
Psychologists say more and more young people are entitled - dvanwag
https://www.indy100.com/article/young-people-entitlement-disappointed-narcissism-psychology-research-7867961
======
Clubber
>Pschology Today reports that some examples of entitlement range from the
disregard of rules, freeloading, causing inconveniences and like to assume the
role of leader when working in groups.

Disregard of rules, depending on the rule, is fine, particularly when said
rules are dumb. You need to be able to know which rules are breakable and
which are not. For me, this goes along with the phrase, "Better to ask
forgiveness than permission." Example: production issue that is bleeding $5
million a day, but the rule says you can only release on the 3rd Thursday of
every month and it's the first Monday. That's obviously a short sighted and
very dumb rule. You have justification though so you can probably break it
safely. Might want to talk to your superior though.

>freeloading

Depends on what this means. If you are reciprocal, then it's called sharing.
If you actually are a freeloader, stop; you won't have any friends for long.

>causing inconveniences

Ya don't be that guy driving 10 miles under in the fast lane.

>like to assume the role of leader when working in groups.

You should totally do this, especially if no one else is willing. If you pin
your fate on a nitwit, you will regret it.

Having said all that, news loves talking shit about the newest generation.
They did it with mine, until my generation started being the news people. Take
it with a grain of salt. Soon your generation will be making fun of the next
generation, so tell them the same thing.

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basseq
If I understand correctly, this research shows that young people are more
entitled than older people. It does _not_ show that young people _now_ are
more entitled than young people in previous decades: that a 50-year-old was as
entitled when he or she was 25.

This gives me a great excuse to trot out my favorite collection of headlines
and quotes:

Young people: the “latter-day cult of individualism; the worship of the brazen
calf of the Self.” (1907)

Young people: those for whom “the phrase to make a living could have
absolutely no meaning”. (1968)

The “Me Decade”. (Baby boomers in the ’70s)

The Now Generation? Slackers? (Generation X)

The Not-Me Generation? (1980)

The Video Generation of “preening narcissists who have to document every banal
moment with their cutting-edge communications technology”. (1985)

The “entitlement” of Millennials is the same entitlement that plagued their
fathers and grandfathers. It's young people in the workforce. Some are idiots,
some are limited by idiot managers. Everyone wants more responsibility, and no
one wants to wait and get there.

~~~
maxxxxx
The Romans already complained about their youth.

~~~
praptak
A much earlier recorded example:
[http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0011128757003002...](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/001112875700300210?journalCode=cadb)

------
praptak
I cannot imagine a meaningful discussion starting with the word "entitled". To
me it's "I really dislike the fact that you want something, so I have this bad
label that I'll apply to you".

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nxsynonym
Can anyone link the actual study? Tried following the links but got blocked by
a log-in wall to see the actual study.

Was there a control for the study? What were the questions asked? And how can
they draw any conclusions from a group of 170 students (which I am assuming is
their study group, unless the paper says otherwise).

It could also be that young people are being asked to do more with less
compensations and hardly any positive re-assurance about future stability
(jobs, income, housing).

~~~
Bjartr
Found some coverage that wasn't just copy-pasted between blogs.

[https://www.livescience.com/53591-millennials-dislike-
narcis...](https://www.livescience.com/53591-millennials-dislike-narcissism-
label.html)

Still couldn't find the studies themselves though.

I wonder if there's any way to the effect of age, as opposed to generation, on
the studies. Even in the livescience coverage I wonder if the trend is more
recent generations are more entitled than older generations in general (as the
submission posits) or if populations become less entitled as they age and if
so how entitled were the older generations when they were the younger
generations' age?

~~~
colorint
I think they're talking about "Trait entitlement: A cognitive-personality
source of vulnerability to psychological distress," based on one of the linked
blog posts mentioning Grubbs and Exline 2016. Unfortunately I haven't been
able to find a free copy. Nor does this seem to talk about generational
demographics, so I guess that stuff was glommed on from somewhere else.

~~~
Bjartr
It was available on sci-hub, but a quick soon didn't find the claims the
article made, although I could have missed it.

------
blacksmith_tb
Awkward phrasing in the OP - they may "feel entitled", but clearly the
implication is they aren't _actually_ entitled, hence their narcissistic
disappointment. Or to put it another way, 'more and more young people aren't
entitled, but feel they are'.

~~~
logicfiction
If we are getting semantic, the "feel" part seems to be intrinsic to the
definition of entitled:

