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Millennial entitlement is a myth
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| Parent(s) |
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| Contributor | Penguin |
| Last Edited | Penguin Sep 28, 2013 06:47pm |
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| Category | News |
| News Date | Sunday, September 29, 2013 12:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | A recent, viral example came as a sassy-yet-comprehensive blog post from Wait But Why. The anonymous author explains the malaise that characterizes Generation Y — the cohort of 20-somethings and teens born in the ’80s and ’90s — by highlighting the group’s socio-historically unique upbringing. The author calls us GYPSYs, a clunky acronym for Gen Y Protagonists & Special Yuppies, and posits that the over-coddling we received from our helicopterous boomer parents rendered us hopelessly optimistic and deeply delusional. (Why not just say that Lena Dunham epitomizes who we are, as the media usually does, and call it a day?)
The post is funny and smart, but it makes the same mistake that a horde of other reports on Gen Y’s uniquely entitled and presumptuous “nature” does: It’s a critique of the optimism and naiveté that’s built into everyone’s post-adolescent life. Gen Y didn’t invent being optimistic and naive; these are facets of being a young person, not of being born to baby boomers who told us we were special.
After scouring professor Harvey’s lengthy CV, I couldn’t see any research suggesting that entitlement is amplified in Generation Y-sters. In other words, I was looking for research that connected feelings of self-entitlement among young workers to being raised in the ’80s and ’90s. After I couldn’t find it, I emailed him. Here’s his response:
Unfortunately the reason you can’t find the article is that it doesn’t exist…I’ve published some studies on workplace entitlement but I’ve never actually looked at generational differences. That’s primarily been a creation of the media – one of those things that’s now been repeated so many times that reporters and other writers assume that there must be an actual study out there somewhere. In their defense I usually collect age data as a control variable and I did once run a quick post-hoc analysis at the behest of a reporter that showed significantly h |
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