Narcissism: Gen Y's Most Perilous Trait?

http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/mcafee/2010/09/a-few-years-back-i.html

by amirmc • 16 years ago

26 22 16 years ago

blogs.hbr.org

samtp• 16 years ago

Stereotypes: Say more about the speaker than the subject?

ghurlman2• 16 years ago

Hard to believe that members of an older generation would look down on members from a younger generation - what their hair and their clothes and that rock and roll music.

achompas• 16 years ago

Journalism isn't dead: they can just write ad nauseum about why kids today are narcissistic, marrying later, and staying at home longer.

Someone should apply to YC with an "old grump journalism" startup that just re-publishes books, articles, and studies like this every 5-10 years.

seanplaice• 16 years ago

The last psychiatrist addressed Prof. Jean Twenge's points very well. Theres nothing to worry about. Read for your self, http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/08/narcissism_run_rampan....

10ren• 16 years ago

> A crude and uneven ability to think from the perspective of another is a pretty good working definition of narcissism.

Sounds like a pretty good definition. Of course, the prejudice of the article's title is a loaded question* ; and the author getting his feelings off his chest instead of trying to understand Gen Y's perspective is ironic. But the definition is good, and it's something everyone could benefit from improving at. It certainly made me think.

Maybe today's incredible fees for higher ed leads students to expect some pastoral attention?

* I thought that that was a dorothy dixer; apparently not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Dixer

teilo• 16 years ago

I do believe that Narcissism is worse today, but I have a hard time believing that the Y'ers are any more narcissistic than the X'ers and the Boomers. If anything, society as a whole has shifted.

I have a somewhat different perspective, perhaps, because I see a lot of this is the various churches, where what is said in the pulpit is more and more about the preacher than about the message. Thing is - almost all of them are X'ers and Boomers.

GBond• 16 years ago

I agree, young people of every generation tend to be more narcissistic than the old-fogies and genY is probably not anymore so that the last. The difference is today's kids have more tools and are savvier about managing their public image. I think this is due to technology & shift of media values. Thus, the subset of young people who are narcissist are able to amplify their presence. This create more opportunity for people like the OP to justify their own confirmation bias.

slantyyz2• 16 years ago

I've seen this increasing trend of narcissism with each generation in professional settings. Usually that narcissism comes with a healthy sense of entitlement, and it is a very disturbing trend.

I've seen countless Gen Yers who work in consulting firms who have no sense to put themselves in the customer's shoes.

They think it's OK for them to be taking personal calls and browsing Facebook in front of a client who is paying their firm $200/hr ("who cares what they think, as long as I'm getting my work done" is the most popular response). When they are customers, however, they have no problem berating a Starbuck's barista for taking 30 seconds too long to make their $3 latte.

Seems like every conversation I have with my peers from GenX inevitably degrades into a rant about how annoying it is to manage this new generation of workers. Maybe we're just turning into cranky old geeks, I don't know.

swombat• 16 years ago

Consulting clients don't give a shit about your time, they care about what you get done. Having your bum on a seat isn't worth $1 an hour, let alone $200. What is worth something is the work you deliver. That work is only loosely related to the time you spend "looking like you're working". Personally, I find that regular breaks help me focus better and be more productive, and my extensive net activities help me get the help I need when I need it, which also makes me more productive.

If you want to measure bum-on-seat-time instead, hire minimum wage workers.

slantyyz2• 16 years ago

If all gigs were fixed price or piece-work projects, I'd buy into your argument. In the real world, you've got to deal with timelines and time+materials budgets. Do you really expect to get repeat business if your customer perceives that they're being billed for your time on Facebook?

All I'm hearing from your comment is "You're lucky that I'm working for you. You need to work around MY work habits." The problem with that is that only 20% of the people who say that are rock stars. The other 80% only think they are.

