No battle has been waged harder on social media the last few years than the one that pits Baby Boomers against Millennials, so-called 'snowflakes' against the 'greatest generation.'
In this trend, Millennials accuse Baby Boomers of being out of touch with how the world works today, and Boomers accuse Millennials of being too sensitive and a generation full of entitlement.
Wherever you fall in this debate the largest study of narcissism to date has revealed some very interesting truths that may give Millennials the upper hand here.
The study, which was conducted by Michigan State University, and published in the journal Psychology and Aging, has found that Baby Boomers, are in fact more sensitive than Millennials.
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William Chopik, associate professor of psychology at MSU and lead author, said per Science Daily, “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.”
Researchers used “hypersensitivity” to determine a person’s level of defensiveness, which Chopik defined as being unreceptive to others’ feedback and lashing out at any criticism toward one’s self.
They found that younger generations are less hypersensitive than older generations.
Chopik did note narcissism can be measured in a variety of ways, and researchers only focused on one of those methods, which could have skewed the results.
However, he still says the study offered some insight into the stereotype that suggests younger generations are more self-centered than older ones.
He said, “Based on our study, there’s weak evidence that this [younger] generation is the worst in human history.”