First and foremost, narcissism is characterized by a confident and escalated view of the self, mainly on agentic traits such as authority, physical appearance, and importance. Older individuals tend to complain about the younger generation being arrogant, self-centered and disrespectful. It is equally difficult to determine whether these opinions are a function of age, perhaps the younger group are more narcissist compared to their older group counterparts simply because they are young. However, according to Campbell et al. (2006), self-centeredness among younger individuals may be as a result of them actually being narcissist than the older generation was when they were at the same age. It is as well likely that older people will criticize the younger generation even if they were actually less self-centered than they were at their younger ages. Majority of the correlates of self-centeredness are also on the increase, even though it is hard to verify if they are directly related to the increase in narcissism. Therefore, it is necessary to separate the generational effects from age and to evaluate traits through psychometrically effective questionnaires while conducting a scientific study on generational change.
Scientific study on generational effect is achieved via a technique known as the time-lag method. It evaluates samples of individuals of similar age at different phases of time. For example, the 1980s college students can be compared with 1990s and 2000s college students. The entire samples are attained from the same age, but they emerge from different generations, also referred to as birth cohorts. A birth cohort is a significant substitute for the sociocultural environment within different time limits. For instance, children brought up during the 1970s were inclined to an essentially different culture than children brought up in the 1990s. Main correlates of narcissism are also on the increase, even though we are not in a position to verify if they are directly related to the increase in narcissism. Whereas Twenge’s conservative wisdom backed by further academic studies through Narcissist Personality Index indicates that children who currently acquired most of their knowledge from the internet and social media tend to be more narcissist compared to their elders. Like they would go to the extent of forming and recruiting more members to join Facebook groups such as the Association for Justified Narcissism.
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Considering the exaggerated confidence typical of narcissism, the younger generation currently has significantly greater and impractical anticipations of educational realization and achievement. 51 percent of the high school students predicted that they would obtain professional or bachelor’s degrees, even though only 9 percent of 25-34-year-old high school graduates did have these degrees (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). While in 1976, only half as many expected this outcome. At the same time, the proportion of high school students who projected that they would be employed in a professional job by the age of 30 also risen from 41 to 63 percent. In reality, only 18 percent of high school graduates between ages 25 to 34 in both periods were employed at professional occupations. Although these changes are likely to have various causes and the position of narcissism is uncertain, these trends, however, change in the course one would predict in case young people had great attributes of narcissism.
Major correlates of self-centeredness are also on the increase, even though we are not in a position to verify if they are directly related to the increase in narcissism. Narcissism is related to a range of progressive emotional results, including extraversion, self-esteem positive impact, and life fulfillment. It is as well associated with other welfares to the self, like a short-term but not future congeniality improved performance on public assessment responsibilities. In addition, narcissism has additional costs to the self, such as biased conclusions of one’s talents, dangerous decision making, and compulsive shopping possible addictive disorder including drug and substance abuse, and pathological gambling. It is as well likely that older people will criticize the younger generation even if they were actually less self-centered than they were at their younger ages (Reynolds et al., 2006). As a result, it is necessary to separate the generational effects from age and to evaluate traits through psychometrically effective questionnaires while conducting a scientific study on generational change.
Critique
Richard P. Eibach, an assistant professor at Yale University has determined that the overstated perception of social decline are common because people tend to confuse transformations within themselves for changes in their external surrounding. Individuals’ obvious assumption is that a real change has taken place. It takes a further understanding to identify that something about one’s own opinion or information they are gaining may have changed greatly. In fact, doubled responsibilities, the transition to parenthood, and physical aging are examples of effects in individuals that tend to be the major contributor of individual’s opinion on the moral degeneration of others. Thus, social decline perceptions tend to be interrelated to conventional attitudes. Most of the correlates of self-centeredness are also on the increase, even though we are not in a position to verify if they are directly related to the increase in narcissism.
