Compared with the Baby Boomers who were seniors in 1975, 12th-graders surveyed in 2006 were much more confident they’d be “very good” employees, mates and parents, and they were more self-satisfied overall, say Twenge and co-author W. Keith Campbell of the University of Georgia. Between half and two-thirds of the Gen Y teens gave themselves top ratings, compared with less than half in their parents’ generation. The report is in Psychological Science.<\/p>\n
Boomer parents “are more likely than their parents were to praise children \u201d\u201d and maybe overpraise them,” Twenge says. This can foster great expectations or perhaps even smugness about one’s chances of reaching “the stars” at work and in family life, she adds. “Their narcissism could be a recipe for depression later when things don’t work out as well as they expected.”<\/p>\n