[pressentiment]

Was ready to be super sceptical but this is interesting. The measure gets at ways of showing uniqueness (e.g. defending a view thats different from everyone else's, not caring what others think). So I can buy that has descreased.

What I bet hasn't decreased is the extent to which people say they want to be unique.

[da_chicken]

Well it may also be the difference between needing to express uniqueness as a mechanism to display it to others. If I'm secure that I'm a unique individual, I may not need to express it or demonstrate it.

[PaulHoule]

If you really are different and not understood, say you have

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizotypal_personality_disord...

(which I don't think is quite the right construct for what it describes but they had to run the politics of the DSM to get something in there) you might

(1) think you are unique when you have a condition that maybe 3-5% of people have, (2) try as hard as you can to "mask" your condition

[dr_dshiv]

God, my daughter says she “just wants to be normal.” Hard for me to understand. Can’t tell if it’s TikTok, living in the Netherlands or the happily weird father figure.

[mcbutterbunz]

> What I bet hasn't decreased is the extent to which people say they want to be unique.

FTA:

> In our study of over one million participants surveyed from 2000 to 2020, we found that need for uniqueness was lowest among participants who took the survey most recently in 2020 compared to those in 2000.

So it seems that the desire for uniqueness has decreased, unless I'm reading this incorrectly. That's a surprise to me just based on my observations and possible biases.

[cheschire]

The desire to be unique tends to decrease with age as a person's self identity starts to settle in.

As the population increases, there's more people in the identity-building phase of life at one time than ever before. So while the individual desire does decrease, I believe you are right that the overall desire globally has not.