Kids who don’t excel in a certain area should still be encouraged to keep trying. This isn’t self-esteem, however: it’s self-control. Self-control, or the ability to persevere and keep going, is a much better predictor of life outcomes than self-esteem. Children high in self-control make better grades and finish more years of education, and they’re less likely to use drugs or have a teenage pregnancy. Self-control predicts all of those things researchers had hoped self-esteem would, but hasn’t.
Cross-cultural studies provide a good example of the benefits of self-control over self-esteem. When Asian students find out they did badly on something, they want to keep working on it so they can improve their performance. White American students, in contrast, prefer to give up and work on something else, preserving their self-esteem at the expense of doing better at a difficult task. This goes a long way toward explaining why Asian children perform better at math and at school in general.
Young people who have high self-esteem built on shaky foundations might run into trouble when they encounter the harsh realities of the real world. Kids who are given meaningless A’s and promoted when they haven’t learned the material will later find out in college or the working world that they don’t know much at all. What will that do to their self-esteem, or, more important, their careers? Your boss isn’t going to care much about preserving your high self-esteem. The self-esteem emphasis leaves kids ill prepared for the inevitable criticism and occasional failure that is real life. “There is no self-esteem movement in the work world,” points out one father. “If you present a bad report at the office, your boss isn’t going to say, ‘Hey, I like the color paper you chose.’ Setting kids up like this is doing them a tremendous disservice.”
In any educational program, one has to consider the trade-off between benefit and risk. Valuing self-esteem over learning and accomplishment is clearly harmful, as children feel great about themselves but are cheated out of the education they need to succeed. Self-esteem programs might benefit the small minority of kids who really do feel worthless, but those kids are likely to have bigger problems that self-esteem boosting won’t fix. The risk in these programs is in inflating the self-concept of children who already think the world revolves around them. Building up the self-esteem and importance of kids who are already egocentric can bring trouble, as it can lead to narcissism—and maybe it already has.
CHANGES IN NARCISSISM
Narcissism is the darker side of overly positive self-views. Narcissists are overconfident, not just confident, and are so focused on themselves they have a difficult time taking someone else’s perspective. They also feel entitled to special privileges and believe that they are superior to other people. As a result, narcissists are bad relationship partners and can be difficult to work with. Narcissists are also more likely to be hostile, take too many risks, compromise their health, and fight with friends and family.
Unlike those merely high in self-esteem, narcissists admit that they don’t feel close to other people. At its extreme, narcissism can become narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), but there’s plenty of variation in narcissism in the normal population—it’s usually referred to as narcissistic personality traits. (There’s more on narcissism in my book coauthored with W. Keith Campbell, The Narcissism Epidemic.)
There were some early indications that narcissism might be on the rise. In the early 1950s, only 12% of teens aged 14 to 16 agreed that “I am an important person.” By the late 1980s, an incredible 80%—almost seven times as many—claimed they were important. In another study, psychologist Harrison Gough found consistent increases on narcissism items among college students quizzed between the 1960s and the 1990s. The 1990s students were more likely to agree that “I would be willing to describe myself as a pretty ‘strong’ personality” and “I have often met people who were supposed to be experts who were no better than I.” In other words, those other people don’t know what they’re talking about, so everyone should listen to me.
Narcissistic personality is usually measured with the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI). The scale features statements such as: “I think I am a special person,” “I can live my life any way I want to,” and “If I ruled the world, it would be a better place.” When I give this questionnaire in class, the discussion almost always begins the same way: the first person to raise his hand will say, “Well, I scored high, and I think . . .” (Clearly the scale does its job well.) The NPI is not a measure of clinically diagnosed narcissism—instead it measures narcissism among the normal population. It is by far the most commonly used measure of narcissistic personality, so almost everything researchers know about narcissism is based on the NPI.
