There is a certain bluntness to the way people who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s talk about surviving life. It is not nostalgic polishing. It is a plain handedness that treats trouble like a practical problem to be worked on rather than an identity to be performed around. According to psychology this cluster of traits once common in that cohort is thinning out. That sentence sounds dramatic because it is meant to be. The loss is interesting and uneven and it matters in ways we do not always admit.
What I mean by 60s and 70s mental strengths
When I say 60s and 70s mental strengths I mean a set of tendencies that tended to cohere in people who grew up in those decades. They include a pragmatic steadiness under strain a preference for private problem solving a tolerance for boredom and iteration and a habit of measuring oneself against long term commitments rather than short bursts of achievement. These are not virtues that belong exclusively to one generation. They are practices and habits delivered by the conditions of upbringing schools and the economy of the time.
How psychology has recorded the shift
Researchers have not agreed on neat labels. Some studies focus on grit others on resilience and still others on emotional regulation and problem solving. But patterns recur. Older adults often show stronger emotional regulation and longer term problem solving strategies while younger adults more commonly rely on social scaffolding and immediate feedback loops. These findings are not an indictment of younger people. They are indicators of different ecological learning environments.
Martin Bell Head of policy and public affairs British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. Resilience is not about never breaking. It is often about learning that breaking is survivable and having support to get back up.
Why the strengths are fading
Simple answer first. The world families and institutions that produced those habits have changed. Longer commutes different parenting models expanded digital attention economies and a professional world that prizes visibility over quiet craft have all nudged people away from repetitive solitary practice. But there is a subtler reason. The 60s and 70s taught a certain relation to contingency and scarcity that cued specific psychological strategies. When scarcity becomes chronic rather than episodic people adapt differently. That adaptation does not recreate the older pattern. It invents new coping that is effective in its terms but incompatible with the old habits.
Not all loss is bad
I do not want to sound like someone mourning progress. Greater openness about mental health the dismantling of rigid gender norms and the rise of collaborative problem solving are genuine gains. The networked support systems available to younger people can be lifesaving. Still some outcomes are subtle and underappreciated. A person who never learns to tolerate boredom will find long projects unpleasant. A person who has been taught that help must be signalled publicly may overvalue performance displays and under-invest in private competence.
What those old strengths actually did
There is a practical clarity to many of these traits. Emotional regulation meant fewer swings of panic under pressure. Habitual self reliance produced a readiness to begin again after small defeats. Acceptance of slow results made careers and relationships less brittle. These habits often looked boring from the outside but they made lives less dependently fragile.
Evidence without moralising
Take resilience research. Several recent papers show that older adults score higher on some resilience measures especially for emotional regulation and problem solving. The differences are not uniform. Young people score higher on social support dimensions. That matters. It means the real question is not which generation is better but which combination of skills a person or society values and deliberately cultivates.
Where the old strengths show up today
You still meet these habits in unlikely places. A fiftysomething electrician who has fixed the same wiring variant a dozen times will show a calm you cannot fake. A retired teacher who baked, balanced budgets and argued labour politics during strikes has a patience that reads like a superpower. They do not announce themselves loudly. They reveal themselves in refusal to catastrophise in the middle of a problem and in an ability to choose small tidy interventions instead of performance theatre. Those micro decisions add up.
Why organisations should notice
Employers talk about teamwork and agility but seldom ask whether teams contain enough people who are willing to do the slow ordinary work that anchors success. Projects need someone who can sit with a messy spreadsheet or an awkward negotiation and not need applause. That is a type of psychological muscle. When organisations lean only into novelty and viral success they lose the ballast of steady competence.
Can the habits be learned now
Yes and no. Psychological traits are malleable but they are not instant. You do not transplant a childhood in a weekend. People can develop improved emotional regulation through practice and scaffolding. They can learn to tolerate unstructured time through deliberate exposure. Yet the modern environment often works opposite to these aims. Technology supplies immediate reward. Institutions reward short bursts of high visibility. The learning path is therefore uphill. It requires deliberate practice supportive communities and sometimes institutional redesign.
A practical experiment
Try one slow project for six months. No public updates. No metrics on views or likes. Just a weekly small action towards an end outside your feed. Watch what happens to your internal threshold for frustration. The experiment alone will not transform you but it will reveal the contours of what was lost and what can be rebuilt.
My view and where to push back
I believe the decline in these specific strengths weakens social infrastructure in ways that matter. But it is also true that younger generations are inventing solidarity forms we do not yet have names for. I am skeptical of romanticised accounts that present the past as morally superior. The 60s and 70s were riddled with forms of injustice that demanded new sensibilities. Still when we throw away everything because it is old we risk discarding quiet tools that help sustain lives.
Open ended conclusion
The conversation should stop being generational warfare and become a deliberate conversation about the habits we want to breed. That requires institutions willing to fund boredom and patience and families that treat small steady competence as a respectable aim. It will feel odd at first. Oddness is a decent place to begin.
Summary Table
| Concept | What it looked like | Why it matters now |
|---|---|---|
| Emotional regulation | Calm under pressure consistent responses | Reduces reactive cycles and improves long term problem solving |
| Private problem solving | Working on issues without public display | Builds durable competence and reduces performative fragility |
| Tolerance for boredom | Enduring repetitive tasks without immediate reward | Enables long term projects and craftsmanship |
| Commitment horizon | Valuing slow steady outcomes | Anchors careers relationships and institutions |
FAQ
Are these strengths unique to people born in the 60s and 70s?
No. These strengths are not genetically stamped into a birth cohort. They emerged from social conditions schools parenting norms and labour patterns common in those decades. People of any age can cultivate them but doing so requires concrete practice and, often, changes to the surrounding environment.
Is it bad that younger generations rely more on social support?
Not on its face. Social support can protect people from trauma and provide resources that older cohorts lacked. The risk is imbalance. If private competence atrophies while public signalling grows unchecked the result is a brittle system that performs well under observation and poorly in private crisis.
Can institutions encourage these habits without being authoritarian?
Yes. Institutions can create conditions that privilege slow work and private craft without imposing rigid conformity. Examples include longer project timelines fewer meaningless metrics and budgets for low visibility professional development. These do not coerce behaviour. They nudge incentives so that steady work is recognisably rewarded.
How should parents think about this?
Parents can offer calibrated independence small repetitive responsibilities and sustained projects rather than constant entertainment. The aim is not to replicate the past exactly but to give children practice in tolerating delayed reward and problem solving when help is not on tap. The specifics will differ across families and contexts.
Where to begin if I want to develop these strengths now?
Begin with one deliberate unspectacular habit. A slow project a regular unsupervised hour of focused work or a weekly task that requires iteration and no fuss. Pair practice with reflection. The point is not to perform resilience but to practice processes that produce it.
Will cultivating these traits make me less collaborative?
Not necessarily. These habits are complementary to collaboration. Private competence can strengthen group work by reducing the need for constant coordination and crisis management. The goal is a balance between solitary craft and communal support.
