PARENTAL NARCISSISM AND THE SOCIAL REPRODUCTION OF EMOTIONAL CONTROL A Comprehensive Analysis of Intergenerational Transmission Mechanisms and Their Sociological Implications

This paper examines parental narcissism as a mechanism of social reproduction, focusing on how emotional control is transmitted across generations within family systems. Moving beyond individual pathology, the analysis situates narcissistic parenting in broader sociological frameworks that include Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and capital, Foucault’s theories of discipline and biopower, and feminist scholarship on gendered emotional labor. The study argues that parental narcissism constitutes a form of “emotional capital,” whereby children internalize patterns of control, surveillance, and conditional validation that shape their adult relationships, institutional participation, and social positioning.The paper traces the historical emergence of narcissistic family structures within the rise of the nuclear family, capitalist economies, and gendered divisions of labor, showing how these contexts intensify parental strategies of emotional governance. It highlights how mechanisms such as gaslighting, triangulation, and conditional acceptance become embedded as durable dispositions—what may be termed an “emotional habitus”—that reproduce hierarchical social orders.Attention is given to the intersections of class, gender, and culture in shaping narcissistic parenting strategies, as well as to sites of resistance where children and adults develop counter-strategies against domination. Contemporary digital platforms and shifting family forms are also considered as new arenas of emotional control and reproduction.The findings suggest that parental narcissism should be understood as a systemic social process with lasting implications for inequality, institutional reproduction, and emotional well-being, calling for both therapeutic and policy interventions that address its structural roots.