Sick of being labelled a “self-absorbed millennial” by your elders? A new study out of the scientific journal of Psychology and Ageing suggests that baby boomers were more narcissistic and hyper-sensitive growing up, contrary to popular belief.
Tell your grandma to suck a lemon next time she calls you a “snowflake”, as new research suggests baby boomers grew up more hyper-sensitive and self-involved than their millennial counterparts.
A study survey of 750 people, aged between 13 and 77, found that baby boomers grew up with an increased sense of self-importance and hypersensitivity. The study defines hypersensitivity as “being unreceptive to others feedback and lashing out at criticism towards oneself ” and that it could be more prevalent in older generations because “they grew up in a time when the government provided privileges like social security”.
It would be a lie to say this doesn’t feel like a small victory for every young’n whose ever been accused of “snowflakery” just because they never killed a man with their bare hands in Da Nang. Still wished you lived in the sixties now?
William Chopik, associate professor at Michigan State University and co-author of the study, claims study’s outcome rebuffs the stereotype of the hyper-sensitive, selfie-obsessed generation:
“There’s a narrative in our culture that generations are getting more and more narcissistic, but no one has ever looked at it throughout generations or how it varies with age at the same time… individuals who were born earlier in the century started off with higher levels of hypersensitivity, or the type of narcissism where people are full of themselves, as well as willfulness, which is the tendency to impose opinions on others.”
Baby boomers? Opinionated? Get. Out. Of. My. Asshole.
In saying this, however, Chopick was quick to outline that narcissistic tendencies do heavily decrease with age regardless of your generation:
“You form new relationships, have new experiences, start a family and so on. All of these factors make someone realize that it’s not ‘all about them.’ And, the older you get, the more you think about the world that you may leave behind.”
Baby boomers, or people over 60, make up 22% of the world’s population, and despite this being a survey of only 750 people (that’s not even .0001% of the world’s population, which is 7.9 billion, just in case you were wondering), it still paints a telling picture.
Feel free to bring this story out next time your uncle, auntie or grandparent – who you love emotionally but loathe ideologically – starts banging on about “snowflakes” or “climate change” or how “we need to bring back conscription” because this study just confirms what everyone under forty already knew.
Ps. Love you Nan xxx
