1. When Parents' Praise Inflates, Children's Self-Esteem Deflates.
- Author
-
Brummelman E, Nelemans SA, Thomaes S, and Orobio de Castro B
- Subjects
- Adult, Child, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Netherlands, Narcissism, Parent-Child Relations, Parenting psychology, Self Concept
- Abstract
Western parents often give children overly positive, inflated praise. One perspective holds that inflated praise sets unattainable standards for children, eventually lowering children's self-esteem (self-deflation hypothesis). Another perspective holds that children internalize inflated praise to form narcissistic self-views (self-inflation hypothesis). These perspectives were tested in an observational-longitudinal study (120 parent-child dyads from the Netherlands) in late childhood (ages 7-11), when narcissism and self-esteem first emerge. Supporting the self-deflation hypothesis, parents' inflated praise predicted lower self-esteem in children. Partly supporting the self-inflation hypothesis, parents' inflated praise predicted higher narcissism-but only in children with high self-esteem. Noninflated praise predicted neither self-esteem nor narcissism. Thus, inflated praise may foster the self-views it seeks to prevent., (© 2017 The Authors. Child Development © 2017 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.)
- Published
- 2017
- Full Text
- View/download PDF