It can be somewhat difficult to gauge how mentally ill a population is within the span of various centuries or decades because the cultural perception of mental illness and the proper way of treating these illnesses is constantly evolving. There are also certain barriers to treatment: firstly, cost and lack of insurance coverage; secondly, there is a stigma associated with seeking treatment for mental illness, though it has been declining over the years.
Currently, the percentage of the population estimated to have any mental illness is around 20.6% of adults—i.e., the estimate does not include anyone under the age of 18. It's obvious that "any mental illness" is a vague descriptor, giving little indication of severity.
Gen Z and millennials self-report poorer mental health than older generations, more counseling, and have higher amounts of stress. Older millennials in particular also have higher rates of major depression compared to the general population—23% versus 20%; as well as more chronic health conditions compared to previous generations. Although the sample size is not very big for Gen Z, here are some comparative data from the APA:
Headline issues, from immigration to sexual assault, are causing significant stress among members of Generation Z—those between ages 15 and 21—with mass shootings topping the list of stressful current events, according to the APA report Stress in America: Generation Z released in October.
Specifically, 75 percent of Gen Z members said that mass shootings are a significant source of stress, according to the survey, which was conducted online by The Harris Poll on behalf of APA in July and August 2018 among 3,458 adults and 300 15- to 17-year-olds.Gen Z members are also more stressed than adults overall about other issues in the news, such as the separation and deportation of immigrant and migrant families (57 percent of Gen Z versus 45 percent of all adults reported the issue is a significant source of stress) and sexual harassment and assault reports (53 percent versus 39 percent).
This generation is also significantly more likely (27 percent) than other generations, including millennials (15 percent) and Gen Xers (13 percent), to report their mental health as fair or poor, the survey found. They are also more likely (37 percent), along with millennials (35 percent), to report they have received treatment or therapy from a mental health professional, compared with 26 percent of Gen Xers, 22 percent of baby boomers and 15 percent of older adults.
First of all, this is to be expected. Mental illness declines with age, and younger cohorts have higher rates of mental illness compared to older cohorts, and that has been the case since at least the 1950s. The main question is whether or not the various age cohorts of recent years have experienced an increase in mental illness compared to the age cohorts of previous decades.
Anxiety
18% of the adult population has some form of anxiety disorder.
Anxiety in general has increased among the various age groups in the U.S., with the 18-25 age group impacted the most in 2008-2018 (for more specific anxiety disorders and their rates, there's this article). The oldest groups (above 50) are the only ones who have remained stable in terms of anxiety levels.
Anxiety levels are higher among those who have never married. In the past, this would not be an issue, but marriage rates have consistently been dropping since the 1960s, and Americans are delaying marriage for much longer durations now.
Pew:
Opinions on this issue differ sharply by age—with young adults much more likely than older adults to say society is just as well off if people have priorities other than marriage and children. Fully two-thirds of those ages 18 to 29 (67%) express this viewpoint, as do 53% of those ages 30 to 49. Among those ages 50 and older, most (55%) say society is better off if people make it a priority to get married and have children.
It's important to stress that future cohorts are going to be even less healthy in all measures with the way these attitudes are trending, along with other factors such as anti-natal policies, the Covid-19 lockdowns and the climate change craze, feminism, etc., that will reduce both marriage rates and birth rates. The critical period for a woman's beauty and fertility is not long and is declining rapidly (declining fertility also applies to males). Being unable to fulfill the role of a mother will lead to much greater unhappiness for women especially. The middle-aged, unmarried, childless career woman is the least happy demographic (they also have the highest rate of depression of any group according to at least one CDC study, though depression typically declines with age; this shift, assuming it is regularly replicated, is likely because of less marriage, fertility, and child birth) in the U.S. While women in the past might have been able to have a kid at 40 years of age, it's getting harder for women to do so even in their 30s.
Females are hypergamous and value steady work and a high income (at least as high, preferably higher than what the female makes) in their male partners. Unemployment is increasing and statistics for this measure fall short of the truth because the unemployment rate does not account for the labor force participation rate. Wages are decreasing and females are increasingly given preferential treatment in hiring because of a woke and feminist culture. Furthermore, H-1B workers are being prioritized for higher paying tech jobs, and are frequently competing against Americans in other fields—exerting downward pressure on wages. All of these points indicate that the dating pool for both sexes will decrease, and both will be less happy and less likely to start families—perpetuating more anxiety.
Some level of anxiety is normal and even good, but a persistent anxious temperament or subclinical anxiety increases one's chance of developing an anxiety disorder, depression, substance abuse, or other health issues. Since it's believed that brain development is complete at approximately 25 years of age, and such issues affect brain development, mitigating onset of any of these issues before 25 should be seen as one of our foremost concerns, along with eliminating environmental stressors, such as endocrine-disrupting and carcinogenic chemicals and food items.
Depression
A 1989 study, titled Increasing Rates of Depression, sets a grim tone for the post-WWII era. "Previously, depression was regarded as a disorder of middle-aged and elderly persons; now, adolescents and young adults are increasingly depressed and seeking treatment. These younger cohorts have also experienced increased rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicide attempts and deaths." Admissions to hospitals for affective illnesses, such as depression, was greater in the 1950-1980 period compared to the 1920-1950 period, and the average age of those admitted was considerably younger than the pre-WWII era. These generational differences are known as a birth-cohort effect. Similar results were found in other studies from the U.S. and from New Zealand, Germany, Sweden, and Canada; the results were not replicated in Puerto Rico, Mexican Americans in Los Angeles, or in South Korea.
It's possible the phenomenon is associated more with whites than either Asians or hispanic groups, a large portion of whom have varying degrees of white admixture or none. Mexican immigrants have a lower prevalence of mental illness and higher life satisfaction compared to those of Mexican descent who were born in America, even when the former has a lower socioeconomic status. Hispanics have unexpected—often described as paradoxical—advantages compared to other demographics, despite being worse off on several measures: life expectancy of U.S.-born and immigrant Mexicans are 2 and 4 years greater than U.S. whites, respectively. [1]
This birth-cohort effect is not necessarily a result of laxer criteria either, according to Lavori et al., for the portion suffering from "severe" forms of major depression are also greater compared to the older cohorts. In relation to depressive events, Suicide, hospitalization, and seeking treatment increased as well. While one might propose that the difference in what one generation might consider "severe" is subjective—not just from the standpoint of society but also psychotherapists—and varies with cultural shifts, we're not just dealing with self-reportage here.
