Generation Me--Revised and Updated

by Jean M. Twenge

  The library staff at so many locations have been surprisingly tolerant of the mess one of my projects can create: my thanks to the libraries of the University of Iowa, Eastern Michigan University, Case Western Reserve University, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Wisconsin, San Diego State University, the Library of Congress, and especially the University of Michigan, particularly the Interlibrary Loan Department. You are saints. The U is also the host of the Monitoring the Future survey that I draw from so often; here’s to keeping this national treasure going.

  Other academic colleagues have provided excellent ideas, inspiration, and friendship. Jeff Bryson, Kate Catanese, Niels Christensen, Natalie Ciarocco, Thierry Devos, Nathan DeWall, Amanda Diekman, Julie Exline, Craig Foster, Linda Gallo, Christine Harris, Benita Jackson, Markus Kemmelmeier, Laura King, Elizabeth Klonoff, Sander Koole, Joseph Lewis, Deborah Megivern, Kathi Miner-Rubino, Claire Murphy, Radmila Prislin, Scott Roesch, Brandon Schmeichel, Tom Scott, Kathleen Vohs, May Yeh, and Alyssa Zucker, thank you for listening to me blather on about this research for years. I am particularly grateful to those of you who told your classes about the www.generationme.org website. I will always remember Mark Leary, whom I got to know later in another line of research, saying kind words about this work—before breakfast, no less—at an APA conference. Alice Eagly was one of the first to cite my work on changes for women and has lent me her expertise as if I were one of her own students. Daniel Cervone, personality psychologist extraordinaire, engineered my first major presentation of this work to the field. I am continually grateful for how Dan saw the promise in this research and was able to articulate its importance even better than I could. Lynne Baker-Ward and James Kalat were also kind enough to encourage me and to believe in the importance of birth-cohort work within psychology. The SDSU press office, particularly Jason Foster, Aaron Hoskins, and Jennifer Zwiebel (now at NYU), Gina Jacobs, and Beth Downing Chee, have done excellent work to publicize these studies and impress my relatives by getting me on TV.

  And to my U of C posse, what can I say except, you rule! Stacey Amodio, Anne Becker Gruettner, Ken Bloom, Lawrence Charap, Rocky Dhir, Sonia Orfield, and Adam Shah, your loyalty and love are unsurpassed. Lawrence and Shasta Charap deserve special mention for their warm hospitality during several Library of Congress sojourns; Ken Bloom also helped with library searches several times. Kim and Brian Chapeau, George Ekeren-Moening, Sarah and Dan Kilabarda, Jane Moening, Brian and Roxanne Moening, Sarah Moening and Rodney Haug, Bud and Pat Moening, and Marilyn, Ray, and Anna Swenson have belied the phrase that you can’t choose your relatives—I’d choose you guys every time. Ron Louden and Alice Zellmer and Susie and Jud Wilson have also been the best in-laws I could have ever chosen. Thanks to Brandelyn Jarrett, our nanny and friend, for making so many days good ones for me and our young charges.

  I have read enough acknowledgments sections to know that you save the best for last. My brother Dan has grown from my childhood playmate to my steadfast friend and confidant, as well as being the father of my daughter’s (and thus my) favorite person in the world. Kendel, thanks again for planning the perfect New York visit. My parents, Steve and JoAnn Twenge, instilled in me the love of reading and the highest respect for education and also put their money where their mouth was by subsidizing my time at the University of Chicago. They also provided a window on past decades, always willing to help me understand how things have changed and why. I’ve lost count of the ideas in these projects that had their genesis in one of our conversations.

  To Kate, Elizabeth, and Julia, I love you. Thanks for your smiles and hugs that make it all worthwhile. Finally, to my husband, Craig, for tolerating my hours of (over)work and (over)stress, but mostly for making me the luckiest woman in the world.

