The influence of historical era is revealed in a
study of the cohort of Americans that was between
10 and 20 years of age during the economic Depression
in America from 1930 to 1940. A large proportion
of these American adolescents, who are now in
their 7th decade, saved more money than the generation
before or after and conducted their lives
with a gnawing concern over financial loss.24
The protest against the Vietnam War at the end of
the 1960s also affected large numbers of privileged
adolescents who turned against the values of established
authority. College students seized administration
buildings or shared sexual partners in unheated
communal homes. High school youth
defiantly left their classrooms to protest the war,
and they got away with it. It is heady for a 16-yearold
to defy the rules of authority and escape punishment.
For many youth, such experiences eroded
a tendency to worry about coming to work at 10:00
in the morning instead of 9 and leaving at 4 instead
of 5. Many of these middle-class youth thumbed
their noses at authority because they happened to
be born during a brief period when segments of
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