The Impact of Parenting on Later Development of the Narcissistic Trait

Abstract

As people with narcissistic traits increased markedly in population, the researchers focused on the impact of parents' genetics of narcissism, parenting styles, parenting behaviors of overprotection, gender of parents, children's abnormal internal like perfectionism and shame, and children's emotion dysregulation. All of these factors can directly or indirectly lead to the development of narcissistic traits. These factors all influence mutually and contribute to the development of narcissistic traits. Parental genes related to narcissism can be inherited to children, and different parenting styles can orientate the development of different types of narcissistic traits in children. Overprotection of parental behavior leads to positively proportional growth in narcissistic traits of children. Internal emotion dysregulation in children is related with an increased risk of developing narcissistic traits. One of the limitations is that previous studies mainly focused on the influences of these factors individually. Future studies should investigate their impacts more systematically. Future treatment should integrate these influencing factors to develop individualized and comprehensive intervention plans for patients, and the public also needs to be aware of these influencing factors to ensure the psychological health of children. This review can provide some suggestions to the prevention and intervention programs for at-risk children and adolescents at schools.