Media Release
From: AAASMillennials (and Gen-Zers) Take Heart: Notion that “Kids These Days” Are Less Is an Illusion
American adults who excel in a given dimension are more likely to notice others’ failings regarding the same skill or trait and to project their current abilities onto their past selves and peers, new research suggests. As a result, authoritarian people, for example, are more likely to believe youth are becoming less respectful towards their elders, suggesting that persistent observations about the deficiencies of today’s youth are an illusion. While pervasive complaints about young people across millennia suggest these criticisms are inaccurate, little research has investigated why adults tend to shake their heads at “kids these days.” To study this phenomenon in terms of respect for elders, intelligence, and enjoyment of reading, John Protzko et al. sampled a cohort of adults ages 33 to 51. They asked 1824 adults matched for authoritarianism how much they believed children today respect their elders compared to when they were young, finding that those holding higher degrees of authority believed children now respect their elders less. In another study, the researchers measured the intelligence of 134 participants using an eight-item vocabulary test. People who measured higher on intelligence believed that children today were becoming less intelligent, while the trait of authoritarianism was unrelated to this belief. In a third study, they administered the Author Recognition Test to a new sample of 1500 adults, finding that the more well-read the participant, the more they believed children no longer enjoy reading. Protzko and colleagues also found that by manipulating participants’ perceptions of their performance on a reading test, they could change how well-read participants thought they were, reducing the “kids these days” effect in those who believed they performed poorly.
