Research says young people today are more narcissistic than ever - All In The Mind - ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
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Research says young people today are more narcissistic than ever
First published:Friday 16 May PM
By:Lynne Malcolm
According to new research, young people today are significantly more narcissistic than during the 1980s and 1990s. Are we in the middle of a narcissism epidemic and, if so, who or what is to blame? Lynne Malcolm investigates.
The term narcissism comes from the Greek myth of Narcissus, the handsome young man who falls in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Narcissism is also a concept in psychoanalytic theory introduced by Freud, and it appears in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatry as narcissistic personality disorder.Professor Jean Twenge from San Diego State University points out that narcissism is distinct from the concept of self-esteem.‘Somebody high in self-esteem values individual achievement, but they also value their relationships and caring for others,’ she says. ‘Narcissists are missing that piece about valuing, caring and their relationships, so they tend to lack empathy, they have poor relationship skills. That's one of the biggest differences, those communal and caring traits tend to be high in most people with self-esteem but not among those who are high in narcissism.’
There's a perception that we have, especially in western culture, that self-esteem is very important, that it is the key to success, but it turns out it's not.
Professor Jean Twenge
Professor Twenge had been studying self-esteem in young people when she teamed up with Keith Campbell, who specialises in narcissism. They joined forces to investigate whether people born in more recent generations score higher against narcissism measures than in previous generations. They documented their findings in the book The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement. The tool they used to assess their subjects is the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, which was created in 1988.The Narcissistic Personality Inventory consists of 40 items. On each item the respondent chooses whether they agree with one statement or another: one of those statements is narcissistic and the other is not. So, for example, 'If I ruled the world it would be a better place' is the narcissistic statement, and then the non-narcissistic one is, 'Ruling the world scares the hell out of me'.Professor Twenge and Campbell analysed data from 15,000 American college students who responded to the Narcissistic Personality Inventory before 2006. They found that there was a relationship between the birth year of the people filling out the scale and their narcissism score, and those
narcissism scores were significantly higher in the
2000s than they were in the 1980s and 1990s.To make sure that the results weren’t due to other factors, they used subjects who were all about the same age, ethnicity and gender over that time period.Professor Twenge acknowledges that as part of their normal development 18- and 19-years-olds are generally self-focused and narcissistic, but she says they are a lot more narcissistic now than they were in previous generations. They also found that men scored a little higher in narcissism than women, but women are catching up fast.Read more: Professor Twenge identifies a number of symptoms or correlates of narcissism and how it's expressed in the larger culture.In the area of vanity, for example, they observe that plastic surgery rates in the US have gone through the roof since the late 1990s. Even invasive procedures such as breast augmentation or liposuction have increased two or three times over this time period. There is a greater drive to be unique, to stand out rather than fit in. This is evident in the names that people give their children. They drew from the Social Security Administration database of all American names going back to the 1800s and found that in recent decades parents are much less likely to give their children common names and more likely to give them unique names. They also observed a change in relationships.‘People who score high in narcissism tend to have trouble in their relationships, basically because they are focused on themselves rather than on anyone else,’ says Professor Twenge. ‘There is certainly evidence for relationships not being as stable as they once were. More and more babies are born to unmarried couples rather than to married couples. People don't stay they get married later in life. There's a trend toward hooking up rather than being in a committed relationship.’According to Professor Twenge, increasing narcissism correlates with materialism and a greater focus on money, fame and image.‘We did another paper looking at big national representative samples of high school and college students and found that the younger generations were much more likely to say, for life goals, things like "being very well off financially". The latest data from 2013 for entering university students here in the US, 82 per cent say that that is an important life goal. And back in the late '60s and early '70s only about 45 per cent said that was an important life goal. So that's an indicator of materialism which is consistent with the rise in narcissism.’What about some of the trends that we are seeing in social media? Is narcissism reflected
