Sep 10, 2015 04:10 PM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

Often associated with being self-absorbed and lazy, the "millennial" generation does not like to be associated with its maligned label.

According to a new poll from the Pew Research Center, only 40 percent of millennials are likely to identify with the label granted their generation. By comparison, 58 percent of Generation Xers and 79 percent of Baby Boomers accepted their labels.

Pew also polled members of the Silent Generation, and only 18 percent identified as such. However, 34 percent of Silents identified with the Baby Boomers and 34 percent with the Greatest Generation.

So why do millennials dislike being associated with the label?

Katherine Reynolds Lewis wrote for Fortune in June that they are "sick of being called lazy, entitled or high maintenance simply because they played on T-ball teams in which everyone got a trophy and grew up drenched in a constant stream of praise from adults."

The millennial generation has also been called the "Me Me Me Generation" on the front cover of Time in large font with the words "lazy, entitled and narcissistic" in smaller font just below.

The poll also found millennials to consider themselves the least patriotic, responsible, hard-working, willing to sacrifice, religious, moral, self-reliant, compassionate, and politically active of all four groups. Still, each category has been trending downward since the Silent Generation.

But in asking members of each respective generation to reflect on their own attributes, millennials were revealed to be the most self-critical. 59 percent of millennials described their generation as "self-absorbed," whereas 30 percent of Gen-Xers, 20 percent of Baby Boomers, and 7 percent of Silents said the same of themselves.

The results are also affected by the current age of the respondents, as older millenials often identified as Gen-Xers. But older Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers of all ages identified with their own generations.

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