Is There Really a Narcissism Epidemic?
Psychologists Jean Twenge and Keith Campbell think so. They are so convinced that they wrote a whole book about it.
But not everyone agrees. Richard Robins, director of the Personality, Self, and Emotion laboratory at the University of California, Davis is one of those dissenters. Robins told me that solid evidence for the alleged “epidemic” pretty much disappears when Twenge’s and Campbell’s data are analyzed properly. Based on his team’s research, Robins concludes “this current [younger] generation does have inflated egos, but” he says “so did every other generation of youth…There are writings on cave walls from thousands of years ago saying, more or less, that today’s youth do whatever they want, don’t listen to their elders, think they know everything, etc.”
In other words, if there … [ Read More ]
