Poster #142 - I’m Better than Others and so is my Child

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

One of the most controversial parenting styles is “tiger parenting.” In 2011, Chua coined the term “tiger mothers” to describe women who were overinvested in their children’s achievement and excessively pressured them to excel academically. Tiger mothers demand their children to study and participate in extracurricular activities intensively. In South Korea, preschool- and kindergarten-age children go to private institute to learn English, Chinese, math, computer, and even rope skipping. In 2014, about 74% of Korean children under the age of five participated in at least one extracurricular activity. Then, what are the parental characteristics that predict being a tiger mom? In other the words, who are more likely to put an excessive amount of ㅁachievement pressure on their children?

We investigate whether narcissistic parents are more likely to pressure their children to excel academically and asked them to participate in academically relevant extracurricular activities. Brummelman et al. (2015a) suggests that narcissistic parents with 8- to 12-year-old children tend to believe that their children deserve special treatment. Such parental overvalue predicted narcissism but not self-esteem in children (Brummelman et al., 2015b), suggesting an intergenerational effect. What is less known is, though, whether narcissistic parents tend to overvalue their preschoolers and whether their overvaluation is related to academic pressure and extracurricular activities in these children.

We therefore examined 190 four- and five-year old Korean children (Mage = 65.95, SD = 6.70) and their parents to test whether narcissistic parents are more likely to overvalue their children, which then predicts achievement pressure and number of extracurricular activities in which the children participate. Replicating previous work (Brummelman et al., 2015a), even after accounting for parental SES and children’s gender, age, and mental abilities (measured by card sorting, day-night, and digit span tasks), narcissistic parents tent to overvalue their children, b = 0.51, se = 0.06, p < .001, which, in turn, predicted academic pressure, b = 0.27, se = 0.09, p <.01. The indirect effect was statistically significant, 95% CI = [0.049, 0.245]. Furthermore, the higher level of achievement pressure was associated with more participation in academically related extracurricular activities, such as learning English, math, and computing, b = 0.14, se = 0.07, p = .040, but not with nonacademic extracurricular activities (e.g., ballet, taekwondo), p > .30. Our findings show that parental narcissism has important implications for parenting behaviors, including achievement pressure and extracurricular activity involvement well before children start formal schooling.

Author

• Daeun Park, Chungbuk National University
  Presenting Author