in the way we are using social media?Professor Twenge cites a number of studies that have found that people who score high in narcissism have more friends on Facebook. It certainly does not mean that everybody on Twitter or Facebook is high in narcissism, but there is a correlation between those who have more Facebook friends and narcissism.‘What that means is the average person you're connected with on Facebook is probably a little more narcissistic than the average person you're connected with in real life because narcissists are skilled at those online connections,’ says Professor Twenge.Read more: According to Professor Twenge, there are likely a number of drivers for the rise of narcissism, including easy bank loans, celebrity culture and the internet. She also singles out the emphasis on children’s self-esteem in parenting and education.‘Roy Baumeister, along with some colleagues, did a big research review on this a few years ago, and found that self-esteem doesn't actually cause good grades, it doesn't cause better work performance, it doesn't really cause much of anything,’ she says.‘There's a perception that we have, especially in western culture, that self-esteem is very important, that it is the key to success, but it turns out it's not. The small correlation between self-esteem and, say, children getting good grades is almost all due to things like family background. The children who come from a nice stable middle-class home have higher self-esteem and do better.’‘You take that out of the equation, self-esteem in and of itself doesn't really help you. It doesn't really hurt you but it doesn't help you.’Professor Twenge is the mother of three girls and believes parents often get blamed for things that really are part of a larger cultural trend, and it can be very difficult to go against that cultural tide. However, she says there are some things that parents can do to counter their children’s inflated sense of themselves.‘People often ask me, “If I'm not supposed to say to my kid that you're special, then what should I say?” And my answer is, “Say I love you”. It's what you mean anyway and that's a much better message to get across to your child than “you're special'’ because ... that child may be special to you, of course she is, she is your child, but what is going to happen when she goes out into the world and the world doesn't treat her as special?’
Listen to All in the Mind as Lynne Malcolm explores the causes, symptoms and solutions to this growing trend of self obsession.
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The evidence is also starting to build for this rise in narcissism beyond America and the west, in countries like China. Professor Twenge points to a study of the fears of Finnish teens that compared the 1980s to now. It found the teenagers in the 1980s were much more concerned with global concerns, while teens today are much more likely to mention personal fears like loneliness or unemployment.‘I think the first thing that we have to do as a culture is realise that narcissism is not beneficial for success, in the workplace or in relationships,’ says Professor Twenge. ‘What that means is kind of a really good news piece, that the key to success is self-efficacy, which is different from self-esteem. Self-control and hard work, that's beneficial. Perspective-taking, something that narcissists don't do very well, to take someone else's perspective, to think about what it's like to walk around in their shoes, is so useful for getting along with people, whether that's at work or in your relationships.’‘So for emphasising those qualities—self-efficacy, self-control, perspective-taking—not only are those things the right thing to do but they are actually more likely to lead to success than self-esteem or narcissism.’An exploration of all things mental, is about the brain and behaviour, and the fascinating connections between them.
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扫描下载二维码Napoleon Bonaparte - Facts & Summary -
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Small in stature, Napoleon Bonaparte left behind a huge legacy.
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Napoleon Bonaparte (), also known as Napoleon I, was a French military leader and emperor who conquered much of Europe in the early 19th century. Born on the island of Corsica, Napoleon rapidly rose through the ranks of the military during the French Revolution (). After seizing political power in France in a 1799 coup d&&tat, he crowned himself emperor in 1804. Shrewd, ambitious and a skilled military strategist, Napoleon successfully waged war against various coalitions of European nations and expanded his empire. However, after a disastrous French invasion of Russia in 1812, Napoleon abdicated the throne two years later and was exiled to the island of Elba. In 1815, he briefly returned to power in his Hundred Days campaign. After a crushing defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, he abdicated once again and was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena, where he died at 51.
Napoleon Bonaparte was born on August 15, 1769, in Ajaccio, on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. He was the second of eight surviving children born to Carlo Buonaparte (), a lawyer, and Letizia Romalino Buonaparte (). Although his parents were members of the minor Corsican nobility, the family was not wealthy. The year before Napoleon’s birth, France acquired Corsica from the city-state of Genoa, Italy. Napoleon later adopted a French spelling of his last name.
