Intergenerational transmission of narcissistic symptoms through parental control: The protective role of father involvement

Although several studies have investigated the transmission of mental disorders from parents to their children, how parental narcissism impacts on children psychological health has received limited attention. Existing studies either did not collect data from multiple informants or stayed at the theoretical level. Thereof, the main aim of the current thesis was to investigate intergenerational transmission of narcissistic features from mothers to late adolescents through maternal psychological control; and to examine how paternal involvement moderated the proposed relationship. Accordingly, data was obtained from 200 mother-late adolescent dyads to test five different moderated mediation models depending on the types of narcissism. Results indicated positive significant main effects of maternal narcissism on the late adolescents' narcissism scores only when the same narcissism subtypes were shared by the mother-offspring dyad. By contrast, when mothers and late adolescents had different narcissism subtypes, the obtained relationships between mother and child narcissism scores emerged as negatively significant. In contrast to our expectations, psychological control and father involvement did not indicate any significant effect in none of the moderated mediation models. Findings and limitations of the study were discussed in line with the relevant literature.