Narcisism in the new generation

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I found this on CNN.com and thought it was interesting.
Narcisism in College Students

The article talks about rising levels of narcisism in college students, saying it has been steadily rising since the 1980's. This could be very problematic as narcisistic people are less receptive to criticism, have colder and shallower interpersonal relationships, and are more likely to become violent or abusive. The psychologists in the study seem to put most of the blame on the '80s "Everyone's special" movement. Any responses?

 

I'm not buying it. The test is having people respond to statements like

If you agree with the first one, OK, you might be narcissistic, but agreeing to the second one is not an indicator of narcissism at all. If you think everyone is special (like we were all taught in the 80's) it isn't narcissistic to think you are special, too. (In fact, thinking you are the only person in the world who isn't special would be downright unhealthy.)Responding positively to the third statement is merely an acknowledgment of our constitutional right to live our lives "any way I want to". If these are the types of statements they are using to determine Narcissism, than they have to be getting a lot of false positives. In fact, I'd argue that it's pretty ****ing Narcissistic to think that you can actually get quantifiable data with that kind of schlock.

 

I agree completely.

Another problem is I don't even know how one would quantify at what point someone becomes a narcissist. Maybe my definition differs from others though. I think that everyone feels they have some measure of self-worth, but it is only when the level of self-worth is vastly distorted so that your view is much in excess of what most other people feel your worth is does it become narcissism. So in order to determine whether or not someone is a narcissist, you'd have to know not only what they think of themselves, but also how their view coincides with reality.

To use an example, most people cannot claim - and believe - to be among the most powerful people in the world without being a narcissist. However, if the person we are asking happens to be George W. Bush, that's not narcissistic because Bush can justifiably claim that he wields great inflence on the events of the world.

 

I have found that many people (seems especially teenage/early-twenties) don't take critisisim well, so I guess there is 'some' foundation to the claim. The world has been shying away from personal responsibilities and when someone has no responsibilities they often have no idea of consequence and that pretty quickly leads to arrogance and possible narcisism. However, the more power given to an individual the more likely someone is to abuse said power (face it, the average person today is far more powerful than the average person some hundred years ago, what with having more rights and such).

Where am I going with this? People do seem to have a higher self worth, dare say arrogance, attached to their idea of freedom of expression. I feel it's because there is less sense of duty, responsibility and consequence in the youth of this day than there apparently was 50 years ago.

 

Well what do you know...you can educate attitudes.

And for the looks of it, personality disorders as well.

But if the narcissism of the youth is the result of education, then it makes me wonder why something like "I will help those in need" is not chanted in school. Why has making kids repeat that they're special been more important, than let's say "I will try to find a new perspective into things"

 

of course narcisism is on the rise, look at all the hair care products on the market these days, all you need to do where i live is walk around a street corner in the town centre to find a bunch of kids who love themselves

 

Maybe it has something to do with the parents and teachers telling the kids: You're something special! Hear that often enough, you end up believing it.

 

Which is the best thing that can happen to the kids. In my opinion, children do not hear the above sentence often enough.

 

Drew, that's a good point, but you have to understand the workings of the Narcisistic Personality Test. It isn't a black and white grade. There are two extremes: totally narcisistic, and, well, I've forgotten what the other is called, but it's basically a total lack of self-esteem. The 'ideal' person would score somewhere in the middle, and most people are expected to deviate somewhat to one side or the other. What these researchers are noting is that more and more students are scoring higher and higher on the narcisistic side.

 

This test?

Ot this one?

 

Seeing three (3) questions from the test is not a basis for a good judgement of the test. I would have to see the test itself to make a judgement as to whether or not it is fair.

I think seeing oneself as special or unique is normal and healthy. In order to achieve anything we need to believe in ourselves. IMO it gets narcissistic when you forget that you are responsible to other people and not just family or friends but people in general.

 

Darkthrone,
I know some who should have heared: 'You're just like anybody else, you have to earn your place in the world.' more often. I dislike the sense of entitlement that praising a kid to heaven no matter what can cause.

