By STATS fellow Maia Szalavitz
College students who hit campus after 2000 have empathy levels that are 40% lower than those who came before them, according to a stunning new meta-analysis by University of Michigan researchers, which includes data from over 14,000 students.
Although we argue in Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential–and Endangered that modern child-rearing practices are putting empathy at risk, this is the largest study presented so far to quantify the decline.
Previous research done by psychologist Jean Twenge had measured what she labeled a “narcissism epidemic,” with more students showing selfish qualities and with increases in traits that can lead to a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. That is a condition in which people are so self-involved that other people are no more than objects to reflect their glory.
But I was less than convinced by that data because some of the measures of narcissism–statements like “I am a special person,” –might reflect a lifetime spent in classrooms aimed at raising self-esteem rather than a true increase in self-centeredness.
The survey on empathy used in this study–which you can take for yourself here–however, is another matter. While it so obviously measures empathy that you could easily game it to make yourself look kinder and nicer, the fact that today’s college students don’t even feel compelled to do that suggests that the study is measuring something real. If young people don’t even care about seeming uncaring, something is seriously wrong. Another survey in the research found that people also think that others around them are less compassionate.
Why might today’s students be less empathetic than their elders? One of the culprits we identify in Born for Love is the way that they spent most of their time early in life. Today’s kids play outdoors much less–and they spend far less time in unstructured activity with others than prior generations.
Without unstructured free time with playmates, children simply don’t get to know each other very well. And you can’t learn to connect and care if you don’t practice these things Free play declined by at least a third between 1981 and 2003–right when the kids who hit college in 2000 and later were growing up. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by salabesr 
