Things like nine to eleven or wars, or pandemics or recessions, and that certainly has some influence on people, but not as much as technology and technological change.
Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today we welcome Gene Twengey to the podcast. Gene is professor of psychology at San Diego State University. She frequently gives talks and seminars on generational differences and technology based on a data set of thirty nine million people. Her audiences have included college faculty and staff, parent groups, military personnel, camp directors,
and corporate executives. Her work has been repeatedly featured by the media, and she has authored more than one hundred and eighty scientific publications and books, including Igen, Generation Me, and The Narcissism Epidemic. Her latest book, which is her magnum opus, is called Generations. In this episode, I talked to Gene Tweiney about the real differences between the generations. Did you know that our current time has the most number of living generations to coexist ever in the history
of humanity. Unfortunately, there is often conflict and miscommunication between them. According to Gene, this is largely due to how the advancement of tech has scheaped major life experiences. She shares interesting statistics about each cohort and debug's common misconceptions about baby boomers, Millennials, gen Z, and others. We also touch on the topics of narcissism, polarization, mental health, gender identity, and compassion. So, without further ado, I bring you, Gene Twingey.
Nice to finally meet you.
Yeah, I feel the same.
It's been a while, but it's a good timing because this is your magnum opus. Yes, it is absolutely wow wow generations, the real differences between Gen Z, Millennials, gen X boomers, and silence, and what they mean for America's future. No big deal, No big deal. I mean talk about
a synthesis of data. You know, we talk about like you know, in grad school, it's like, if I have more than two hundred participants, I'm I'm happy I get a PhD. But your analysis is derived from twenty one data sets that go back to the nineteen forties and up to as recent as this year, spanning about thirty eight million people. Is that right?
That's about right?
Yeah, And I'm fortunate I did not have to collect that data myself.
Yeah, yeah, That is good. That is good. Your book covers these five generations Silence born nineteen twenty five, nineteen forty five, Boomers born nineteen forty six, nineteen sixty four, Generation X, which we'll talk about because I don't even know where I belong, but that's born nineteen sixty five nineteen seventy nine, Millennials born nineteen eighty to nineteen ninety four, and gen Z born nineteen ninety five to twenty twelve.
What is the mean criteria upon which those five were clustered?
You mean in terms of the term, say the birth, your cutoffs, that type of thing.
Yeah, who decided that?
Yeah, well, nobody and everybody.
There's not really any commission that decides, you know, what those cutoffs should be. Pretty much everybody agrees that living now is different from what it was like to live one hundred years ago, or fifty years ago, or even twenty years ago, and we agree that that has an effect on people's behaviors and attitudes and values. So really, you know, the debate is kind of around the detail. So then you know, how do you group the generations?
Are those cutoffs the right ones? So for boomers, it was fairly clear based on demographics, based on the baby boom, so on fertility rates, and then from there it's a little bit more fuzzy. But technology has accelerated, you know, some of the turnover and change, and so the generations have got a little bit shorter, and the cutoffs that I'm using are you know, more or less agreed upon, although you can certainly debate them.
Okay, yeah, I've seen jen X sometimes defined those. Sometimes I see like the missing year in nineteen seventy nine, which is the year I was born, and some people don't know where to put that.
Yeah, I think most most of the theories and most of the cutoffs would put you as a gen xer. So you're a late gen xer right in that transition between gen X and millennials.
I'm an early millennial.
I haven't seen a whole lot of people using seventy nine for early millennial. It usually the costs are nineteen eighty for the first year for millennials, or sometimes I see nineteen eighty one, sometimes I see nineteen eighty two.
Okay, Well, you know the traditional or classic way of kind of talking about the thing that kind of differently is the main differentiator between all these things. Is looking at major life events that everyone experienced together. But you argue in your book that that's maybe missing out on some really key differences between these things. Is that right, Yeah?
I think so, because, yeah, that's the traditional focus was on major events. How old we when certain big things happened in the world or in the country, So things like nine to eleven or wars or pandemics or recessions, and that certainly has some influence on people, but not as much as technology and technological change. And there I'm not just talking about computers and smartphones, but also things like labor saving devices like washing machines, air conditioning, airplanes,
better medical care. You know, these are the things that make living now so completely different from what it was like to live in a previous era.
You know, what was it like being a silent the silence generation during the Great Depression? Obviously there's no TV, right, and no phones, no very hard to commune. I guess you write. You wrote letters to each other a lot, right, you know, and the revenants from the eighteen hundreds.
