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A recent study has found that Hong Kong children tend to be significantly more narcissistic than their counterparts in Western countries with authoritarian and permissive parenting style as a contributing factor.
The results released by City University of Hong Kong shows that the narcissistic index of Hong Kong students are 30 to 60 percent higher compared with the comparable studies in the U.S., Australia and the UK.
The data also suggest that students from high-income families are more narcissistic, whereas students from low-income families, such as those receiving Comprehensive Social Security Assistance, appear to have no narcissistic personality traits.
The study used a narcissism index to assess 9,432 parents whose kid ranged from age 8 to 15 at schools in different regions around Hong Kong.
Self-focus in interpersonal exchanges, bragging and exaggerating their achievements, pretending to be more important than they really are, and difficulty with empathy are the traits typically displayed by a narcissist, said Annis Fung, an associate professor at CityU's Department of Applied Social Studies.
Moreover, Fung said, nearly 16.5% of Hong Kong teens have aggressive behavior, which is closely related to narcissism.
The findings also show that narcissism significantly correlates to parenting style, with authoritarian and permissive parenting styles correlating significantly to narcissism among proactive aggressors.
"Parents don't expect their children to do things around home but instead have higher expectations about academic achievements and other rewards, said Fung. "Children would then try to achieve what they want to achieve at any expense.
She explained that generally children in Hong Kong tend to be over-served at home because families are smaller than in previous generations. Many families hire domestic helpers to look after the children who then perceived themselves to be important, powerful and dominant in the family, deserving anything they want.
Fung pointed out that the research proves that an authoritative parenting style, as opposed to the authoritarian, is more conductive to the development of children's personality and the parents-children relationship, and helps to suppress narcissism.
"Parents should focus more on developing children's ethics and empathy so that they would appreciate and respect others, and understand the needs and feelings of others," she said, adding that parents should also instill in their children a pleasurable sense of helping others.
