TY - JOUR
T1 - Selfish parents, parenting practices, and psychopathic traits in children
AU - Gao, Yu
AU - Huang, Yonglin
AU - Li, Xiaobo
N1 - Funding Information:
Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number SC1GM127243 to the first author. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. We thank the children and parents who consented to participate in this study.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
PY - 2021/10/1
Y1 - 2021/10/1
N2 - Parental personality and parenting behavior have been associated with the development of psychopathic traits in offspring. However, no study has examined the effect of parental dispositional selfishness on the development of psychopathic traits in offspring, and the potential mechanism underlying this relationship. To address this issue, parents' reports on their dispositional selfishness, negative and positive parenting behavior, and child's psychopathic traits were collected for a group of children from the community (n = 118, 47% male, mean age = 14.1 years). Results showed that parental selfishness was associated with grandiose-manipulative (GM), daring-impulsive (DI), and callous-unemotional (CU) traits in children. In addition, the egocentric selfishness-GM relationship was indirectly mediated by parenting behavior including lack of involvement, poor monitoring, and inconsistent discipline, whereas the association with CU traits was directly mediated by lack of involvement. These effects remained significant after controlling for child's sex, age, race, social adversity, and a prior measure of psychopathic traits. Findings provide initial empirical evidence on the effect of parental selfishness on a child's psychopathic traits, and further support to the proposition that distinct etiology may underlie different dimensions of psychopathic traits.
AB - Parental personality and parenting behavior have been associated with the development of psychopathic traits in offspring. However, no study has examined the effect of parental dispositional selfishness on the development of psychopathic traits in offspring, and the potential mechanism underlying this relationship. To address this issue, parents' reports on their dispositional selfishness, negative and positive parenting behavior, and child's psychopathic traits were collected for a group of children from the community (n = 118, 47% male, mean age = 14.1 years). Results showed that parental selfishness was associated with grandiose-manipulative (GM), daring-impulsive (DI), and callous-unemotional (CU) traits in children. In addition, the egocentric selfishness-GM relationship was indirectly mediated by parenting behavior including lack of involvement, poor monitoring, and inconsistent discipline, whereas the association with CU traits was directly mediated by lack of involvement. These effects remained significant after controlling for child's sex, age, race, social adversity, and a prior measure of psychopathic traits. Findings provide initial empirical evidence on the effect of parental selfishness on a child's psychopathic traits, and further support to the proposition that distinct etiology may underlie different dimensions of psychopathic traits.
KW - children
KW - mediation
KW - parenting
KW - psychopathy
KW - selfishness
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U2 - 10.1002/bsl.2541
DO - 10.1002/bsl.2541
M3 - Article
C2 - 34668235
AN - SCOPUS:85117226594
SN - 0735-3936
VL - 39
SP - 624
EP - 640
JO - Behavioral Sciences and the Law
JF - Behavioral Sciences and the Law
IS - 5
ER -