Narcissism Epidemic: In Search of an Elusive Generational Increase

There has been a lot of debate on the purported self-indulgence and narcissism of younger generations, who have often been presented as significantly more narcissistic than older generations. This has led some authors to posit the existence of a “narcissism epidemic.” In this review, we aim to provide a summary of research on the narcissism epidemic and provide an insight into the historical context of the debate. We show that the evidence behind the narcissism epidemic hypothesis is fairly weak. Moreover, we show that most studies on the narcissism epidemic employ an oversimplified definition of narcissism. Finally, we advocate for a more widespread utilization of more nuanced and complex models of narcissism recently put forward by a group of researchers.