The purpose of this study is to test why people believe kids are getting worse and the downfall of civilization.
The prediction is that it is mostly elites who loudly make these predictions. This is because they are imposing themselves on all children when they were kids. THen, this biased comparison is being made against a more representative population of children, thus leading to the conclusion that kids these days are worsae then kids were when they were younger.
This theory predicts that people who are higher in a given trait will be more likely to believe that kids are getting worse at that trait. We provide a test of this first with right-wing authoritarianism and respect for elders.