In Spiers et al., they partially concur with the birth cohort studies, [2] but they remain more conservative, stating "The cohort of people born between 1950 and 1956 had significantly higher rates of depression than their precursors born between 1943 and 1949, across all three depression measures (Table 2)." They report more stability afterwards: "Age-specific rates of depression were then relatively stable across all cohorts born after 1956, with the possible exception of depressive disorder. The latter showed consecutive but non-significant increases in prevalence across all four pairs of cohorts from 1964-1970 to 1985-1991." For the 1993-2007 samples, there are small increases in depression measures for both men and women, but most of the results end up relatively stable when moving from 2000 to 2007.
Mojtabai et al. found an increase in 12-month prevalence of major depressive events in adolescents: an increase of 8.7% to 11.3% in the 2004 to 2015 period. When looking at the adult population as a whole, depression prevalence doesn't typically rise much, if at all, but as the previously cited studies indicate, there often appears to be an increase in prevalence for the youngest cohorts.
Depression rates by age group, according to Twenge et al.:
One might easily get the impression suicide has risen for all groups and is substantially higher compared to the past, but that's not quite true.
Time:
In 2017, 14 out of every 100,000 Americans died by suicide, according to a new analysis released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. That’s a 33% increase since 1999, and the highest age-adjusted suicide rate recorded in the U.S. since 1942. (Rates were even higher during the Great Depression, hitting a century peak of 21.9 in 1932.)
Suicide used to be higher in the pre-WWII era, even before the Great Depression, dipping quite low in the 1990s, starting to rise as the internet became more ubiquitous, then it started to rise rapidly around the time of the 2008 stock market crash. Proposed reasons are the influence of the opioid epidemic and its effect upon the loved ones and friends of users—another is social media and more internet usage, which often leads to isolation and sometimes even cyberbullying. Economic downturns can also be quite influential.
Overall global rates of suicide are actually declining as the U.S.'s rates are rising. Most developed countries are enjoying declining rates, and it's usually only very poor or war-torn countries that have seen an increase.
The younger population accounts for most of the increase during the 1990s, for the oldest population had seen a decline in suicide rates, while populations closer to middle age were relatively stable.Reference-group effects (discovered in cross-cultural settings) occur when responses to self-report items are based not on respondents' absolute level of a construct but rather on their level relative to a salient comparison group.
The years since 2010 have not been good ones for happiness and well-being among Americans. Even as the United States economy improved after the end of the Great Recession in 2009, happiness among adults did not rebound to the higher levels of the 1990s, continuing a slow decline ongoing since at least 2000 in the General Social Survey (Twenge et al., 2016; also see Figure 5.1). Happiness was measured with the question, “Taken all together, how would you say things are these days—would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?” with the response choices coded 1, 2, or 3.
This decline in happiness and mental health seems paradoxical. By most accounts, Americans should be happier now than ever. The violent crime rate is low [it's in the process of rising rapidly because of the BLM riots and the systemic racism conspiracy theory], as is the unemployment rate. Income per capita has steadily grown over the last few decades. This is the Easterlin paradox: As the standard of living improves, so should happiness – but it has not.
It's not actually as rosy as she makes it out to be, of course. U.S. crime rates are much higher compared to Asian and European countries, and most forms of crime are committed at higher rates compared to 1960, even after crime declined in the 1990s. Income per capita has grown, but it's not that tremendous of an increase when adjusted for inflation, factoring in bills, food, medical, etc., and when we consider the lack of affordability of houses and the high tuition rates compared to what they were in the 1950s or 1960s, this leaves many people living paycheck to paycheck and/or in debt.
Also, if we look at wealth by generation, there is a clear demarcation. Boomers own 57% of the wealth, while it's only 16% for Gen X, and 3% for millenials. You'd expect discrepancies because it can be expected that the older population will be wealthier as they've had more time to build their careers. However, Adults under 40 owned 13% of the wealth in 1989, but only 7% in 2021. We can see the generational shrinkage even more clearly by observing that when boomers were at the median age of 35 in 1990, they owned 21% of the wealth; with the same median age in 2008, Gen Xers owned only 9% of the nation's wealth; millenials will reach this median age in 4 years, and they will need to triple their wealth or increase it sevenfold to catch up to Gen X and the boomers, respectively.
Here are some charts for a visual depiction of the issue from Financial Times:
“Many of my clients joke that they and their co-workers often start conversations with, ‘My therapist thinks…’” says Elizabeth Cohen, a clinical psychologist in Manhattan, “The shame of needing help has been transformed to a pride in getting outside advice.”
Younger people having higher reported rates of mental illness in recent years compared to previous cohorts could in part have something to do with the way older people perceive stigmas around mental health and treatment; in a university setting, there are often workshops and presentations and a lot of advertisements concerning suicide and mental illness; the counseling centers are usually subsidized as part of the students' tuition fees, and in many cases there isn't a separate cost to see a school therapist/counselor. The perspective among these younger—often more liberal and mentally ill than the general population—students is often one of overwhelming support for therapy and an incessant encouragement to talk about one's feelings, mental illness, and other assorted problems.
I'm not implying therapy is a bad thing or isn't helpful per se, but this environment shapes attitudes about mental health and treatment in a way that differs from other environments, or even the universities of many decades ago.
It's good to have an outlet to express your problems or receive treatment for diagnosable mental illnesses, but maybe we've gone too far to the point that we really are creating a therapy generation?
To some extent, this issue is addressed by Nick Haslam, which I will comment on further below, but for now I will provide a quote concerning trauma—a greatly expanded definition, bringing to mind "trigger warnings."
Individual trauma results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.
I'm not in a position to be sure of how psychotherapists would interpret this definition of trauma. Maybe most have their own definition or don't adhere to a similar definition too literally (favoring instead the recent DSM definition). That's not really the point—it's a useful example for how commonplace experiences from the past can be reinterpreted as overwhelmingly stressful. It doesn't have to stem from a dangerous scenario or an unusual experience like you would see with PTSD. Wouldn't listening to a speech you don't agree with apply as trauma under this definition? Campus speaking events are blocked and disrupted. Students destress in "safe spaces" because of microagressions... or something... trigger warnings don't help prepare a person for the world, but they keep expecting them—just like how venting is not an effective means of overcoming problems. Maybe none of this counts as a mental illness, but if we continue to coddle these conformists they will experience overwhelming amounts of stress from totally ordinary and innocuous stimuli—they're inuring themselves into a maladaptive state and setting themselves up for a real mental disorder—if they don't already have one. I would argue this kind of behavior is already comparable to a mental illness, but I'm not the one deciding on definitions nor am I responsible for diagnoses.
