Relationship and parenting correlates of maladaptive narcissism in adolescents

Narcissism is a psychological construct that has been written about since Ovid's time and theorized and studied since Freud's. The origins of narcissism have been postulated to be characterological, environmental, and relational. Some researchers have delineated between adaptive and maladaptive narcissism, and narcissism has been shown to be a separate construct from self-esteem. Maladaptive narcissism in children has been linked to poor outcomes that include internalizing and externalizing problems, but research has not discovered underlying causes of narcissism. Although there is a literature that examines adolescent narcissism's association with relationship and parenting styles, few studies explore the longitudinal effect of those styles on maladaptive narcissism and vice versa. Using a cohort of 144 early adolescents (M = 12.75 years) in England, I sought to determine the direction of influence of relationship and parenting styles on maladaptive narcissism and maladaptive narcissism's influence on those styles. Results determined that an avoidant style toward the mother approached significance in predicting changes over time in narcissism, and a preoccupied friendship style predicted less narcissism over time for girls. An overprotective mothering style predicted increased narcissism for boys. The relationship between narcissism and overprotective mothering was moderated by grade level, but did not individually predict changes for either grade. Finally, narcissism did not predict changes in relationship styles. My results present evidence that relationship and parenting styles serve as predictors of narcissism in adolescents, and lack of evidence for the reverse direction suggests that relationship styles are antecedents to narcissism and not the other way around.