniquely problematic

during young adulthood, given the growing independence and maturity expected of

individuals as they enter adulthood (Arnett, 2004; Nelson & Barry, 2005; Padilla-Walker

& Nelson, 2012). For example, many experts argue that the difficulties associated with

overparenting manifest in an occupational setting, as young adults leave college and enter

12

the workforce (Ludden, 2012; Tyler, 2007). It should be noted that, similar to over-

solicitous parenting of young children, the risks associated with overparenting young

adults pertain to the nature of parental involvement (Schiffrin et al., 2014), with

involvement that inhibits the development of autonomy in young adults being especially

problematic (Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2012). Additionally, while overparenting shares

aspects of various other forms of parental control, including behavioral control (e.g.,

monitoring and behavior regulation) and an authoritarian parenting style (Odenweller et

al., 2014), overparenting tends to be uniquely characterized by a high level of parental

warmth and age-inappropriate, albeit well-intentioned, parental intrusiveness (Padilla-

Walker & Nelson, 2012; Schiffrin et al., 2014).

While research is yet emerging, overparenting has been linked to a variety of

negative outcomes among young adults, including poorer psychological and emotional

health (Segrin, Woszildo et al., 2013; Schiffrin et al., 2014), and potentially even the

abuse of prescription medication for depression and anxiety (LeMoyne & Buchanan,

2011). Various other studies have drawn links between overparenting and young adult

neuroticism, maladaptive coping (Odenweller et al., 2014; Segrin, Woszildo et al., 2013),

lower levels of self-efficacy (Bradley-Geist & Olson-Buchanan, 2014; van Ingen et al.,

2015), and interpersonal difficulties (Segrin, Givertz et al, 2013). Additionally, while

classical theoretical formulations of the etiology of narcissism (e.g., Kohut, 1977) did not

address overparenting explicitly, researchers have recently linked overparenting with

narcissistic traits, including entitlement specifically (Segrin et al., 2012) and pathological

narcissism broadly (Segrin, Woszildo et al., 2013) among young adults. However, neither

of these studies measured overparenting using well-established measures, nor did either

13

of these studies make a distinction between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism when

examining the predictive ability of overparenting. Given the mechanism by which

overparenting may plausibly lead to pathological narcissism (i.e., parental over-

involvement leading to dependence in young adults), which is broadly consistent with

Kohut’s (1977) etiological formulation and has been suggested by overparenting

researchers (Locke, Campbell, & Kavanagh, 2012), the distinction between narcissistic

phenotypes may be warranted. Additionally, research has yet to account for mediators in

the relationship between overparenting and narcissistic traits, which is an important next

step for researchers to consider. An exploration of mediators between overparenting and

narcissism ought to lend further support to a causal link between the two constructs, as

well as help clarify the manner by which overparenting leads to narcissistic traits.

Psychological Control

One potential mediator in the relationship between overparenting and young adult

narcissism is parental psychological control, defined by Barber (1996, p. 3296) as

“control attempts that intrude into the psychological and emotional development of the

child.” Research has conceptualized psychological control as the parents’ exploitation of

the child’s emotional bond with the parent (Barber, 1996; Becker, 1964), and parenting

practices associated with psychological control, including forms of emotional

manipulation such as the withholding of love and the use of guilt tactics (Horton et al.,

2006), are generally considered to be malevolent and invasive in nature (Baumrind,

1991), dissimilar to overparenting. However, overparenting and psychological control

share key similarities, including the withholding of appropriate autonomy and an

unhealthy over-involvement in young adult children’s lives, although these constructs

14

nevertheless remain theoretically distinct (Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2012).

Psychological control also differs from behavioral control (i.e., parents’ monitoring

activity and use of rules in regulating children’s behavior), although these constructs also

appear related (Li, Li, & Newman, 2013; Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2012). Overall,

established parenting research suggests that a promotion of independence and autonomy

is an important component of development across childhood (Grolnick, 2003; Peterson,

2005), and that parental involvement which does not ultimately aim to foster

independence may prove to be counterproductive (Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2012;

Steinberg, 1990; Steinberg, Lamborn, Dornbusch, & Darling, 1992).

In regards to outcomes, failure for parents to foster appropriate autonomy,

including the utilization of psychological control practices, has been shown to be

predictive of emotional difficulties in children (Barber, 1996; Barber, Olsen, & Shagle,

1994; Allen et al., 2015), preadolescents (Kunz & Grych, 2013), and adolescents

(Murray, Dwyer, Rubin, Knighton-Wisor, & Booth-LaForce, 2014; Herman, Dornbusch,

Herron, & Harting, 1997). The risks associated with psychological control may also

persist into young adulthood, with studies linking psychological control to outcomes

associated with relational aggression (Wagner & Abaied, 2016), emotion dysregulation

(Manzeske & Stright, 2009), and impaired identity development (Luyckx, Soenens,

Vansteenkiste, Goossens, & Berzonsky, 2007). Researchers have also linked

psychological control practices to dependent traits among adolescents (Steinberg, 1990)

and young adults (Kins et al., 2012; Kins, Soenens, & Beyers, 2011), although research in

examining these specific outcomes is still lacking.

15

Furthermore, psychological control has been linked to the development of

unhealthy narcissistic traits in young adults (Givertz & Segrin, 2014; Horton et al., 2006),

consistent with Kohut’s (1977) theoretical formulation of the etiology of narcissism.

Specifically, Givertz and Segrin (2014) found young adults’ reports of their parents’

psychological control practices were associated with scores on the Psychological

Entitlement Scale (Campbell, Bonacci, Shelton, Exline, & Bushman, 2004). Similarly,

studies have shown young adults’ reports of their parents’ psychological control practices

to be linked with scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (Horton & Tritch,

2014), including when extracting variance associated with trait self-esteem from these

scores (Horton et al., 2006), which suggests that psychological control may be predictive

of both grandiose and vulnerable narcissistic subtypes. However, a direct comparison of

the predictive value of psychological control on these narcissistic subtypes has yet to be

explored.

While overparenting and psychological control appear related, they nevertheless

remain distinct constructs (Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2012). Additionally, both

overparenting and psychological control have been linked to narcissistic traits among

young adults (Segrin et al., 2012; Segrin, Woszildo et al., 2013; Sonnenberg, 2013).

Therefore, examining psychological control as a mediator between overparenting and

narcissism appears theoretically consistent.

Interpersonal Dependency

Another mechanism by which overparenting may plausibly predict narcissism is

through the facilitation of interpersonal dependency. Given that overparenting is

characterized by parental over-involvement (Schiffrin et al., 2014) which may predict

16

children’s reliance on external validation and direction (Kohut, 1977; Rothstein, 1979)

and failure to obtain age-appropriate independence (Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2012),

young adult dependency may serve a pivotal role in the relationship between

overparenting and narcissism.

Interpersonal dependency has been defined as a pattern of “thoughts, beliefs,

feelings, and behaviors which revolve around the need to associate closely with, interact

with, and rely upon valued other people” (Hirschfeld et al., 1977, p. 610). While

subsequent research and theoretical frameworks have differed subtly in the

conceptualization of interpersonal dependency (e.g., Bornstein & Languirand, 2003;

Pincus & Gurtman, 1995), these approaches converge on their distinction of unhealthy

interpersonal dependency from more adaptive interpersonal patterns by an unhealthy

overreliance on valued others, with dependent individuals perceiving themselves as

incapable or powerless (Bornstein, 2012; McClintock, Anderson, & Cranston, 2015), and

possessing maladaptive self-perceptions rooted in the perceived need for others’ support

and affirmation (Bornstein, 2016). Moreover, unhealthy dependency is thought to

manifest broadly across contexts, rather than remaining specific to certain appropriate

situations (e.g., in sickness; Bornstein, 2005).

A dependent interpersonal pattern has been linked to greater levels of adult

depression across gender (Dinger et al., 2015; Brewer & Olive, 2014; Nuns & Loas,

2005), and social anxiety in romantic relationships among young adults (Darcy, Davila,

& Beck, 2005). Furthermore, interpersonal dependency has been shown to be predictive

of elevated fears of abandonment, due to dependent individuals’ overemphasis on

external sources of support, rather than an intrinsic sense of self and security (Blatt,

17

2004). In fact, interpersonal dependency is a trait related to various cluster B personality

disorders, including borderline (Bornstein, Becker-Matero, Winarick, & Reichman, 2010;

Bornstein, Hilsenroth, Padawer, & Fowler, 2000), histrionic (Bornstein, 1998), and

narcissistic traits (Barber & Morse, 1994; Ekselius, Lindstrom, Knorring, Bodlund, &

Kullgren, 1994), although the link between dependent and narcissistic traits has

demonstrated mixed results (Meyer, Pilkonis, Proietti, Heape, & Egan, 2001; Sinha &

Watson, 2001). For example, while Bornstein et al. (2000) failed to find a link between

dependency and narcissism when utilizing projective measures, Sonnenberg’s (2013)

utilization of the objective Interpersonal Dependency Inventory (Hirshfeld et al., 1977)

demonstrated a positive relationship with narcissistic traits among young adults. These

findings are consistent with research which has linked dependent and narcissistic traits

among young adults using objective measures (Tomoko, 2013). Therefore, these

somewhat inconsistent results may be attributable to the varied means by which

researchers assess these traits, including the assessment or non-assessment of subclinical

levels of dependency (Bornstein, 2005).

Additionally, dependent traits may manifest differently across grandiose and

vulnerable narcissism, given grandiose narcissists’ failure to recognize their own

dependent interpersonal patterns (Bornstein, 1998a). In fact, a recent study by Luyten,

Crowley, Janssen, and Mayes (2014) offered support for this hypothesis, as these

researchers found vulnerable narcissism, but not grandiose narcissism, to mediate the

relationship between dependency and sensitivity to social exclusion among adolescents.

Alternately, Sonnenberg (2013) found interpersonal dependency to be predictive of both

grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Therefore, additional research appears necessary,

18

and particularly among young adults, who experience shifting social roles and

responsibilities in young adulthood (Bornstein, 2005; Tanner, 2006). In fact, researchers

have noted the unique risks of interpersonal dependency upon entering adulthood,

including its relationship to loneliness and maladaptive social functioning (Mahon, 1982;

Pritchard & Yalch, 2009). Given these concerns, it is imperative to better understand the

role of parenting in predicting interpersonal dependency, in order to attenuate the risks

associated with this problematic interpersonal pattern.

