Causes of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD)

Causes of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD)

As with many personality disorders, the exact cause of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is unknown. It is probably a mixture of genes, early childhood experiences and psychological factors.

Early childhood risk factors include:

insensitive parenting
over-praising and excessive pampering - when parents focus intensely on a particular talent or the physical appearance of their child as a result of their own self-esteem issues
unpredictable or negligent care
excessive criticism
abuse
trauma
extremely high expectations

Other possible factors include:

abnormalities in the genes that affect the connection between the brain and behaviour
being over-sensitive