American College Students Less Empathetic

A 30 year long research analysis has shown that American college students aren't as empathetic as they used to be. The findings were presented in Boston this week at the annual Association of Psychological Science meeting.

"We found the biggest drop in empathy after the year 2000," co-author Sara Konrath, a researcher at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research and an affiliate of the University of Rochester psychiatry department, said. "College kids today are about 40 percent lower in empathy than their counterparts of 20 or 30 years ago, as measured by standard tests of this personality trait."

72 studies done between 1979 and 2009 were included in the research. The studies showed that modern college students are less likely to show concern about other people than their late 1970's counterparts.

"Many people see the current group of college students -- sometimes called 'Generation Me' -- as one of the most self-centered, narcissistic, competitive, confident and individualistic in recent history," said Konrath.

Konrath and her partners also said that exposure to the competitive market society that we live in is also a cause of this lack of empathy.