Consistent with Kohut (1977) and Rothstein’s (1979) view on the implication of

parental over-involvement in the etiology of narcissism, researchers have linked parental

psychological control to the emergence of dependent traits in adolescence and young

adulthood (Kins, Soenens, & Beyers, 2012; Soenens, Vansteenkiste, & Luyten, 2010).

Various other forms of excessive control, including parenting practices associated with

parental overprotection and an authoritarian parenting style, have also traditionally been

linked to the emergence of dependent personality characteristics (Bornstein, 1992), which

may even put individuals at risk for negative mental health outcomes, including social

anxiety (Spokas & Heimberg, 2009) and depression among young adults (McCranie &

Bass, 1984). Given the noted overlap between overparenting and various forms of

parental over-control, including psychological and behavioral control (Padilla-Walker &

Nelson, 2012), as well as the emphasis of overparenting on parental intrusiveness and

decreased child perceptions of autonomy (Schiffrin et al., 2014), the link between

overparenting and interpersonal dependency appears theoretically consistent.

In fact, Odenweller et al. (2014) recently implicated overparenting in the

development of interpersonal dependency among young adults. Given this finding, as

19

well as the noted link between interpersonal dependency and pathological narcissism

(Barber & Morse, 1994; Ekselius et al., 1994; Sonnenberg, 2013; Tomoko, 2013),

interpersonal dependency appears to be a plausible mediator between overparenting and

narcissism. Therefore, the current study sought to test the mediating effect of

interpersonal dependency between overparenting and young adult narcissism.

Statement of Purpose

Emerging research has linked overparenting with narcissistic traits among young

adults (Segrin et al., 2012; Segrin, Woszildo et al., 2013), although mediating variables in

this relationship have remained largely unexplored. While research has also linked

interpersonal dependency with both overparenting (Odenweller et al., 2014) and

narcissism (Sonnenberg, 2013; Tomoko, 2013) in college students, no study has yet

examined interpersonal dependency as a mediator between the two. Previous research has

found that dependent traits may mediate the relationship between parental over-control

and problematic mental health outcomes within these populations (McCranie & Bass,

1984; Spokas & Heimberg, 2009).

Parental psychological control has also remained unexplored as a mediator,

despite research linking this construct to overparenting (Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2012)

and pathological narcissism (Givertz & Segrin, 2014; Horton et al., 2006), as well as

interpersonal dependency among young adults (Kins et al., 2012; Kins et al., 2011).

Therefore, the present study sought to examine parental psychological control and

interpersonal dependency as mediators between overparenting and narcissistic traits in

young adults. Given the growing concern within research and the media regarding the

consequences of overparenting, or “helicopter parenting” (Kantrowitz & Tyre, 2006;

20

LeMoyne & Buchanan, 2011; Ludden, 2012; Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2012; Schiffrin et

al., 2014; Tyler, 2007), this study sought to further clarify the risks associated with this

parenting style to the mental health outcomes of young adults. Additionally, differences

between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism were explored, with the mediating effects

of psychological control and interpersonal dependency predicted to be more robust

between overparenting and vulnerable narcissism. This hypothesis was appropriate, given

emerging research suggestive of the role of excessive parental control and over-

involvement in the development of vulnerable narcissistic traits (Cramer, 2015; Horton et

al., 2006; Rothstein, 1979). This research should therefore help clarify the various

phenotypical variations of narcissism and their respective etiologies (Horton et al., 2006;

Miller et al., 2011; Pincus, 2013).

Research Questions and Hypotheses

Question 1: Will parental psychological control mediate the relationship between

overparenting and pathological narcissism among college students?

Hypothesis 1: Parental psychological control will mediate the relationship

between

overparenting and pathological narcissism among college students.

Question 2: Will the mediation of psychological control between overparenting and

pathological

narcissism differ across vulnerable narcissism and grandiose narcissism?

Hypothesis 2: The mediation of psychological control between overparenting

and

pathological narcissism will be more robust across vulnerable narcissism

compared to grandiose narcissism.

Question 3: Will interpersonal dependency mediate the relationship between

overparenting and pathological narcissism among college students?

21

Hypothesis 3: Interpersonal dependency will mediate the relationship between

overparenting and pathological narcissism among college students.

Question 4: Will the mediation of interpersonal dependency between overparenting and

pathological narcissism differ across vulnerable narcissism and grandiose narcissism?

Hypothesis 4: The mediation of interpersonal dependency between

overparenting and pathological narcissism will be more robust across

vulnerable narcissism compared to grandiose narcissism.

Question 5: Will both parental psychological control and interpersonal dependency

sequentially mediate the relationship between overparenting and pathological narcissism

among college students?

Hypothesis 5: Both parental psychological control and interpersonal

dependency will sequentially mediate the relationship between overparenting

and pathological narcissism among college students, such that greater levels

of overparenting will predict greater levels of parental psychological control,

which will predict greater interpersonal dependency, which in turn will predict

greater pathological narcissism.

Question 6: Will the sequential mediation between overparenting and pathological

narcissism differ across vulnerable narcissism and grandiose narcissism?

Hypothesis 6: The sequential mediation between overparenting and

pathological narcissism will be more robust across vulnerable narcissism
compared to grandiose narcissism.

22

CHAPTER II – METHODOLOGY

Participants and Procedure

This study was approved by The University of Southern Mississippi’s

Institutional Review Board Human Subjects Protection Review Committee (see

Appendix A). All participants were recruited through the Department of Psychology’s

research participation program (http://usm/sona-systems.com/). Participants

acknowledged their informed consent (see Appendix B), before completing the remaining

questionnaire measures through Qualtrics, a secure online survey system. Following

completion of the informed consent, participants completed a brief demographic

questionnaire followed by randomly ordered measures of parenting behaviors,

interpersonal dependency, and narcissistic traits. Completion of the study lasted

approximately 15-20 minutes.

Quality assurance checks included two directed response items, which instructed

participants to answer in a specific way (e.g., Answer “agree” to this question).

Participants who answered incorrectly to either item were removed from further analyses

(N = 44). Additionally, participants who completed study measures within a

predetermined amount of time (i.e., 80 seconds for PNI, 60 seconds for IDI, 30 seconds

for HPI, and 30 seconds for PCS), suggesting inattentiveness to item content, were also

removed from further analyses (N = 48; Huang, Curran, Keeney, Poposki, & DeShon,

2012).

Four hundred thirty-one participants initially responded to the online survey. A

total of 92 failed at least one validity check, an additional 20 participants did not

complete each study measure, and 18 participants fell outside the age range of 18 to 26.

23

Therefore, a total of 301 participants were retained for further analyses. None of the

remaining participants missed more than 75% of any measure items, and therefore all

missing values were replaced with linear trend-at-point imputation, which predicts a

value based on the trend for that specific item (Field, 2013).

Participants for the present study included 258 female (85.7%), 41 male (13.6%),

and 2 other (i.e., “agender” and “Transgender FTM”; 0.7%) young adult college students.

The average age for participants was 19.80 years (SD = 1.904), and included mostly

Freshmen (N = 120; 39.9%), followed by Sophomores (N = 73; 24.3%), Juniors (N = 53;

17.6%), Seniors (N = 54; 17.9%), and one “other” (N = 1; 0.3%). The racial breakdown

of the sample consisted of 191 White/non-Hispanic (63.5%), 98 Black/African-American

(32.6%), 5 Asian-American (1.7%), 1 Native American (0.3%) and 6 “other” (2%)

students. The majority of participants identified their mother as their primary caregiver

(N = 257; 85.4%), followed by fathers (N = 31; 10.3%), grandmothers (N = 9; 3%), aunts

(N = 2; 0.7%), and “other” (N = 2; 0.7%). Socioeconomic status (SES) was assessed by

having participants rank themselves based on their perceived social standing on a 9-point

scale (Adler et al., 1994). Results of this item approximated a normal distribution (M =

4.98, SD = 1.39).

Measures

Demographic Questionnaire

In addition to completion of study measures, a demographic questionnaire was

used for participants to self-report basic demographic information. Participants also

24

identified a “primary caregiver,” and were asked to refer to this primary caregiver when

answering subsequent questionnaires related to parenting.

Helicopter Parenting Instrument (HPI)

The Helicopter Parenting Instrument (HPI; Odenweller et al., 2014) is a 15-item

measure used to assess participants’ reports of their parents’ use of overparenting

behaviors. In response to inadequate development of previous overparenting measures,

Odenweller (2014) created the HPI items using verbiage from previous research and

popular media. Each item is rated on a 7-point Likert, with a score of 1 indicating “Very

strongly disagree” and a score of 7 indicating “Very strongly agree.” Items are summed

(with items 2 and 14 reverse-coded) to form a total score ranging from 15 to 105, with

higher scores indicative of greater perceived overparenting behaviors. Example items

include, “My parents tried to make all of my major decisions,” and “My parent overreacts

when I encounter a negative experience;” however, the term “parent” in this study was

replaced with “primary caregiver” for each item. The HPI has demonstrated adequate

reliability among a sample of college students (α = .78), and evidence of concurrent

validity with LeMoyne and Buchanan’s (2011) Helicopter Parenting Scale (Odenweller et

al., 2014). The HPI demonstrated a coefficient alpha of .77 for

the present study.

Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI)

The Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI; Pincus et al., 2009) is a 52-item

measure used to assess participants’ self-reported narcissistic characteristics. Each item is

rated on a 6-point Likert scale, with a score of 0 indicating “Not at all like me” and a

score of 5 indicating “Very much like me.” The PNI includes two higher-order scales of

Narcissistic Grandiosity and Narcissistic Vulnerability, which represent the two primary

25

phenotypical manifestations of pathological narcissism (Pincus, 2013; Pincus et al.,

2009). Narcissistic Grandiosity is further comprised of three subscales (i.e., Grandiose

Fantasy, Exploitativeness, and Self-Sacrificing Self-Enhancement), and Narcissistic

Vulnerability is comprised of four subscales (i.e., Contingent Self-Esteem, Hiding the

Self, Devaluing, and Entitlement Rage). Narcissistic Grandiosity has a range of 0 to 90,

and Narcissistic Vulnerability has a range of 0 to 170, with higher scores on each scale

indicative of greater levels of their respective phenotypical variations of pathological

narcissism. Example items for Narcissistic Grandiosity include, “I often fantasize about

being admired and respected,” and “Everybody likes to hear my stories.” Example items

for Narcissistic Vulnerability include, “It’s hard to show others the weaknesses I feel

inside,” and “I can get pretty angry when others disagree with me.”

