Explore the vast range of titles available.

We propose a self-regulation model of grandiose narcissism. This model illustrates an interconnected set of processes through which narcissists (i.e., individuals with relatively high levels of grandiose narcissism) pursue social status in their moment-by-moment transactions with their environments. The model shows that narcissists select situations that afford status. Narcissists vigilantly attend to cues related to the status they and others have in these situations and, on the basis of these perceived cues, appraise whether they can elevate their status or reduce the status of others. Narcissists engage in self-promotion (admiration pathway) or other-derogation (rivalry pathway) in accordance with these appraisals. Each pathway has unique consequences for how narcissists are perceived by others, thus shaping their social status over time. The model demonstrates how narcissism manifests itself as a stable and consistent cluster of behaviors in pursuit of social status and how it develops and maintains itself over time. More broadly, the model might offer useful insights for future process models of other personality traits.

When children practice a new skill and fail, it is critical for them to explore new strategies to succeed. How can parents encourage children’s exploration? Bridging insights from developmental psychology and the neuroscience of motor control, we examined the effects of parental praise on children’s motor exploration. We theorize that modest praise can spark exploration. Unlike inflated praise, modest praise acknowledges children’s performance, without setting a high standard for future performance. This may be reassuring to children with lower levels of self-esteem, who often doubt their ability. We conducted a novel virtual-reality experiment. Children ( N  = 202, ages 8–12) reported self-esteem and performed a virtual-reality 3D trajectory-matching task, with success/failure feedback after each trial. Children received modest praise (“You did well!”), inflated praise (“You did incredibly well!”), or no praise from their parent. We measured motor exploration as children’s tendency to vary their movements following failure. Relative to no praise, modest praise—unlike inflated praise—encouraged exploration in children with lower levels of self-esteem. By contrast, modest praise discouraged exploration in children with higher levels of self-esteem. Effects were small yet robust. This experiment demonstrates that modest praise can spark exploration in children with lower levels of self-esteem.

This research aimed to examine whether and why children hold favorable self-conceptions (total N = 882 Dutch children, ages 8-12). Surveys (Studies 1-2) showed that children report strongly favorable self-conceptions. For example, when describing themselves on an open-ended measure, children mainly provided positive self-conceptions—about four times more than neutral self-conceptions, and about 11 times more than negative self-conceptions. Experiments (Studies 3-4) demonstrated that children report favorable self-conceptions, in part, to live up to social norms idealizing such self-conceptions, and to avoid seeing or presenting themselves negatively. These findings advance understanding of the developing self-concept and its valence: In middle and late childhood, children's self-conceptions are robustly favorable and influenced by both external (social norms) and internal (self-motives) forces.

Can teachers’ inflated praise make children from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds seem less smart? We conducted two preregistered experiments to address this question. We used hypothetical scenarios to ensure experimental control. An experiment with primary school teachers (N = 106, ages 21–63) showed that when a child from a low-SES (vs. high-SES) background succeeded in school, teachers attributed this success more to hard work and delivered more inflated praise (e.g., “You did incredibly well!”) but less modest praise (e.g., “You did well!”). An experiment with primary school children (N = 63, ages 10–13) showed that when children learned that another child received inflated praise (while an equally performing classmate received modest praise or no praise), they perceived this child as less smart but more hardworking. These studies provide converging evidence that teachers’ inflated praise, although well-intentioned, can make children from low-SES backgrounds seem less smart, thereby reinforcing negative stereotypes about these children’s academic abilities.

Significance Narcissistic individuals feel superior to others, fantasize about personal successes, and believe they deserve special treatment. When they feel humiliated, they often lash out aggressively or even violently. Unfortunately, little is known about the origins of narcissism. Such knowledge is important for designing interventions to curtail narcissistic development. We demonstrate that narcissism in children is cultivated by parental overvaluation: parents believing their child to be more special and more entitled than others. In contrast, high self-esteem in children is cultivated by parental warmth: parents expressing affection and appreciation toward their child. These findings show that narcissism is partly rooted in early socialization experiences, and suggest that parent-training interventions can help curtail narcissistic development and reduce its costs for society. Narcissism levels have been increasing among Western youth, and contribute to societal problems such as aggression and violence. The origins of narcissism, however, are not well understood. Here, we report, to our knowledge, the first prospective longitudinal evidence on the origins of narcissism in children. We compared two perspectives: social learning theory (positing that narcissism is cultivated by parental overvaluation) and psychoanalytic theory (positing that narcissism is cultivated by lack of parental warmth). We timed the study in late childhood (ages 7–12), when individual differences in narcissism first emerge. In four 6-mo waves, 565 children and their parents reported child narcissism, child self-esteem, parental overvaluation, and parental warmth. Four-wave cross-lagged panel models were conducted. Results support social learning theory and contradict psychoanalytic theory: Narcissism was predicted by parental overvaluation, not by lack of parental warmth. Thus, children seem to acquire narcissism, in part, by internalizing parents’ inflated views of them (e.g., “I am superior to others” and “I am entitled to privileges”). Attesting to the specificity of this finding, self-esteem was predicted by parental warmth, not by parental overvaluation. These findings uncover early socialization experiences that cultivate narcissism, and may inform interventions to curtail narcissistic development at an early age.

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.

Self-conscious emotions emerge early in human development and they help children navigate social relationships. Little is known about the socialization of self-conscious emotions in early childhood. We theorized that parental mental state language use and warmth would be important for young children’s self-conscious emotions and their consequent prosocial behaviors. Ninety-eight children residing in the Netherlands (52% girls) aged 2–5 ( M  = 48.66 months, SD  = 13.50 months) visited the research lab with one parent. First, we observed parental mental state language and warmth. Afterward, children were led to believe that they caused a mishap (i.e., accidentally breaking the experimenter’s favorite toy) to evoke their guilt and shame, which we micro-coded. In subsequent tasks, we observed children’s helping behaviors toward the experimenter. We found that the combination of frequent parental mental state language and high warmth was associated with children’s quicker helping to the previously harmed experimenter across toddlerhood and early childhood. More guilt was related to more helping whereas more shame-like avoidance was related to less helping. Our findings based on the sample of Dutch parents and children suggest that, parental frequent mental state talk, in combination with high warmth, may promote children’s ability to repair social relationships and behave prosocially after mishaps.

As they grow up, children construct views of themselves and their place in the world, known as their self-concept. This topic has often been addressed by social psychologists (studying how the self-concept is influenced by social contexts) and developmental psychologists (studying how the self-concept changes over time). Yet, relatively little is known about the origins of the self-concept. This article calls for research that bridges social and developmental psychology to illuminate this important issue. Adopting such a social-developmental approach, the current special section shows that children construct their self-concept based on the social relationships they have, the feedback they receive, the social comparisons they make, and the cultural values they endorse. These findings underline the deeply social nature of self-development.

Achievement inequality has been on the rise. Globally, students from disadvantaged backgrounds perform worse academically than their peers, even with equal ability. This represents a significant loss of potential and perpetuates inequality. We organized this interdisciplinary Special Collection to uncover experiences that contribute to achievement inequality, identify interventions that reduce it, and sketch a research agenda. We hope it inspires scholars committed to addressing social problems through basic research.