NARCISSISM, INTERPERSONAL ADJUSTMENT, AND COPING IN CHILDREN OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS

We tested the theory of intergenerational transmission, which suggests that the Holocaust trauma, combined with circumstances in the survivors' lives (early loss of a parent, was a child survivor, had a hiding experience) and circumstances in their children's lives (having a father who survived, being the first-born or only child, and not participating in a children of survivors group) would result in poorer interpersonal adjustment and coping and greater narcissism than in children of survivors without these circumstances and children of parents who imigrated from Europe before World War II. Three hundred fifty children (241 children of Holocaust survivors and 109 children of escaped European-born parents) completed four scales of the California Psychological Inventory (Gough, 1988), the O'Brien Multiphasic Narcissism Inventory (O'Brien, 1987), and the Hardiness scale (Kobasa & Puccetti, 1983). The results failed to support the attribution of adjustment and personality differences in children of survivors to survivor status.