This week, we unpack what makes a generation. From the Silent Generation to the Zoomers and beyond, are these groupings only useful to stir up competition and resentment? How did Gen Z become more conservative, more pessimistic AND more empathetic than their predecessors? We also explore recent research on a troubling trend of declining IQ scores. Does this back up an argument that millennials are the group most well-equipped for life in the modern age? 

Our guests this week are researcher Elizabeth M. Dworak from Northwestern University and Jean M. Twenge PhD, author of Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future. (Buy the book here.)

Related links:

• Dr. Dworak’s IQ research: Looking for Flynn effects in a recent online U.S. adult sample: Examining shifts within the SAPA Project
• James Flynn’s TED Talk: Why our IQ levels are higher than our grandparents'
• The New Yorker on Jean Twenge: Where Millennials Come From (2017)
• Tom Wolfe for New York Magazine: The “Me” Decade (1976)
• An interesting counterpoint, on Bobby Duffy’s “The Generation Myth”: It’s Time to Stop Talking About Generations
• More on the Reverse Flynn Effect from New York Mag: A Theory of Dumb

You might also like NST #59: Kids can’t read anymore. Does it matter? (with author Jason Reynolds)

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