The PNI has demonstrated evidence of internal consistency, with coefficients

ranging from .84 to .93 in a sample of young adult college students (Wright, Lukowitsky,

Pincus, & Conroy, 2010). Pincus et al. (2009) also displayed evidence of concurrent

validity for the PNI, with correlations between the PNI and the Narcissism-

Hypersensitivity Scale (NHS; Serkownek, 1975) and the Hypersensitivity Narcissism

Scale (HSNS; Hendin & Cheek, 1997) ranging from .51 to .62, respectively, despite

modest coefficient alphas for the NHS (α = .65) and the HSNS (α = .75). Furthermore,

Thomas, Wright, Lukowitsky, and Donnellan (2012) have provided evidence of criterion

validity of the PNI among college students, while Wright et al. (2010) demonstrated a

similar factor structure for the PNI across gender among college students, suggesting that

PNI scores do not significantly vary across male and female young adults. For the present

study, reliability coefficients for the total PNI total score, Narcissistic Grandiosity

26

subscale score, and Narcissistic Vulnerability subscale score were .96, .89, and .95,

respectively.

Psychological Control Scale- Youth Self-Report (PCS-YSR)

The Psychological Control Scale- Youth Self-Report (PCS-YSR; Barber, 1996) is

a 16-item measure used to assess participants’ reports of their parents’ use of parenting

practices related to psychological control. The PCS-YSR was developed to build upon

the utility of previous measures of psychological control (Schaefer, 1965), and was also

found to be compatible with observational measures (Barber, 1996). Each item of the

PCS-YSR is rated on a 3-point Likert scale (i.e., 1 = not like him/her; 3 = a lot like

him/her) with items summed to create a total score ranging from 16 to 48. Higher scores

are indicative of greater parental usage of psychological control tactics. Example items

for the PCS-YSR include, “my mother/father changes the subject, whenever I have

something to say,” and “my mother/father acts like he/she knows what I am thinking or

feeling;” however, the term “parent” was replaced with “primary caregiver” for each

item.

Originally constructed among a sample of adolescents (Barber, 1996), the PCS-

YSR has also demonstrated adequate reliability among a sample of young adult college

students (α = .91; Givertz & Segrin, 2014). Additionally, the PCS-YSR has shown

evidence of discriminant validity when compared to a measure of behavioral control

(Barber, 1996; Brown, Mounts, Lamborn, & Steinberg, 1993), and has been shown to

demonstrate superior predictive validity compared to other measures of psychological

control (Barber, 1996; Schaefer, 1965). An internal consistency coefficient of .91 was

found for the present study.

27

Interpersonal Dependency Inventory (IDI)

The Interpersonal Dependency Inventory (IDI; Hirshfeld et al., 1977) is a 48-item

measure used to assess participants’ self-reported interpersonal dependency. Preliminary

scale development began by examining 98 items, either uniquely created or revised from

previous measures, among both a sample of college students and psychiatric patients.

Factor analysis led to the retention of three main subscales, composed of 48 items total.

Each item is rated on a 4-point Likert scale, with a score of 1 indicating “Not

characteristic of me” and a score of 4 indicating “Very characteristic of me.” The IDI is

composed of three subscales (i.e., Emotional Reliance on Another Person, 18 items; Lack

of Social Self-Confidence, 16 items; Assertion of Autonomy, 14 items), which are

summed (with the Assertion of Autonomy subscale reverse-scored) to form a total score

ranging from 48 to 192, with higher scores indicating a greater degree of interpersonal

dependency. Example items include, “I would be completely lost if I didn’t have

someone special” for Emotional Reliance on Another Person, “When I have a decision to

make, I always ask for advice” for Lack of Social Self-Confidence,” and “I don’t need

other people to make me feel good” for Assertion of Autonomy. This total IDI score was

utilized for the present study.

The IDI has demonstrated adequate reliability among a diverse sample of college

students, with coefficient alphas ranging from .72 to .91 on each subscale (Cogswell,

Alloy, Karpinski, & Grant, 2010), comparable to additional studies which have examined

this measure among college students (e.g., Shahar, 2008; Wigman, Graham-Kevan, &

Archer, 2008). Bornstein (1997) also demonstrated adequate test-retest reliability (r =

.71) for the IDI over an 84-week period. Additionally, the IDI has demonstrated evidence

28

of convergent validity when compared to the Dependency subscale of the Depressive

Experiences Questionnaire (Cogswell et al., 2010), and has been shown to be predictive

of dependent behaviors and symptoms of Dependent Personality Disorder (Bornstein,

2005; Loas et al., 2002). A coefficient alpha of .79 was obtained for the total IDI score in

the present study.

29

CHAPTER III – RESULTS

Means, standard deviations, and bivariate correlations for all study measures can

be seen in Table 1. As noted, all variables were correlated at the p < .01 level, with the

exception of parental psychological control and young adult interpersonal dependency,

which were not significantly correlated. There were no significant differences for male

and female primary caregivers for either overparenting (F (1, 297) = 1.17, p = .51) or

psychological control (F (1, 297) = 0.25, p = .76). Additionally, there were no significant

gender differences for PNI total scores (F (1, 297) = 1.11, p = .40), Narcissistic

Grandiosity scores (F (1, 297) = 0.24, p = .93), or Narcissistic Vulnerability scores (F (1,

297) = 1.16, p = .23); however, there were significant gender differences for interpersonal

dependency (F (1, 297) = 3.5, p = .014), with females (M = 116.34, SD = 14.67)

demonstrating higher mean scores than males (M = 110.38, SD = 11.38).

Table 1

Means, Standard Deviations, and Bivariate Correlations for Study Measures

Measure M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6

1. HPI 53.66 13.19 – .35** .23** .27** .25** .23**

2. PCS 23.66 6.98 – .11 .27** .27** .22**

3. IDI 115.46 14.40 – .46** .52** .21**

4. PNI 120.83 42.87 – .96** .81**

5. VN 71.04 31.64 – .62**

6. GN 49.79 15.39 –

Note: HPI = Helicopter Parenting Inventory; PCS = Psychological Control Scale- Youth Self-Report; IDI = Interpersonal Dependency

Inventory; PNI = Pathological Narcissism Inventory (total score); VN = Narcissistic Vulnerability subscale of PNI; GN = Narcissistic

Grandiosity subscale of PNI; ** p < .01

Structural equation modeling using MPlus software (Muthén & Muthén, 2012)

was utilized to examine the mediating roles of parental psychological control and

interpersonal dependency between overparenting and pathological narcissism.

Bootstrapping was utilized to assess indirect effects, which included 10,000 resamples of

30

the data set (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). This process was intended to provide an estimate

of indirect effects which was not constrained by a non-normal distribution, and statistical

significance was indicated by confidence intervals which did not cross zero. Model fit

was examined by the comparative fit index (CFI), the Tucker-Lewis index (TLI), and the

root mean square of error approximate (RMSEA). Adequate CFI and TLI are regarded as

values >.90, and adequate RMSEA is considered values <.05 (Cheung & Rensvold,

2002).

A preliminary analysis was conducted to examine whether the effect of

overparenting differed between vulnerable and grandiose narcissism. A chi-square

difference test was utilized for this analysis (see Figure 1). Results indicated that the chi-

square value of the model when constraining the paths between overparenting and

narcissistic phenotypes (χ² (1, 1) = 10.01, p = .002) was significantly greater than the chi-

square value of the unconstrained model (χ² (1, 0) = 0.00, p < .001), indicating that these

paths were significantly different (Δχ21 = 10.01, p < .005). As predicted, the R² value of

vulnerable narcissism (R² = .066, p = .035) was found to be greater than the value for

grandiose narcissism (R² = .052, p = .036), although both values were significant.

Figure 1. Differences in Effect of Overparenting on Narcissistic Phenotypes.

op = Overparenting; vn = Vulnerable Narcissism; gn = Grandiose Narcissism.

31

Hypotheses 1 stated that parental psychological control would mediate the

relationship between overparenting and pathological narcissism. Results supported this

hypothesis (see Figure 2). Specifically, the total effect (β = .271, p < .001) of

overparenting on narcissistic traits was found to be significant. When examining the

mediating role of psychological control, both the relationships between overparenting and

psychological control (β = .345, p < .001), and psychological control and narcissistic

traits (β = .205, p < .001) were significant, as well as the direct effect of overparenting (β

= .200, p = .001) and the indirect effect of psychological control (β = .071, 95% CI [.033-

.119]). Therefore, the results supported the present hypotheses that psychological control

would partially mediate the relationship between overparenting and pathological

narcissism, with this mediation accounting for approximately 26.2% of this relationship.

Mediation of Parental Psychological Control between Overparenting and Narcissistic

Traits.

op = Overparenting; pcs = Parental Psychological Control; pni = Pathological

Narcissism.

Next, to examine Hypothesis 2, the mediating role of psychological control was

examined separately across vulnerable and grandiose narcissism (see Figure 3). The

indirect effects of psychological control between overparenting and vulnerable narcissism

32

and between overparenting and grandiose narcissism were then compared across

constrained versus unconstrained versions. A chi-square difference test determined that

the constrained version (χ² (1, 1) = 6.78, p = .009) was significantly greater than the

unconstrained version (χ² (1, 0) = 0.00, p < .001) of this model, which indicates that the

indirect paths were significantly different (Δχ21 = 6.78, p < .01). More specifically, the

indirect effect of psychological control on vulnerable narcissism (indirect effect = .069,

95% CI [.032-.119]) was greater than the indirect effect of psychological control on

grandiose narcissism (indirect effect = .054, 95% CI [.015-.100]). As the total effect of

overparenting differed between vulnerable narcissism (total effect = .256) and grandiose

narcissism (total effect = .229), psychological control accounted for 27% (% mediated =

.069/.256) of the mediation between overparenting and vulnerable narcissism, and 23.6%

(% mediated = .054/.229) of the mediation between overparenting and grandiose

narcissism.

Figure 2. Mediation of Parental Psychological Control between Overparenting and
Narcissistic Phenotypes.

op = Overparenting; pcs = Parental Psychological Control; vn = Vulnerable Narcissism;

gn = Grandiose Narcissism.

