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The Great Recession Might Take the Narcissism Right Off Millennials

But there's really no hope for the "Rich Kids of Instagram."
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It might be that Millennials are a generation of narcissists, or it might be that just being young makes you a narcissist, but a new study suggests that Millennials shouldn't stay that way. Entering the workforce during a recession leads to being less narcissistic later in life, as compared to those who entered the workforce during a time of prosperity—which means that, selfies or no, Millennials have been given ample opportunity to get over themselves.

Published in the journal Psychological Science , the team from Emory University examined survey data from over 1,500 American adults, and found that participants who entered adulthood during a worse economic climate—when average unemployment was at 7.7 percent—scored 2.35 points lower on a 40-point narcissism scale than those who graduated in more prosperous times, when average unemployment was 4.3 percent. Better economic conditions later in life didn't put the narcissism back on, either. It's those formative “Best Top Ramen-Eating” years of your life that really do a number on you.

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They also examined another survey and looked for a behavioral manifestation of narcissism in CEO pay. Recent research has shown that narcissistic CEOs tend to pay themselves considerably more than other senior executives, “a signal that they believe they provide unique value to the company and deserve much more compensation than their colleagues.”

So they looked at data from over 2,000 CEOs of publicly traded companies collected in 2007, and it too showed that CEOs who came of age during harder economic times paid themselves less, relative to the next highest-paid executive at their company, compared to CEOs who entered adulthood in more prosperous times, even when the researchers adjusted for CEO age, gender, company revenues, assets, and industry.

The study defined narcissists as people who “view themselves as unique, special, and entitled to the good things that come their way.” Other research has shown that adversity has a tempering effect on narcissism, which led the study's lead author, Emily Bianchi, to wonder whether the adversity of entering a hostile job market could take off that veneer of positive self-regard.

"There seems to be widespread concern that young adults have become more self-absorbed and egotistical in the last several decades," Bianchi said in a press release accompanying the study. "These new findings suggest that part of this rise could be due in part to the terrific prosperity this country has enjoyed since the mid 1980s. If that's the case, the Great Recession may produce a cohort of less self-focused young adults.”

To a degree, it seems like you get less narcissistic as you get older anyway, so maybe Millennials were going to be fine anyway. The counter-narrative to our selfie obsession comes back around.

But if, like me, you're a Millennial who graduated hugely in debt the same year that Bear Stearns collapsed, the world economy crashed around you, while you were left to wonder why the banks were getting bailed out, and have struggled along with stagnating wages during a “jobless recovery,” all the while reading that your earnings will always be depressed from entering the job market now—and felt like the media narrative that cast us all as self-obsessed losers was just piling on—well, here's your silver lining.