Discussing mental illness is not just prevalent in the university, but also on social media. There is an enormous amount of data indicating that social media is both addictive and can have a negative effect on mental health, and it's no wonder that our tech overlords restrict the screen usage of their children. While social media has a clear role in why recent generations have worse mental health, the specific reason to broach the subject in this context is to note the behavior of celebrities and influencers who use social media, many of whom enjoy the attention of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of followers.
With songs like WAP (otherwise known as Wet-Ass Pussy) by Cardi B and Ariana Grande's 34+35, it's apparent that there are quite a few awful role models for adolescents and young adults, promoting values that may seem "fun" or "good" or "exciting" in the short term, when divorced of reason and in the moment, but in the long term, the bulk of data indicates worse outcomes (though this paragraph appears to be focused on casual sex, the same can be said of unmoderated drug or alcohol use, an obsession with money and consumption, and living a cynical, nihilistic lifestyle in general) for those unfortunate enough to succumb to a life of decadence.
In the past, it was common for the public to not know about the addictions and afflictions of celebrities. They kept it behind closed doors. A seedy tabloid might report a scoop on a celebrity, but, otherwise, you'd probably be left waiting for a biography to come out after they've passed. The Contemporary celebrities are often quite the opposite, publicly discussing their troubles with depression and other issues in detail to their followers. Not only are they a mess, but they often seem to take pleasure in letting you know they are a mess.
A London blogger named Vix Meldrew says she receives her greatest responses when she talks about mental health on social media, and she believes the reason is because she is "making them [her followers] feel less alone."
In one sense, this attention brought to mental illness seems good, but maybe it's better to leave this kind of messaging to more neutral sources and our "role models" should project more strength or be inspiring in some way—or outwardly appear to be a good or normal role model, even if they may not be one to admire in their private life. It gets to the point that our "role models" flaunt their problems so often that you might think it's a part of their brand, and if they're ill, maybe I am, too—maybe we all are. Do they have to envelop all of us in their collective nightmare?
Greater access to therapy is wonderful, if needed, but we don't need this kind of therapism—a culture swaddled in nonstop ads and advertisements on mental illness and therapy—where everyone is talking about their inner minutia all the time, and it seems so widespread, and we're overflowing with empathy, emotion, and we let it all out for the entire world to hear and see, along with our tears. [3]
Frankly, it's pathetic, and I don't want it to sound like I'm mocking people who engage in this behavior. It's not their fault; they're just doing what comes naturally in the culture they were brought up in. Reward non-beneficial behaviors in favor of beneficial behaviors, and you reap what you sow—one generation begets the next and unloads their baggage on their next of kin or leaves them stumbling through the darkness; how is the subsequent (or the one that preceded them, for that matter) generation to know the best path to take—or at least one not fraught with despair? The intellectuals bicker and constantly plot against the citizens, tugging them in a multitude of directions—it's often the most injurious voices that are heard the loudest.
Mental illness should be dealt with similarly to how broken windows policies were crafted to mitigate crime. These policies involved keeping the cities tidy—repairing broken windows or any kind of property damage and cleaning graffiti—the idea was that if parts of the society were left to decay, it would promote the spread of that decay; minor crimes were enforced rather than decriminalizing everything shy of murder and rape, like in California. Liberals will say it "doesn't work." It doesn't work when they want to circumvent the process. If you want to see a tough on crime model that works, look no further than Singapore—punishment is swift and sufficiently severe, the cities are clean and spotless, the crime is low, and if you behave like a scoundrel, you'll get your rear end caned for good measure. It works, but we consistently have the problem of democracy—which is just a veiled oligarchy with ersatz freedom—getting in the way and ensuring we do whatever doesn't work for anyone except for the elites.
Project health, strength, and an ideal of betterment and promote policies conducive to improving health and well-being and we might actually get somewhere.
Another thing to be aware of is the horizontal and vertical extension of disorders—i.e., if we examine the history of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), starting with the DSM's precursor, War Department Technical Bulletin, Medical 203, we find that the list of diagnosable conditions went from a mere 47 to over 300 by the time of the DSM-5, which was over the span of 1943-2013.
Nick Haslam wrote an informative article on the subject, referring to these expansions as concept creep. Behaviors once not thought of as a disorder became a disorder, and increasingly milder forms of a disorder ended up as its own condition—a good example of the latter would be cyclothymia being essentially a pared-down version of bipolar disorder 1 and 2.
Most of what we now consider conditions, which were not thought of as such in the past, seem reasonable to include, but then we get to the issue of whether mental illness is increasing or if we're just expanding our criteria to account for the conditions we have overlooked. It's hard to say, but we can certainly see that what counts as major depression has not changed much since the 1970s, and the prevalence of this condition is increasing. The same can be said of other very distinct disorders/illnesses—one only need look at studies for the changing prevalence rate of individual diagnoses, rather than looking at a generic chart showing an uptick in any mental illness overall (obviously, this does not apply to all conditions, as some were changed rather heavily with different iterations of the DSM or didn't become a recognizable condition until much later). [4]
Even in the instance that contextual and normal sadness, worry, or fear is being misconstrued as an actual diagnosable condition, these generalized problems are also becoming more common. Sometimes we are born dysfunctional, but we all have certain dispositions to become dysfunctional in some shape or form, and as we encounter a society that is dysfunctional, we can only expect to become more dysfunctional in increasingly large quantities. Even what is sloughed off as "not a condition" can easily lead to one.
Furthermore, if you look at a very healthy group, such as the Amish, and compare their adolescents to the general population, you will see a world of difference because the Amish focus on what makes humans happier and healthier, mentally and physically, rejecting all the fluff that tends to lead to dissatisfaction. If you look at hunter-gatherers, agricultural societies, and modern societies, you will see an upward trend in depression and other mental illnesses. Based on everything I have observed, regardless of concept creep, I think it would be disingenuous to take a skeptical approach based on these thought experiments—modernity clearly has given rise to many factors which lead to less well-being and more mental illness and general distress.