  AUTHOR PHOTO BY PAM DAVIS

  JEAN M. TWENGE is a professor of psychology at San Diego State University and the author of more than 100 scientific-journal articles and book chapters and the books The Impatient Woman’s Guide to Getting Pregnant and The Narcissism Epidemic (with W. Keith Campbell). Accounts of her research have appeared in the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, Time, and Newsweek, and she has appeared on the Today show, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, and Dateline NBC. She received a BA and an MA from the University of Chicago in 1993 and a PhD in personality psychology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1998. After living in Texas, Chicago, Michigan, Minnesota (twice), and Cleveland, she is happy to be settled with her husband and three daughters in beautiful San Diego, California. When not slaving over a hot computer writing something, she can usually be found swimming, reading, sitting in the sun, or reading and sitting in the sun—though usually not swimming while reading and sitting in the sun.

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  Notes

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  Preface

  Young people are told to “pull yourself up”: Tiffany Vang, “Reflections of an Annoyed Millennial (or Entitled Brat, Narcissist, Etc.),” Twin Cities Daily Planet, December 16, 2013.

  “We are said to be entitled”: Matt Bors, “The Generation We Love to Dump On,” cnn.com, July 9, 2013.

  finally published a cover article on Millennials: Joel Stein, “The Me Me Me Generation,” Time, May 20, 2013.

  One video featured a group: Stephen Parkhurst, “Millennials: We Suck and We’re Sorry,” September 18, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4IjTUxZORE.

  Some, such as Elspeth Reeve in Atlantic Wire: Elspeth Reeve, “Every Every Every Generation Has Been the Me Me Me Generation,” Atlantic Wire, May 9, 2013.

  Introduction

  Reflecting on her role: Joan Ryan, “The Millennial Generation,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 13, 1998.

  head of the Roper Youth Report: Don Tapscott, Growing Up Digital (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998), 94.

  Marketing studies, for example, find: J. Walker Smith and Ann Clurman, Rocking the Ages: The Yankelovich Report on Generational Marketing (New York: HarperCollins, 1997).

  As early as June 2000, Time: Daniel Okrent, “Twilight of the Boomers,” Time, June 12, 2000.

  Morris Massey, for years a popular speaker: Morris Massey, The People Puzzle (Reston, VA: Prentice-Hall, 1979), 21.

  Ellen DeGeneres said that the most important: Ellen, CBS, January 27, 2005.

  Dan Atkins, 17, says: Tapscott, Growing Up Digital, 94.

  Here’s Mario, a recent college graduate: Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner, Quarterlife Crisis (New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 2001), 42.

  In his popular syndicated column: Cecil Adams, The Straight Dope (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1984), 14.

  I begin by searching computer databases: For example, see J. M. Twenge, S. Konrath, J. D. Foster, W. K. Campbell, and B. J. Bushman, “Egos Inflating over Time: A Cross-Temporal Meta-analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory,” Journal of Personality 76 (2008): 875–901; J. M. Twenge, “The Age of Anxiety? Birth Cohort Change in Anxiety and Neuroticism, 1952–1993,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79 (2000): 1007–21; or J. M. Twenge, “Changes in Masculine and Feminine Traits over Time: A Meta-analysis,” Sex Roles 36 (1997): 305–25.

  1. You Don’t Need Their Approval: The Decline of Social Rules

  The phrase my needs: Google Books database of American English, https://books.google.com/ngrams.
/>
  Young people today are only half as likely: From the 1972–2012 General Social Survey, National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago, http://www3.norc.org/GSS+Website/Download/.

  Filmmaker Kevin Smith: Margot Hornblower, “Great Xpectations,” Time, June 9, 1997.

  But when researchers tried: S. Perrin and C. Spencer, “The Asch Effect—a Child of Its Time,” Bulletin of the British Psychological Society 33 (1980): 405–6. A similar thing happened in 2009 when a psychologist tried to replicate the Milgram study: J. M. Burger, “Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today?” American Psychologist 64 (2009): 1–11; and J. M. Twenge, “Change over Time in Obedience: The Jury’s Still Out, but It Might Be Decreasing,” American Psychologist 64 (2009): 28–31.

  In 1924, a group of sociologists: Anne Remley, “From Obedience to Independence,” Psychology Today, October 1988.

  In Growing Up Digital, an 11-year-old girl says: Don Tapscott, Growing Up Digital (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998), 195.

  Sure enough, the parents of GenMe’ers: J. M. Twenge, E. M. Abebe, and W. K. Campbell, “Fitting In or Standing Out: Trends in American Parents’ Choices for Children’s Names, 1880–2007,” Social Psychological and Personality Science 1 (2010): 19–25.