.187

pcs .3

45

.175
.1

57

.201

.581

.187

33

Hypothesis 3 predicted that interpersonal dependency would also mediate the

relationship between overparenting and narcissistic traits. Similarly to Hypothesis 1, both

the relationships between overparenting and interpersonal dependency (β = .234, p <

.001) and between interpersonal dependency and pathological narcissism (β = .420, p <

.001) were significant (see Figure 4). The indirect effect of interpersonal dependency (β =

.098, 95% CI [.048-.157]), and the direct effect of overparenting were also both

statistically significant (β = .173, p = .001), with interpersonal dependency mediating

approximately 36.2% of this relationship.

Figure 3. Mediation of Young Adult Interpersonal Dependency between Overparenting
and Narcissistic Traits.

op = Overparenting; idi = Young Adult Interpersonal Dependency; pni = Pathological Narcissism.

The next phase of analyses examined Hypothesis 4, which predicted that

interpersonal dependency would mediate vulnerable narcissism more robustly than

grandiose narcissism (see Figure 5). Similar to analyses for Hypothesis 2, a chi-square

difference test determined that the chi-square value when constraining the indirect paths

(χ² (1, 1) = 89.12, p < .001) was significantly greater than the value when leaving the

paths unconstrained (χ² (1, 0) = 0.00, p < .001). Therefore, these indirect paths differ

significantly (Δχ21 = 89.12, p < .005). In examining these paths, the indirect effect of

34

interpersonal dependency for vulnerable narcissism (indirect effect = .114, 95% CI [.056-

.180]) was greater than for grandiose narcissism (indirect effect = .038, 95% CI [.013-

.078]). Furthermore, interpersonal dependency accounted for a greater proportion of the

mediation between overparenting and vulnerable narcissism (% mediated = indirect effect

/ total effect = .114/.256 = 44.5%) compared to overparenting and grandiose narcissism

(% mediated = .038/.229 = 16.6%).

Figure 4. Mediation of Young Adult Interpersonal Dependency between Overparenting
and Narcissistic Phenotypes.

op = Overparenting; idi = Young Adult Interpersonal Dependency; vn = Vulnerable Narcissism; gn = Grandiose Narcissism.

The next step in the present study was to assess both psychological control and

interpersonal dependency together as parallel mediators (Hypothesis 5; see Figure 6). In

this model, both the indirect effects of psychological control (β = .066, 95% CI [.030-

.112]) and interpersonal dependency (β = .097, 95% CI [.047-.154]) were significant, and

together these variables accounted for 59.9% of the total effect of overparenting on

pathological narcissism. Additionally, the direct effect of overparenting on narcissism

was no longer significant once these mediators were included in the model (β = .109, p =

.051), indicating that psychological control and interpersonal dependency fully mediated

35

the relationship between overparenting and narcissistic traits. Fit indices included a CFI

and TLI of 1.00, and an RSMEA of 0.00 (90% CI [.000-.127]), indicating an excellent fit.

Figure 5. Parallel Mediation of Parental Psychological Control and Young Adult
Interpersonal Dependency between Overparenting and Narcissistic Traits.

op = Overparenting; pcs = Parental Psychological Control; idi = Young Adult Interpersonal Dependency; pni = Pathological

Narcissism.

Finally, Hypothesis 6 aimed to examine differences in the parallel mediation of

psychological control and interpersonal dependency between overparenting and

vulnerable narcissism and between overparenting and grandiose narcissism (see Figure 7

in Appendix I). A chi-square difference test determined that the parallel mediation paths

between overparenting and grandiose narcissism and overparenting and vulnerable

narcissism differed significantly between constrained (χ² (1, 2) = 38.44, p < .001) and

unconstrained (χ² (1, 1) = 0.34, p < .001) versions of the model, which demonstrates that

these mediation paths differ significantly (Δχ21 = 38.10, p < .005). Fit indices for the

unconstrained version of the model also indicate an excellent fit (i.e., CFI = 1.00, TLI =

1.00, and RMSEA = 0.00 (90% CI [.000-.127])). While both parallel mediations

36

remained statistically significant, the mediation for vulnerable narcissism (% mediated =

.177/.257 = 68.9%) was found to be more robust than the mediation for both grandiose

narcissism (% mediated = .090/.229 = 39.3%). In fact, the mediation for vulnerable

narcissism was found to be a full mediation, as the direct effect of overparenting was no

longer significant (β = .080, p = .170), while a partial mediation was found for grandiose

narcissism (β = .139, p = .018). Moreover, each specific indirect effect of psychological

control on grandiose (β = .052, 95% CI [.014-.098], 22.7% mediated) and vulnerable

narcissism (β = .064, 95% CI [.028-.111], 24.9% mediated), as well as each specific

indirect effect of interpersonal dependency on grandiose (β = .037, 95% CI [.012-.076],

16.2% mediated) and vulnerable narcissism (β = .113, 95% CI [.056-.178], 44.0%

mediated) were found to be significant.

Figure 6. Parallel Mediation of Parental Psychological Control and Young Adult
Interpersonal Dependency between Overparenting and Narcissistic Phenotypes.

op = Overparenting; pcs = Parental Psychological Control; idi = Young Adult Interpersonal Dependency; vn = Vulnerable Narcissism;

gn = Grandiose Narcissism.

37

CHAPTER IV – DISCUSSION

The findings of the present study demonstrated that parental psychological control

and young adult interpersonal dependency both mediate the relationship between

overparenting and narcissistic traits among young adults. Additionally, these two

mediators accounted for a full parallel mediation when examined together, which offers

further support for psychological control and interpersonal dependency as key

mechanisms in the relationship between overparenting and narcissistic personality traits.

In addition to a parallel mediation, the present study also found differences in the

relationships between overparenting and vulnerable-, and overparenting and grandiose-

narcissistic phenotypes. Specifically, while overparenting predicted both grandiose and

vulnerable narcissism, this relationship appeared to be more robust for vulnerable

narcissism. Moreover, the mediating roles of both psychological control and interpersonal

dependency were more robust between overparenting and vulnerable narcissism (and

particularly for interpersonal dependency), as compared to the relationship between

overparenting and grandiose narcissism. In fact, when examining the parallel mediation

separately between vulnerable and grandiose narcissistic phenotypes, only the mediation

for vulnerable narcissism indicated a full mediation, while the mediation for grandiose

narcissism remained partial.

Findings from the present study are consistent with past research which has linked

overparenting to narcissistic traits (Segrin et al., 2012; Segrin, Woszildo et al., 2013),

although this is the first study to examine mediators of this relationship. While both

psychological control and interpersonal dependency have been linked to the development

of narcissistic traits (Givertz & Segrin, 2014; Horton et al., 2006; Sonnenberg, 2013),

38

results from the present study suggest that these variables also play a mediating role

between overparenting and narcissism. Thus, the present findings suggest overparenting,

and particularly aspects of overparenting associated with intrusive control and the

withholding of appropriate independence and autonomy (LeMoyne & Buchanan, 2011;

Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2012), lead to greater dependency among young adult children.

This characterization of the effects of overparenting on young adult children appears

consistent with critics of this parenting style, who have lamented an apparent increase in

dependent traits among millennials, including in the classroom and work settings

(Ludden, 2012; Tyler, 2007). In turn, the present findings suggest that the dependent

traits resulting from overparenting appear to be a key mechanism in the development of

narcissism. Given the conceptualization of narcissism as resulting from an unhealthy

need for external validation (i.e., dependency; Pincus, 2013), this interpretation appears

theoretically consistent. However, given the cross-sectional nature of the study,

speculation regarding causality should obviously remain tentative.

Additionally, results from the current study suggest that overparenting may be

more predictive of vulnerable narcissistic traits, as opposed to grandiose narcissistic

traits. While this study is the first to examine the differential predictive ability of

overparenting on separate narcissistic phenotypes, these results are nonetheless consistent

with historical conceptualizations of narcissism, which emphasize the manner in which

over-controlling and intrusive parenting behaviors may lead to young adult children

becoming overly dependent on the validation of others (Kohut, 1977). This pattern of

overdependence and insecurity is more consistent with vulnerable narcissism, compared

to grandiose narcissism (Miller et al., 2011; Dickinson & Pincus, 2003). Nonetheless,

39

overparenting appears to also be predictive of grandiose narcissistic traits (Horton &

Tritch, 2014), albeit to a lesser degree. Moreover, results indicate that both psychological

control and interpersonal dependency play a mediating role in the relationships between

overparenting and both narcissistic phenotypes. Therefore, these findings likely speak to

the related and overlapping nature of both grandiose and vulnerable narcissistic

phenotypes (Pincus, 2013; Ronningstam, 2009), as well as the complex manner in which

parenting may lead to the development of narcissistic traits (Horton et al., 2006).

Limitations

The present study includes a number of pertinent limitations. First, the sample

was limited to young adult college students (mostly freshmen and sophomores) residing

in the southeastern United States, which may not be generalizable to broader populations.

Additionally, the sample of the present study was predominantly female. Given that

significant gender differences were observed in examining dependent traits, this

limitation appears noteworthy. A majority of participants also identified their “primary

caregivers” as their mothers, which further limits the generalizability of the results to

other childrearing figures.

Another limitation of the study pertains to the cross-sectional, correlational nature

of the data. As previously noted, while causal relationships may be implied in a

mediation analysis, no conclusive statements regarding causality can be made. Relatedly,

the causal role of overparenting on personality characteristics appears somewhat unclear.

While overparenting is considered to be a unique type of parenting style seen in late

adolescence and young adulthood (Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2012), personality

characteristics (e.g., dependency, narcissistic traits) are generally considered to have their

40

origin earlier in childhood (Kohut, 1977). Therefore, parenting practices involving over-

control may be more pertinent earlier in childhood, rather than later. In this way,

overparenting may be conceptualized as a later manifestation of parental overcontrol,

which is assumed to have appeared earlier in childhood. However, this hypothesis should

clearly remain tentative.

Additionally, it should be noted that all study measures were self-report measures,

including participants’ reports of their parents’ parenting behaviors. Limitations

regarding the validity of the study are therefore relevant, given the indirect assessment of

parenting. It should also be noted that self-report measures which pertain to potentially

undesirable behaviors and traits (e.g., narcissism) may be somewhat underreported.

