Even Socrates, who had enough wisdom to say that he knew nothing about anything, had a strong opinion on young people.

“Our youth now love luxury,” he said. “They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders … gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

Two-thousand years later, psychologists, like University professor Brent Roberts, and older generations still criticize the youth, labeling them as narcissists who over-claim their skills and are too self-focused to understand what’s going on in the world.

“People age, and then they look at the kids of today and say ‘oh my god they’re so self-centered,’” Roberts said. “But they forget that they were the same when they were 19.”

A recent study by Roberts and Postdoctoral Research Associate Patrick Hill found that some facets of narcissism could be seen as adaptive traits that help young people transition into the real world, but these traits usually fade out once they’re adults (over 25 years old).

The study measured levels of narcissism on a 40-point survey called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), with 40.0 being the highest. Hill and Roberts emphasized three aspects of the survey: an inflated sense of leadership skills and authority, portrayal of grandiose exhibitionism and a sense of entitlement — having a willingness to exploit others for personal gain.

Over 360 undergraduates and 459 family members (though the study focused mostly on mothers) participated in the survey.

“I study the development of personality traits,” Roberts said, “and it was striking how different parents were from their kids … There was a huge age difference in narcissism, bigger than almost any other trait I’ve seen.”

The average for the NPI is 15.3. The study found that people under 25 years old averaged around 16.9, while people over 25 averaged around 12.9.

The study also compared levels of narcissism to self satisfaction within the two age groups. The results found that adolescents and emerging adults (18 to 25 years old) who had narcissistic traits, were more likely to say that they were satisfied with their life.

“As an adolescent,” Hill said, “this is a period in which you’re trying to figure out who you are … When you start making decisions on your own you’ll obviously make a lot of mistakes, so having this sense that you are an authority or a leader could be beneficial during adolescence. If you don’t have this inflated sense of self, you could be very suspect to getting down on yourself or feeling depressed just because you’re starting to figure out who you are for the first time.”

Being young could be seen as a series of first impressions, according to Roberts and Hill, and these narcissistic traits tend to be adaptive even when students enter their college career.

“Think about when you’re first applying for a job,” Hill said. “In that case it’s probably good if you see yourself as an important figure – like a leader amongst your peers, or this particular source of information and power, because you want to portray that to the interviewer.”

Kaushik Andra, sophomore in Business, works for the Office for Technical Consulting Resources (OTCR) on campus and is also the vice president of Professional Activities for Delta Sigma Pi. He didn’t see the facets of the study as narcissistic, but instead as traits that help students navigate through their college career.

“Strong leadership skills,” Andra said, “comes from having confidence – that you know you can do the job well, you can perform and show your enthusiasm and your competence to recruiters. That’s what I use to succeed.”

Some narcissistic traits could actually hurt students’ chances in the career field though, according to Andra.

“I wouldn’t go as far as having a grand sense of yourself because then people might not want to do business with you,” he said.

However, Roberts’ and Hill’s study found that other aspects of narcissism weren’t so beneficial.

Young people who had a higher sense of entitlement and a willingness to exploit others for personal gain reported lower levels of life satisfaction.

“You could make a statement concluding from our paper that being narcissistic is good for young people, but we wouldn’t go there,” Roberts said. “We would say that if you think you’re a good leader, and you are a bit vain, it’s okay. But if you’re entitled, or think that you deserve things, that’s actually bad for young and old people.”

The study also found that on average, University students’ NPI scores reported average levels of narcissism compared to their peers.

“When we talk about things like narcissism,” Roberts said, “you have to keep in mind that average scores are pretty low, and they are even farther down for the parents. So it’s not a scale where people are topping out … For the most part, University of Illinois are not different than others, and they’re not narcissistic as a bunch.”