Americans Are Becoming Even Bigger Jerks Than Ever Before

Thursday, 30 December 2010 14:14

Written by Giovanni

1 Comments

New Research Reveals Why People Are Getting Ruder

As anyone who has been in any public place lately knows, narcissism and rudeness are up, and empathy, manners and caring about other human beings is down.  In fact, empathy among college students is now at an all time low and is dropping fast.  According to Scientific American:

The research, led by Sara H. Konrath of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and published online in August in Personality and Social Psychology Review, found that college students’ self-reported empathy has declined since 1980, with an especially steep drop in the past 10 years. To make matters worse, during this same period students’ self-reported narcissism has reached new heights, according to research by Jean M. Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University.

The work of Konrath and Twenge, Scientific American points out, indicates that "the American personality is shifting in an ominous direction."

Why is all this narcissistic behaviour happening? Because people are not reading. Specifically they are not reading fiction:

The types of information we consume have also shifted in recent decades; specifically, Americans have abandoned reading in droves. The number of adults who read literature for pleasure sank below 50 percent for the first time ever in the past 10 years, with the decrease occurring most sharply among college-age adults. And reading may be linked to empathy. In a study published earlier this year psychologist Raymond A. Mar of York University in Toronto and others demonstrated that the number of stories preschoolers read predicts their ability to understand the emotions of others. Mar has also shown that adults who read less fiction report themselves to be less empathic.

So there it is you rude mother &%$!s. Proof that rudeness is related to your selfish illiterate bastard selves. So start reading more books before someone shoves one up your....I won't say it, that would be rude.

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