Yeah, you could talk on the phone, but you know, you had to pay the big bill if it was long distance. Gen Xers are kind of the last generation to really remember that, although probably maybe some millennials too.
Well, let's talk about it. Let's start with the sound generation a little bit and talk about them. There's some interesting research suggesting they may have been more mentally healthy than the generations before them and also after them. Is that true, like out of even all the generations, like out of all the generations, they might be more of most and they had the least technology. So, uh, you know, what's going on? There is there a causation there?
Now maybe you know, I think there's The silent.
Generation does show some some a little bit more of the influence of big events, probably because there were huge events when they were young, like the Great Depression and like World War Two, and a lot fewer of them were drafted, so a lot of silence fought in Korea, but a lot fewer than say the Greatest generation before them fighting in World War Two, and then less than the Boomers being drafted to Vietnam. So they kind of
had that sweet spot. They were really coming to adulthood during that post war prosperity, and it seems to have kind of grounded them and maybe helped them develop a more positive outlook online.
How do you know what their mental health was? What's the data you're looking at there that you could possibly compare to this generation for instance.
Yeah, so you're always with these things of looking at generational differences and change over time. You're a little bit of a prisoner to the data that's out there.
There is a.
Big survey that has asked about how many days people have of poor mental health in a month.
Kind of a crude measure, but it goes.
Back to nineteen ninety three, and then we can kind of control for age and look at each generation. And so that's one of the data sets that used for that canclusion or silence, and you control for age and then take a look. Their mental health is better than the greatest generation before them and the boomers after them.
You said something really interesting there about controlling for age. I am an individual differences researcher, So my my natural question is is the variation within each generation greater than the variation between I mean.
For most group differences, you're gonna have more variations, right, absolutely, And the same is true for generations.
You know, I'm just wondering how much of these effects are related to age. But I'm glad that you can. You said you control for age. That's that. Oh yeah, I mean that kind of that's kind of the obvious thing.
Yeah, I agree.
I agree. Well, I'm glad you said that. I'm glad you said that.
You know.
I think another kind of obvious maybe uh maybe obvious question a lot people thinking, is is it normal for every generation to criticize or be confused by the generation that follows. Is that just like the pattern you find over and overa I think.
It is kind of human nature. As things change around you, you're trying to figure it out. So I think each generation, as they get older than is trying to figure out how the world changed almost kind of underneath them, and then also trying to understand the young generation. I've always found it fascinating that older generations are really fascinated.
By younger ones.
Younger ones not so much of all older generations. They're like, oh, you guys are done, and it's just they want to kind of skip over.
It or something.
You know, you guys are done. No, there is a kind of I mean.
They're not going to actually say that, but that's kind of what the motivation seems to be sometimes.
And I don't know.
I think it's always better we're trying to all understand each other. That's usually the better outcome.
I agree, But you know, there's this like there's just this like spirit in the air. It just doesn't feel loving between the generations. I don't like it. I don't like the way it makes me feel, you know, like, Okay, Boomer, you know, you know you from with that insul.
Yeah, and I'm completely with you. I mean, it's it's really really unfortunate. And I think there's a lot of generational misunderstanding and conflict now. I think some of it just comes from that we communicate in different ways and that technological changes has kind of sped up those those differences and led to some of those misunderstandings. And you know, to be fair, it's not just across generations. We have a lot of political polarization. We have a lot of negativity just overall.
Okay, I really, I really want to understand this. I agree, there's a lot of polical polarization up. I you know, looking at all the differences between and there's a lot that means it's a rich, a rich book.
It is.
Your magnum opis seriously congratulations. What I find so fascinating is there's something really really different about this about what's the latest gener's gen Z? Is that is that Yeah, there's something like like it's almost like, at least at least the other four generations, they're talking the same language, like yeah, maybe drugs, but there's more drugs in one
the other. But everyone knows what drugs are you But there's something you know in Gen Z. It's like you can call it the transgender generation, you know, just looking at your stats, I'm like, why not call it the transgender generation or the gender fluid generation because that is what It's just general, there's something very very different about Generation Z. I'm not making any judgment call about it,
but I'm just stating. You know, what stood out to me when I was looking at reading all the difference between all the generations and to what extent is is so much this political poorisation being driven by by Gen Z. I guess that's my question?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I think I politically the break is between gen X and Millennials, which is.
Kind of fascinating because in a lot of psychological.