This is not an anti-civilizational or a "back to nature" stance that I am advocating. Regardless of how healthy the Amish are, there are certain advantages in what they give up, and living as they do is only possible as a nation within a nation—otherwise, it's luck of the draw whether or not a more powerful country subsumes them or disrupts their way of life; unless there is an ally or overarching body that prevents hostilities against an Amish state, but they are ultimately dependent on others. If we did not implement technological advancements to bolster our military, we could easily be overpowered by a sufficiently hostile and technologically superior country and be left to follow the whims of a foreign power. Many of our inventions have saved us time and allowed us to prioritize more important endeavors. But there needs to be a more pragmatic cost-benefit analysis accompanying every change, minor or major, and we should always approach new advancements with some degree of consternation. The U.S. has a tendency to place profits above the well-being of the nation, and that has to change.
We often fail to truly understand the effects something might have on society until we have implemented a change. To take a tangible example, a cellphone is obviously very useful, and it was a worthwhile invention. The smartphone expanded the basic cellphone to have a functionality similar to a home PC. This is a useful upgrade, but perhaps smartphones are too ubiquitous. Children spend far more time on smartphones now, and it is stunting their growth and affecting their health in various ways, and they're addicted to social media. Wouldn't it be prudent for parents to limit screen-time or purchase a normal cellphone instead for contacting their offspring and so emergency calls can be made? We could easily have campaigns focusing on smartphone usage, but we don't—at least not visible ones to affect change for the better. A serious, spirited campaign of this sort would hurt the revenue of smartphone companies, and company profits are placed above well-being, every step of the way. The government doesn't even lift a finger to curb the obesity epidemic we're experiencing—they have no interest in improving man—only to make him fatter and dumber, for then we are the perfect cattle.
Although there may be other factors to consider when it comes to comparing younger cohorts to older cohorts, its obvious that the younger generations have a higher prevalence of mental illness compared to previous cohorts, and there isn't much reason to believe it's getting any better or will in the foreseeable future.
The Mental Illness of the Left
However, even for those who haven't done any research on the subject of mental illness and whether it's liberals/the left or conservatives/the right who suffer more from this problem, they've still probably noticed that younger people don't seem as well-adjusted compared to previous generations; most have seen the safe spaces, the trigger warnings, the panic attacks, the emotional breakdowns, boutique SJW issues and an unwillingness to debate ideas that conflict with their world view, as well as the general hysteria and neuroticism on campuses and outside of campuses, whether they be bizarre protests, social media policing, Drag Queen Story Hour, pride parades, needle-choked and feces-strewn California, or full-scale "Fiery, but mostly peaceful" Black Lives Matter riots.
(I'm going to be very general with my usage of terms like left/liberal/democrat and right/conservative/republican in most instances, using them almost interchangeably to refer to the current left versus right paradigm that we are seeing in the U.S.)
The data from a March 2020 Pew survey was gathered by the doctorate student Zach Goldberg (his page compiles a lot of interesting political data into charts and graphs), who then created several charts that demonstrated liberals are far more likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness—conveniently, the political affiliation is on a spectrum, and it aggregates those queried into two separate racial categories—"white" and "non-white."
"Conservative" is the most healthy group based on this measure, and it only gets slightly worse further to the right, whereas "Conservative" to "Very Liberal" is a constant increase, with the "Very Liberal" whites scoring the highest—either way, liberal whites are always higher than the non-whites. "Conservative" whites are the healthiest of all the groups on this measure.
The oldest age group is also the healthiest in this measure for all political affiliations, with conservatives again scoring the best and liberals the worst.
According to the data from @slatestarcodex's survey, the more left-wing you are, the more likely you are to have been diagnosed with a serious mental illness. This is also what I would have guessed based on anecdotal evidence. https://t.co/S6XF0yzeO4 pic.twitter.com/0aWpU4hSgg
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) February 11, 2020
The data, as originally presented by Philippe Lemoine, breaks down left and right into various political ideologies. There is a good bit of variance in the results. The "far-right" category is generally a little bit less stable compared to conservatives and moderates, but without exception the more "far-left" categories have the greater perceived and/or diagnosed mental illness rate. In one chart, categories 1 and 2 ("far-left") had a formal diagnosis of at least one condition 42.5% and 31.4% of the time, respectively; compared to 19.4% for 10, the most "far-right" category, and the lowest being 17.7% in the conservative range, trending closer to the middle. Another chart has the "far-left" category at 38% and the "far-right" at just 11.8%.By the way, while doing that, I realized that I had mistakenly included anxiety disorder in the first chart, so the title was inaccurate. Here is a correct version that includes depression but not anxiety disorder. pic.twitter.com/vkXJJ5VXlz
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) February 11, 2020
Since 1972 the GSS has conducted 26 in-person, cross-sectional surveys of the adult household population of the U.S. Interviews have been conducted with a total of 51,020 [this is outdated; the number at the time Kirkegaard authored his paper was 64,814], respondents. The 1972-74 surveys used modified probability designs and the remaining surveys were completed using a full-probability sample design, producing a high-quality, representative sample of the adult population of the U.S. The GSS has a response rate of over 70 percent above that of other major social science surveys and 40-45 percentage points higher than the industry average.
Both average conservatives and liberals are quite individualistic and not invested in white identity in the same way blacks would be invested in their own racial identity, yet conservatives are a bit more "color blind," and liberals are more fixated on race.1/n (Note: split form questions) White cons/mods are significantly more likely than white libs to say that they never or rarely think about the fact they are white. And white libs are significantly more likely to agree that they 'often think about the fact' they are white pic.twitter.com/i93e0H44PO
— Zach Goldberg (@ZachG932) July 31, 2020
It's common to find that the most indoctrinated educated are the most anti-white and the most likely to see racism everywhere. According to Pew, black perceptions of racism or being discriminated against GOES UP for the more educated blacks compared to ones who only have a high school education or less. This, of course, makes no sense, if you think of most schools as anything more than Jewish propaganda. The more education they have, presumably, the more money and opportunities were afforded to them, and they'd be more likely to be around middle or upper class liberals, who believe racism to be a great sin, and who would theoretically be less likely to engage in "microaggressions" or "racially insensitive language." PhD students are not included, but they would obviously have a higher percentage of perceived racism/discrimination than those with less education. I guess learning about microaggressions really paid off, eh?