I remember such folks arriving at the army. Oh dear. I have two brothers and two sisters. I know how to arrange myself with others. Maybe it's something with single kids. I don't know. I found it was extremely entertaining when they came in a four bed room at the barracks and demanded me to respect their privacy. How so, I wonder. Yes, I'd have preferred a single room as well, with room service, but alas ...

[ March 08, 2007, 15:32: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

As usual, Nakia is right.

I see one thing to add. Thinking of oneself as special isn't the problem, it's when people decide that they're SO special that they're above the general rules and conventions of society. Don't want to wait your turn in line or stop for a traffic light? Why should you, you're SPECIAL. Like that coat hanging in the closet? Just take it, you deserve it, you're SPECIAL. Unfortunately, the examples quickly go from being trivial to being painful.

When reading the paper or watching the news, I frequently find myself wondering how people can commit some of the heinous, callous acts described in the stories. Maybe we're starting to find out. I'm sure it's easier to commit a crime against someone you see as naturally inferior to your wonderful self.

 

@Carcaroth: The amusing thing is, i took your first test:
Based on the above answer(s), your personality traits might be associated with following personality type(s):

Narcissistic Personality

And in the next test I was High in Narcissistic and Histrionic.

Which pretty much agrees with what I think about myself and what others think. I agree with the original study tho, there is a high degree of Narcissism in Universities.

 

This is an interesting question to us old-timers. I often wonder if my own point of view hasn't slipped toward old-fogey-ism in the last few years.

I recall reading an article in Scientific American a couple of years ago which reviewed several studies done on the actual effects of trying to raise self-esteem in teenagers. Interestingly, kids who scored higher on self-esteem inventories (and I don't remember details of how they checked that) also tended to engage in riskier behavior such as early sex, drug experimentation, driving wthout seat belts or under the influence, etc., than kids who scored lower. And in a rather focused study at a university, students who were failing a sociology course at midterm were divided into groups. Some got emails praising them and reassuring them that they were bright enough to pass the course. Some got emails warning them they were in danger of failing and urging them to study harder. Some got no emails. The group whose pass rate improved the most was the group getting the emails warning of consequences. The worst group was the group getting the encouraging emails.

I think saying college students are "more narcissistic" doesn't really tell us much. What is more worrying to me is the possibility that we have tried to build up people's opinion of themselves without reference to real-world consequences of behaviors. The only way to true self-esteem, IMHO, is accomplishment. Do well at something, in other words, don't just tell yourself you're special.

EDIT this would be a more helpful post if I could find the article but it's a couple of years old - I'll look for it and try to post a link if I can find it.

 

Revmaf,
you're probably right about accomplishment being the key.
I wanted to comment in that direction, but didn't get that out clear enough.

 

I went back and took the tests Carcaroth
linked to.

According to the second one I am moderately narcissistic. I checked the 'further information' and couldn't figure out why so I went over the test again. I am moody and do not like to throw things away.

I hope the test given to the college students is better than this one.

And if I am moderately narcissistic all that proves is older folk can be narcissistic just as well as younger folk. Come to think of it based on my experiences here in Adult-ville I would say older folk can be very narcissistic based on this type of test. So are we getting more narcissistic?

As Rallymama said based on the news it sure seems as if we might be. I must point out however that it is much easier to get news now than it was 50 years ago. So I'm not sure what this proves or maybe we are looking at the wrong problem. I don't know.

 

Well, I found the article listed on the index for Scientific American online. It's:

and the summary can be found at this page

BUT - the summary is only the opening paragraphs and to get the whole article you have to pay $7.95 to buy the digital copy of that issue.

Which I'm not going to do and neither are you, I suspect. But I think I remembered the gist of the article correctly: high self-esteem does not correlate with positive benefits in behavior.

 

Erhhh... I'm the 21st century schizoid man?
Sounds about right (except for the lack of sexual interest part).

So are these tests performed with older people as well, or only with the younger generation?
If they're as unprecise as the ones Carcaroth linked, half of the world's population should be in some serious medication. That would explain a lot, though.