An article making the rounds today points out that America’s freshmen and freshwomen have an inflated sense of their own specialness – and that may have some long-term personal repercussions:
Pyschologist Jean Twenge and her colleagues compiled the data and found that over the last four decades there’s been a dramatic rise in the number of students who describe themselves as being ‘above average’ in the areas of academic ability, drive to achieve, mathematical ability, and self-confidence… While students are much more likely to call themselves gifted in writing abilities, objective test scores actually show that their writing abilities are far less than those of their 1960s counterparts.
…But if you found yourself bothered by a person always talking about how wonderful they are, remember that their future may not be bright.
“In the long-term, what tends to happen is that narcissistic people mess up their relationships, at home and at work,” Twenge said. Though narcissists may be charming at first, their selfish actions eventually damage relationships.
It’s not until middle-age they may realize their lives have had a number of failed relationships.
The good news is that heightened levels of narcissism may cause many young people to read this article and think, “Hey, this is me!” The bad news is that no one reads anymore.
Jim Eltringham 