Finally, assumptions regarding the direction of the relationships between variables

is limited. While parenting practices plausibly predict outcomes in young adults, these

relationships may be bidirectional, in that particular parenting practices may develop in

response to certain personality traits among young adult children (Van den Akker,

Deković, Asscher, & Prinzie, 2014). This possibility cannot be ruled out given the cross-

sectional design of the present study.

Areas for Future Research

While psychological control and interpersonal dependency were found to fully

mediate the relationship between overparenting and narcissistic traits, additional

mediators should also be explored. More specifically, given potential links between

authoritarian parenting and narcissism (Cramer, 2015; Watson et al., 1992), parenting

practices which are shared by both overparenting and authoritarian parenting (e.g., over-

involvement, withholding of autonomy; Baumrind, 1971; Padilla-Walker & Nelson,

41

2012) should be examined as potential mediators between overparenting and narcissistic

traits. Additionally, moderators in the relationship between overparenting and narcissism

should also be explored. For example, sex may be a potential moderator in the

relationship of interpersonal dependency between overparenting and narcissistic traits.

Given the composition of the current sample as primarily female, this possibility could

not be explored within the present study. Race may also be explored as a potential

moderator, and it should be noted that research has yet to explore racial differences in

overparenting. Therefore, future studies should account for greater cultural variability in

examining overparenting as a predictor of narcissistic traits. Additionally, alternate

personality constructs which may also be associated with interpersonal dependency (e.g.,

borderline features) should be examined in relation to overparenting. Finally, future

research should include procedures which attempt to measure overparenting directly, and

the development of parental over-control across childhood development more broadly, in

order to provide greater evidence for a causal link between overparenting and the

development of narcissism.

Conclusion

The results of the present study suggest that an over-controlling and intrusive

parenting approach, particularly when combined with dependent traits among young

adults, appears to explain the manner in which “helicopter parenting” predicts narcissistic

traits, and particularly traits more commonly associated with vulnerable narcissism (e.g.,

insecurity, anxious-avoidant tendencies). These findings speak to the importance of

accounting for parenting when assessing the etiology of narcissistic traits among college

students, and interventions focused on parenting young adult children (e.g., orientations

42

upon transitioning to college) should look to incorporate the results of these findings. The

findings of the present study build on a growing body of research implicating

overparenting in the development of narcissistic traits, and future research should look to

confirm and expand on these findings.

43

APPENDIX A – IRB Approval Letter

44

APPENDIX B – Electronic Informed Consent

PURPOSE: The present study seeks to better understand the relationship between

parenting and personality functioning among college students.

DESCRIPTION OF STUDY: The present study will consist of completing several brief

questionnaires on the internet. Completion of the study should take approximately 20-30

minutes, and participants will receive .5 points of SONA credit. Questions will be asked

regarding your thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Quality assurance checks are being

used in this study to make sure that participants read each question before answering.

Participants who do not pass these quality assurance checks will not receive research

credit.

BENEFITS: Participants are not expected to directly benefit from this research.

However, the researchers hope this study will lead to a greater understanding of families,

race, and parenting.

RISKS: There are no foreseeable risks, beyond those already present in routine daily life,

involved in the present study. If a participant at any time feels distressed while answering

any of the study’s questions, they should contact the researcher immediately.

CONFIDENTIALITY: All data collected from the study will be stored in aggregate

form with no identifying information to ensure confidentiality. Data will be stored in a

secure location for six (6) years, after which time it will be destroyed.

PARTICIPANT’S ASSURANCE: This project has been reviewed by the Institutional

Review Board, which ensures that research projects involving human subjects follow

federal regulations. Any questions or concerns about rights as a research participant

should be directed to the Chair of the Institutional Review Board, The University of

45

Southern Mississippi, Box 5147, Hattiesburg, MS 39406, (601) 266-6820. Participation

in this project is completely voluntary, and participants may withdraw from this study at

any time without penalty, prejudice, or loss of benefits. Questions concerning the

research should be directed to the primary researcher Nathan Winner

(nathan.a.winner@usm.edu) or the research supervisor, Dr. Bonnie Nicholson

(bonnie.nicholson@usm.edu).

If you experience distress as a result of your participation in this study, please notify the

primary researcher Nathan Winner (nathan.a.winner@usm.edu) or the research

supervisor, Dr. Bonnie Nicholson (bonnie.nicholson@usm.edu). A list of available

agencies that may able to provide services for you are provided below:

Community Counseling and Assessment Clinic (601) 266-4601

Student Counseling Services (601) 266-4829

Pine Belt Mental Healthcare (601) 544-4641

Forrest General Psychology Service Incorporated (601) 268-31

59

Consent is hereby given to participate in this study

46

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• Overparenting and Young Adult Narcissism: Psychological Control and Interpersonal Dependency as Mediators

Recommended Citation

• citation

Schie et al. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation
(2020) 7:10
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40479-020-00125-7

RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access

Narcissistic traits in young people:

understanding the role of parenting and
maltreatment

Charlotte C. van Schie1, Heidi L. Jarman2, Elizabeth Huxley1 and Brin F. S. Grenyer1*

Abstract

Background

: Elevated narcissism in young people often sets up a cascade of interpersonal and mental health
challenges, reinforcing the need to understand its concomitants. Experiences of maltreatment and different
parenting styles have been implicated but findings to date are inconclusive. By simultaneously considering multiple
remembered parenting styles and maltreatment in a large sample, this study aims to elucidate possible prognostic
factors associated with both grandiose and vulnerable narcissistic traits in youth.

Methods

: Young people (N = 328, age range: 17–25 years) reported on the remembered interpersonal environment
and current grandiose and vulnerable narcissism traits. Structural equation modelling was used to examine
maternal and paternal parenting styles and examine the association between experiences of parenting and
grandiose and vulnerable narcissism.

Results

: Remembered overprotection from mothers and fathers was associated with both vulnerable and
grandiose narcissistic traits. Remembered maternal overvaluation related to current grandiosity, and maternal
leniency related to vulnerable narcissistic traits. For paternal parenting, the combination of overvaluation and
leniency and overvaluation and care explained grandiose and vulnerable traits. There was no direct effect of
remembered parental care or childhood maltreatment on current levels of narcissistic traits.

Conclusions

: Remembered childhood experiences of being overprotected, overvalued and experiencing leniency
in parental discipline, were associated with higher traits of pathological narcissism in young people. Care and
maltreatment were non-specific risk factors. Remembered childhood environments of being excessively pampered
are associated with grandiose and vulnerable narcissistic traits, characterised by the young person expressing
unrealistic self-views, entitlement beliefs and impaired autonomy. In treatment these traits may emerge in the
patient-therapist relationship and working through their developmental origins may contribute to outcomes.

Keywords: Narcissism, Young people, Care, Overvaluation, Leniency, Overprotection, Overparenting, Mother and
father parenting, Child maltreatment

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data made available in this article, unless othe

* Correspondence: grenyer@uow.edu.au
1Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute and the School of
Psychology, University of Wollongong, Northfields Avenue, Wollongong,
NSW 2522, Australia
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Schie et al. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation (2020) 7:10 Page 2 of 10

Background
Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) and pathological
narcissism are related to a high burden for both self and
others [1–3]. In young people, traits of narcissism can be
adaptive but when narcissism becomes pathological, it
can contribute to depression, anxiety, low self-worth,
suicide attempts and poor quality relationships [4–7].
Moreover, elevated narcissism during adolescence may
complicate identity development for which adolescence
is a formative period [8–11].
People with higher levels of pathological narcissism

may have positive self-views that are not substantiated
by social reality (grandiose self-view) and feelings of dis-
tress in not living up to this self-view (vulnerable self-
view) [12, 13]. At the core of pathological narcissism is
being unable to rely on the self and on others to main-
tain positive yet realistic self-esteem and self-views [10].
Despite the costs of maintaining these maladaptive self-
views, they are not easily modified to a more realistic
self-view [1, 14]. Factors associated with the develop-
ment of narcissism are of significant interest to clinicians
and researchers.
Various theories and studies implicate the role of early

childhood experiences in the development of narcissism,
however empirical findings are mixed. Moreover, as per-
sonality pathology can often already be observed in ado-
lescence and tends to persist into adulthood, it is
important to study pathological narcissism and potential
underlying mechanisms in young people [8, 15]. Empir-
ical examinations of narcissism and childhood experi-
ences have examined a range of parenting behaviours
including maltreatment, care, overprotection and over-
valuation, and leniency.
Cold and indifferent parenting may hamper the devel-

opment of an adaptive self-view [16]. It has been postu-
lated that a lack of mirroring through cold parenting
could contribute to the child’s failure to master a normal
developmental process whereby a grandiose self is re-
placed with a more realistic view of the self [17]. How-
ever, too much mirroring through being overly sensitive
to a child’s need (e.g. overparenting or pampering), is
thought to be problematic as well [17, 18]. Overparent-
ing and very lenient parenting limits the ability to learn
from experiences to correct a grandiose self and may
make people more reliant on others for feedback and
guidance (e.g. [18–21]).
Other theorists hold that a grandiose self is developed

through overvaluation by parents [22, 23]. Parental over-
valuation may foster overly positive self-views, which ul-
timately leads to feelings of inferiority when the person
interacts beyond the family system and finds the grandi-
ose self is not supported. Moreover, combinations of
parenting styles may also be associated with the develop-
ment of narcissism. Freud (1914/1957) proposed that

parental overvaluation, together with a lack of warmth
for the child’s needs, is associated with higher traits of
narcissism. Entitlement, a core aspect of both grandiose
and vulnerable narcissism, may be encouraged by a par-
enting style that is both overvaluing and lenient [18, 23,
24].
Interpretation of current literature is complicated by a

large number of mixed findings. For example, lack of
parental warmth has been associated with grandiose
[25–27] and vulnerable narcissism traits [25, 28]. How-
ever, others have revealed no association with grandiose
[28, 29] or vulnerable narcissism [27] or, some have
found higher levels of parental care with grandiose nar-
cissism [30]. In a study examining maternal and paternal
care across three cultural groups (China, Japan, and
USA), low maternal care was associated with grandiose
narcissism while paternal care was unrelated [31]. Gran-
diose narcissism appears to be associated with both gen-
eral and specific mother and father effects of
overvaluation [25, 29, 32]. Overparenting, overinvolve-
ment in the child’s life to protect the child from harm
and ensure certain achievements, has been related to a
greater sense of entitlement and narcissism in general
[33–35]. Lenient parenting has been found to relate to
entitlement [21]; the opposite behaviour – greater moni-
toring in the form of enforcing rules – may alternatively
be protective against grandiosity [30]. Conversely, an-
other study did not find a relation between over-
permissiveness and grandiose narcissism or entitlement
[36]. The differences in findings could stem from what
aspect of narcissism was measured (e.g. vulnerable/gran-
diose/total), cultural differences in expression [37], and
whether maternal and paternal parenting styles were dis-
tinguished. Moreover, results may differ depending on
whether childhood maltreatment was taken into ac-
count, which is a risk factor for NPD [38–40].
To summarize, overparenting, lack of warmth, leniency,

overvaluation and childhood maltreatment have all been
associated with higher levels of narcissism. However, these
parenting behaviours have often been examined in isola-
tion or in different combinations, with mixed findings.
The current study seeks to further the understanding of
grandiose and vulnerable narcissistic traits in young
people and their association with a spectrum of childhood
experiences of both parenting styles and maltreatment ex-
periences. From a clinical perspective, understanding these
relationships may aid in the provision of effective and
timely interventions [15].
This study has three key aims. First, this study aims to

build on previous research by examining remembered
parenting practices and childhood maltreatment to-
gether to represent the kind of parenting environment
the person experienced. Second, this study aims to ex-
tend previous research by examining parenting styles,