My coauthors and I analyzed the responses of 49,818 American college students who completed the NPI between 1982 and 2009. The trend was clear: younger generations were significantly more narcissistic. The average college student in 2009 scored higher in narcissism than 65% of students in 1982. Only 19% of students (about 1 out of 5) answered the majority of the questions in the narcissistic direction in the early 1980s, compared to 30% (about 1 out of 3) in 2009. That last statistic is telling: the majority of college students are not highly narcissistic, but 58% more are. They’re the ones who end up in your office.
College students’ narcissism also increased in samples of 4,152 students from the University of South Alabama between 1994 and 2009, and among students from Frostburg State University between the 1980s and 2008. A 2009 study found that Americans in their 20s were three times more likely than those in their 60s to have suffered from NPD (a clinical level of narcissism) during their lifetime.
Soon after our initial study on increases in narcissism was released, a set of other researchers reported they found no increase in their dataset of students from University of California samples, a result that garnered widespread press. In the end, though, their samples showed the same increase we found in our nationwide study. Why? All of their 1980s and 1990s samples were from one campus (UC Berkeley), and all of their 2000s samples were from another (UC Davis, where students score particularly low on the NPI). That meant it was impossible to tell whether generation or campus was causing any difference or lack thereof. The UC campuses had also seen significant shifts in ethnic composition since the 1980s, with many more Latino and Asian American students (both groups tend to score low in narcissism). My coauthor Joshua Foster asked these researchers to send their data so we could look at NPI scores within campus and within ethnic group to eliminate the confounds. When I opened the Excel file, my jaw dropped: the UC Davis’s students’ scores rose steadily every year. The yearly increase among these students was twice as large as the yearly increase we found in our nationwide analysis.
Another paper by different authors noted that when our nationwide data were combined with the UC campus data, there was no change in narcissism. Of course—because the UC Davis samples score low in narcissism, and they were two-thirds of the recent data. When we added a simple control for campus (1 = UC Davis, 0 = not), narcissism increased at the same pace as always. Josh and I published this analysis the same month the other paper appeared, disproving its conclusions the moment it was published in January 2010. (Yet years later, some—such as Elspeth Reeve in Atlantic Wire in May 2013—still cited it as seeming proof that narcissism hasn’t actually increased). Even more incredibly, this paper then went on to say that age was more important to narcissism than generation, but since all of the respondents in our study were the same age, this makes no sense. It also reported data from a one-time study showing that college students were more narcissistic than their parents and grandparents—but of course that could be due to either age or generation. It could actually be more evidence that narcissism is higher in GenMe.
High school students have not routinely been given the NPI, but we examined data on students’ life goals, as these are reliably correlated with narcissism. Between 1976 and 2012, high school students in the nationally representative sample were more likely to focus
on life goals centered on money, fame, and image—those correlated with narcissism such as “making lots of money.” They became less likely to focus on goals around community feeling and deeper meaning, such as “finding meaning and purpose in life” and “working to correct social and economic inequalities.” The same was true for college students. In 2013, 82% of college students said “being very well-off financially” was important, the highest percentage in the history of the survey since it began in 1966. In that year, only 42% of college students said being well-off financially was important.
Another item is more subtle. In the late 1970s, 22% of high school students said “being a leader in my community” was important, which rose to 48% in 2012. Aha, some have thought, that means GenMe/Millennials are focused on their communities. But it’s not clear what this item means—are students interested in being leaders, helping the community, or both? The item needed to be validated against established questionnaires that could separate these two possible interpretations. So my coauthors and I had 181 college students complete the NPI and rate the life goals. “Being a leader in my community” had the highest correlation with narcissism of any item. The students who embraced this life goal were clearly focusing on the “leader” part of this statement, not the “community” part. It’s not about helping others—it’s about being a leader, something narcissists love unconditionally. Overall, life goals related to narcissism were valued more in recent years, while those related to more intrinsic values (such as affiliation and community feeling) were valued less.
