Violent Video Games & Kids: Definitive Study Shows Both Short & Long Term Harmful Effects
Iowa State University Distinguished Professor of Psychology Craig Anderson has made much of his life’s work studying how violent video game play affects youth behavior. And he says a new study he led, analyzing 130 research reports on more than 130,000 subjects worldwide, proves conclusively that exposure to violent video games makes more aggressive, less caring kids — regardless of their age, sex or culture.
Read the original research paper (PDF)
“We can now say with utmost confidence that regardless of research method — that is experimental, correlational, or longitudinal — and regardless of the cultures tested in this study [East and West], you get the same effects,” said Anderson, who is also director of Iowa State’s Center for the Study of Violence. “And the effects are that exposure to violent video games increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior in both short-term and long-term contexts. Such exposure also increases aggressive thinking and aggressive affect, and decreases prosocial behavior.”
The study was conducted by a team of eight researchers, including ISU psychology graduate students Edward Swing and Muniba Saleem; and Brad Bushman, a former Iowa State psychology professor who now is on the faculty at the University of Michigan. Also on the team were the top video game researchers from Japan — Akiko Shibuya from Keio University and Nobuko Ihori from Ochanomizu University — and Hannah Rothstein, a noted scholar on meta-analytic review from the City University of New York.
Meta-analytic procedure used in research
The team used meta-analytic procedures — the statistical methods used to analyze and combine results from previous, related literature — to test the effects of violent video game play on the behaviors, thoughts and feelings of the individuals, ranging from elementary school-aged children to college undergraduates.
The research also included new longitudinal data which provided further confirmation that playing violent video games is a causal risk factor for long-term harmful outcomes.
“These are not huge effects — not on the order of joining a gang vs. not joining a gang,” said Anderson. “But these effects are also not trivial in size. It is one risk factor for future aggression and other sort of negative outcomes. And it’s a risk factor that’s easy for an individual parent to deal with — at least, easier than changing most other known risk factors for aggression and violence, such as poverty or one’s genetic structure.”
The analysis found that violent video game effects are significant in both Eastern and Western cultures, in males and females, and in all age groups. Although there are good theoretical reasons to expect the long-term harmful effects to be higher in younger, pre-teen youths, there was only weak evidence of such age effects.
Time to refocus the public policy debate
The researchers conclude that the study has important implications for public policy debates, including development and testing of potential intervention strategies designed to reduce the harmful effects of playing violent video games.
“From a public policy standpoint, it’s time to get off the question of, ‘Are there real and serious effects?’ That’s been answered and answered repeatedly,” Anderson said. “It’s now time to move on to a more constructive question like, ‘How do we make it easier for parents — within the limits of culture, society and law — to provide a healthier childhood for their kids?'”
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But Anderson knows it will take time for the creation and implementation of effective new policies. And until then, there is plenty parents can do to protect their kids at home.
“Just like your child’s diet and the foods you have available for them to eat in the house, you should be able to control the content of the video games they have available to play in your home,” he said. “And you should be able to explain to them why certain kinds of games are not allowed in the house — conveying your own values. You should convey the message that one should always be looking for more constructive solutions to disagreements and conflict.”
Anderson says the new study may be his last meta-analysis on violent video games because of its definitive findings. Largely because of his extensive work on violent video game effects, Anderson was chosen as one of the three 2010 American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientist Lecturers
Read the original research paper (PDF)
Source: Iowa State University
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“I Saw It Happen”: Children Who Witness Bullying Can Be Traumatized Too
Students who witness bullying of their peers may suffer more psychologically than the victim or the bullies.
Read The Original Research Paper (PDF)
2002 students ages 12 to 16 were surveyed at public schools in England. The survey asked them whether they’d committed, witnessed, or been the victim of several types of bullying behavior (e.g., kicking, name-calling, threatening, etc.) and whether they had experienced psychological stress symptoms such as anxiety, depression, or hostility.