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In 1799, during Napoleon’s military campaign in Egypt, a French soldier named Pierre Francois Bouchard () discovered the Rosetta Stone. This artifact provided the key to cracking the code of Egyptian hieroglyphics, a written language that had been dead for almost 2,000 years.As a boy, Napoleon attended school in mainland France, where he learned the French language, and went on to graduate from a French military academy in 1785. He then became a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment of the French army. The
began in 1789, and within three years revolutionaries had overthrown the monarchy and proclaimed a French republic. During the early years of the revolution, Napoleon was largely on leave from the military and home in Corsica, where he became affiliated with the Jacobins, a pro-democracy political group. In 1793, following a clash with the nationalist Corsican governor, Pasquale Paoli (), the Bonaparte family fled their native island for mainland France, where Napoleon returned to military duty.
In France, Napoleon became associated with Augustin Robespierre (), the brother of revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre (), a Jacobin who was a key force behind the Reign of Terror (), a period of violence against enemies of the revolution. During this time, Napoleon was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the army. However, after Robespierre fell from power and was guillotined (along with Augustin) in July 1794, Napoleon was briefly put under house arrest for his ties to the brothers.
In 1795, Napoleon helped suppress a royalist insurrection against the revolutionary government in Paris and was promoted to major general.
Since 1792, France’s revolutionary government had been engaged in military conflicts with various European nations. In 1796, Napoleon commanded a French army that defeated the larger armies of Austria, one of his country’s primary rivals, in a series of battles in Italy. In 1797, France and Austria signed the Treaty of Campo Formio, resulting in territorial gains for the French.
The following year, the Directory, the five-person group that had governed France since 1795, offered to let Napoleon lead an invasion of England. Napoleon determined that France’s naval forces were not yet ready to go up against the superior British Royal Navy. Instead, he proposed an invasion of Egypt in an effort to wipe out British trade routes with India. Napoleon’s troops scored a victory against Egypt’s military rulers, the Mamluks, at the Battle of the Pyramids in July 1798; soon, however, his forces were stranded after his naval fleet was nearly decimated by the British at the Battle of the Nile in August 1798. In early 1799, Napoleon’s army launched an invasion of Ottoman-ruled Syria, which ended with the failed siege of Acre, located in modern-day Israel. That summer, with the political situation in France marked by uncertainty, the ever-ambitious and cunning Napoleon opted to abandon his army in Egypt and return to France.
In November 1799, in an event known as the coup of 18 Brumaire, Napoleon was part of a group that successfully overthrew the French Directory.
The Directory was replaced with a three-member Consulate, and Napoleon became first consul, making him France’s leading political figure. In June 1800, at the Battle of Marengo, Napoleon’s forces defeated one of France’s perennial enemies, the Austrians, and drove them out of Italy. The victory helped cement Napoleon’s power as first consul. Additionally, with the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, the war-weary British agreed to peace with the French (although the peace would only last for a year).
Napoleon worked to restore stability to post-revolutionary France. He centra instituted reforms in such areas as b supported
and sought to improve relations between his regime and the pope (who represented France’s main religion, Catholicism), which had suffered during the revolution. One of his most significant accomplishments was the Napoleonic Code, which streamlined the French legal system and continues to form the foundation of French civil law to this day.
In 1802, a constitutional amendment made Napoleon first consul for life. Two years later, in 1804, he crowned himself emperor of France in a lavish ceremony at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.
In 1796, Napoleon married Josephine de Beauharnais (), a stylish widow six years his senior who had two teenage children. More than a decade later, in 1809, after Napoleon had no offspring of his own with Josephine, he had their marriage annulled so he could find a new wife and produce an heir. In 1810, he wed Marie Louise (), the daughter of the emperor of Austria. The following year, she gave birth to their son, Napoleon Fran?ois Joseph Charles Bonaparte (), who became known as Napoleon II and was given the title king of Rome. In addition to his son with Marie Louise, Napoleon had several illegitimate children.
From 1803 to 1815, France was engaged in the Napoleonic Wars, a series of major conflicts with various coalitions of European nations. In 1803, partly as a means to raise funds for future wars, Napoleon sold France’s
Territory in North America to the newly independent United States for $15 million, a transaction that later became known as the .