Schie et al. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation (2020) 7:10 Page 3 of 10

their interactions, and their association with grandiose
and vulnerable narcissistic traits. Although described in
theory, the interactions between lack of warmth and
overvaluation, or between leniency and overvaluation
has, to the best of our knowledge, not been tested. Fi-
nally, the study aims to examine the role of parenting by
mother and father figures, as some theorists have
highlighted the role of the mother figure but research
also indicates a role for the father figure in the develop-
ment of narcissism [27, 29].

Methods
Participants and procedure
Participants (N = 328, 77% women) in this study were
young people aged 17–25 (M = 19.28 years, SD = 1.63),
see Table 1. A snowball method of recruitment was
used, where notices for the study were provided to
young people who had finished high school where those
participating were further encouraged to let others know
about the study. We used the definition of young people
as up to the age 25 to define our sample [41]. Most par-
ticipants were born in Australia (N = 291, 89%) and
came from a family where parents were not divorced,
separated or widowed (N = 266, 81%), see Table 1. Par-
ticipants reported a broad range of trait self-esteem as
measured by the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (RSES;
M = 30.46, SD = 5.8, Range = 10–40) [42]. Some

Table 1 Demographics of the sample (N = 328)

Demographic N (%)/M (SD)

Gender

Female 252 (76.8%)

Male 76 (23.2%)

Age M = 19.28 (SD = 1.63)

Education

Completed high school 318 (97%)

Completed Vocational college or training 10 (3%)

Marital status participant

Never married 306 (93.3%)

Married 3 (0.9%)

Widowed 1 (0.3%)

Divorced or separated 18 (5.5%)

Living together 0 (0%)

Family situation parents

Separated 8 (2.4%)

Divorced 46 (14%)

Widowed 8 (2.4%)

Not separated, divorced or widowed 266 (81.1%)

Lifetime diagnosis 35 (10.7%)

Trait self-esteem M = 30.46 (SD = 5.8)

participants reported having been diagnosed in their life
with a mental health condition (N = 35, 11%) with de-
pression and anxiety as the most commonly reported
diagnoses.
The study received ethical approval from the Institu-

tional Review Board (HE10/370). Participants provided
informed consent prior to participating. Participants
completed an online assessment module via a secure
website. One participant was excluded from analyses
due to insincere responding. Some participants indicated
not having a mother Fig. (N = 3), father Fig. (N = 17) or
both (N = 1) and their responses could not be analysed,
resulting in the sample described above (N = 328). Par-
ticipants without mother and/or father Fig. (N = 21) did
not differ from the rest of the sample in age, gender,
education, and grandiose and vulnerable narcissism.

Measures
Pathological narcissism inventory
Grandiose and vulnerable narcissism were measured
using the Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI;13).
The PNI contains 52-items that are rated on a 6-point
Likert scale ranging from not at all like me (0) to very
much like me [5]. Psychometric qualities of this instru-
ment have been established [13, 43]. In this study, gran-
diose narcissism (GN: α = 0.87), is indicated by 18 items
of the three subscales grandiose fantasy, exploitativeness
and self-sacrificing self-enhancement [43]. Vulnerable
narcissism (VN: α = 0.94) is indicated by 34 items of the
four subscales contingent self-esteem, hiding the self, de-
valuing and entitlement rage [43].

Parental bonding instrument
Maternal and paternal parenting styles were measured
using the 25-item Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI
[44];), which is a widely used and extensively validated
retrospective self-report measure of the bond between
parent and child during the first 16 years of life [45].
Items are rated separately for the mother and father fig-
ure on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from very unlike
(0) to very like [3] which form three subscales: care,
overprotection and authoritarianism [46–48]. The 12-
item Care scale is defined by emotional warmth, accept-
ance and empathy at one end and emotional coldness
and rejection at the other (Maternal Care: α = 0.94, Pa-
ternal Care: α = 0.94). The 6-item Overprotection scale
measures intrusiveness and risk aversion (Maternal
Overprotection: α = 0.82, Paternal Overprotection: α =
0.80). Finally, the 7-item authoritarianism scale measures
how much freedom was given by the parent (Maternal
Authoritarianism: α = 0.81, Paternal Authoritarianism:
α = 0.82). Higher scores on the authoritarianism subscale
indicated more parental freedom, we therefore refer to
this subscale as leniency. All three subscales showed

Schie et al. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation (2020) 7:10 Page 4 of 10

good internal consistency for the mother and father
figure.

Parental overvaluation
Parental overvaluation was measured by four-items used
in previous studies [25, 32]. These items assessed recol-
lections of parental overvaluation as a child that were
rated on a 7-point Likert scale from strongly disagree [1]
to strongly agree [7]. These items were administered
separately for the mother and father figure. The scale
demonstrated acceptable internal consistency (Maternal
overvaluation: α = 0.68, Paternal overvaluation: α = 0.72).

Childhood trauma questionnaire
Experiences of maltreatment including abuse and neg-
lect were measured using the 25-item Childhood
Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ [49];). Items were rated on
a 5-point Likert scale ranging from never true [1] to very
often true [5]. Five subscales are comprised of five items
each measuring Emotional Abuse (EA: α = 0.85), Emo-
tional Neglect (EN: α = 0.91), Physical Abuse (PA: α =
0.84), Physical Neglect (PN: α = 0.59), and Sexual Abuse
(SA: α = 0.98).

Statistical analyses
Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to simul-
taneously estimate the effect of both maternal and pater-
nal parenting styles on grandiose and vulnerable
narcissism while accounting for childhood maltreatment.
First, data were checked for non-normality and multicol-
linearity, see Table 2, Fig. 1 and Supplemental Informa-
tion. Next, a measurement model of narcissism was

Table 2 Means and distribution of dependent and independent
observed variables. M = mother figure, F = father Fig. (N = 328)

Variable M (SD) Skewness Kurtosis

PNI: Grandiose Narcissism 2.79 (SD = 0.74) −0.08 −0.29

PNI: Vulnerable Narcissism 2.22 (SD = 0.81) − 0.06 −0.38

PBI: Care-M 2.42 (SD = 0.63) −1.41 1.43

PBI: Care-F 2.12 (SD = 0.71) −0.81 −0.10

PBI: Overprotection-M 0.98 (SD = 0.67) 0.58 −0.32

PBI: Overprotection-F 0.75 (SD = 0.61) 0.80 0.09

PBI: Leniency-M 1.91 (SD = 0.59) −0.75 0.54

PBI: Leniency-F 1.96 (SD = 0.59) −0.64 0.55

Overvaluation-M 4.08 (SD = 1.18) 0.00 −0.18

Overvaluation-F 3.94 (SD = 1.26) 0.00 −0.20

CTQ: Emotional neglect 8.39 (SD = 4.09) 1.33 1.02

CTQ: Emotional abuse 8.21 (SD = 3.83) 1.80 3.35

CTQ: Physical neglect 6.13 (SD = 1.97) 2.50 8.04

CTQ: Physical abuse 6.32 (SD = 2.74) 3.18 11.93

CTQ: Sexual abuse 5.27 (SD = 2.04) 8.71 78.65

tested in which grandiose and vulnerable narcissism were
defined as correlated latent traits indicated by the items of
their respective subscales according to the model of
Wright, Lukowitsky [43]. Finally, the full structural model
of maternal and paternal parenting styles and childhood
maltreatment relating to grandiose and vulnerable narcis-
sism was tested, see Supplementary Fig. 1. All maternal
and paternal parenting styles were allowed to covary.
To ensure sufficient power to estimate all the parame-

ters we used item parcellation for the measurement
model of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Item par-
cellation is a commonly used technique and has been
shown to reduce measurement error thereby increasing
power, while providing a good estimate of the latent
traits [50]. The items of the grandiose subscales (GF,
SSSE and EXP) were divided in three parcels with six
items each. Items were divided based on the item-total
correlation, whereby higher and lower item-total correla-
tions were evenly distributed over the three parcels. The
item scores were averaged per parcel and parcels were
used as indicators for grandiose narcissism. The same
procedure was applied to the vulnerable subscales (CSE,
HS, DEV and ER) whose items were divided into three
parcels with 12, 11 and 11 items respectively.
In addition, we were interested in whether the differ-

ence between reported maternal and paternal parenting
styles was predictive of grandiose and vulnerable narcis-
sism. To this end, we used an intercept/slope model
whereby we calculated the mean of both maternal and
paternal parenting for each of the four parenting styles
(warmth, overprotection, leniency and overvaluation)
(intercept). We then subtracted the mean parenting style
from the maternal parenting style (slope). This model
tests whether the differences between maternal and pa-
ternal parenting style (slope) predict narcissism on top
of how much this parenting style is present overall
(intercept).
Analyses were performed with R (version 3.6.0) in RStu-

dio (version 1.1.447). The Lavaan package (version 0.6–3)
was used to perform SEM with MLR estimator, i.e. max-
imum likelihood estimation with robust (Huber-White)
standard errors [51]. Acknowledging that cut-offs may
vary depending on model complexity and sample size, a
good fit for the models was evaluated using the robust
CFI (> .90), scaled NFI (>.90) and scaled RMSEA (<.10) [52–54]. The chi-square is reported though may be less informative with this large sample size.

