Study: Parents are the cause of narcissism in children

Family outdoors.
(Image credit: iStock)

First, the good news: People aren't born narcissists. The bad news? Parents can easily push their children down the path to narcissism by overvaluing them.

"Loving your child is healthy and good, but thinking your child is better than other children can lead to narcissism, and there is nothing healthy about narcissism," Brad Bushman, a professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University, told the Los Angeles Times. Bushman is the co-author of a paper, published in the journal PNAS, that found a direct relationship between narcissistic children and parents who overvalue them, in a first look at the origins of narcissism.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.