Can you imagine any other race being happy that their racial group is shrinking into a plurality, and then, probably into a minority? This is a sign of a sick society and a sick people. Furthermore, with the racial animus we're now seeing directed towards whites, there shouldn't be any expectance of benevolence like the whites have granted to the minorities—whites will not receive any perks, affirmative action, etc., as a result of becoming a minority. Outside of a small caste of elites, the white minority will be bullied into submission—remember the South African farm murders and the plight of impoverished whites in South Africa who are discriminated against for being white.
When it comes to breaking down the big five by race, most studies I've ever seen on the subject rarely find a high amount of variation between races at the factor level. The differences at the aspect level are usually marginally to moderately more divergent. Although these comparisons give a bit of insight, differences in average IQ and levels of psychopathy are far more important in understanding differences between the racial groups. When we talk about racial differences, we most often are hinting we mean blacks and hispanics, who commit the most crime—they have a lower mean IQ than whites or Asians and have higher rates of psychopathy.
Whites scored higher on extraversion compared to blacks, as well as the aspects of dominance and gregariousness. A common perception is that blacks have higher extraversion because most of the blacks the average person is familiar with are very friendly and sociable blacks. Perhaps it's similar to the perception of blacks being taller on average than whites, but they're actually a few inches shorter. Height, however, is much easier to measure and there is enough variation in studies to make me hesitant to decide one way or another.
Whites have slightly higher emotional stability (this is a positive/reverse version of neuroticism) and rate higher in low anxiety. Blacks score slightly higher in even-tempered (I don't believe this for a second) and self-esteem. In another study, results were fairly similar, but blacks scored lower in conscientiousness and very slightly higher in emotional stability.
Depending on the study consulted, the typical view of blacks being lower in neuroticism and higher in extraversion is sometimes the result—blacks often seem a lot bolder and more confident, regardless of status or competence, so this would make sense. They absolutely rate higher in self-esteem, for sure, as that has been replicated very frequently, and should explain their presumed "social ease." Even if you find a study indicating blacks and whites are equal at the factor level for extraversion and neuroticism, their facet distributions could make all the difference.
Asians scored lower in emotional stability and even-tempered but scored higher on low anxiety and self-esteem. Asians rated higher in agreeableness, but this may not be consistent with bigger samples; conscientiousness was similar for both, but asians scored higher on order very consistently.
Hispanics scored higher than whites on the aspects of self-esteem and low anxiety (author notes that low anxiety mean difference was associated with only two studies and should be approached with caution).
For a closer look at aspects, refer to the table from the second of the two studies, which I've included below (table 3). For a more detailed breakdown, consult the tables in the two above studies.
Hispanics don't typically experience as wide of a range of psychiatric illnesses as do non-hispanic whites, although they have higher rates of mental illness compared to immigrant hispanic groups, who rate higher in measures of happiness. Suicidal ideation and attempted suicide are also committed at higher rates than comparable white or black students.
For LGBT as a whole, they are estimated to be 3.8%-6% of the population—the 3.8% number is similar to the estimate I found for bisexuals, yet bisexuals are supposed to be HALF of the LGBT community. Obviously, these are just estimates and it's difficult to get a clear number, but it's also possible a large number of bisexuals do not consider themselves to be part of the LGBT community, which might account for the numbers being a little off (recall higher rates of bisexual behavior without considering themselves bisexual and a lower likelihood of revealing their sexual orientation).
Here is how political beliefs compare on the national level and within universities:
The General Social Survey shows that political ideology in the United States has been remarkably consistent since the 1970s and that liberals are not dominant. In the most recent sample, the survey found that 28% of Americans identify as liberal, 31% as conservative, and the balance of 37% are in the middle as moderates. In contrast, 50% of college students are liberal, 26% are conservative and the minority – 23% – are moderates. College students demonstrate a significant liberal lean.
But this lean is not uniform. In New England, the data reveal that college students live in a huge bubble where there are 5 liberals for every 1 conservative. 71% of New England college students identify as liberal and just 15% conservative and 14% moderate. This is by far the most lopsided region in the nation.
Similarly, when asked about the acceptability of blocking other students from entering a campus event, almost half (48%) of New England students thought this tactic would be an acceptable way to protest a campus speaker. About 30% of students in the East South Central, the Mountain, West North Central, and West South Central – a nearly 20-point difference – felt that blocking an entrance was acceptable.
New England schools are collectively an outlier in terms of both student liberalism and their willingness to shut down speech. And the perception that protests against speakers are more common in New England is born out in the data. This lopsided liberal trend matches earlier work, which revealed a similar imbalance, where liberal professors outnumber conservative professors 28 to 1 for New England colleges and universities. And while finding a conservative professor in New England is exceedingly rare and far out of step with the national ratio of 6 to 1, many regions in the country are not as homogenous.
A study from Langbert sampled data from 51 universities out of a list of the top 66 liberal arts colleges in the U.S., and he states, "Thus, 78.2 percent of the academic departments in my sample have either zero Republicans, or so few as to make no difference."
Law schools don't fair any better. "A study using 2013 data found that only 11% of law school professors were Republicans, compared to 82% who were Democrats." Social sciences shape the culture, but it's through the courts that the decadent culture is enforced. This is why there are a dearth of convictions against Antifa or BLM, and why sensible legislation is so often shot down, and there is an obvious partisan slant when it comes to what are obviously politically motivated arrests, show trials, and convictions for people who don't have the correct politics.
The trend [a conservative resurgence in academia] was short-lived. Research shows that in recent decades the American professoriate has become an even greater liberal and Democratic stronghold. For example, voter registration records of faculty at the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford reveal that of the 67% for whom information could be obtained, almost 50% were registered Democrats and about 5% Republicans (Klein and Western 2004–5; but see Cohen-Cole and Durlauf 2005). A national survey of faculty in six social sciences and humanities showed ratios of Democratic to Republican voters somewhere between 7:1 and 9:1 (Klein and Stern 2004–2005). A 1999 study of faculty in all fields reported that 72% identify as left of center and 15% right of center; that 50% are registered Democrats, compared to 33% Independents and 11% Republicans; and that faculty attitudes display “an across the board commitment to positions that are typically identified with contemporary liberal ideals” (Rothman et al. 2005, p. 8). Another faculty survey using a more detailed scale found that percentages of liberals, moderates, and conservatives fall around 48, 31, and 17, respectively; that in the 2004 elections 72% reported voting for John Kerry and 25% for George Bush; and that professors hold liberal views on business and the free market, support for international institutions, and separation of church and state (Tobin and Weinberg 2006).