Ways around individualism, self focus, things like that, those two generations are actually kind of similar in how they grew up in some of their attitudes. But politically, that's where the break occurs. Whether we're talking about you know, Democrats versus Republicans, conservative versus liberal, that type of politics, or just things in the culture in general around free speech, around you know, how much we should be talking about things versus not about you know, all of these campus
controversies and so on. That's where the break seems to take place.
Well, that's interesting that you put it there, because, you know, like Coddling the American Mind kind of book, they put it really at this generation. They put it in the last like ten years.
Oh yeah, you know, and it has it has definitely accelerated for sure. And I yeah, I don't disagree with with that idea that you know, gen Z has taken that next level. But I think there's a lot of millennial participation in some of those things on campus. It was gen Z that really kind of brought those issues
to the forefront. But in the last five years or so, when there's been conflicts around free speech or political things in the workplace, it's often dead millennials and gen Z banding together versus the gen X and boomer managers or bosses.
Yeah, yeah, I want to talk about that later. I have that on my list to talk about. I really want to talk about narcissism because you know, this is this is I've wanted every new book you have that comes out, and I was like, oh, I really want to have her on my podcast. So this is finally I get you on my podcast and we get to like go back in the archives of your work, which is great. And the narcissism research. I love how it's evolved. I've seen an evolution with you, you know, and uh,
and qualifications emerge. So I'm almost glad. I wait, I am glad. I waited till now because you know, this is we get the most up to date information. My reading of the situation is that Generation X is kind of like the self esteem movement. Generation not necessarily narcisism, but it's like like self esteem is the gateway drug to narcissism.
This is my at least based on anything real is.
Nothing really it's like you're strong enough for good of you know, like those the Saturday Night Live skipp Yeah, it's small and then that I feel like was a gateway drug to the millennials like just up to two thousand and eight, a sort of full blown not just like I'm good enough, dog Garnet, but I'm on the best right.
Yeah, And then that all fell apart.
Yes, So tell me what happened after? I know, and I think that's I've been following your work. So after two thousand and eight it fell apart, and then it started it seems like it started to kind of like drastically go down in terms of mental health, in terms of it's almost like some bubble popped some of self illusion or something. It's like, oh my gosh, you know, like and then and now you know, the way I see it is now we live in a very victimhood
mentality based culture. That's just my perception. But is that But what are your thoughts on this? Do you agree?
Yeah?
No, I think the change in narcissism is one of the few examples of psychological traits where you really see the impact of the economic the Great Recession of you know, a recession. A lot of other things don't really change all that much around the economic cycles, but narcissism really did.
It peaked right before the Grave recession and then started to go down but then you know, there's got to be something else going on, because US economy then started to improve after twenty eleven or twenty twelve, right, but
narcisism kept going down. But that coincides with some of the other trends with the transition to Gen Z of the rise in depression, the rise and unhappiness, the decline and self esteem, you know, all of which would at least for a young population, point in that same direction of narcissism also going down.
I've wanted to bring something up with you for a long time. I guess it's the common theme of our conversation today. But oh, I'm glad I want to I want to bring this to see what your thoughts on this, or if you've thought of this in this way. I've been differentiating in my research quite a bit between grandiose narcissism and vulnerable narcissism, And what I'm seeing in my data is actually an increase in vulnerable narcissism.
Makes sense.
Interesting, Yeah, and I'm wondering how you, yeah, how that lands for you.
Yeah, I think that that makes a lot of sense. I mean, of course, you know, as you know full well that the tough part is the NPI really measures grandiose and that's been you know, the most common.
That's a huge prop that's right, that's why we have to create new scales.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
And then you probably don't have the data going back in time, so you know, I can see how that that's you know, it's challenging to nail down you know, the maybe the some of the evidence on that, but it I think that makes perfect sense given the other trends with self esteem going down, depression going up, and so on. And I'm curious, you know, are you using that also to explain some of the things around, like you said, the culture of victimhood?
Is that?
Sure?
