People born in the 1960s and 1970s still carry a shared psychological residue that shows up in work, relationships, and the way they gesture toward the future. Call it a temperament if you like, a cultural habit, or simply an accumulation of social choices made by a postwar cohort. Whatever label you give it the pattern is recognisable: a particular mix of cautious optimism and private distrust, a hunger for meaning wrapped in a pragmatic reluctance to gamble the roof over the family. That pattern has been loosening for a decade, and now it is fraying fast.
The shape of that pattern
Imagine someone who grew up with both rationed affluence and rising expectations. That life stage produces people who learned to expect stability and then to suspect it. They were children when institutions still mattered. They were young adults as those institutions started to rewire themselves. The result is an attitude that values personal responsibility and self improvement yet remains wary of grand narratives. It is not cynicism in the smug modern sense. It is steady caution with an appetite for reinvention.
Why this shows up so clearly
There are three behavioural fingerprints that tend to appear together in this cohort. First there is a conscientiousness that feels almost tactical. These are people who keep lists even when they do not need to. Second there is a private scepticism toward sweeping optimism. They will cheer a cause but rarely surrender their savings to it without a plan. Third there is a paradoxical openness to change combined with psychological thrift. They will do therapy, adopt new diets, switch careers, but seldom in a way that looks impulsive. Together the three create a personality that looks flexible but not easily excitable. It is disciplined curiosity. It is modern restraint.
Where did it come from
Historical circumstances matter. The 60s and 70s were an era of transition: welfare state confidence sliding into market turbulence, noisy cultural revolutions lodged beside domestic conservatism, expanding higher education but also new economic precarity for some. Parents of the period were more likely to preach self reliance and to expect a career arc that unfolded in a straight line. Their children therefore internalised both the promise of progress and the lesson that progress can be brittle. The psychological pattern is a product of that double message: hope with a safety harness.
Not just upbringing but timing
Timing gives the pattern a particular flavour. Think of someone who entered adulthood before mass internet socialising and yet during the dawn of global economic shifts. They learned to build identity with material rituals that later generations abandoned. They still measure success in physical terms to an extent. Cars mattered. Houses mattered. Yet they are also more likely than their elders to talk about feelings. It’s a hybrid sensibility, a generational compound.
Why it is fading now
Multiple forces are dissolving the pattern. Technology changes the scaffolding of identity. The gig economy loosens loyalties to single employers. The cultural vocabulary around risk and reward has shifted: younger adults often normalise career resets and portfolio lives in ways that remove the old anxieties about rocking the boat. Money is part of the story, but not all of it. The deepest change is ideological: later cohorts absorb a different grammar for selfhood, one that prizes flexibility and signalling over long term guarded planning.
In short the social incentives have altered. If you were born in the 60s or 70s you were incentivised to build for durability. If you were born later, you were rewarded for being adaptable and visible. Those are not identical survival strategies.
A personal note
I grew up listening to relatives who still measured adulthood in the quiet rites of ownership and reliable appointments. They taught me calming routines that sometimes feel like antique tools in a climate where the weather changes daily. I keep some of those tools. I also watch my younger friends treat career and identity like mobile apps. The older pattern works in certain weather and fails spectacularly in others. The lesson for me is not to mourn wholesale but to pick what still functions and leave what does not.
Expert perspective
The increase in narcissistic traits is just the tip of the iceberg. Even more disturbing is how narcissism and attention seeking have become rampant in our culture from Internet sites to reality TV. This new research evaluated more than 20,000 college students and found a faster rate of increase in narcissistic traits overall than earlier decades. Jean M. Twenge Professor of Psychology San Diego State University.
This point matters because the generation born in the 60s and 70s sit, in public perception, between two narratives. To their elders they sometimes seem reckless. To younger people they can look oddly conservative. But Twenge’s observation helps us see that what changed after them was the acceleration and normalisation of attention economics which transformed how personality traits express themselves. The cohort in the middle kept a mix of inward practical habits that do not register as ‘flashy’ online but that sustained households and institutions for decades.