Most of the discussion concerning universities and how liberal they are focuses on students and professors, but rarely do we hear quite as much about the school administrators, who flood campus culture with wokeness, BLM, LGBT, etc. Samuel J. Abrams wrote in a New York Times opinion piece that events were hosted with titled like "Microaggressions," "Understanding White Privilege," and "Stay Healthy, Stay Woke," and it needn't be said that there weren't any alternatives of a more conservative nature.
Abrams looked at a nationally representative sample of 900 administrators, and found that liberals outnumbered conservatives 12-to-1, 6% identified as conservative to any degree (so probably still pretty liberal), and 71% identified as liberal or very liberal. 2/3rds of administrators at public institutions identified as liberal, compared to 3/4ths of administrators and private institutions.
There is a regional variance for school administrators as well. New England: 25-to-1; the West Coast and Southeast: 16-to-1; the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Great Lakes: 10-to-1; Southwest: 2-to-1.
Oh, Harvard’s run by millionaires,
And Yale is run by booze,
Cornell is run by farmers’ sons,
Columbia’s run by Jews.
So give a cheer for Baxter Street,
Another one for Pell,
And when the little sheenies die,
Their souls will go to hell.
(A college song from the 1910s.)
We do not have the data to claim that anti-Semitism is keeping Jewish students out of elite college and universities. But, historically, a drop in Jewish attendance at these institutions has always indicated deliberate action. It is an ugly history.
The Jewish percentages given are probably an undercount, if anything. Jewish representation numbers are often compiled according to religion. Many Jews are secular, though they may or may not identify as Jewish religiously when surveyed.
An example pulled from Tablet demonstrates this by acknowledging University of Pennsylvania was just under 20% Jewish in 2010, but that number fell to 13% in 2016, yet if we account for ethnic affiliation, the number rose to 16%. At the same time Penn had the 20%-to-13% reduction, whites also dropped from 64%-to-44%. Though Jews identify as Jewish, especially when it comes to surveys asking about religion, Jews are actually categorized as "white." This means that a considerable chunk of what we assume are whites are actually Jews, and while Jews, at only 2% of the population, are overrepresented at 13%-16%, whites are underrepresented, for they make up 60% of the population, and they're only 44% of the students at Penn; and even when they were 64%, enough of those were Jews to still render whites underrepresented.
There has been a reported decline, so just how well off are Jews in the Ivies now? According to Data from Hillel for 2020 (undergraduate and graduate percentages, respectively):
Harvard: 10%, 53%; Yale: 13%, 20%; University of Pennsylvania: 17%, 14%; Brown: 19%, 6%; Princeton: 8%, 8%; Cornell: 17%, 6%; Dartmouth: 9%, 5%; Columbia: 24%, 15%.
The reasons for this decline seem obvious enough. The Ivies crave greater amounts of diversity, so they discriminate against whites (and sometimes lumped into that will be Jews). They also discriminate against Asians, since this is another group that does very well, while blacks, hispanics, and various other minority groups are lagging behind. It's simply harder for more affluent groups to be admitted when there are handicaps associated with race. Blacks, for example, get extra points on the SAT, so if you have a white and black who are the same in every way (other than race), the black will have the edge. Although it was phased out, the SAT's adversity score was another way universities boosted minority enrollment. They still gather socioeconomic background information to discriminate against white students for college admission, however.
If we are to remain amongst the Jews, then there needs to be a quota that corresponds with their demographic proportion of 2%—this isn't necessarily that important for every single school, but it is crucial at the Ivy League level. Ron Unz's article on the subject is quite popular in these circles, though even if the rebuttal by Gelman is found to be closer to the truth, putting a cap on Jewish admissions and faculty positions would be one way to reduce their tremendously disproportionate influence and power within the U.S.
First of all, a good overview on the Jewish Question would be Ideas and Data's "The Jewish Question: an Empirical Examiniation" [sic] and Occidental Observer's "Confronting the Judeocracy: The Six Stages of Enlightenment." Some of the information I've used below is either derived from these sources or there is overlap. While I'm focusing purely on academia, these articles include both data on academia and other areas of representation.Gross and Fosse, as one of their hypotheses, attribute some of the liberal shift to religious reapportionment. In the post-WWII years Jews entered academia in large numbers. "By the 1960s, the college enrollment rate of Jews was twice that of non-Jews, and by 1969 Jews made up 10% (12%, according to Lipset and Ladd) of professors and were 'heavily represented on the faculties of Ivy League schools and other elite private universities.'" Jews represent 25% of the faculty at research universities.
Anyone who doesn't consider ethnic nepotism when evaluating groups has been so inundated with western notions of individualism that they fail to honestly evaluate what is really going on (not to mention that whites are less ethnocentric in their mindset and much more concerned with fairness compared to other ethnic groups, especially Jews).
Case in point: the incestuous Jewish circle jerk prevalent in publications, wherein Jewish professors are 40% more likely to cite Jews compared to their non-Jewish colleagues. First time Jewish authors were also three times more likely to have a Jewish co-author. One would expect a Jew to pair up with or cite Jews at higher rates for Jewish-specific texts, but this trend applies to a wide range of subjects (plus, the discrimination found here would be much higher if this were Jew-specific topics). This gives Jews an advantage in academia, giving them higher clout because of a greater number of easy citations amongst co-ethnics.
Jewish overrepresentation in various academic fields, according to Ideas and Data, which draws its data from Scientific Elite by Harriet Zuckerman:
What is perhaps more notable than mere overrepresentation in various fields, however, is to look at both ethnic nepotism and overall influence on intellectual work.
