About the epidemic of narcissism – narcissism, vanity and a tendency to overestimate one’s own merits – psychologists all over the world speak with one voice. But the matter does not go beyond the statement that almost every new generation loves itself more than the previous one. The reasons are called very different, and scientists cannot agree on some main one.
Emily Bianchi, a psychologist from Emory University (USA), presented her curious version. In the journal Psychological Science, she published research results* that show that narcissism may be closely related to the economic development of society. For the first study, the psychologist selected 1572 volunteers born between 1947 and 1994. All of them answered a detailed questionnaire of 40 questions, the purpose of which was to determine the level of narcissism. Emily Bianchi compared the results obtained with data on unemployment and economic development in the periods when the respondents began their labor activity (at the age of 18-25).
The result was very interesting. People who started working during economically unfavorable periods showed relatively low levels of narcissism. Those who entered the labor market during the prosperous years had a much higher opinion of their uniqueness, their own talents – and the rewards their work deserved. The same pattern was confirmed by the second, much larger study by Bianchi, in which more than 30 Americans have already taken part.
Emily Bianchi suggests that young people who started working during periods of economic crisis inevitably faced serious difficulties. They either could not find work at all or were paid less than more experienced older workers. All this inevitably affected the level of self-esteem and expectations, forming a lesser tendency to narcissism in the future. Interestingly, the age of 18-25 years turned out to be the key one. No other periods in the lives of study participants showed correlations between the level of narcissism and the state of the economy.
In addition to her research, Bianchi also analyzed the level of bonuses paid to themselves by the leaders of the largest American companies. (She used information about the top 2000 public companies that can be found in the public domain.) A direct correlation was found here too. Bosses whose ages of 18 to 25 were in the boom years of the economy rewarded themselves much more generously than those who had to struggle with economic hardship at the same age.
Read more:
- Generation Y doesn’t need a career
- Flowers and roots of narcissism
* pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/05/06/0956797614532818.abstract