A New Me Generation? The Increasing Self-Interest among Millennial College Students

Abstract

Each new generation of college-goers presents a new set of challenges for faculty and student affairs educators, and the Millennial Generation has certainly done so since they began arriving on college campuses in 2000. One particular challenge unique to Millennials is that they are highly motivated and high-achieving, and rely on their parents and other authority figures for direction and approval, shifting their loci of control to external players. In this article, the authors summarize research that demonstrates an increase in personally-interested thinking and externality among Millennials, and the implications of these findings for moral judgment development and moral functioning.