Abstract
Children's narcissism may be rooted in sensitivity to social status (i.e., prominence, respect, and influence in a social group), and this sensitivity might be shared with parents. Testing this idea, a randomized experiment examined how children with high narcissism levels and their parents respond to gains and losses of social status. On a simulated social media platform, children (N = 123, ages 8–13) competed with fictitious peers for status and were randomly assigned to gain or lose status. Unbeknownst to children, parents viewed the course of the task. Children's and parents' affective reactions during the task were measured with facial electromyography, which detects spontaneous facial muscle activity linked to positive affect (i.e., zygomaticus major activity, involved in smiling) and negative affect (i.e., corrugator supercilii activity, involved in frowning). Children with higher narcissism levels showed steeper increases in negative affect during status loss and steeper increases in both positive and negative affect during status gain. Their parents mirrored the steeper increase in positive affect during their child's status gain, but they did not mirror the increase in negative affect. These results suggest that children with high narcissism levels and their parents show intensified affective‐motivational responses to children's status‐relevant experiences. These responses may be transmitted from one generation to the other (e.g., genetically or through parent–child socialization).
Highlights
From a young age, children are concerned about social status
We hypothesized that children with higher narcissism levels would show intensified positive and negative affective responsiveness to status gains and losses, and that so would their parents
We investigated how children with higher narcissism levels and their parents affectively responded to the child's status gain and loss
Summary
Children are concerned about social status. Status indicates children's position within a social hierarchy (Anderson et al, 2015) and is often reflected in their popularity (i.e., social visibility, importance, and influence; Lease et al, 2002). We hypothesized that children with higher narcissism levels would show intensified positive and negative affective responsiveness to status gains and losses, and that so would their parents. We tested this idea in a randomized experiment, using facial electromyography (fEMG) to track. Narcissism tends to emerge in middle-to-late childhood (Thomaes & Brummelman, 2016), when children start pursuing status more vigorously (Hawley, 1999) From this age, children with high narcissism levels tend to desire and seek status (Ojanen et al, 2012; Thomaes, Stegge, et al, 2008). We hypothesized that children with higher narcissism levels and their parents would exhibit intensified positive affect (zygomaticus activity) in response to status gain and intensified negative affect (corrugator activity) in response to status loss.
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