Raising little narcissists

A study purports to show how certain parenting styles can turn children into narcissists.  But it distinguishes between narcissism, which is bad, and “self-esteem,” which is good.

From The Parenting Style That Turns Kids Into Narcissists – Bloomberg Business:

Researchers at the University of Amsterdam took a more methodical approach to determine what kind of parenting yields narcissistic kids—those who “feel superior to others, fantasize about personal success, and believe they deserve special treatment.” The team studied 565 kids and 705 parents over two years and tested two hypotheses for what makes kids narcissists: parental worship or a lack of parental warmth.

The results: Worshippers by a landslide.

Parents who “overvalue” their kids by teaching them that they’re unique and extraordinary—which they all are, of course—encourage those kids to have an inflated view of themselves and a less charitable view of others. The kids grow up to expect the world will treat them the way their parents do. Which it inevitably doesn’t. . . .

In an earlier study, “My Child Is God’s Gift to Humanity …,” the same research team used a questionnaire and scale to measure the distance between how much parents value their children and how the children objectively perform. They concluded, not surprisingly, that “overvalued children are not more intelligent than other children.” They used the same questionnaire and scale in this new PNAS study. Parents are asked to rate statements, such as “My child is more special than other children,” and kids evaluate such lines as “I like to think about how incredibly nice I am.” . .. .

The researchers also point to what may be the best parenting strategy for well-adjusted, non-narcissistic kids: a combination of “parental warmth” and realism about children’s abilities. Self-esteem, they write, may be the foil to narcissism, as it comes from being accepted by others and highly regarded, rather than imposing a vision of oneself on the world. “High self-esteem, unlike narcissism, predicts lower levels of anxiety and depression over time,” they write.

Here is the original study.