Kadushin, based on the sample detailed in his 1974 book, stated that nearly half of the U.S.'s leading intellectuals are Jewish, along with 56% of social scientists, and 61% of humanity scholars—the sample was derived by looking at the most frequent contributors to the top 20 leading intellectual journals—these intellectuals were interviewed and requested to select an intellectual who was influential to their thinking. More than 40% of the Jews in the sample received six or more votes as being most influential, compared to 15% of gentiles. Ideas and Data notes "if you use a sufficiently elite criterion there is a sense in which certain fields in academia could be described as being mostly or largely controlled by Jews." [6]
Mounting data support the fact that graduate trainees face serious mental health challenges. In 2014, the University of California Berkeley Graduate Student Happiness and Well-being Report demonstrated that 43 – 46% of graduate student respondents in the sciences at that institution were depressed (The Graduate Assembly, 2014). The following year, Smith and Brooks (2015), showed that at the University of Arizona, 50% of graduate students surveyed reported “more than average” stress and 23% reported “tremendous” amounts of stress. Levecque et al. (2017) found that 32% of responding Belgium PhD students were at risk of having or developing a common psychiatric disorder. Additionally, Nature’s 2017 PhD survey showed that about 25% of respondents were concerned about mental health and 12% of all respondents sought help for anxiety and depression that was caused by their training program (Woolston, 2017). In these studies, students’ concerns include advisor relationships, career prospects, personal finances, overall wellness (e.g., diet and sleeping issues), living conditions, and their sense of value and inclusion.In March 2018, we published an article in Nature Biotechnology further highlighting the critical nature of the mental health issues faced by graduate students. Using the clinically validated scales to assess symptoms of anxiety and depression, General Anxiety Disorder-7 and Patient Health Questionnaire-9, we found that within the context of a cross-sectional, convenience sample of 2,279 graduate students from 26 countries and 234 institutions, 41% had moderate to severe symptoms of anxiety and 39% had moderate to severe symptoms of depression. Female and transgender students showed the highest levels of anxiety and depression symptoms in our study. Positive faculty mentor relationships and a healthy work-life balance were associated with lower symptoms of anxiety and depression (Evans et al., 2018). To put this in context, by comparison the prevalence of anxiety and depression in graduate students is almost an order of magnitude greater than that observed in the general population (see Figure 1) (WHO, 2017).
The authors of the Evans et al. study note “Our results show that graduate students are more than six times as likely to experience depression and anxiety as compared to the general (global) population.” The main issue for me with this study is that it draws its sample from 26 countries, and I'm unable to access the supplementary data. The results of all the countries should be decently comparable if all of the selected countries are all western and of similar levels of development—though obviously certain positive measures will lag in some countries, like the multicultural America.
Most data focuses on undergraduates when it comes to mental illness, and this is a relatively recent study with a solid sample size. Compared to some other studies on university students, the rate of mental illness generalizes to expectations much better—women have higher rates than men, and transgenders have absurdly high rates.
For those graduate students who finally complete their training, being a professor can be quite stressful, so the stress levels are high, which is a predictor for a variety of mental issues.
Tragedies such as a suicide have far-reaching impacts, including sparking discussions about mental health. In the academic sphere, the suicides of professors Will Moore and Alan Krueger (Flaherty, 2017; Casselman and Tankersley, 2019) stirred this discussion and highlighted the need for an increased understanding of the impact of mental health on academics. The rates of suicide in academic populations are not clear and data on prevalence of mental health symptoms is limited. That said, Schindler et al. (2006) found that 20% of full-time academic physicians and basic science faculty had significant levels of depression. This was almost equal for males and females, and younger faculty were found to have more emotional distress than their older colleagues. Further, in a cross-institutional survey of 267 US faculty with mental disabilities, mental illness, or symptom histories, nearly 70% had no or limited familiarity with resources available to support their mental health needs, and even fewer used them (13%), mostly due to fear of stigma and professional risk. Respondents indicated that they felt most supported by their spouses or significant others (75% very or extremely supported) and friends (51%) rather than colleagues (29%) and supervisors (25%), though many had not disclosed their mental health needs to their supervisors (Price et al., 2017).
Higher education is positively correlated with more political participation, and since political participation increases at the fringes (most conservative and most liberal groupings), it's quite likely that the majority of liberal professors and students are distributed more to the "far left," certainly comparing the average professor's politics to the general population would suggest this is the case. The most educated are disproportionately leftist, and are significantly less happy and more mentally ill than the general population.
Admittedly, high intelligence correlates with anxiety and depression, so is it simply that students/professors are more intelligent than the general population (global or otherwise), and that explains the difference? It surely explains some of it, but I highly doubt that explains all of it. It's rather hard to find much info about tight-knit high IQ groups that are religious or are more conservative for a good comparative sample. More conservative or illiberal intellectuals of the past would have been an interesting comparison, but they're now gone.
Plus, there is something to be said, regardless of whether a person suffers from depression, anxiety, or some other mental illness, for a man with such issues who projects a more inspiring and positive or at least logical or coherent vision. Though past philosophers may have struggled with mental illness, I would not assume they are mentally ill per se from reading their works in the majority of cases; but when I hear all of the intersectional and cultural marxist bullshit, and acknowledge the illogical end result of such noxious thoughts, I can't help but assign these people to the loony bin.
What we're seeing is nothing like the intellectuals of the past. These people appear to have beliefs that promote greater mental illness and incoherence. Their ideas and absurdities are contagious to those who are around them, who are taught by them, and who read their works.
Does That Leave Any Real Conservative voices?
The leftward bias sets the tone, especially for Ivy Leagues and regions like New England, and while I had stated earlier that it was only the moderates and conservatives who have an alternative voice... it really depends on how liberal the university is. How many students are report-happy SJWs, and will the administration fold to placate them? Of course, it's more complex than a few unhinged lunatics; there's the school board, the donors, etc.
There's a definite chilling effect inhibiting conservative professors from appearing conservative in the slightest. Conservative faculty (even moderate and some liberal ones) witness other professors losing their jobs or being hobbled in some way for their political views and ideas (1, 2, 3, 4), so they have to be very guarded about what they say. Even an ultra-liberal Jew like Bret Weinstein ended up resigning in protest when there were demands for him to be fired—that's how insane the situation has become. People like Weinstein were complicit in the problem and now their woke students are turning against them for not being woke enough.
A recent RT article, summarizing the work of Eric Kaufmann, delves into the topic of liberal professors discriminating against conservative professors; with the latter, 70% of those sampled express their work environment was hostile toward their political beliefs, along with 80% of the UK sample and 90% of the U.S. sample admitting they would not feel comfortable discussing their political beliefs with colleagues—specifically either Brexit or Trump, respectively. 40% wouldn't hire a Trump supporter, 33% a Brexit supporter, and 72% wouldn't even have lunch with a person who has normal views on biological sex.
There are structural reasons prohibiting the entry of conservatives as well, outside of the obvious tendency of leftists to promote leftists and block the entry of conservatives—leftist ideas, at this point, are pretty much embedded into the social sciences:
Perhaps the greatest obstacle is the way in which leftist interests and interpretations have been baked into many humanistic disciplines. As sociologist Christian Smith has noted, many social sciences developed not out of a disinterested pursuit of social and political phenomena, but rather out of a commitment to "realizing the emancipation, equality, and moral affirmation of all human beings as autonomous, self-directing, individual agents." This progressive project is deeply embedded in a number of disciplines, especially sociology, psychology, history, and literature.
