Agreement in parent-adolescent perceptions of parenting behavior: The influence of parental and adolescent narcissism and parents' remembered childhood adversity

Abstract

Discrepancies in parent and adolescent perceptions of parenting behavior contribute to poor family functioning and negative outcomes. Yet, there is a lack of research examining parent and adolescent personality and family context in relation to parent-adolescent parenting agreement. Narcissistic traits and parents' remembered childhood adversity have previously been linked to both positive and negative parenting. This cross-sectional study aimed at understanding whether parental and adolescent narcissism, at the facet level, and parental past adversity, statistically predict parent-adolescent parenting agreement. Analyses comprised four steps: profile correlations, network analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modelling. Parent-adolescent dyads (N = 304; 48 % mothers; 50 % girls) completed self-report measures. Parental authority and distrust were associated with higher agreement that parents utilized more warm and harsh parenting, respectively. Parents remembered emotional neglect was positively associated with agreement that parents used more hostile and controlling parenting and was linked to higher parental vulnerable and antagonistic narcissism. Adolescent self-absorption was positively associated with agreement on harsh parenting. Results demonstrate that narcissistic facets and parents' remembered emotional neglect differentially influence parent-offspring agreement on their perceptions of parenting behavior. Future work might incorporate more multi-dimensional assessments of personality and context to further disentangle associations between personality and parenting.