Results
Measurement model of PNI with parcels
The measurement model of narcissism showed a good
fit to the data according to the CFI and NFI (CFI =
0.983, NFI = 0.979, RMSEA = 0.111 (CI: 0.078–0.146),
scaled χ2 (8) = 40.1, p < .001). The large RMSEA may be

Fig. 1 Bivariate correlations between predictor variables. Legend Fig. 1: Abbreviations: PBI = parental bonding instrument, CTQ = childhood
trauma questionnaire, M = Mother figure, F = Father figure, OPRO = Overprotection, LENI = leniency, OVAL = overvaluation, CEA = childhood
emotional abuse, CEN = childhood emotional neglect, CPA = childhood physical abuse, CPN = childhood physical neglect, CSA = childhood
sexual abuse

Schie et al. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation (2020) 7:10 Page 5 of 10

due to the relatively small degrees of freedom and
remaining residuals between some vulnerable item par-
cels and grandiose narcissism [55]. However, the CFI
and NFI support this model that is in line with theory.
All parcels were significantly and relatively equal indica-
tors of the latent constructs grandiose and vulnerable
narcissism. There was strong positive correlation be-
tween grandiose and vulnerable narcissism (r = 0.68). For
all model parameters, see Supplementary Table 1.

Parenting styles and narcissism
The full structural model showed a good fit to the data
(CFI = 0.915, NFI = 0.877, RMSEA = 0.085 (CI: 0.077–
0.093), χ2 (145) = 488.32, p < .001). Maternal and paternal parenting styles showed different patterns of association with grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, see Fig. 2 and for all model parameters Supplementary Table 2. Grandi- ose narcissism was positively associated with both mater- nal (b = 0.20, SE = 0.07, p = .007) and paternal (b = 0.22, SE = 0.08, p = .008) overprotection. Maternal overvaluation (b = 0.17, SE = 0.05, p = .001) related to higher grandiose narcissism, whereas paternal overvaluation related to grandiose narcissism only in the interaction with paternal care (b = − 0.10, SE = 0.05, p = .034) and paternal leniency (b = 0.15, SE = 0.05, p = .004). The latter interaction

indicated that more overvaluation together with very leni-
ent parenting is associated with higher grandiose narcis-
sism, see Fig. 3. The former interaction indicated that
paternal overvaluation together with a lower paternal care
was associated with higher grandiose narcissism. Finally,
neither care nor childhood maltreatment were associated
with grandiose narcissism.
Vulnerable narcissism was positively associated with both

maternal (b = 0.27, SE = 0.08, p < .001) and paternal (b = 0.37, SE = 0.09, p < .001) overprotection. In addition, mater- nal leniency (b = 0.25, SE = 0.10, p = .011) and maternal overvaluation (b = 0.10, SE = 0.05, p = .048) were positively associated with vulnerable narcissism. The interaction be- tween paternal care and overvaluation (b = − 0.14, SE = 0.05, p = 0.007) significantly predicted vulnerable narcis- sism, see Fig. 3. This interaction indicates that remembered paternal care influences the association between overvalu- ation and grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Finally, ma- ternal care (b = − 0.24, SE = 0.11, p = 0.030) and childhood maltreatment (b = 0.04, SE = 0.02, p = 0.028) were signifi- cantly related to vulnerable narcissism.

Differences between maternal and paternal parenting
To examine whether the difference between maternal
and paternal parenting style was associated with

Fig. 2 Interaction model of parenting styles and childhood maltreatment as predictors of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Legend Fig. 2: Model
indicating significant paths only with standardized parameter estimates of regressions. Grandiose and vulnerable narcissism are indicated by three
parcels each. Items are divided in parcels as follows; GN-parcel 1: 22, 23, 26, 35, 43, 45; GN-parcel 2: 1, 6, 10, 25, 42, 49; GN-parcel 3: 4, 14, 15, 31, 33, 39;
VN-parcel 1: 2, 5, 11, 13, 16, 21, 27, 29, 36, 46, 47, 51; VN-parcel 2: 3, 7, 9, 12, 18, 19, 28, 30, 34, 37, 52; VN-parcel 3: 8, 17, 20, 24, 32, 38, 40, 41, 44, 48, 50

Fig. 3 Interaction between paternal leniency and overvaluation and paternal care and overvaluation on grandiose and vulnerable narcissism

Schie et al. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation (2020) 7:10 Page 6 of 10

Schie et al. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation (2020) 7:10 Page 7 of 10

grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, an intercept-slope
model was tested combining the average parenting style
(intercept) with the distance between the maternal and
average score (slope). This model demonstrated a good
fit (CFI = 0.935, NFI = 0.900, RMSEA = 0.072 (CI: 0.063–
0.081), χ2 (128) = 345.51, p < .001). The difference be- tween maternal and paternal overvaluation (b = 0.18, SE = 0.09, p = .047) was related to grandiose narcissism, with higher scores for the mother figure compared to the father figure relating to higher grandiose narcissism. No other differences between maternal and paternal par- enting were related to narcissism, see Supplementary Table 3 for all parameter estimates.

Discussion

In this study, we simultaneously investigated how mater-
nal and paternal parenting and maltreatment experi-
ences relate to grandiose and vulnerable narcissism in
young people.

Overprotection as the common denominator
Maternal and paternal parenting styles demonstrated dif-
ferent patterns of association with grandiose and vulner-
able narcissism. However, one striking commonality was
the association between maternal and paternal overpro-
tection and grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Al-
though overprotection as measured by the PBI has not
been studied in relation to pathological narcissism, simi-
lar concepts such as overparenting and ‘helicopter par-
enting’ where parents are overinvolved in a child’s life,
have been linked to a greater sense of entitlement and
pathological narcissism in general [33–35]. This study
indicated that even when taking memories of other par-
enting styles such as care and overvaluation into ac-
count, overprotection by either mother or father is
associated with elevated narcissism. Overprotection may
limit the ability to learn from one’s own experiences and
make people less autonomous, i.e. more reliant on
others for feedback and guidance (e.g. 18, 19, 20). In-
deed, overparenting is related to lower self-efficacy and
coping skills, particularly in young people [34, 35, 56,
57]. Moreover, vulnerable narcissism is related to more
negative self-beliefs regarding autonomy [58]. In sum,
overprotective parenting may limit the learning experi-
ences for children and young adults, which may foster
entitlement and negative self-beliefs about impaired au-
tonomy, which in turn may make individuals more
prone to develop elevated narcissistic traits.

Overvaluation and grandiose narcissism
Remembered parental overvaluation was strongly associ-
ated with grandiose narcissism. The association between
overvaluation and narcissism is highlighted by psycho-
dynamic and social-learning theories [22, 23, 59].

Overvaluation has been proposed to directly stimulate
unrealistic positive self-views [22, 23]. Freud explained
this as parents who ascribe every perfection to their
child even when sober observation would find no occa-
sion to do so (59, pp. 90–91). Research has indicated
that children, who are praised regardless of achievement
or effort, become more afraid of failing and use avoid-
ance and cheating tactics to maintain a positive self-view
[60–62]. This hypervigilance to threats to the self and
defensive reactions have also been observed in narcis-
sism [63–67].
Our findings support the idea that a grandiose self

may be explicitly fostered by parental figures through
unconditional praise, and therefore a lack of care may
not be sufficient to explain grandiose self-views [16, 17].
Another study also found that overvaluation as opposed
to warmth predicted narcissism [29]. However, it should
be noted that we found that paternal care was a protect-
ive factor for paternal overvaluation in the relation to
grandiose as well as vulnerable narcissism. Greater pa-
ternal care may indicate that in addition to overvaluation
there is attention to the child’s needs. Invalidating a
child’s needs has been related to higher grandiose and
vulnerable narcissism [27, 68]. It may thus be the com-
bination of paternal overvaluation with lack of care for
the child’s needs, that is important in the development
of elevated narcissism [59].

Leniency and vulnerable narcissism
Remembered maternal leniency was associated only with
vulnerable narcissism. Similar to overparenting, lenient
parenting is thought to limit the ability to learn from
own experiences albeit through too much freedom as
opposed to restrictions in exploration [18, 20, 21, 69].
Lack of limit setting may have consequences for devel-
oping a sense of reality and self-discipline [69] which
may be expressed as entitlement rage relevant to vulner-
able narcissism [14, 43, 69]. Specifically, a sense of en-
titlement, which is relevant to both grandiose and
vulnerable narcissism, may be fostered by the combin-
ation of overvaluing and lenient parenting, i.e. parents
who praise a child and do not set many boundaries [18,
21, 23, 24, 58]. Interestingly, our findings indicate that
paternal leniency and overvaluation were associated with
grandiose narcissism.

Differences in maternal and paternal parenting
Overall, the findings suggest that remembered maternal
parenting has a stronger association with narcissism
whereas for paternal parenting the combination of par-
enting styles was relevant. Other studies have also found
differences in maternal and paternal parenting with a
stronger association for maternal parenting [21, 27]. Sev-
eral factors should be considered in explaining this

Schie et al. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation (2020) 7:10 Page 8 of 10

finding. First, the mother figure may often be the pri-
mary caregiver and as such, more direct effects are ob-
served for maternal parenting and more indirect effects
of paternal parenting [70]. However, it may also differ
per parenting style as overprotection had a direct effect
for both the mother and father figure whereas overvalu-
ation and leniency had differential effects. Second, there
could be different expectations, norms and needs regard-
ing the parenting role of the mother and father fig [71,
72]. Whereas maternal and paternal parenting are con-
ceptually the same, studies suggest that mothers are
often more involved in all parenting domains than fa-
thers [70, 71, 73]. With the exception of overprotection,
it may be the case that maternal parenting is more
strongly associated with narcissism, so that paternal par-
enting is only associated with narcissism under certain
circumstances (e.g. when overvaluation is accompanied
by low care or high leniency).