In October 1805, the British wiped out Napoleon’s fleet at the . However, in December of that same year, Napoleon achieved what is considered to be one of his greatest victories at the Battle of Austerlitz, in which his army defeated the Austrians and Russians. The victory resulted in the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine.
Beginning in 1806, Napoleon sought to wage large-scale economic warfare against Britain with the establishment of the so-called Continental System of European port blockades against British trade. In 1807, following Napoleon’s defeat of the Russians at Friedland in Prussia, Alexander I () was forced to sign a peace settlement, the Treaty of Tilsit. In 1809, the French defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Wagram, resulting in further gains for Napoleon.
During these years, Napoleon reestablished a French aristocracy (eliminated in the French Revolution) and began handing out titles of nobility to his loyal friends and family as his empire continued to expand across much of western and central continental Europe.
In 1810, Russia withdrew from the Continental System. In retaliation, Napoleon led a massive army into Russia in the summer of 1812. Rather than engaging the French in a full-scale battle, the Russians adopted a strategy of retreating whenever Napoleon’s forces attempted to attack. As a result, Napoleon’s troops trekked deeper into Russia despite being ill-prepared for an extended campaign. In September, both sides suffered heavy casualties in the indecisive Battle of Borodino. Napoleon’s forces marched on to Moscow, only to discover almost the entire population evacuated. Retreating Russians set fires across the city in an effort to deprive enemy troops of supplies. After waiting a month for a surrender that never came, Napoleon, faced with the onset of the Russian winter, was forced to order his starving, exhausted army out of Moscow. During the disastrous retreat, his army suffered continual harassment from a suddenly aggressive and merciless Russian army. Of Napoleon’s 600,000 troops who began the campaign, only an estimated 100,000 made it out of Russia.
At the same time as the catastrophic Russian invasion, French forces were engaged in the Peninsular War (), which resulted in the Spanish and Portuguese, with assistance from the British, driving the French from the Iberian Peninsula. This loss was followed in 1813 by the , also known as the Battle of Nations, in which Napoleon’s forces were defeated by a coalition that included Austrian, Prussian, Russian and Swedish troops. Napoleon then retreated to France, and in March 1814 coalition forces captured Paris.
On April 6, 1814, Napoleon, then in his mid-40s, was forced to abdicate the throne. With the Treaty of Fontainebleau, he was exiled to Elba, a Mediterranean island off the coast of Italy. He was given sovereignty over the small island, while his wife and son went to Austria.
On February 26, 1815, after less than a year in exile, Napoleon escaped Elba and sailed to the French mainland with a group of more than 1,000 supporters. On March 20, he returned to Paris, where he was welcomed by cheering crowds. The new king, Louis XVIII (), fled, and Napoleon began what came to be known as his Hundred Days campaign.
Upon Napoleon’s return to France, a coalition of allies–the Austrians, British, Prussians and Russians–who considered the French emperor an enemy began to prepare for war. Napoleon raised a new army and planned to strike preemptively, defeating the allied forces one by one before they could launch a united attack against him.
In June 1815, his forces invaded Belgium, where British and Prussian troops were stationed. On June 16, Napoleon’s troops defeated the Prussians at the Battle of Ligny. However, two days later, on June 18, at the
near Brussels, the French were crushed by the British, with assistance from the Prussians.
On June 22, 1815, Napoleon was once again forced to abdicate.
In October 1815, Napoleon was exiled to the remote, British-held island of Saint Helena, in the South Atlantic Ocean. He died there on May 5, 1821, at age 51, most likely from stomach cancer. (During his time in power, Napoleon often posed for paintings with his hand in his vest, leading to some speculation after his death that he had been plagued by stomach pain for years.) Napoleon was buried on the island despite his request to be laid to rest “on the banks of the Seine, among the French people I have loved so much.” In 1840, his remains were returned to France and entombed in a crypt at Les Invalides in Paris, where other French military leaders are interred.
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