"adjective: entitled

believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special
treatment."

~~~
rav
"verb: entitle

give (someone) a legal right or a just claim to receive or do something.
'employees are normally entitled to severance pay'"

The definition cuts both ways (unfortunately).

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bcoates
Back in my day I got nonsense stories about kids these days from local TV news
fluff pieces not this internet clickbait nonsense!

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watwut
> like to assume the role of leader when working in groups

People who assume the role of leader when working in groups may be annoying
(and definitely are to me), but they also have better careers and earn more
money. If you don't assume such role nor defend turf and other colleges do,
you will end up micromanaged and blamed for everything.

The above are reasons in nutshell why parents and educators shape kids to
assume the leadership qualities. Because those of us who were raised not to
assume them, earn less money and less promotions.

The other thing is that people who demanded better things often got better
things and those of us who did not demanded better things, well, did not. Like
for example, during salary negotiation. Every single time there is discussion
about whether or why women get lower salaries, someone - oftentimes someone
older - argue by women demanding less or being less aggressive in negotiation.
Why would a parent who has this experience with this trained the kid to loose
later on? Then they complain about entitlement when young people (of both
genders) listen to the logic behind the argument and are demanding.

By the above I want to say that while it may be overdone in many cases, a lot
of it is attempt to adjust to how world works. Overly humble people with low
confidence don't build successful companies, don't win and get blamed for
their own misfortunes.

------
justboxing
Related video with some insights into this behavior => Simon Sinek on
Millennials in the Workplace :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrT8lJNa9Z8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrT8lJNa9Z8)

Causes mentioned are 1) Parenting, 2) technology, 3) impatience and 4)
environment.

#1 most definitely checks out in the US. I have a 17 year old niece (born in
2000) who exhibits the toxic narcissistic and entitlement mentioned about
young people in the OP and in the youtube video.

His room is filled with trophies and medals (over 30) and at first glance I
thought he was really a future tennis prodigy. Turns out not a single 1 of
those trophies and medals were 1st prize, or even 2nd prize. Almost all were
"Participation" Trophies. The way he showed them off, one would think they
were all 1st prizes.

Growing up in India, we never had anything like this. I was 1st in class for
several years at 1 of the top catholic convent schools. The 1st and 2nd in
class got books and a certificate as prizes, the rest got nothing. This made
it special, so everyone would compete and try to come 1st or 2nd in class.

So I really don't get these "Participation" trophies. By trying to tell the
kids - every kid pretty much - they are special, when 99% of them aren't,
aren't the parents and school teachers partly to blame for cultivating this
"toxic narcissistic" and "entitlement" that they then carry with them for the
rest of their lives, into adulthood and into the workplace?

~~~
watwut
Giving every kid the same trophy does not tell them they are all special.
Every kid gets the same, so they get told they got the same thing as other
kids. So, chill. Your conclusion that trophies in niece room means tennis
prodigy is just you having incorrect assumptions about different culture. They
are happy memories of event, not proof of skill.

I guarantee you that American high school Football players train damm hard,
participation trophies or not. So do chearleaders, although and I admit that I
had to see them do stuff to realize that the thing is truly hard.

Occasionally, trophies or t-shirts or whatever engage kids that would not even
tried knowing they cant win anyway. Which is about the effect. The idea that
these symbols are bane of civilization is as wrong as opposite obsession that
lacking them would make kids crumble.

~~~
justboxing
> They are happy memories of event, not proof of skill.

Aren't photos and videos sufficient to capture happy memories of events? I
thought trophies were given out for proof of skill / accomplishments. Maybe
that's not how it works in the US. I wouldn't know, wasn't raised here, but
everywhere else in the world, Trophies are not given out to all participants.
Cos then doesn't it diminish the accomplishments of the winner(s)??

~~~
watwut
Participation trophy is not for special accomplishment, by definition.
Everyone gets it and everyone knows everyone gets it. Winner won and is fully
aware, got winners trophy with '1\. place' written on it and prize. In case of
more important competition, it would be something real non-symbolic that
winner can actually use (like a game). Unless we are talking about competition
of pre-schoolers and such in which case fretting over -anything- is royally
dumb.

Thinking about it, the actual top prize is sport scholarship for college.

> Cos then doesn't it diminish the accomplishments of the winner(s)??

No, your accomplishment does not count for less because other people got stuff
too. However, your accomplishment depends not just on winning, but also on how
important/large the competition was. Being first at local school competition
is less then being fourth at more important tournament - just like anywhere
else in the world.

> Aren't photos and videos sufficient to capture happy memories of events?

Who cares? I guess that they have also some selfies in that room somewhere,
however less visible. I just cant muster any anger or resentment in me over
somebody else looking at shiny cheap trophy over .jpeg or over wearing t-shirt
they gave out or whatever.

We are talking about community activities people organize because they want to
do something for community, for club or because they want make kids to like
sport they personally enjoy. It is not like they would be becoming rich on
that (there are exceptions). I am not going to fret over their choice of
giveaways. Nor start doom and gloom accusing them of destroying whole
generation because of cheap shiny thing.

I kind of acknowledge that people who organize these things do more for
community then those who don't do anything like that and only complain. For
that matter, to lesser effect, I acknowledge that kids who participated did
better choice then those who never participated in any event.

------
groby_b
Wait, we're sharing an article that quotes "Psychology Today"? Can we get
Breitbart's take, too? What does InfoWars think?

So, let's take a look at the abstract of the actual study:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27504935](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27504935)

And, as it turns out, not a word on young people there. The entire study is on
a conceptual model of entitlement, and how it leads to disappointment. Maybe
the actual study (paywalled) actually does break things down by age, but it
certainly doesn't seem to be a major focus.

~~~
groby_b
So, digging further, it seems the original press blurb from Case Western laid
that trap about
"millenials":[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160913134442.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160913134442.htm)

 _Previous studies show entitlement is on the rise -- so-called "millennials"
see themselves as generally more entitled than previous generations;_

It's really hard to say if the study says that, or the study author, or Case
Western. If anyone wants to spend $11.95 to find out, let us know.

(But even though I'm not a millennial, I feel entitled enough that I refuse to
pay for this :)

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maxxxxx
They respond to the environment the previous generation created for them and
now people are surprised?

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mcappleton
It's "cool" to hate on millennials now for being lazy and such. A hilarious
song about it:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hLpE1Pa8vvI](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hLpE1Pa8vvI)

~~~
dragonwriter
Note that it was just as cool to do that for Gen X when they were at a similar
age, and even moreso for the Boomers in their time (who, to be fair, had much
more of a highly visible subgroup making a flamboyant show of rejecting their
elder's values than either of the following generations did.)

That's just the eternal ways of the world.

~~~
chongli
_The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority;
they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise._

\-- Socrates

Edit: So it is a common misattribution [0] but it's still pretty amusing.
There are plenty of similar quotes throughout the ages so the sentiment is not
wrong.

[0] [http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-
children...](http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-children-in-
ancient-times/)

