The image of a retiree complaining about the local kids is so ubiquitous it has become a cliché—everyone knows that each generation loves to be appalled by the behavior of those born later. Now research confirms this observation and suggests that by thinking about youngsters getting in trouble, older people are actively boosting their self-esteem.
Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick of Ohio State University and her colleague Matthias Hastall of Zeppelin University in Germany asked people between the ages of 50 and 65 to read articles in a magazine under the guise of becoming familiar with the publication. In a subsequent survey, the participants who read experimenter-created articles about the trouble young people got themselves into reported higher levels of self-esteem. The more the older subjects looked at the articles about the bad behavior and ill fortune of younger people, the more their self-esteem rose. Knobloch-Westerwick explains this as a classic case of schadenfreude—people feel good about the misfortunes of a group to which they do not belong.
For 18- to 30-year-old volunteers, however, the reverse was not true. Knobloch-Westerwick suggests that in our youth-idealizing culture, older people are simply marginal in the eyes of the young. [For more on the psychology of schadenfreude, see “Their Pain, Our Gain,” by Emily Anthes; Scientific American Mind, November/December 2010.]
Editor's note: This story was originally titled in print as "Kids These Days."
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9 Comments
Add CommentHere is yet another case of social science researchers conducting a study, then drawing the wrong conclusion from the data they collected.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOlder people do not feel better about themselves after reading of errant youths because of schadenfreude. They feel better about themselves because they know that they have survived the dangers, and temptations, of callow youth, when so many others have not.
It's simple Adaptive Preference Formation: We desire something, find it unattainable, and therefore criticize it. Youth is "not attainable" for those of us at a certain age, so we find comfort in pointing to the foibles of today's youth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd, yes, older people also feel better about ourselves because we realized we have "survived." But I would still guess there's an element of adaptive preference formation at work for some of us. :)
"social science" - an oxymoron if there ever was one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm not so sure that I view youth as unattainable in that I have already attained it, and now know better.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLOL, SteveinOG! Good point! I guess I should have said it's something we can't go back and re-claim. :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLOL, SteveinOG! Good point! I guess I should have said it's something we can't go back and re-claim. :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOoops. My apologies for the double post.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis phenomena is universal all over the world. Old generation always blame new generation for their inefficiencies. Real fact is that old generation is malicious of new generation so they very carefully search wrongdoing of young people.Both way they want satisfaction their superiority and and push their self-esteem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot all of us "older people" (even though I'm still a couple years shy of the lower threshold of the study) think of the younger generation as particularly worse in any way than our own. Older people that do are either unbearably dull or lying about their own youthful activities.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the study had a control group that used articles about middle aged or old people I would be more likely to consider it meaningful.