Young is recognized as a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Excellence in Teaching at USC, and received the Mellon Foundation Mentoring Award.
Young has also done research on popular culture, which led to a collaboration with Mike Richardson and Steve Duin (columnist for The Oregonian newspaper), on Blast Off!
[1] In October 2006, Young and Loveline 's Dr. Drew Pinsky published a study entitled Narcissism and Celebrity in the Journal of Research in Personality.
In 2009, Young and Pinsky's book, The Mirror Effect: How Celebrity Narcissism is Seducing America, was published by Harper Collins (New York).
The Mirror Effect describes the process by which the narcissistic behaviors of celebrities have become normalized by modern media, and the presumed impact of this rising narcissism on today's youth.