University of Amsterdam.
Stanford University.
Child Dev. 2017 Nov;88(6):1799-1809. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12936. Epub 2017 Aug 30.
Western parents often give children overly positive, inflated praise. One perspective holds that inflated praise sets unattainable standards for children, eventually lowering children's self-esteem (self-deflation hypothesis). Another perspective holds that children internalize inflated praise to form narcissistic self-views (self-inflation hypothesis). These perspectives were tested in an observational-longitudinal study (120 parent-child dyads from the Netherlands) in late childhood (ages 7-11), when narcissism and self-esteem first emerge. Supporting the self-deflation hypothesis, parents' inflated praise predicted lower self-esteem in children. Partly supporting the self-inflation hypothesis, parents' inflated praise predicted higher narcissism-but only in children with high self-esteem. Noninflated praise predicted neither self-esteem nor narcissism. Thus, inflated praise may foster the self-views it seeks to prevent.
西方父母经常给予孩子过度的、夸大的赞美。一种观点认为，夸大的赞美给孩子设定了难以企及的标准，最终会降低孩子的自尊心（自我贬低假说）。另一种观点认为，孩子会将夸大的赞美内化，形成自恋的自我观点（自我膨胀假说）。这些观点在一项观察性纵向研究（来自荷兰的 120 对父母-孩子）中得到了检验，研究对象是在儿童晚期（7-11 岁），此时自恋和自尊开始出现。自我贬低假说得到了支持，父母的夸大赞美预测了孩子自尊心的降低。部分支持自我膨胀假说，父母的夸大赞美预测了更高的自恋——但仅在自尊心高的孩子中。非夸大赞美既不能预测自尊也不能预测自恋。因此，夸大的赞美可能会助长它试图避免的自我观念。