Thus, the generation William Strauss and Neil Howe call the Millennials is not as other-focused and group-oriented as their theory predicts. Strauss and Howe define this group as those born in 1982 and afterward, so college-student samples were made up almost exclusively of Millennials by 2004. However, the 2004–9 college students are the most narcissistic group of all—the most likely to agree that “I find it easy to manipulate people,” “I expect a great deal from other people,” and “I insist upon getting the respect that is due me.” Even after the recession of the late 2000s, the 2013 students were more focused on becoming rich than any group before them. By most indications, the Millennials are the most narcissistic generation in history. This may change with the effects of the late 2000s recession in the second wave of Millennials/GenMe, but the first wave produced all-time highs in narcissism and its correlates.
Even so, the rise in narcissism goes beyond just one generation to pervade the culture. Reality shows glamorize narcissistic people and behaviors. Regular people take numerous selfies a day or compete to have the most followers on Twitter. Nearly twice as many Americans got plastic surgery in 2012 compared to 1997.
Even song lyrics show the trend. My colleague Nathan DeWall was struck by the lyrics of a Weezer song: “I’m the greatest man that ever lived.” “Who would actually sing that aloud?” Nathan wondered, and is that type of self-aggrandizement now more common in our culture? Nathan and his graduate student Richard Pond gathered the lyrics of the Billboard Top 10 hit songs from 1980 to 2007 and fed them into a word-analysis program. They found the same pattern we did for language use in books: More use of I and me, and less of we and us. The use of social words such as love and sweet decreased, and the use of antisocial words such as kill and hate increased. Even in a cursory read of the lyrics the trends stand out—most of the early 1980s songs are about love and togetherness, while the songs of the mid-2000s feature scenes such as Carrie Underwood smashing her ex-boyfriend’s car so he’ll think twice “Before He Cheats” and Justin Timberlake single-handedly bringing “Sexy Back.” Nathan concluded that popular song lyrics indicate increased narcissism in American culture.
Almost every example of narcissistic song lyrics pales in comparison to Kanye West’s 2013 declaration “I am a god,” the title of a song he wrote after he was told he couldn’t attend a Paris fashion show. “ ’Cause it’s like, ‘Yo! Nobody can tell me where I can and can’t go. Man, I’m the number one living and breathing rock star,’ ” he said in an interview. “I am Axl Rose; I am Jim Morrison; I am Jimi Hendrix.” Sample lyrics from the song: “I am a god / Hurry up with my damn massage / . . . Get the Porsche out the damn garage.”
Narcissism is the darker side of the focus on the self and is often confused with self-esteem. Self-esteem is usually based on solid relationships with others, whereas narcissism comes from believing that you are special and more important than other people. Many of the school programs designed to raise self-esteem probably raise narcissism instead. Lilian Katz, a professor of early-childhood education at the University of Illinois, wrote an article titled “All About Me: Are We Developing Our Children’s Self-Esteem or Their Narcissism?” She writes, “Many of the practices advocated in pursuit of [high self-esteem] may instead inadvertently develop narcissism in the form of excessive preoccupation with oneself.” Because the school programs emphasize being “special” rather than encouraging friendships, we may be training an army of little narcissists instead of raising kids’ self-esteem. The title of teen-advice columnist Josh Shipp’s book is telling: The Teen’s Guide to World Domination: Advice on Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Awesomeness. He clearly knows how to meet today’s teens where they live, telling them how to avoid the “seven villains . . . keeping you from awesomeness.”
The teenage years have always been a time of self-centeredness. But because the studies on narcissism compare different generations at the same age, the differences are due to change over time and not to just being a teen. Generation Me’ers might decrease in narcissism as they get older, but they’re starting from a higher level than GenX’ers or Boomers did.