Yeah, that's really where all my research is going right now. Yeah, I've kind of put all hands on deck on that topic because I think it's a really urgent issue and I'm going to link it to the mental health crist but yes, so not to turn the interview around on me, but as a mutual mutual inquiry and curiosity. What I find really interesting is the construct of vulnerable narcissism is a mess, and I have argued the best definition of it is just simply entitlement that is based on perceived
fragility or past history of suffering. Fascinating, Yeah, because that way you can directly compare that to grandiose narcism defined as entitlement grounded in uh perceived superior inherent superiority. And therefore you can see the contrast, whereas a lot some people have a lot of out there, like neuroticism is the distinguisher but between it. But the problem is you start bringing all these other things you're not you know,
neuroticism doesn't get the entitlement part, you know. So so I feel the entitlement is what's core to narcissism and where and there's a lot of like tangential UH aspects or facets that are discussed. So yeah, so when you look at it that way, yes, absolutely, I see. I've cheek thought maybe I should just call this generation the
fragility generation or the fragile the fragile generation. But there is a sort of sort of entitlement based on you know, on on on a fragility, a perceived fragility that one has where they can't handle the world.
Yeah, and it's I've struggled with this a lot too, because you know, people have used the label snowflakes right, and talked about fragility, and I struggle with it so much because although you know, there's a grain of truth to that, on the other hand, we're talking about a generation where there are rates of depression doubled within.
An eight year period.
You know, these are really serious mental health issues, and I don't want them dismiss and you know what I mean, and I don't do I'm kind of uncomfortable with the idea of, you know, anything that's that's trying to to blame or to criticize based on true mental health issues.
If that makes any sense, well.
It makes profound sense. And I well, I personally like to stay away from the you know, coddling language. You know, yeah, it doesn't feel as compassionate as it could be. I I raised that in a in a discussion I had with Greg and John at the Comedy Seller in New.
York City of all places.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. But striking that balance I find really difficult between saying things that you're feeding into a delusion. Like I think sometimes the highest form of form of kindness is not feeding into someone's delusion, And so how do we hold that up? You know, as a truth while also holding up the fact that it must really suck, like showing like, show a little compassion and perspective, taking exactly what they're feeling. What they're feeling
is painful, exactly. Yeah, you know, how do you how do you hold both up at the same time and hold space for both?
Right?
That that's exactly the challenge, because yeah, I mean, you think about gen z and their childhood and adolescents and what they've had to face, you know, not spending as much time with their friends face to face, being almost mandatory to be on social media, to have all of those pressures. You know that that's the only world that they've known. And then it's not a wonder you know
that so many of them are depressed. But then, you know, does that mean we should just accept the idea that free speech is dead?
I hope not.
Yeah, I hope not as well. I guess when I look at the full pattern of data among gen z, I try to understand how which ones are linked to which. So, for instance, this is statistic is fasting nearly a third of men ages eighteen to twenty five did not have sex in the last year. Now I knew that gen zers were having less sex. But actually, until I read your book, did not realize that the effect was larger for men within that age range. I did not know that, but I do. I did know that there's a call
it a looneliness epidemic. I guess i'mware of using the word epidemic, but among young men there really is really sky sky high levels of loneliness. And so I guess I don't know how all these things are linked. If all the women are becoming men, I'm just saying, like, take the imagination of how these things could be linked. You know, if now all the young girls now are becoming transgender by a non binary you know, like no one wants the men and no one wants the biological men anymore.
I don't think that's what's going on, though.
Okay, then tell me what's going on.
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's always it's always a little a little speculative when you're trying to get to the causes. But for the changes in sexual activity, I think some of it is more depressed. So in depression, when people are.
Depressed, you think men are more depressed.
Why are they more depressed?
Yeah? Why do you think?
I mean, I think it's for a lot of the same reasons that young women are depressed, is because the way that they socialize is changed in a way that's not good for mental health. So I think that that's at the core of a lot of it. So that piece is in there. Some of it is they're just taking longer to grow up. So that, as you know, is another big theme in generations about this slow life strategy,
which has its advantages and disadvantages. But there are just more young men and women who at twenty or twenty one, when in previous generations they would have been sexually active, are putting that off until later in their lives. And that might not be entirely a bad thing.
Are I didn't find the statistic on young women ages eighteen to twenty five. Are they having more sex than prior generations?
No, it's also less.
It's just I see, Okay, I was looking for that statistic. Okay, got it. So there's a lot more gender affluidity, do you think that? I mean, I mean it's so controversial when when when people propose the sort of social contagion hypothesis, transgender activists immediately tear that down and say that's transphobia,
So I don't I'm asking what the data suggests. Do you think it's it's because is there some is there some cultural influences there or and or could it be that prior generations they would there would have been on those rates if it was as acceptable to be transgender and prior generations.
Yeah, I mean, that's what makes it so fascinating.
We don't really know.
So I think it's it's definitely true that if.
You look at, say, the rise in individualism, more focus on the self, less on social rules, that more acceptance of people being transgender non binary is a very logical outcome of that cultural system. And I think that's just been growing over time.
