Screen Readers Skip to Content

Study Finds No Narcissism Epidemic Among College Students

Author: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Published: 11th Oct 2017
Peer-Reviewed Publication: N/A
Additional References: LGBT Facts and Statistics Publications

Summary: College students today are slightly less narcissistic than in the 1990s - not significantly more, as some have proposed.


Main Document

Today's college students are slightly less narcissistic than their counterparts were in the 1990s, researchers report in a new study - not significantly more, as some have proposed.

The study, reported in the journal Psychological Science, analyzed data from 1,166 students at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1990s, and from tens of thousands of students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of California, Davis in the 2000s and 2010s. All of the students completed the Narcissism Personal Inventory, the oldest and most widely used measure of narcissism.

According to some researchers and observers, recent generations of young people are suffering through an 'epidemic of narcissism' characterized by an exaggerated sense of their own gifts and accomplishments and by the expectation that others recognize their greatness. The rise in narcissism is believed to be the result of permissive parenting, unregulated access to the internet and an overuse of social media platforms that reward self-aggrandizement, said University of Illinois psychology professor Brent Roberts, who led the new analysis.

But there is no compelling evidence that recent generations are more narcissistic than previous ones, he said.

The Narcissism Personality Inventory is designed to measure an individual's narcissistic tendencies. Each of its 40 questions asks participants to choose between two statements that define their attitudes and beliefs. One of each pair of answers is more consistent with a narcissistic outlook. For example:

And...

Roberts and his colleagues first focused on whether the NPI reliably measured the same traits over time and among different constituencies.

"For the most part, the measure worked pretty well, but we found a few items that didn't work consistently across different groups," Roberts said. "When you adjust for that, you see decreases in narcissism from the 1990s to the 2000s to the 2010s."

The team next looked at specific aspects of narcissism, such as leadership, vanity and entitlement, and saw a similar downward trend in each of these traits between 1992 and 2015. The declines were small but significant, and occurred gradually over time. Males and females, Asians, African-Americans and Caucasians all saw decreases in narcissism, but to differing degrees, Roberts said.

"The average college student scores 15 to 16 on the NPI scale, out of a possible 40," Roberts said. "The average grandparent scores about 12. Based on that, if you use that as a natural metric, most people are not narcissists. And, perhaps most interestingly, narcissism declines with age."

Roberts and his colleagues believe that older adults like the idea of a narcissism epidemic among the young because young people tend to be more narcissistic than they are.

"We have faulty memories, so we don't remember that we were rather self-centered when we were that age," Roberts said.

The denigration of millennials and even younger generations paints them as lacking in values or as having bad personality characteristics, he said.

"But that's just wrong," he said. "The kids are all right. There never was a narcissism epidemic, despite what has been claimed."

The paper "The narcissism epidemic is dead; long live the narcissism epidemic" is available from the U. of I. News Bureau. DOI: 10.1177/0956797617724208

Post to Twitter Add to Facebook

Latest LGBT Facts and Statistics Publications

The above information is from our reference library of resources relating to LGBT Facts and Statistics that includes:

West Virginia University LGTBQ button - Image Credit: WVU Photo/Sean Hines. thumbnail image
A survey of junior high and high school students in rural Appalachia about gender identity found over 7% shared a gender identity that did not fully align with the sex they were assigned at birth.
Publish Date: 8th Aug 2022 - Updated: 5th Jan 2023
Pathways Into Poverty for LGBTQ Adults Study thumbnail image.
Report by Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law provides exploration of common pathways into and prolonging poverty among diverse population of low-income LGBTQ people in California.
Publish Date: 30th Sep 2020
A Summary of Data on LGBT Suicide for Suicide Prevention Month thumbnail image.
Research shows that anti-LGBT discrimination and victimization contribute to an increase in the risk of suicidality and that LGBT people are at disproportionate risk of suicidal ideation, planning, and attempts.
Publish Date: 6th Sep 2020
Percent of all U.S. households reporting as same-sex couple households: 2010 Census - Image Credit: www.census.gov thumbnail image
Estimates of same-sex couple households in the American Community Survey including margin of errors for same-sex couple U.S. households.
Publish Date: 15th Feb 2018


1Transgender Reporting Guide
How to write about transgender people.

2Am I Gay? Questions to Ask
Think you may be gay or bisexual?

3Glossary of Sexuality Terms
Definitions of sexual terms & acronyms.

4LGBTQ+ Pride Flags
Symbols of Identity and Inclusion.

5LGBT Awareness Dates
Important LGBTQ community awareness days, remembrance dates, and coming pride events.

• Submissions: Send us your coming events and LGBTQ related news stories.


• Report Errors: Please report outdated or inaccurate information to us.



• (APA): University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (2017, October 11). Study Finds No Narcissism Epidemic Among College Students. SexualDiversity.org. Retrieved February 19, 2025 from www.sexualdiversity.org/edu/stats/813.php


• Permalink: <a href="https://www.sexualdiversity.org/edu/stats/813.php">Study Finds No Narcissism Epidemic Among College Students</a>