A lack of “basic information about how narcissism changes across the adult life span” has led to the largest study on the subject.
It found that the Baby Boomer generation, born between 1946 and 1964, is more sensitive than the millennials, who are people born from 1981 and 1996.
Generally speaking, as individuals in the study got older, they became less sensitive and the researchers found hypersensitivity sharply declined after a person turned 40.
The study by Michigan State University, published by the journal Psychology and Aging, also noted that “these differences were most apparent among those born after the 1930s.”
William Chopik, a social-personality personality psychologist who co-authored the study, told Insider Mag that his team defined hypersensitivity as “being unreceptive to others’ feedback and lashing out at any criticism toward one’s self.” In their research, they used it as a method to measure defensiveness in particular. They found that younger generations are less hypersensitive than older generations.
“Baby Boomers may be more narcissistic than other generations because they grew up in a time when the government provided privileges like social security,” Chopik said.
It always pays to be sensitive to the needs of others.
