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Published in: European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 7/2008

01-10-2008 | ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION

Narcissism, self-esteem, and conduct problems

Evidence from a British community sample of 7–11 year olds

Authors: Carolyn Ha, BS, Nancy Petersen, PhD, Carla Sharp, PhD

Published in: European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry | Issue 7/2008

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Abstract

The aim of the current report was to investigate the relationship between narcissism, self-esteem and conduct problems in a British community sample of pre-adolescent and young adolescent children (n = 659; 7–11 year olds). We demonstrated that narcissism is associated with conduct problems, but no evidence for an interaction between low self-esteem and high narcissism in the prediction of conduct problems was found. Whilst low self-esteem was associated with teacher-reported (but not parent-reported) conduct problems at the bivariate level of analyses, multi-variate analyses showed that self-esteem yielded no significant effects, neither independently, nor in interaction with narcissism for either parent- or teacher reported conduct problems. However, self-esteem was predictive of self-reported conduct problems at both the bivariate and multivariate level of analysis, possibly due to shared method variance. The findings suggest an important role for narcissism for conduct problems in children as young as seven years old.
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Metadata
Title
Narcissism, self-esteem, and conduct problems
Evidence from a British community sample of 7–11 year olds
Authors
Carolyn Ha, BS
Nancy Petersen, PhD
Carla Sharp, PhD
Publication date
01-10-2008
Publisher
D. Steinkopff-Verlag
Published in
European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry / Issue 7/2008
Print ISSN: 1018-8827
Electronic ISSN: 1435-165X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-008-0682-z

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