COLUMBUS, Ohio – If our children grow up to think they’re better than everybody else – and are obnoxious as a result – the fault lies, not in our stars, dear parents, but in ourselves, according to research by an OSU communications and psychology professor.
In what its authors say is the first study to see how narcissism develops over time, the researchers found that parents who “overvalued” their children when the study began ended up with children who scored higher on tests of narcissism later on.
In extreme cases, narcissism can lead to delusions of grandeur and feelings of entitlement and non-accountability.
“Children believe it when their parents tell them that they are more special than others. That may not be good for them or for society,” said Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and professor of communication and psychology at The Ohio State University.
Overvalued children were described by their parents in surveys as “more special than other children” and as kids who “deserve something extra in life,” Bushman and his fellow researchers said.
The study, which Bushman conducted with lead author Eddie Brummelman, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam, appears in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
To find the origins of narcissism, the Bushman, Brummelman and their team surveyed parents and their children four times over one-and-a-half years to see if they could identify which factors led children to have inflated views of themselves.
Brummelman said that parents may have the best of intentions when they overvalue their children, thinking that will help boost their self-esteem.
In a previous study, Brummelman and Bushman found that overvaluing parents thought their children were familiar with such things as astronaut Neil Armstrong and the book “Animal Farm,” but also the imaginary “Queen Alberta” and “The Tale of Benson Bunny.”
“Overvaluing parents tended to claim that their child had knowledge of many different topics – even these nonexistent ones,” Brummelman said.
While many people believe narcissism is just self-esteem on steroids, the researchers say that is not true.
“People with high self-esteem think they’re as good as others, whereas narcissists think they’re better than others,” Bushman said.
The study noted that, like other personality traits, narcissism is partly the result of genetics and the temperamental traits of the children themselves and parental overvaluation is not the only cause.