There is a quiet sort of immunity that settles over many people who were born in the 1960s and 1970s. It is not arrogance. It is not superior coping. It is a familiar, private economy of worth that does not require the constant tally of likes or applause. This article is part observation and part argument. I want to make a case that the era you were born into leaves a fingerprint on how loudly you need other people to tell you you are okay.
What I mean when I say less need for external validation
When I say these cohorts need less external validation I do not mean they never want praise. Nor do I mean they are immune to social anxiety or loneliness. I mean their baseline self reference is thicker and more private. Where younger cohorts often scaffold identity against public feedback and metrics social or digital, many people born in the 1960s and 1970s built a center of self that was slower to move when others applauded or scolded. That steadiness looks, from the outside, like a lower appetite for outside approval.
History as personality scaffolding
People born in the late 1960s and 1970s came of age in a particular hum of history. The world was not always kinder or richer for them as young adults. Economies wobbling, the labor market shifting, and cultural scripts about adulthood being earned rather than pronounced meant that responsibility arrived early and, often, without much external fanfare. This forced a private accountability. When you had to patch things yourself you learned to trust your own judgment.
But there is also an instructional absence. For younger generations the lessons often came curated through institutions of praise. The self esteem movement of the 1980s and 1990s pressed uninterrupted positivity into childhood classrooms. That shaping mattered. If an entire generation is taught that worth is conferred by affirmation then it will orient toward seeking it. Those who missed that did not.
Psychology and developmental theory that supports this pattern
Some classic psychological ideas help explain why a cohort might be less dependent on external validation. One of the clearest is the idea that identity develops not in a vacuum but across exchanges with the social world. Erik H. Erikson famously put the centrality of identity into a crisp line that still matters. He argued that a sense of self is necessary to feel alive within a social world.
In the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity. Erik H. Erikson Ph.D. Psychoanalyst and Developmental Psychologist author of Identity Youth and Crisis.
That quote points to a paradox. A strong identity can be either porous and dependent on others or firm and internally referenced. For many born in the 1960s and 1970s the experience of responsibility and fewer institutional rewards nudged identity toward internal referencing. It is a subtle difference but one with big behavioural consequences.
Generational culture and the self esteem movement
Researchers who study generational shifts see the self esteem movement as a hinge moment. The argument is not that earlier generations were stoic saints. It is that the cultural script about what made you valuable shifted. The cohorts born in the 1960s and 1970s straddled that pivot. Some encountered rising rhetoric of self esteem as children but many had formative experiences that demanded competence before compliment.
Self esteem comes after success not before because self esteem is based on success Jean M. Twenge Ph.D. Professor of Psychology San Diego State University.
Twenge is making a technical claim about the order in which we internalize worth. Read alongside the lived histories of the 1960s and 1970s, it explains why many of them invested first in competence and resilience and only later in the narratives that praise supplies.
Not a categorical truth but a probabilistic tendency
Of course not every person born in those decades fits this description. Some are thirsty for applause. Others have been shaped by family dynamics or traumas that carve very different needs. What I am arguing for is a probabilistic trend: across populations the social and cultural conditions surrounding people born in the 1960s and 1970s favored internalized standards over external remunerations.
There is also a stylistic difference: people who learned to be self sufficient before the Internet arrived tend to display quieter signals of needing approval. They do not live in the economy of short bursts of attention. This manifests in conversations as fewer requests for reassurance and in social media as more curated absence than frantic presence. They show up steady or not at all.
A personal note
I grew up watching relatives measure success by fixed benchmarks—job stability homeownership a certain stoicism in public pain. That taught me to watch for two things. One is whether a person learned their value through achievement or through applause. The other is how easy it is for that person to be rattled when the applause stops. Those two things often diverge. A person whose worth grew through work rather than praise will usually be harder to unbalance when mobs of strangers stop clapping.
Why this matters now
The collision between attention economies and older cohorts has created comic and tense moments. Younger people ask older ones how they can tolerate being offline or not chasing feedback. Older people ask how anyone can live with such constant performance. These are not just lifestyle questions. They are about the architecture of esteem.
For workplaces families and politics these differences shape expectations. Employers used to short reward cycles now find older employees who value autonomy more than public kudos. Family therapists notice differing needs for reassurance between generations. Politically the quieter confidence of some older cohorts resists the sensational velocity of viral claims. That resistance can be noble or stubborn depending on the company it keeps.
Not a prescription
I am not prescribing any moral hierarchy. The ability to seek external validation can be adaptive. Public affirmation builds coalitions motivates social action and can heal. But we should stop treating visible validation as the only indicator of psychological health. A lower appetite for external approval is not automatically maturity any more than hunger for approval is immaturity. Both are strategies. We would be wiser to read them as such.
Open ends and final provocations
I wonder how the cohort born in the late 1970s who later encountered the digital world as adults will adapt as older adulthood presses in. Will their private economies of worth erode under the weight of algorithmic praise or will they act as inoculation? I do not know. There is a real possibility that a lifetime of doing without endless public affirmation may prove an advantage in an attention saturated age. Or it may hide unexamined loneliness behind a posture of competence.
My own view is that cultures need both kinds of people. The ones who demand applause keep institutions honest and visible. The ones who require less of the crowd provide ballast and continuity. Both irritate each other. Both are necessary.
Summary table
| Key idea | What it means |
|---|---|
| Historical scaffolding | Economic and cultural conditions of the 1960s and 1970s encouraged internal measures of worth. |
| Developmental sequencing | Some psychologists argue self esteem often follows success which favours competence based identity. |
| Cohort tendency not rule | Not everyone born then fits the pattern but the probability across populations shifts. |
| Social implications | Generational differences reshape workplaces families and public discourse about recognition. |
| Open question | How will these cohorts adapt to an ever louder attention economy? |
FAQ
Are people born in the 1960s and 1970s immune to needing validation?
No. They are not immune. The essay argues for a lower baseline appetite for external approval not an absence of need. Individuals vary widely and personal history childhood dynamics and trauma can override cohort tendencies. The important point is about what tends to be socialised into these cohorts rather than a deterministic claim about each person.
Does this mean younger generations are less resilient?
Not necessarily. Younger generations often learn resilience in different forms and contexts. Their routes to self worth may be more communal or feedback oriented. That can be adaptive in collaborative environments. Resilience is multifaceted and showing up to ask for validation is one kind of resilience too. The piece simply challenges equating constant external reassurance with health.
How should families manage these differences?
Recognise difference as a feature not a flaw. Conversations about comfort with public praise and private benchmarks can prevent misunderstandings. Rather than insisting someone change their need for approval it is more useful to negotiate expectations around feedback frequency mode and content in relationships and workplaces.
Is this an argument for or against social media?
It is neither. Social media is a tool architecture and marketplace for attention. For some it amplifies insecurity. For others it is a platform for meaningful connection. The article suggests those with a thinner appetite for approval may navigate these platforms differently but it does not reduce the medium to being purely harmful or purely beneficial.
What should readers take away?
Notice the origins of your own appetite for approval. Ask which habits were taught to you and which you adopted to survive. Neither a hunger for applause nor a reluctance to seek it is morally superior. They are strategies that can be used well or poorly. Understanding origin gives you choice.
Thank you for reading. I leave you with the thought that social validation is a modern currency but not the only capital that buys a life that feels whole.
