The children of narcissus: Insights into narcissists' parenting styles
The children of narcissus: Insights into narcissists' parenting styles
Individuals scoring high on trait narcissism are characterised by grandiosity, self-centredness, and lack of empathy, resulting in troubled interpersonal relationships (e.g., with acquaintances and relationship partners). Do these troubled relationships extend to their own children? In this online study of 368 parents, we examined whether grandiose narcissists are less likely to adopt optimal parenting styles (authoritative) and more likely to adopt non-optimal parenting styles (authoritarian and permissive) and began to explore underlying mechanisms in terms of low empathy and unresponsive-caregiving. Narcissism was negatively associated with optimal parenting, and positively associated with non-optimal parenting, controlling for Big Five personality and attachment dimensions. Sequential mediation revealed that narcissists’ low empathy predicts unresponsive-caregiving towards their child(ren), which in turn predicts low optimal and high non-optimal parenting practices. These effects are driven by narcissists’ maladaptive traits. Exploring links between parental personality and parenting allows researchers to identify individuals at risk of poor parenting. Understanding the mechanisms that explain this relationship will assist in the development of effective interventions.
Narcissism, Empathy, Caregiving, Parenting
249-254
Hart, Claire M.
e3db9c72-f493-439c-a358-b3b482d55103
Bush-Evans, Reece D.
5a710e5b-87b1-4518-9a2d-d286f5324b5c
Hepper, Erica G.
fe969931-cea2-4781-a474-d41a89b213ae
Hickman, Hannah M.
e59ade28-0e79-48df-838c-b45a13ae4cc8
15 October 2017
Hart, Claire M.
e3db9c72-f493-439c-a358-b3b482d55103
Bush-Evans, Reece D.
5a710e5b-87b1-4518-9a2d-d286f5324b5c
Hepper, Erica G.
fe969931-cea2-4781-a474-d41a89b213ae
Hickman, Hannah M.
e59ade28-0e79-48df-838c-b45a13ae4cc8
Hart, Claire M., Bush-Evans, Reece D., Hepper, Erica G. and Hickman, Hannah M.
(2017)
The children of narcissus: Insights into narcissists' parenting styles.
Personality and Individual Differences, 117, .
(doi:10.1016/j.paid.2017.06.019).
Abstract
Individuals scoring high on trait narcissism are characterised by grandiosity, self-centredness, and lack of empathy, resulting in troubled interpersonal relationships (e.g., with acquaintances and relationship partners). Do these troubled relationships extend to their own children? In this online study of 368 parents, we examined whether grandiose narcissists are less likely to adopt optimal parenting styles (authoritative) and more likely to adopt non-optimal parenting styles (authoritarian and permissive) and began to explore underlying mechanisms in terms of low empathy and unresponsive-caregiving. Narcissism was negatively associated with optimal parenting, and positively associated with non-optimal parenting, controlling for Big Five personality and attachment dimensions. Sequential mediation revealed that narcissists’ low empathy predicts unresponsive-caregiving towards their child(ren), which in turn predicts low optimal and high non-optimal parenting practices. These effects are driven by narcissists’ maladaptive traits. Exploring links between parental personality and parenting allows researchers to identify individuals at risk of poor parenting. Understanding the mechanisms that explain this relationship will assist in the development of effective interventions.
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Parenting_accepted
- Accepted Manuscript
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Accepted/In Press date: 14 June 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 19 June 2017
Published date: 15 October 2017
Keywords:
Narcissism, Empathy, Caregiving, Parenting
Organisations:
Human Wellbeing, Psychology
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 411623
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/411623
ISSN: 0191-8869
PURE UUID: 209a4ebe-d9e1-4203-b0d3-b499e9b0bd9f
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Date deposited: 21 Jun 2017 16:31
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 05:27
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Contributors
Author:
Reece D. Bush-Evans
Author:
Hannah M. Hickman
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