Generation of Egos

A few days back I had to admonish my younger brother for his irresponsible and "not so mature" behavior.During his summer break from engineering school and "Meet the Parents" time of the year , he suddenly decided to disappear without informing anyone in the family!

Our discussion concluded in the mundane phrases which boils down to "this is my life..and...I can decide" and usual communication gap that ornates the generations from aeons.
Instead of getting upset I was surprised to find myself smiling on the phone and pondering that I might have tried to resolve the issue more amicably, had there been a role reversal.

Today I discovered a research paper viz. "Egos Inflating Over Time: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory" in the Journal of Personality.
The research headed by Jean M. Twenge, Department of Psychology, San Diego State University found that the individualistic traits comprising of egotism and narcissism shows almost 30 % increase from our generation (1979–1985).

The research abstract states that a cross-temporal meta-analysis found that narcissism levels have risen over the generations in 85 samples of American college students who completed the 40-item forced-choice Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) between 1979 and 2006 (total n=16,475). Mean narcissism scores were significantly correlated with year of data collection when weighted by sample size (β=.53, p<.001). Since 1982, NPI scores have increased 0.33 standard deviation. Thus, almost two-thirds of recent college students are above the mean 1979–1985 narcissism score, a 30% increase. The results complement previous studies finding increases in other individualistic traits such as assertiveness, agency, self-esteem, and extraversion. Although the sample of the selected population are Americans but I find that the rate of increase of individualistic traits in India almost proportionate to that in Americas.Below is an extrapolated snap shot of quantified ego :)..

References
The British Psychology Research Blog here
Twenge, J.M., Konrath, S., Foster, J.D., Keith Campbell, W., Bushman, B.J. (2008). Egos Inflating Over Time: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. Journal of Personality