The authors correctly assert how this perspective does not align with the viewpoint of many conservatives (though Conservative Inc. would fit right in), preventing many of them from pursuing social studies in favor of business-oriented degrees or STEM—or forgoing university all together. Political leanings are very strong predictors for choosing one's degree.
Another reason professors seem to be so likeminded would be that tenure is now far less common. 78% of professors either had tenure or tenure-track positions in 1969. Now the percentages have flipped and only about 20%-27% of professors have tenure or tenure-track positions. If you don't have tenure, then it's a grave risk to voice any opinion unsupported by the university.
As for the potential impact of diversifying universities according to political belief: the effect of that would have been much better as a preventative measure, but as a means of "correcting" the university? I'm less enthusiastic about the latter, though there needs to be a change; but it would require a new government taking the university system apart and putting it back together, whether it be on the federal or state level—any attempts at regulating these institutions by the current regime have been less than stellar. I'm afraid it would require ousting corrupt politicians and then doing the same with a sizable chunk of the school boards and faculties. The two-party "democracy" hoax that is run by oligarchs, so far, provides no solutions.
Liberals and conservatives are also cut from the same classical liberal cloth, so you can't really expect conservatives to be... well, frankly, very conservative at all at this point—it pains me to think of how many of those "conservative" professors are neoconservatives, which are really no better than liberals (Probably worse). From my perspective, most conservatives are like liberals from before they got really infected by the woke virus on most issues. They're bad on social issues, won't defend whites, and their economics are usually some kind of "free market" system that basically means privatizing the profits and socializing the costs of monopolies and oligopolies, tax breaks for more stock buybacks, and pro-legal immigration policies for their donors.
If the universities had stayed more conservative, we would have been better off—at least it wouldn't be teeming with SJWs, but I think America would look about the same as it does now, just the greatest of liberal excesses would have been delayed a decade or two.
Pathogen Disgust
I would argue that the mental illness now associated with leftism and the state of society—which is a direct product of liberal social ideas—is making us all more mentally ill and less healthy and happy in general.
NOTES
[1]: Although it's hard to say for sure, it would appear part of why immigrant Mexicans have a better mental health profile is the result of a lack of acculturation. Being born in the U.S. leads to more conflict around identity and going through the school system means greater acculturation (there is a similar comparison between immigrant Africans and black Americans, but this is a more complex comparison because of far more divergent samples and African immigrants having more education and higher income on average; i.e., they tend to more elite, have less admixture, and are much different culturally). Although immigrants come here for greater economic opportunity, there are costs in terms of communal cohesion for the next generation especially. South Korean posterity, similarly, are being reared in their own culture rather than a foreign one, and they are more collectivist than the individualistic Europeans (supposedly, collectivist cultures are "less happy," according to data, but regardless of such a measure—to the extent it has much meaning at all—it's quite possible collectivist cultures play a protective role in reducing depression prevalence).
[2]: There is some conflict between studies utilizing repeated cross-sectional surveys and studies using cross-sectional birth cohort analyses, the former usually resulting in relatively stable or even declining depression in recent years, and the latter usually showing an increase in depression—especially or primarily—that of the younger cohorts. Longitudinal re-interviewing, as can be seen in the Lundby study is not a viable competitor because it merely shows the stability of individual samples over time when it comes to depression prevalence and that depressive episodes and other mental issues tend to taper off with age.
As for which methodology I find more compelling, it's a matter of looking at the antagonism between the two methodologies and lining them up with observations, though this is not perfectly conclusive. There are so many factors in modernity which would suggest worse outcomes and greater mental illness—especially if we compare amish life to rural life or either to city life. It's not just industrialization that is the issue, but many factors accompanying the western outlook and its constituent cultures and racial makeup (in pretty much all measures, the U.S. and UK certainly rank worse than, say, the Scandinavian countries, when it comes to the number of predictors and their severity). We have a greater abundance of predictors for psychological distress and mental illness now, and one methodology—birth-cohort analysis—comports with what we should expect based on these predictors and appears to be the more salient of the two methodologies.
It's also unclear how SSRIs factor into these results. There was a 90% increase in SSRI usage in the 1998-2004 period, which would presumably help reduce depression, and this continues to be a factor with any future study periods for depression, thought it's not clear how effective SSRIs are; it's estimated only 30% of patients even use SSRIs as prescribed, and while their effects (when properly used) are greater than placebo, they're largely equivalent in effectiveness to CB therapy, have a wide range of side effects, are typically more effective as the severity of the case goes up, and are ineffective for many users. They are also overprescribed, and their use may not reflect depression prevalence very well.
[3]: I don't fully agree with Sommers and Satel on this subject, but they raise various good points about the idea of "therapism." I suppose, on one hand, they would claim that I'm promoting a kind of therapism of my own, based on some of my disagreements, but on the other hand, I do support encouraging strength and stability within the populace, and psychology should be geared towards that. Only I feel these authors downplay the actual problems we're beset with far too much. It's kind of a typical pull yourself up by your bootstraps or "man up" take—especially their perspective on drug addiction, conveniently sidestepping many of the problems baked into society. Trying to hand wave away societal problems by evoking individual responsibility is never going to get us very far. It's the same with black crime—you can say they need to take personal responsibility all you want—but it is a societal problem, and it has to be treated as such. They are absolutely right on the money about emotional openness—it seems psychotherapy originally catered mostly to Jews, and in time it became the domain of women.
[4]: Major depressive disorder did not become a diagnosis by that exact name until the 1970s (though what we know of as major depression was represented by other terms), and the disorder wasn't in the DSM until the third edition in 1980. Retrospective looks at depression epidemiology are generally somewhat broad when they analyze depression.
[5]: There's no reason to believe LGBT being more comfortable "coming out" is the reason they are increasing in numbers. There appears to be both a genetic and environmental factor influencing sexual orientation, and being abused as a child is HIGHLY correlated with being a homosexual. It's also likely that changing pre-natal environments, chemical exposure, endocrine disruptors, and even intensive propaganda at an early age could be various factors leading to an increase in the LGBT ranks.
[6]: Charles Kadushin, The American Intellectual Elite (Boston: Little, Brown, 1974), p. 23-24, 32, 36 (table).
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