When the Los Angeles-based Josephson Institute of Ethics recently released its
2008 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, the results were not pretty.

The survey of nearly 30,000 high school students nationwide found that 64
percent had cheated on a test in the past year (up from 60 percent two years
earlier) and 38 percent had cheated more than once. More than a third had used
the Internet to plagiarize. And lest they get credit for coming clean on the
anonymous survey, which also tracked rising rates of teen lying and stealing,
more than a quarter confessed to lying on at least one survey question.

Despite their dishonesty, the students had a high view of their own ethics.
More than nine in 10 said they were "satisfied with my own ethics and
character," and nearly eight in 10 affirmed that, "When it comes to doing what
is right, I am better than most people I know."

Those incongruous rates of self-satisfaction among lying and cheating teens
shocked many parents and pundits, but they probably did not surprise research
psychologists Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell. In their new book, "The
Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement," they marshal an
impressive array of statistical and anecdotal evidence to prove that Americans,
especially the young, are suffering from "corrosive narcissism."

A fixation on indulging and exalting oneself, narcissism is linked to vanity,
materialism, relationship troubles and rule breaking. Its cultural consequences
are easy to spot. Just look at the five-fold increase in plastic surgery and
cosmetic procedures performed in the past decade, the greedy overconfidence
that drove our mortgage meltdown and the self-absorption that leads senators,
celebrities and ordinary citizens to habitually post their most trivial musings
on Twitter and believe that the rest of us care which game show they watched on
television or which burrito they ordered at Taco Bell.

Narcissism particularly afflicts many teenagers and young adults. Among other
data, Twenge and Campbell cite a study of 37,000 college students that found
narcissistic personality traits rising as fast as obesity rates from the 1980s
to the present, with one in four college students in 2006 agreeing with the
majority of the items on a standard measure of narcissistic traits. As for
narcissistic personality disorder, a severe, clinically diagnosed version of
the trait, nearly 10 percent of Americans in their 20s have experienced its
symptoms, as compared with only 3 percent of Americans 65 and older. That's a
stark disparity, since older adults have had many more years to experience the
disorder and it can be diagnosed only in adulthood.

It's significant that young Americans vulnerable to narcissism were raised in
the heyday of the self-esteem movement, when well-meaning baby boomer parents,
teachers and media gurus incessantly urged them to "love yourself first," "let
nothing come between you and your dreams" and believe that "you're the best."
Rather than stoking healthy self-confidence, such messages may have dampened
work ethic while fueling unrealistic expectations and inflated egos. Neither is
much use in the real world, where believing in yourself cannot guarantee
success and putting your own immediate desires ahead of all other concerns can
be a recipe for disaster in work, love and life.

Twenge and Campbell have taken some heat for their diagnosis of America's ills,
but they are getting a better hearing today than they would have a year ago.
The economic downturn already has forced many Americans to cultivate virtues
that are keys to kicking the narcissism habit: humility, simplicity and
connection to community. If ever we hope to transform our me-first culture into
one that better serves our children, now is the time to start.

Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television and radio host and St.
Louis-based fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is
www.colleen-campbell.com.