Generational Increases in Agentic Self-evaluations among American College Students, 1966–2009

Compared to previous generations, more American college students now rate themselves as above average on attributes such as academic ability, drive to achieve, leadership ability, public speaking ability, self-confidence, and writing ability (based on a nationally representative sample collected 1966–2009; N = 6.5 million). These birth cohort differences are similar with controls for race and gender and occurred despite the college population becoming less selective. Trends in positive self-views are correlated with grade inflation (which increased d = 0.81), but are not explained by changes in objective performance (e.g., SAT scores have declined, d = −0.22) or effort (time spent studying is down, d = − 0.31). Broad cultural shifts emphasizing positive self-views have apparently resulted in enhanced self-evaluations on agentic domains. Self-evaluations on communal attributes, such as understanding others, cooperativeness, and spirituality, either decreased or were unchanged.