Daily Innovation, Ministry Insights, and Thoughts from Todd Rhoades for Pastors and Church Leaders
Study: Are You Ready For a More Narcissistic Church?
Today's college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society... What does this mean for tomorrow's church?
"We need to stop endlessly repeating ‘You’re special’ and having children repeat that back,” said the study’s lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University. “Kids are self-centered enough already.”
Twenge and her colleagues, in findings to be presented at a workshop Tuesday in San Diego on the generation gap, examined the responses of 16,475 college students nationwide who completed an evaluation called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory between 1982 and 2006.
The standardized inventory, known as the NPI, asks for responses to such statements as “If I ruled the world, it would be a better place,” “I think I am a special person” and “I can live my life any way I want to.”
The researchers describe their study as the largest ever of its type and say students’ NPI scores have risen steadily since the current test was introduced in 1982. By 2006, they said, two-thirds of the students had above-average scores, 30 percent more than in 1982.
You can read the rest of the article here...
FOR DISCUSSION: OK… how’s this apply to the church of the future? Will the church look differently when today’s college students take the lead of our nation’s churches? Will their narcissistic attitudes fade with age? And what affect will it have on the church as we know it?
This post has been viewed 161 times and was added on February 28, 2007 by Todd Rhoades. Filed under: Engaging Culture Trends in Today's Church Share this post with a friend right now! View reactions to this post at other blogs... You can really help us out by subscribing to our free RSS feed with your favorite feed reader, or here at Bloglines. Also, you can add us to your favorites at Technorati.
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My name is Todd Rhoades, the 'behind the scenes' guy here at MMI. I'm also on the team at Leadership Network (although that doesn't mean that they endorse everything I write here). In my past life, I was the developer of a of a website called ChurchStaffing.com. I hope you'll enjoy your time here and tell all your colleagues about MMI! 
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Posted by kent
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 at 8:41 AM
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Posted by Bart
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 at 11:24 AM
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Posted by
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 at 12:30 PM
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Posted by kent
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 at 4:34 PM
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Posted by
Friday, March 02, 2007 at 11:31 AM
Post Your Comments:The question may well be will these young people lead the church since leadership in such an organization thens to be more oriented to selflessness. If their theme song is “I am special, I am special. Look at me.” They may not even be in the church.
To exist in the local church means dealing with people who have problems and issues, who do not always know how to play nice and may have more needs than resources to share. If these young people increasingly narcissistic the church may not be what they look for.
I have read parts of this study and it appears to be flawed. It compares college students with those in their thirties and fifties. Does it not make sense that college students are more self centered? They have no spouses, children, or demands such as a job on thier lives. Has this changed, or have young and less mature people always been more selfcentered than older mature individuals? A better study would have been the study of college students twenty years ago versus today’s students, not students against older generations. I was selfish and selfcentered when I was single and in college too. My three year old grandson thinks the world revolves around him, does that mean the next generation will be even more selfcentered, or thta it is a part of maturing that is lacking?
It may be that the study is flawed, having children does tend to make you less self-centered. But I do think is soemthing to the idea that children are being raised more self-centered today.
Bart,
You ever get to Ft. Dodge? My wife is from there and has family, actually we have family there. Oops.
I agree...people have always been more self-centered and narcissistic when they are younger...I was. I also see an element of truth in this as we are raising people who think that no one fails, no one loses, etc. That is a trend that does definately need to end, or we could be in danger of a generation in which everyone is “special” while no one really is.
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