This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedatum. You don't have to look far to see evidence of

narcissism in our culture.

I'm an international phenomenon and my name is Miley and everyone does that?

No, no, I know that.

Snap, girls. Shows over. You can all go home, pack your bags.

I have not done a selfie in this glam room.

How many selfies are you going to do on one day? You're like obsessed.

I just need 1200.

Kanye West and Kim Kardashian are only the tip of the iceberg. Our society is in the midst

of a full-blown narcissism epidemic. It doesn't take a psychologist to see that, but we decided

to talk to one anyway.

We're more focused on the self, or less focused on social rules. At the extreme, that can

turn into this narcissistic attention-seeking of everybody. Look at me and how great I am.

This is Jean Twenge. She's a psychologist at San Diego State. She's analyzed data collected

from millions of people over the last half century.

We found that if you look at baby boomers in the 60s compared to millennials in more recent

times, millennials are much more likely to say that they think they're above average.

We talk about what this means for young people later in the conversation.

But Jean Twenge says our culture as a whole, from reality TV to social media, has come

to encourage an obsessive focus on the self.

I think there are a lot of factors. Our culture has changed in so many ways. The feature

that I always come back to is we are a more individualistic culture now compared to what

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