Many kids today want the nicest clothes and the latest gadgets, but it seems that they aren't willing to work hard for them. This was the finding of a study on morality and materialism in today’s youth featured on ScienceDaily.com.
Lead author Jean M. Twenge, a psychology professor from San Diego State University, together with co-author Tim Kasser, a psychology professor from Knox University, studied survey data on 355,000 high school seniors in the US from 1976 from 2007. Survey questions included how much the participants valued money and material goods and their willingness to exert effort to attain them.
The results reveal that a whopping 62 percent of today’s generation find it important to have a lot of money, compared with the 48 percent from 1976 to 1978; 39 percent of high school seniors from 2005 to 2007 actually say that they don’t want to exert too much effort for what they want.
The study authors refer to this as “fantasy gap”--the delusion that everything can be acquired easily. To prevent kids today from falling for this trap, parents should stress the importance of diligence and perseverance. This will not only help them during their teenage years, but also be the foundation of their work ethic once they grow older.
(Screencap from From Prada to Nada courtesy of Lions Gate and Pantelion Film)