cunard-n• 16 years ago

The behavior you describe is its own antidote for a normal person. A narcissist would blame the client. A sociopath would grab some nearby colleague and throw them under the bus. May I suggest that the trouble with narcissists is the efficiency of their thought processes: They only have to think about one person at a time...one person ever. That makes them more efficient mentally. Also, people who can't see themselves have no self-doubt. That makes them better, more efficient leaders. Also, people who are good-looking are more likely to develop these traits, and, having developed them, are less likely to have to go away and sit quietly by themselves and unlearn them. I'm speaking from experiance. I've had narcissistic, sociopathic, and "other" SOs. The Sociopaths are most fun because they don't have any fear. The narcissists are the next most fun because they tell jokes better (attention) and they try harder to get praise (attention) and they are better conversationally and socially. Ultimately? I would not go back. I like to get a massage, instead of having to give all the time, for example. But let's call a spade a spade: Good looking and fun? check! No self doubt? check! Hot in the sack? check! That's hard to learn to say no to. It takes practice, and really, to make yourself not answer the phone there has to be baggage to create that strong "I don't think so" reaction. My examples are from personal life, but similar themes apply at work and socially. Narcissists are more popular and harder to create momentum against. They are more glib, and get away with talking first and longest. It takes conscious effort and practice to get a word in and certainly if there are cliques in place, it may take effort which is not going to see long term payoff to defend a position or create momentum without a narcissist getting on board to bring the group. Is this a cause or a symptom of the founder-hacker/salesman-CEO devide?

harryh• 16 years ago

I wonder what http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/ would have to say about this article.

amirmc• 16 years ago

Someone already linked to one. Comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1690906

Article: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/08/narcissism_run_rampan...

wdewind• 16 years ago

As a narcissistic Gen-Yer (jk...but seriously) I mostly just want to point out that we adapted to a system setup by Gen-Xers, who are largely in charge at this point, and still find themselves complaining. We should be responsible for our own actions, but how are we supposed to know better? We learn by example. Your generations leaders are the same: we live in a system that greatly rewards sociopathic (or narcissistic if you want) behavior, and it's absolutely not right for us to carry it on, but we CERTAINLY didn't make it like this. If Gen-Xers stopped rewarding Gen-Yers who acted like this while they were still had the power to do so they could create societal change. Instead their leadership has made America the extraordinarily successful sociopath whom everyone hates on the world stage, much like the Big 5 consulting companies continue to make these people rich.

Also, it started in 1980 with Reagan. Just throwing that out there.

kareemm• 16 years ago

I watched the movie "Babies" recently. It follows a kid from birth to about 18 months in each of SF, Tokyo, Mongolia, and Namibia.

The biggest surprise me was how self-sufficient the Mongolian and Namibian kids were. They'd play with other kids or just do their own thing.

By contrast, the SF and Tokoy kids were always with a parent. One scene in particular struck me - the SF kid was peeling a banana. Instead of tossing it, she held the peel like a piece of refuse until her mom dutifully took it. Perhaps the kid was a neat freak, but compared to the Mongolian and Namibian kids, it seemed like her parent put her at the center of her world and catered to her every whim. When you've got a caretaker entertaining you, taking you places, cleaning you, feeding you, and changing their lives significantly to suit you, how do you not become entitled?

ghurlman2• 16 years ago

Or, as anyone with kids would tell you, it's a million times more likely that the baby used to throw the peels on the ground, until her parents taught her to give those to them instead of throwing them.

bootload• 16 years ago

"... I mostly just want to point out that we adapted to a system setup by Gen-Xers, who are largely in charge at this point ..."

An assertion at best. My standard reply ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/227128232/

I hardly think GenX is in charge of mainstream opportunity as you make out. There simply isn't enough of us and we as a generation got squeezed between Boomers & GenY. This generational warfare talk is somewhat a generalisation though. The GenY friends I seem to know and observe ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/collections/7215762254... are pretty grounded and are facing challenges unique to their generation. Having to do their own thing which might appear - narcissistic/entitled is one of the coping strategies.

MC27• 16 years ago

Wish writers wouldn't group people by those arbitrary generation labels.

chc• 16 years ago

Calling them "kids these days" would be tipping his hand a little too much.

notaddicted• 16 years ago

Maybe the reason Gen Y appears to be nakedly narcissistic is because their teachers (even MBA professors!) will let them ramble on about themselves, "at length", apparently without so much as a simple verbal stompdown.

This is how the conversation should go:

student: "I'm an MBA student. I like to play tennis in my free time..."

professor: "I don't give a fuck about tennis. Lets get down to business. Why are you here?"

kenjackson• 16 years ago

I've just stolen this script for my new movie, with Samuel L. Jackson as college professor. :-)

aphyr• 16 years ago

A crude and uneven ability to think from the perspective of another is a pretty good working definition of narcissism.

Wow, way to take a very specific operational definition of narcissism, as measured by a psychometric instrument, and conflate it with something totally different.

Narcissism: Gen Y's Most Perilous Trait?

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