  The boys’ names that increased the most: Social Security Administration, “Change in Popularity from 2011 to 2012,” http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/rankchange.html; and “King, Messiah, Major Fastest-Growing Baby Names,” Associated Press, May 10, 2013.

  only 2% of GenMe has served: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/10/millennials-confident-connected-open-to-change.pdf.

  Polls of 16-to-24-year-olds conducted: For example: http://jamrs.defense.gov/Portals/20/Documents/Youth_Poll_20.pdf.

  2 out of 3 (67%) said they “definitely won’t”: See http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/ or http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/NAHDAP/series/35/studies. Monitoring the Future datafiles compiled and analyzed by the author.

  recent analysis of data: J. M. Twenge, W. K. Campbell, and N. T. Carter, “Declines in Trust in Others and Confidence in Institutions among American Adults and Late Adolescents, 1972–2012 (unpublished manuscript, 2014).

  “Society has gotten increasingly callous”: Sonja Steptoe, “Minding Their Manners,” Time, June 7, 2004.

  the story of a company founder: Claire Raines, Beyond Generation X: A Practical Guide for Managers (Menlo Park, CA: Crisp Publications, 1997), 40.

  A recent article related numerous stories: P. Davidson, “Managers to Millennials: Job Interview No Time to Text,” USA Today, April 29, 2013, http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/04/28/college-grads-job-interviews/2113505/.

  Jaime Fall, vice president: Ibid.

  “Life has gotten more casual”: Ibid.

  Business professor John Trinkaus finds: J. Trinkaus, “Compliance with a School Zone Speed Limit: Another Look,” Perceptual and Motor Skills 87 (1998): 673–74.

  fewer observe the item limit: J. Trinkaus, “Compliance with the Item Limit of the Food Supermarket Express Checkout Lane: Another Look,” Psychological Reports 91 (2002): 1057–58.

  More people cut across parking lots: J. Trinkaus, “Cutting Corners: An Informal Look,” Perceptual and Motor Skills 79 (1994): 1089–90.

  In 1979, 29% of people failed: J. Trinkaus, “Stop Sign Compliance: A Final Look,” Perceptual and Motor Skills 85 (1997): 217–18.

  number of people who paid the suggested fee: J. Trinkaus, “Honesty When Lighting Votive Candles in Church: An Informal Look,” Psychological Reports 94 (2004): 1435–36.

  A 2008 study found that 95%: Joan Oleck, “Most High School Students Admit to Cheating,” School Library Journal, March 10, 2008.

  34% of high school students admitted to cheating: U. Bronfenbrenner et al. The State of Americans: This Generation and the Next (New York: Free Press, 1996), 4.

  which rose to 61% in 1992: Josephson Institute Center for Youth Ethics, “2012 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth”; M. Josephson, “The Hole in the Moral Ozone: Ethical Values, Attitudes, and Behaviors in American Schools,” ESTD, 1992, issue 19–20.

  a 2002 survey found that 80%: J. D. Heyman, “Psssst . . . What’s the Answer?” People, January 24, 2005.

  a 2012 study of 25,000 high school students: Josephson Institute Center, “2012 Report Card.”

  McCabe has found this attitude: D. L. McCabe, “Are Business Schools to Blame?,” Harvard Business Review 87, no. 6 (2009): 107.

  Education professor Maureen Stout tells: Maureen Stout, The Feel-Good Curriculum (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 2000), 93.

  they seemed uncomfortable: Peter Sacks, Generation X Goes to College (Chicago: Open Court Press, 1996), 84.

  In a recent survey of college faculty, 61%: C. Lampman, A. Phelps, S. Bancroft, and M. Beneke, “Contrapower Harassment in Academia: A Survey of Faculty Experience with Student Incivility, Bullying, and Sexual Attention,” Sex Roles 60 (2009): 331–46.

  In her first class, she always announced: Sacks, Generation X Goes to College, 89.

  As a famous New Yorker cartoon: Peter Steiner, New Yorker, June 5, 1993, 61.

  “Parents are no longer eager”: Debra Pickett, and Janet Rausa Fuller, “Teens Shifting Balance of Power,” Chicago Sun-Times, April 27, 2003.