Many young people also display entitlement, a facet of narcissism—the belief that you deserve more than others. A scale that measures entitlement has items like “Things should go my way,” “I demand the best because I’m worth it,” and (my favorite) “If I were on the Titanic, I would deserve to be on the first lifeboat!” An Associated Press article printed in hundreds of news outlets labeled GenMe “The Entitlement Generation.” In the article, employers complained that young employees expected too much too soon and had high expectations for salary and promotions. In recent years, many in GenMe have expected their parents to pay their rent. Yes, times are tough and rents are high, but many see this expectation for support well into adulthood as a sign of entitlement—even some GenMe’ers themselves. It’s no coincidence that Lena Dunham, 25 at the time, centered the first episode of her HBO series Girls around Hannah’s parents cutting off their financial support. They are not rich, her parents explain, and after all, she’s been out of college for two years and is 24 years old. Her response: “I could be a drug addict. Do you realize how lucky you are?” At the end of the episode, she takes the $20 tip her parents left for the hotel maid.
If narcissism has increased, how would young people behave? In short, they would be less giving (for example, to charity), have inflated expectations, display less empathy, have higher materialism, make more unique choices (such as for baby names), cheat more often, have less committed relationships, undergo more plastic surgery, and display more anger and aggression. As we’ll explore elsewhere in the book, almost all of these have occurred. GenMe’s higher narcissism is not simply a curiosity based on survey measurements. Scores on the NPI consistently predict many of the behaviors that are more common among this generation than among their predecessors.
But, some have wondered, if GenMe is so narcissistic, why are teen pregnancy, car accidents, and crime on the decline? The first two are easy: teen pregnancy and car accidents are not correlated with narcissism, so those trends are not particularly relevant. The decline in crime is caused by many factors, such as demographic shifts, better policing, the virtual disappearance of crack cocaine, the number of offenders in prison, economic shifts, and even the legalization of abortion in 1973 (economist Steven Levitt’s theory).
Although the crime rate has declined, the number of mass, attention
-getting shootings has increased. The idea that someone can become famous by going to a public place and killing others is a recent notion. The shooter at Virginia Tech paused in his rampage to mail his media package to NBC News; in it, he compared himself to Jesus. Eric Harris, one of the Columbine shooters, said, “Isn’t it fun to get the respect we’re going to deserve?” (Chillingly similar to the narcissism item “I insist upon getting the respect that is due me.”) The 22-year-old who killed six people near UC Santa Barbara in May 2014 talked about his vendetta on YouTube and left a 137-page manifesto describing how angry he was that the world—particularly women—did not pay him the attention he deserved. “This is the story of my entire life,” he wrote. “In this magnificent story, I will disclose every single detail about my life, every single significant experience that I have pulled from my superior memory.”
Less severe, though still hurtful, is the incredible amount of anger and cruelty displayed online. Singer Lorde casually mentioned that she didn’t think the boys in the band One Direction were particularly attractive. The band’s fans then took to Twitter to insult Lorde and her boyfriend, writing gems such as “how can lorde call one direction ugly, has she seen her boyfriend, hoe” and “Omg is it just me or does Lorde’s boyfriend look like one of those awkward chinese people.” Recent years have seen several well-publicized cases of teens who were relentlessly bullied online and then went on to kill themselves. Bullying is aggression too, as it hurts someone. Aggression can take many forms, and although this generation is thankfully less likely to commit serious crimes, other forms of aggression appear to be alive and well.
CARING AND CONCERN FOR OTHERS
High narcissism usually means less caring, so we analyzed 24 items that the Monitoring the Future high school study administrators identified as measuring concern for others. When the studies on increasing narcissism are covered in the press, someone will invariably respond that GenMe/Millennials are actually more committed to helping others than previous generations. “We are a socially conscious generation that cares about making an impact. Young people say they want to give back. Volunteer rates are up, and so are applications for service-oriented careers like Teach For America,” said Hannah Seligson in Forbes. “So how does all of this square with the theory that we are all narcissists? It doesn’t.”
Generation Me--Revised and Updated Page 11