Unique fingerprints that remain useful
Even as the pattern fades, it leaves usable traces. People from this cohort are often the ones who stewarded community institutions through lean years. They volunteer in ways that are quiet and sustained. They have an ability to translate ideals into systems. Call it institutional muscle memory. When those muscles are used judiciously they stabilise projects younger groups find ephemeral. Yet when institutional memory ossifies it also stifles necessary experimentation. The residue is therefore both a resource and a constraint.
What younger cohorts lose and gain
When a pattern like this fades you lose a kind of slow care. Younger adults sometimes drive attention but not always maintenance. The tradeoff is clear: speed and visibility for some, longevity and depth for others. Neither side has it all. My unashamed opinion is that we need a blend. I find myself arguing for a return to some habits without wanting the staleness that sometimes accompanied them.
How to read the change without moralising
The most toxic habit in public conversation about generations is the elevation of anecdote into apocalypse. The 60s and 70s cohort contains splendid, dysfunctional and middling humans just as any group does. The useful work is to identify useful habits and to discard the brittle ones. You can respect someone for their steadiness and still disagree with their refusal to innovate. You can admire their thrift and call them out when thrift becomes fear of joy. Generational patterns are not destinies; they are tendencies shaped by environment.
Open questions
Will the steady habits that defined that generation be reanimated when instability gets worse? Will younger people invent new rituals of repair that replace those old ones? We do not yet know. Some tendencies are elastic and may reappear in new forms when circumstances demand it. Other tendencies are evaporating under different incentives and will not return. The middle-aged cohort that once held this pattern still stands as an archive of practices we might choose to borrow from or leave behind.
Summary table
| Feature | What it looked like | Why it mattered |
|---|---|---|
| Conscientious pragmatism | Careful planning and routine creation. | Kept households and organisations functioning through uncertain economies. |
| Private scepticism | Hope checked by contingency. | Balanced idealism with risk management. |
| Psychological thrift | Open to self work but constrained in expression. | Enabled durable change without spectacle. |
| Institutional memory | Stewardship of local institutions and social practices. | Provided continuity that modern attention economies often lack. |
| Fading drivers | Technology and attention culture. | Replaced durability incentives with adaptability rewards. |
FAQ
Why do people born in the 60s and 70s seem different from both older and younger generations?
They occupy a historical hinge. They were shaped by fading postwar stability and the early shock waves of globalisation and cultural upheaval. That produced an outlook that combined institutional loyalty with a readiness to self improve. The result is an attitude that appears conservative by younger standards and modern by older ones. It is a cross generational hybrid rather than a single coherent identity.
Is this pattern the same everywhere or is it mostly a UK and US phenomenon?
It is strongest where postwar economic expansion and consumer culture met rising higher education and social mobility. That covers large parts of the Anglosphere and Western Europe but local histories matter. In countries where social safety nets or cultural rhythms were different the pattern takes different shapes. Always look for local inflections rather than importing a one size fits all narrative.
Does the fading of this pattern mean worse or better outcomes for society?
Neither uniformly worse nor uniformly better. The fading rearranges trade offs. We gain flexibility and visible innovation but we may lose slow maintenance and institutional patience. Good policy and social design would try to capture the best of both worlds by encouraging durable practices alongside experimentation.
Can younger people benefit from adopting habits from that generation?
Yes some habits translate well. Rituals of care that promote stability like consistent community servicing or long horizon financial planning can be helpful. But those habits should be adapted rather than copied. The world younger people face rewards different strategies so the useful move is to translate durable habits into forms that fit new incentives.
Will the pattern reappear if society becomes more unstable?
Possibly. Social behaviours are adaptive. If conditions again reward durability and institutional knowledge those habits could regenerate, either in their old forms or as new practices inspired by them. Human cultures reuse and remix strategies rather than inventing everything anew.
How can organisations make use of this generational shift?
Organisations should think of generational differences as a palette rather than a hierarchy. Use experienced stewards to maintain continuity and pair them with younger people who push visibility and iteration. The most resilient organisations will blend the pattern’s strengths with modern agility rather than privileging one over the other.