  Chicago-area parent Richard Shields: Debra Pickett, “One Reason Roles Are Changing: Dad’s Desire to Be Son’s Friend,” Chicago Sun-Times, April 27, 2003.

  A Chicago Sun-Times article interviewed: Pickett and Fuller, “Teens Shifting Balance of Power.”

  One family’s two daughters convinced: Debra Pickett, “Girls Decided When Family Needed a Second Car,” Chicago Sun-Times, April 27, 2003.

  In 1957, 80% of people said: Susan Mitchell, The Official Guide to the Generations (Ithaca, NY: New Strategist Publications, 1995), 92.

  in 2012, 41% of babies: Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2012, http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/unmarry.htm; http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/cdc-us-fertility-rate-hits-record-low-2nd-straight-year-407-babies; and J. A. Martin, B. E. Hamilton, M. J. K. Osterman, S. C. Curtin, and T. J. Mathews, “Births: Final Data for 2012,” National Vital Statistics Reports 62, no. 9 (December 30, 2013), http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr62/nvsr62_09.pdf.

  39% of cohabitating couples break up: “Knot Yet: The Benefits and Costs of Delayed Marriage in America,” National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, National Marriage Project, University of Virginia. For example, see Ezra Klein, “Nine Facts about Marriage and Childbirth in the United States, WashingtonPost.com, Wonkblog, March 25, 2013, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/25/nine-facts-about-marriage-and-childbirth-in-the-united-states/.

  accounting for more than 1 in 7: Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2012.

  the last antimiscegenation law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscegenation.

  Almost half of Asian women: Michael Lind, “The Beige and the Black,” New York Times Magazine, August 16, 1998.

  In 2012, 86% of Americans: Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “Section 8: Values about Immigration and Race,” June 4, 2012, http://www.people-press.org/2012/06/04/section-8-values-about-immigration-and-race/.

  only 10% of white young people: Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, Emerging Adulthood (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 84.

  In the mid-1960s, Brides magazine: Carol McD. Wallace, All Dressed in White (New York: Penguin, 2004), 213.

  Wedding gown designer Reem Acra: Ibid., 265.

  In Millennials Rising, Neil Howe and William Strauss predicted: Neil Howe and William Strauss, Millennials Rising (New York: Vintage, 2000), 234–37.

  my coauthors and I examined six: J. M. Twenge, J. J. Exline, J. B. Grubbs, and R. Sastry, “Generational Differences in American Adolescents’ Religious Orientation, 1966–2013,” Journal of Research on Adolescence (forthcoming).

  These massive datasets, with respondents aged 13 to 98: J. M. Twenge, J. J. Exline, J. B. Grubbs, an
d N. T. Carter, “Birth Cohort, Time Period, and Age Differences in Religious Affiliation, Religious Belief, and Religious Entitlement” (unpublished manuscript, 2014).

  In Soul Searching, his extensive survey of teens: C. Smith and M. L. Denton, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

  In 2012, 30% of Americans: Kosmin et al., American Nones.

  Among high school seniors, most of whom: Twenge et al., “Generational Differences in American Adolescents’ Religious Orientation, 1966–2013.”

  “Starting in middle school we got”: http://www.npr.org/2013/01/15/169342349/more-young-people-are-moving-away-from-religion-but-why.

  in 2013, Pope Francis said: http://www.uscatholic.org/blog/201309/are-abortion-and-gay-marriage-only-issues-catholics-not-according-pope-francis-27843.

  The percentage of college students who: Twenge et al., “Generational Differences in American Adolescents’ Religious Orientation, 1966–2013.”

  Christian Smith labels: Smith and Denton, Soul Searching.

  In Emerging Adulthood, Jeffrey Arnett: Arnett, Emerging Adulthood, 172.

  Many don’t adhere to: Ibid.

  in a 2013 poll: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/us/poll-shows-disconnect-between-us-catholics-and-church.html.

  Interviewed in Emerging Adulthood, Dana: Arnett, Emerging Adulthood, 172–74.

  Rick Warren, author: Rick Warren, “Learn to Love Yourself!,” Ladies’ Home Journal, March 2005.

  Groups such as the Elks: Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).