But that that is the question.
Of how much of it is due to greater acceptance, And that's the theory that most people go on. But you know, you dig into it and you have to answer a couple of questions that I'm just not sure of the answers yet, Like if it's just greater acceptance, if that's really the primary driver, then why is it that identifying as transgender hasn't changed hardly at all among
people who are age thirty and older. Because it hasn't it's really only been young adults where you see that huge increase, the quadrupling of those you know, identifying as trans It hasn't really happened with older people. But it's certainly possible that maybe among older people it's just their lives are more settled and it would be a much bigger disruption for them to come out as strands.
Bring that down as a way to table that for my own brain, because I want to reflect on that. That is such a good point. Yeah, I guess we just don't know. We do know that there is a you know, we know culturally there's a shift in among peers.
And it depends how you want to frame it. You know, you can frame it as acceptance, frame it as like, I don't know if there's peer pressure, you know, ever to sort of feel like, you know, let's say you're you know, having identity crisis is nothing new to teenagers
in any generation. I'm sure. I'm sure that I'm sure a lot of silence, silent teenagers had identity crisis crises, and you know, wanting to belong, wanting to fit in, wanting to be part of, you know, a group, or you know, get special privileges you know, I don't know exactly because I'm obviously not en messed or immersed in school culture right now, you know, so I guess you just have to really look at that.
Yeah, I've heard that argument, and I understand the idea of like, oh, maybe people want to fit in and find a group and so on.
On the other hand, think about what trans kids and.
Teens have to put up with and the amount of bullying they have to put up with.
Yeah, why you think about it?
That was like, I don't know that it doesn't just doesn't sound as likely.
I hear you about transfer, but I'm talking about an overall global pattern of gender felidity in terms of, like you know, saying like your non binary for non binary seems to be a really profoundly new category than the prior generations. You know. You know, I don't I could see someone who's having a real serious identity crisis sort of feeling such pressure to like cling to an identity male or female that they don't feel a resonance with. I can see how the non binary gender is. It
can be very relaxing. M Yeah, yeah, I could see it.
Yeah, And I think that that's just been made possible by the the all of the chefs you know that have happened culturally around equality and gender and freedom and individualism.
Yeah, yeah, Oh my god, so much data here. Well, okay, why don't you tell me some of the most surprising facts in terms of some myths of generational differences that you came across. You're like, Wow, that myth really needs to be debunked. Can you debunk some myths for me? Please?
I'll try so, you know, I think there's one is there's this really common perception that boomers are all really economically successful and that income inequality was something that they really started and that you know, boomers became successful and then climbed up the ladder and pulled it up after they had climbed it. So the millennials, you know, couldn't be successful in terms out that whole narrative just falls apart, you know, very very quickly when you start looking at
at the data. So, first, sure, a lot of boomers have done well for themselves, but there's a big segment, especially those who did not go to college, where the economy changed underneath them and they found themselves in a pretty difficult situation. And that's why you get things like a lot more depression, especially among those who are lower income and have less education among boomers.
And then the.
Findings of Case and Deton, the famous findings of the mortality rate among middle aged Americans starting to go up, especially those who are white and not college educated, and that's driven by boomers. So you can see the despair in certain segments of that generation because they are not the kings of the world that they're you know, are
sometimes perceived to be as boomers. They're very much on the other side of that, and you know, with these challenges, and then on the flip side of that is the idea about millennials struggling, that very very common narrative everywhere online about millennials that they not do as well as their parents, they have to have side gigs, they'll never own houses. Well, median incomes among twenty six to thirty nine year olds are at all time highs corrected for inflation.
Home ownership rates virtually identical for millennials, gen xers and boomers. It's not all completely rosy. A lot of those income gains have been driven by women, which sounds like a good thing, but then that means, say, a heterosexual couple wants to have kids, then they have to pay for daycare. So there's definitely challenges in there. But that core idea that millennials are not economically successful is exactly wrong.
Okay, well, that's good to dispel the idea of this New York Times HITDL and I saw thirty seven year olds are afraid of the twenty three year olds who work for them.
Yeah, good, Haveline, Oh my.
Gosh, not talking about that many years different, you know, in the whole scheme of the universe, and yet there seems to be such a golf.
You know, So that's that's that's millennials who are now the adults in the room, and they're trying to get used to that, just like Jen Exter said, to get used to it and still kind of aren't the gen Z.
