The Culture of Narcissism

"In a variety of books and articles, Jean M. Twenge of San Diego State University and W. Keith Campbell of the University of Georgia have collected data suggesting that American self-confidence has risen of late. College students today are much more likely to agree with statements such as 'I am easy to like' than college students 30 years ago. In the 1950s, 12 percent of high school seniors said they were a 'very important person.' By the ’90s, 80 percent said they believed that they were.
"In short, there’s abundant evidence to suggest that we have shifted a bit from a culture that emphasized self-effacement—I’m no better than anybody else, but nobody is better than me—to a culture that emphasizes self-expansion."

David Brooks in The New York Times frets over Americans' inflated sense of self.