Are today's students narcissistic – or just at ease with themselves?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/10/students-narcissistic-ease

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The American Freshman Survey asks students to rate how they compare with their peers in different areas. It's been running since 1966, and in 2012, analysis of the results showed that over the past 40 years, students have increasingly been describing themselves – from mathematical ability to self-confidence and drive to achieve – as "above average".

The psychologist Jean Twenge and colleagues analysed the data and found a 30% increase in narcissistic attitudes among students since 1979. She says: "What's really become prevalent over the last two decades is the idea that being highly self-confident – loving yourself, believing in yourself – is the key to success. Now the interesting thing about that belief is it's widely held, it's very deeply held, and it's also untrue."

Well, thank God for that. Imagine if that was all there was to it. Imagine if only your belief that you were special, that your confidence in your somehow "above average" drive to achieve was all it took. How would that look? I picture a nation of Apprentice contestants, in cheap suits and with false grins, saying things like: "I'm not a one-trick pony, I'm not a 10-trick pony – I've got a field of ponies waiting to literally run towards this job" and "There are two types of people in the world: winners and … I don't know how to say the word, I can't say it" (this chap was gone by the third week).

We'd walk around, with grotesque (the word of the moment) "entitlement" and we'd be aggrieved when we didn't succeed. I should know, I used to manage the self-help section in a bookshop, and it was never empty. From people looking to get the love life they "deserved" to attracting success into their lives, I saw and eavesdropped on them all. As with the increased sign-ups to internet dating sites and gyms, the start of the new year was a good time in the self-help section.

The idea that our success, or its flipside, is down strictly to us is obviously very seductive. That raw notion was the basis of the slogan "We built it", seen at the last Republican party convention. The idea is in essence the American dream: if you believe it, it will come true. There are add-ons – the usual blue-collar trope of working hard for example – but that conviction is the first step. The fabled meritocracy, where ability trumps practically everything else, "if she's the best, she'll rise to the top", has been proven not to be true for a whole swath of us: oftentimes, the best stay in the shallows, because without various connections, that's where they tend to stay.

So we swing back to the confidence/success thing again: are people successful because they're confident? Or are they confident because they're successful? Back in 2011, the BBC programme Who Gets The Best Jobs looked at internship culture and the restricted access to well-paid jobs. Talking to reporter Richard Bilton was Alistair Macnaughton, headteacher at The King's School, Gloucester. He said: "There's so much more [than an academic education] ... and definitely, the kids have that shine of confidence about them when they leave the school. You can see that very, very clearly." And you really can.

Twenge's assertion that self-confidence does not automatically lead to success is reassuring; up to a point. But that "shine of confidence" that Macnaughton mentions is ease. It is the knowledge that they are among peers and they are supposed to be. There is a lack of awkwardness, a feeling of belonging that is nigh on impossible to learn from a book. It doesn't necessarily come with working hard and getting there in spite of the obstacles in your way; that may build up emotional resilience and grit, but it does not necessarily bring confidence. And as the price of higher education mounts (both in Britain and the US) and access is further restricted to all but the wealthy and privileged, maybe that's what these students are recording. Maybe this "narcissism" and surprisingly "above average" scoring across the board is all just ease.