Parental care and childhood maltreatment
We found that remembered maternal care or childhood
maltreatment related to the presence of traits of vulner-
able but not grandiose narcissism. Findings for parental
care and childhood maltreatment in relation to narcis-
sism have been mixed in previous studies (see e.g. [25,
27, 29, 74–76]). The role of care and childhood maltreat-
ment may therefore be more nuanced. In this study,
other parenting behaviours seem more strongly related
to narcissism than care or childhood maltreatment.
However, the interaction effects with paternal care may
indicate that care is a protective factor in grandiose and
vulnerable narcissism. Note however that findings sug-
gest that although child maltreatment has been found to
be a risk factor in the development of narcissistic per-
sonality disorder (NPD), it is also a risk factor for other
(personality) disorders [38–40]. It could be thought that
care and childhood maltreatment are probably protective
and risk factors respectively but not necessarily specific
contributors to the development of narcissism.

Implications and future research
Remembered parental overprotection, overvaluation, le-
niency and to a lesser extent, care played an important
role in explaining the presence of traits of grandiose and
vulnerable narcissism. Through overvaluation, self-views
may become overly positive and not grounded in reality.
Through overprotection or leniency, these self-views
may not be corrected as there are less opportunities to
learn from own experiences (overprotection) or learn
realistic restrictions (leniency). Under these conditions,
the opportunity to learn a more adaptive self-view is fur-
ther inhibited [77]. Moreover, maladaptive self-views
may negatively impact interactions with others, such as
becoming defensively aggressive [7, 66, 67, 78]. Our

findings regarding overvaluation and narcissism suggest
that praise is proportionate to achievement or effort to
encourage adaptive self-views [79]. With respect to over-
protection and leniency, children need safe opportunities
to explore i.e. being given the freedom to explore within
a set of boundaries as to foster a sense of autonomy and
self-discipline. Future research should further investigate
the exact mechanisms by which certain (combinations
of) parenting styles lead to the development of specific
characteristics (e.g., autonomy, self-discipline, adaptive
self-views) that may be related to elevated narcissism,
preferably using longitudinal designs.

Strengths and limitations
Parenting behaviours have traditionally been examined
in isolation. We simultaneously examined maternal and
paternal parenting styles and maltreatment and their re-
lation to narcissism. Moreover, by distinguishing be-
tween grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, we were able
to examine more specific relations between parenting
styles and different aspects of narcissism.
The current study also has a number of limitations.

The use of retrospective self-report measures of parent-
ing practices is limited by shared method variances and,
as this is a cross-sectional study, no causality can be in-
ferred. The association between narcissism and parent-
ing may also be influenced by participant’s current self-
perception. In particular, the social cognitive effects of
narcissism, which influence memory recall, perception
and attentional biases, may influence individual’s recall
of their childhood experiences. Future studies should
aim to examine parenting styles and narcissism using
longitudinal study designs, and other-report assessment
of parenting styles. Moreover, we could not compare
narcissism to different classes of psychopathology and
findings may therefore be indicative of psychopathology
in general. Finally, as our sample was predominantly fe-
male, we could not perform analyses on gender differ-
ences in the sample. With larger male samples this may
be further explored.

Conclusions
Considering multiple parenting styles and maltreat-
ment, remembered parental overprotection, overvalu-
ation and leniency appeared to be associated with
higher narcissistic traits in young people. In addition
to overprotection, parental overvaluation was associ-
ated with greater grandiose narcissism, and parental
leniency with more vulnerable narcissism. These find-
ings were strongest in relation to maternal parenting.
Lack of paternal care and child maltreatment were
non-specific risk factors for elevated narcissism. The
environment a child grows up in, may be associated
with the development of unrealistic self-views,

Schie et al. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation (2020) 7:10 Page 9 of 10

entitlement and impaired autonomy observed in nar-
cissism. These findings also have implications for
treatment, not only in understanding putative devel-
opmental factors, but also the possible patient-
therapist relationship challenges in the therapy
process stemming from these narcissistic beliefs [80].

Supplementary information

Supplementary information accompanies this paper at https://doi.org/10.
1186/s40479-020-00125-7.

Additional file 1. Supplemental information

Acknowledgements

Not applicable.

Authors’ contributions

CvS analysed and interpreted the data and drafted the manuscript. HJ
designed the study and collected the data. EH analysed and interpreted the
data and contributed to writing the manuscript. BG designed the study and
supervised the writing of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the
final manuscript.

Funding

Project Air Strategy acknowledges the support of the NSW Ministry of Health
(grant number DOH09–33). The funding body had no role in the study
design, collection, data analysis and interpretation, or preparation of the
manuscript.

Availability of data and materials

The dataset analysed during the current study does not have clearance to
be made publicly available but is available from the corresponding author
on reasonable request. Moreover, covariance matrices and the analysis script
used are provided on open science framework (https://osf.io/c3gv9/).

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study received ethical approval from the Institutional Review Board
(HE10/370) of the University of Wollongong. Participants provided informed
consent prior to participating.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Author details

1Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute and the School of
Psychology, University of Wollongong, Northfields Avenue, Wollongong,
NSW 2522, Australia. 2Birchtree Centre of Excellence, 58 Parramatta Road,
Forest Lodge, NSW 2037, Australia.

Received: 2 February 2020 Accepted: 17 April 2020

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Publisher’s Note

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published maps and institutional affiliations.

Abstract
Background
Methods
Results
Conclusions
Background
Methods
Participants and procedure
Measures
Pathological narcissism inventory
Parental bonding instrument
Parental overvaluation
Childhood trauma questionnaire
Statistical analyses

Results
Measurement model of PNI with parcels
Parenting styles and narcissism
Differences between maternal and paternal parenting
Discussion
Overprotection as the common denominator
Overvaluation and grandiose narcissism
Leniency and vulnerable narcissism
Differences in maternal and paternal parenting
Parental care and childhood maltreatment
Implications and future research
Strengths and limitations
Conclusions
Supplementary information
Acknowledgements
Authors’ contributions
Funding
Availability of data and materials
Ethics approval and consent to participate
Consent for publication
Competing interests
Author details
References
Publisher’s Note

N

a

me

Maryam Bajawa

_

Samplin

g

and Data Collecti

o

n

Plan

Re

s

earch Question

(s)

:

1)

What is

the

likelihood

of

severe

psychological

effects

on

Arab

a

dult

children

of

perceived

narcissistic

parent

s

?

2)

What is the

prevalence

of perceived narcissistic

parents

in

the Arab American population

?

Population:

What are your inclusion/exclusion

criteria

?

Why?

The

inclusion of the study would be that the samples

mu

st be

Arab

–

America and

mu

st hav

e a

parent with

perceived

narcissism.

The samples should be between 18

–

50 years of age.

The samples should not be any o

ther

age outside of that range and should not be of any o

ther

race.

The

se factors should include

the criteria

above for the

accurate

answering of the research question

Sampling Strategy

:

⃝

Probability OR

⃝

Non

–

probability

(still

co

n

fused in this area

I

think)

Specifics: (

ex.

Random, stratified, co

nv

enience

, snowball

): _

convenience

_______

Describe your data collection m

ethods

for your proposed study

:

How will you gain access to your sample?

I think the most beneficial way of conduct

ing a study of this nature,

I will

post a

n

anonymous

survey on my social media

in

hopes of recruitin

g

people from my community.

How will you recruit them to participate?

First,

I

will ensure

anonymity

to both the

adult child partici

pant and

information

gathered from

them.

I will recruit based on the information gathered from the survey and place in

centives in

the

case that

more participants wi

ll join the study.

What will they be asked to do? (fill out a survey, take part in an interview, be part of an intervention study and fill out questionnaires pre/post, take part in a lab experiment)

Each participant will take two surveys which include a NPI test.

First survey will be an NPI test that the adult child would take on behalf of their parent to gain perceived narcissism status.

Once I gather all participants of parents with perceived narcissism, they will be asked to take part in an interview.

The interview will include a series of surveys, including the NPI test – to gather information based on their psychological state.

Name

Maryam Bajawa
_

Sampling and Data Collection Plan

Research Question
(s)
:

1)

What is the
likelihood

of

severe

psychological

effects

on
Arab

a
dult
children
of

perceived

narcissistic parent
s
?

2)

What is the
prevalence

of
perceived

narcissistic

parents in the Arab American population
?

Population:

What are your inclusion/exclusion criteria? Why?

The inclusion of the study would be that the samples must be
Arab
–
America and

mu
st hav
e a
parent with
perceived

narcissism.

The samples should be between 18
–
50 years of age.

The samples should not be any other age outside of that range and should not be of any o
ther
race.

The
se factors should include
the
criteria

above for the
accurate

answering of the research question

Sampling Strategy:

?

Probability OR

?

Non
–
probability

(still con
fused in this area
I

think)

Specifics: (
ex.
Random, stratified, convenience, snowball
): _
co
nv
enience

_______

Describe your data collection m
ethods

for your proposed study
:

How will you gain access to your sample?

I think the most beneficial way of conduct
ing a study of this nature,
I will
post a
n
anonymous

survey on my social media
in
hopes of recruitin
g
people from my community.

How will you recruit them to participate?

First,

I

will ensure
anonymity

to both the

adult child partici
pant and
information

gathered from
them.

I will recruit based on the information gathered from the survey and place in
centives in
the
case that
more participants wi
ll join the study.

Name Maryam Bajawa_

Sampling and Data Collection Plan

Research Question(s):

1) What is the likelihood of severe psychological effects on Arab adult children of perceived

narcissistic parents?

2) What is the prevalence of perceived narcissistic parents in the Arab American population?

Population:

What are your inclusion/exclusion criteria? Why?

The inclusion of the study would be that the samples must be Arab-America and must have a

parent with perceived narcissism.

The samples should be between 18-50 years of age.

The samples should not be any other age outside of that range and should not be of any other

race.

These factors should include the criteria above for the accurate

answering of the research question

Sampling Strategy: ? Probability OR ? Non-probability (still confused in this area I think)

Specifics: (ex. Random, stratified, convenience, snowball): _convenience _______

Describe your data collection methods for your proposed study:

How will you gain access to your sample?

I think the most beneficial way of conducting a study of this nature, I will post an anonymous

survey on my social media in hopes of recruiting people from my community.

How will you recruit them to participate?

First, I will ensure anonymity to both the adult child participant and information gathered from

them.

I will recruit based on the information gathered from the survey and place incentives in the

case that more participants will join the study.