They're trying to figure out gen Z. I see this in the university setting with a millennium and order trying to understand the gen Zers, trying to understand what are the kids. Now, there are some people who really think probably Jonathan Hayden, Greg g Gano would probably think that they're giving in too much. It's sort of there's sort of like a one model of thinking about this that's almost like a fight or a competition, you know, of like you know, you know, just do we give into
the gen Z demands and the crazy demands. But then there's there must there's certainly another view of a lot of professors who are like, wow, there's so much wisdom here in the gen zs. And I've seen the whole gamut as a professor, you know, across in all my faculty meetings, you know, the fact meanings there, they're divided.
But I'm just laying out different perspectives and conceptualizations. A lot of a lot of my friends at Barnard College at Colombia, you know, really see a lot of are like, yeah, you go gen Zers. They're really shaking things up in a way that needs to be shaken up. They're not like, ohver coddling them, you know. So I see I see different different perspectives on the table, and so it's almost as if like you know, even taking the gen Zers out of the equation like the other uh, the other
generations don't really agree. Not everyone agrees with each other and how they should treat the gen z Ers or how they should view them.
Yeah, so.
You know, last five or six years are given a lot of talks on generational differences, and of course being a faculty member, one of the most common audiences is my fellow faculty members on various campuses. And this is the essential tension. I think it's been true for.
The social tension I feel. I feel it on campus.
It is because you have to figure out how much are you going to change your teaching and how you're presenting things for this generation.
But then if you're completely changing you I mean to be a.
Little extreme about it, and if you give the students exactly what they want, it'd be maybe in some cases anyway and a for no work. Maybe we don't want to do that. You know, we have to figure out what's good for them in the long term. That doesn't mean we should be sticks in the mud and not change at all. So there's that balance, like how much were we going to change in our teaching and then
how much we're not going to change. But we still have to prepare students for the workplace and grad school and that we can't give in too much. But you know, that is that is what was one of my goals, certainly in writing this book is to start with that piece of understanding of yes, we have things in common, but here are some of the differences, and then maybe helps you know a little bit more what your students experienced before they reached your classroom.
I love your I love your compassion, and I really
like the way you think I do. I realized that when I say things like I think that this is the generation of vulnerable narcissism, even though I think it's true, I realized that obviously calling people narcissists is not a flattering, really you know, kind way of trying a human But if we can more finally differentiate what really counts technically is entitlement, because I think that we do see some real vulnerable narcissism and what isn't entitlement, but what isn't
really entitlement? But are adults kind of saying, oh, that's entitled kids, you know, But actually the kids have a good point. Yeah, sorting out those that's the nuance that I like, you know, and I feel like I get the sense you do too. But you know what I'm saying, like.
Yeah, no completely, I mean I think that that plays out in the classroom, It plays out in the workplace. I think it's it's really it's really something to watch in the political arena as well, because you know, where's where's the line? You know, Oh, these kids are so entitled or I disagree with them because they're across the political spectrum for me. Right, So, like if you're a Republican and you see young people saying we universal health care, Oh, that's an entitlement.
How entitled is that? Right?
But then a Democrat might think, no, this is good. They're fighting for the change that they want and they believe in this, so you know, it's it's it is really classic social psychology, isn't it That How you view it depends on your own attitude.
Absolutely, I personally as a profess teaching as a professor across generations, have noticed a shift in this sense. I noticed that a lot of students expect now in a way they never did before. That if they say that certain materials too hard or it's like difficult, making them uncomfortable having to do the homework, therefore I should be like, oh,
no problem, here's your extension. And to me, there is a little bit of entitlement there, you know, And I try so hard to be compassionates, but especially it was like, oh my god, my parents passed away about you know, give me an excuse. But what I'm seeing now sometimes are no excuses. Other then, like I had an assignment once from like just think of one question a week on the readings that you did, and I literally would have some students be like, Professor Kaufman, that's unreasonable request.
I can't think of any questions to ask. And I'm like, you're at an Ivy League school. You can't go up with one question. I'm sorry, but like, no, no, that's not okay.
Right exactly.
Yeah, I mean, that's that's one of the It's just such a huge challenge, you know, being a faculty member that you want to be fair to all your students, but then there are sometimes these extenuating circumstances and where do you draw that Where do you draw that line? And then you know, COVID was a whole other wrench in that because that then you know, we had to be more flexible just the way it was, and so now we're like, well.
Now we do it roll that back? And I don't know.
