Most praised generation?
If I had a subscription to the Wall Street Journal, I’d be reading this article on how the current college graduates are narcissistic and need to be praised a lot just to do basic stuff. Or at least I think that’s what the article said, based on this psych central post:
In an article in last Friday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal, there appeared an article from Jeffrey Zaslow entitled, “The Most-Praised Generation Goes to Work.†(You’ll have to take my word for it, as the WSJ is one of the old-media companies that still believes there’s little value to making its articles available to others online.) It observes the interesting phenomenon of “praise inflation,†where young adults are entering the workplace expecting kudos for doing not much more than showing up to work or doing their everyday job. The article quoted Jean Twenge’s research that showed the average college student in 2006 was 30% more narcissistic than the average student in 1982 (which made headlines a few months ago; there are some issues with this research, but I won’t go into them here).
Now I used to have a WSJ subscription, and I hated it, so my point isn’t that I’d like to be reading the whole article. I’m just wondering if anybody out there thinks this is true. I’m wondering if we’re overpraising our kids. Is this the most praised generation, and is that a bad thing?
But my second thought was that I’m only five years out of college (yes, it’s true). Am I of the most praised generation? Am I more narcissistic and needing of praise?
And is this something I should be aware of as a new parent?
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4 Responses to “Most praised generation?”
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Jon,if you are interested …Carol Dweck has done some research in this area.There is also a very good article in New York Magazine. I believe “The Inverse Power Of Raising Kids”is the title.
You can read it here: http://www.sddt.com/News/article.cfm?SourceCode=20070424crh
I didn’t read the whole article, but I find it to be true that the 20-somethings that I’ve worked with seem to need more praise. (I’m 43). I also agree with the cynicism regarding praise among those younger than me. My niece recently complimented my cooking, only to follow the compliment with, “And I’m not just sucking up, either.” I got the feeling that she was more used to hearing false praise than earned praise.
My sister teaches kindergarten. One of her greatest frustrations is that most of her parents (aged 22-30) insist that their children receive nothing but praise.
She claims that the children are much harder to teach, because they don’t accept that there is a “wrong” way to write a letter or numeral. She’s had parent-aides tell her that the children should not be corrected when writing a figure wrong, but instead be praised for how well they held the pencil or neatly they printed or whatever.
It’s kinda weird.
I read the article and it is true that the 20 – 30 somethings, need more praise, more often. They seem to want to be recognised for just showing up at work, nevermind knowing how to do their job.
On the flip side, they are not receiving the bonuses or “quality” praise, here at my job unless they have truely earned it.
The article says they show that they need more praise by leaving for another job. Is that necessarily a bad thing?