My basic philosophy is as much compassion as possible in the classroom to have to be able to have an open discussion, but then you know, when it comes to actually getting that work done, you have to be a little bit more of a hard ass.
Really, I mean at university, like certain ex base expectations at most base level. Is it true that we this is the most number of living generations alive at the same time than ever in human history.
Yeah.
Yeah, because because technology has changed so much, the generations have gotten shorter now, you know, as we discussed. So it's somewhat arbitrary, but I think you can certainly make a case for the cultural change of the last twenty to thirty years being pretty considerable. And so that's why we have the shorter generations, and that's why we have six living American generations right now.
That's incredible, That's incredible. And I also didn't know that Biden is the first ever silent generation president. Wow. Yeah, I mean, I mean, how's he in touch with anyone? Anyone? I guess some whould argue he's not, you know, in some political sides. But that's that's incredible.
And I mean, in general, our political leaders are older now than they were a generation.
They're getting older and older. Yeah, they're getting like every new presence now like it, our next person's gonna be one hundred and five years old.
Right, Well, this is the debate, right you know, is that good because with age comm's wisdom or is it that they're out of touch? And you know that's going to vary depending on the individual and so on. But you know, as a gen x er, I can't tell you there was you know, when I made the graphs showing that that boomers really were blocking the way of Gen X into political leadership, Yep, there's there. That's when it was a little hard for me to keep my
opinion out of it. I tried as much as I possibly can't have to keep my opinion out of it. But with that I was like, yep, I knew it. There was definitely some boomer blockage of Gen xers, and partially just because they're a bigger generation, but that doesn't explain all of it. Even if you take that into account, In both politics and in business, Bloomers are hanging onto their leadership positions longer than previous generations, and then Gen X isn't.
Able to move up.
Although's some speculation gen X may not want want to move up because they're just not into.
That as much.
So interesting politically, why does it feel like the right, like conservatives like get triggered by gen zers because because do you see how I turned that around? Do you see how I turn that around? Do you see how I flip flip the trigger thing? But it feels like they get really triggered by gen Z's.
Yeah, I mean that's that is one way you could use that verb. Well, conservatism by definition.
Means you want things to stay the same. It's opposed to progressivism, where you want things to change. And generally there are generational differences, you know, based on when you're born that push people, you know, more toward democrat or liberal and republican or conservative. But there is the general principle that people become more conservative as they get older, partially because they're like, okay, that's enough change, you know, we can stop now, stop the world.
I want to get off.
And then young people say, no, you know, we want more change. And so that's that's I think why there's that generational tension, particularly with older conservatives. Older progressors are often like, no, I love the kids.
Yes, no, well that's right, And you see that split on the faculty as well. Yeah, so my question is then Generation X had the consistently most republican generation. So were the Boomers like triggered by Generation X? I guess my question in a parallel argument.
Boomers have such an odd political trajectory. They started as very, very liberal and then switched to be conservative seemingly almost overnight, although it was, you know, a linear change that took a few decades to really roll out, but almost like with Reagan in the eighties, something clicked and their general tendency switched away from being progressive to being more conservative.
Yeah, that's so interesting. And then the Silent generation, the leaders of the civil rights movement, feminist movement, early gay rights movement were actually silence, not the Boomers.
That's right.
So why don't the silence get the credit that they deserve for making progress social progress?
Yeah?
I think they just they just didn't make.
As much noise as the Boomers, partially because of their generational size and partially just because of their kind of generational personality. There's such fascinating generation because many of them married young, had their kids young. You know, they were the young people of the fifties and early sixties where that was kind of the old post war set of values and ways you know, of living your life. Yet at the edges they were the activists. They were the
ones who got the laws changed. So Martin Luther King Junior, Ruth Bader Ginsburg both silentce you know, and most of the leaders of the civil rights and the feminist movement, on the gay rights movement as well, those were mostly silence.
So the way I ended up parsing it in the book is that the silence for the most part changed the laws, and then the boomers changed hearts and minds because they actually lived the changes that the silence started in terms of race and gender and sexual orientation.
I like that. I like that we have not really talked at all about the Greatest generation or the Alpha generation. These are two that I want to add to it. Maybe your next book, well somehow add those too. Let's first start with the Greatest generation, which is the one before the silent generation. Often because of the greatest because it's thought they've suffered the most or they've kind of
been through the most epic and most downtrodden events. But could one make the case that with COVID and that maybe gen Z is the new Great generation.
Well, I mean that kind of goes back to the idea that generations come in cycles, which I don't think is true based on the data that we have. And I think pandemics are different from wars. Wars tend to bring people together to fight against the common enemy, and the pandemic drove us apart if anything. I mean, it could have been that model of a going to band together, but that's not how it turned out. And that means
kind of the nature of pandemics too. Everybody is the enemy because it's contagious for one thing, and then the stakes are so high in terms of the political decisions that not everybody's going to be happy. So that's how that's how it ended up. And so I think those are two pretty different events. Plus, you know, my main thesis in the book is that those events are not going to have as big of an impact as the changes in technology.
Yeah. Yeah, the change of technology are obviously going to even you know, going on and the next one hundred years. It will be so interesting to see what happens there. So then let's talk about, Yeah, the Alpha generation and beyond, how do you see the rise of AI as maybe affecting generational differences, especially when we get to I don't think we're that far away from cyborg territory. You know, we're going to have the cyborg generation someday, do you think.
I don't know.
I don't know, And I think you know that that's the stuff with your chat, GPT and so on. That didn't even enter the scene until I turned in the book, so I hadn't had the chance to really consider, you know, how that that might change. You know this, this next very young generation's still mostly in elementary school, and some haven't even been born yet, that's born twenty thirteen and later.
So I actually call them polars after political polarization and the melting polar ice caps Alphas is based on the idea that you know, we're going to do all the letters, and then we had gen Z and then we ran out of letters, so to go back to the beginning of the alphabet and start to use the Greek alphabet. I'm not a big fan of the letters overall, so I'm hoping eventually away from them.
Is that where were its own proposed alpha? Is that? Is that what's on the list for the next one?
Yeah, I mean that's a lot of markers when they when they talk about them, that's the label that they use. So yeah, a couple of times in a row now I've tried to say, let's get away from the letters, and I haven't been successful, but I'm gonna keep trying.
There is something really profound about the fact that this is the you know, the longest all five generations have all lived together, and we all feaced a really significant catastrophe together. So, like, ending this interview, can we be a little bit more like uniting than divisive? Isn't there a great bonding experience that, you know, even that we can all have with each other. I mean, we all
went through this. It's not like just the the gen Zer sometimes actors that day they're the only ones who went through crap. But we all went through this together. You know, what can we do to kind of like all really just show compared and for each other, no matter of the age.
I hope we can do that.
I think it's very It's very tough though, because the pandemic did really exacerbate the political polarization and the generational conflicts. You know that we're already there, But what I would really really like to see is just trying to turn
more toward more positivity if possible. I'm not talking about Pollyanna stuff or you know, not recognizing that we have problems to solve, but the really pervasive negativity across all generations, maybe in particular gen Z, but pretty much everybody these days thinking, you know, we're on the wrong track and we can't solve these problems, and this is the worst time ever. Can we have some recognition this is actually
a really great time to be alive. But yeah, we have challenges, but consider what it would have been like to live two hundred years ago or one hundred years ago without the conveniences that we have, and try to appreciate technology that's made our lives better.
We'll trying to rein in some of the technology that has maybe.
Not made our lives better. And of course the thing I talk about the most with that is just putting more regulation around social media, especially with kids, and maybe.
That will help.
It'll help, maybe that'll help with mental health, maybe that'll help with our politics.
Yes, now you talk about you're focusing on technology, but I think it from a Stephen Pink Stephen Pinker enlightenment now perspective, He's documented in all the many ways that society has shown progress over the years, you know, many multi multitude of ways, including gender rights, you know, and and racial you know, uh, and.
The and the overall decline and aggression and violence. Yeah, made that case in the in the other book, And I mean, that's.
It's it's it's all.
It's all true.
I think it's just so easy to take for granted the good things, and I think that's human nature in a lot of ways. Right. But I get a little concern when I see people saying, oh, twenty twenty three, that's the worst time. Really, is that really worse in the beginning of the pandemic? Is it worse in the Great recession? Is it worse than the eighties when we thought Russia was going to drop the bomb?
In any moment, I don't think it is.
Well, that's great. I just want to end on that note. I want to end on some sort of you know, uniting note there and thank you for your incredible legendary work in our field of psychology. This is the Psychology Podcast, so I have to thank you for your legendary work in the field. I'm glad I finally got a chance to talk to you.
Thanks, thank you for what you do as well.
Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com. We're on our YouTube page, the Psychology Podcast. We also put up some videos of some episodes on our YouTube page as well, so you'll want to check that out.
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