Why bystanders suffer more than victims of bullying
As reported in the article, previous research shows that children who witness bullying feel guilty, presumably for not doing anything to help the victim.
In addition, they may have felt more stressed by vacillating between doing what they thought they should do (i.e., help the victim) on the one hand, and being afraid of being victimized themselves, on the other. Being in this type of “approach/avoidance” conflict has been shown in numerous studies to create high levels of stress.
The combination of guilt and fear among witnesses that they will experience the same thing may be another reason why they are more affected by bullying than the actual victims.
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Uncertainty, especially combined with feelings of fear or guilt, contributes to stress. Stress leads to depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders.
Sitting down and discussing feelings of fear and guilt with your child may help to minimize the destructive force and ultimate impact of those emotions on mental health. Practical “survival” tips about how to avoid, distract, or other means of handling bullies would help, too, giving kids options if they are cornered by or are a witness to bullies in action.
Read The Original Research Paper (PDF)
Source: Psychological Association (2009, December 15). Witnesses to bullying may face more mental health risks than bullies and victims. ScienceDaily.
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Too Sexy Too Soon! PART ll – Are Sexual Images Now An Inescapable Part Of Children’s Lives?
A billboard for a brothel on a school route
Source: AAP
THE professional body for Australia’s psychiatrists says the self-regulation of advertising and other media industries has failed to protect children from an onslaught of sexualised content.
Today’s generation of kids faced the “widespread use of sexual images to sell anything from margarine to fashion”, Professor Newman, the president of The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, said.
She said risque images were now an “inescapable” part of a child’s environment and pointed to billboard and TV advertising, magazines and music videos and even the posters in department stores.
Prof Newman is calling for a new regime of restrictions to protect children from both targeted and inadvertent exposure to sexualised media content.
She said more Australian research was needed to gauge its effect, though the anecdotal evidence was troubling.
The exposure appeared to push typically teenage and adult concerns about body image, “sexiness” and of being a “worthwhile individual” well into a child’s first years of life.
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“I’ve seen four-year-olds and pre-schoolers who want to diet … going on intermittent food refusal,” she said.
Introducing sexualised themes to children could be overt, Prof Newman said, such as the move by a British retailer to sell a child’s pole dancing kit or “tween” magazines that offer advice to girls on how to be more attractive to the opposite sex.
But in many cases it was inadvertent.
“If you go into a 7-Eleven, at child’s eye-view will be Ralph magazine next to cartoons,” she said.
“The child might be attracted to the cartoons but what they are bombarded with are all these really quite unusual women with breast implants.
“It is sending a message that this is sexual attraction, this is what gets you on the front of a magazine.”
Prof Newman said it was natural for children to be inquisitive about bodies, and eventually about sex, though these matters should be discussed within a family at a developmentally appropriate time.
“They don’t need to know about adult sexual themes, and that’s the concern,” she said.
Prof Newman will speak on the issue at the Australian Conference on Children and the Media, in Sydney on Friday.
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- Too Sexy Too Soon! PART I – Should Girls As Young As 9 Be Taken To Get Their Legs Waxed? (peterhbrown.wordpress.com)
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Too Sexy Too Soon! PART I – Should Girls As Young As 9 Be Taken To Get Their Legs Waxed?
Video still of an children's fashion shoot image which was released as part of a report into the sexualisation of children.
There has been an increasing amount of concern amongst health professionals regarding the rise of “tweenage” culture, the target marketing of pre-adolescent children, particularly girls, with clothing and cultural images that seem to be pushing them towards adulthood way too early. The following newspaper articles from this weekend’s newspapers highlight this disturbing trend, and offer up some food for thought for parents.
Source for both articles: news.com.au
PARENTS are sending girls as young as nine to have painful beauty treatments.
Beauticians say that young children are being brought into salons by parents to undergo painful hair removal treatments.
NSW Community Services Minister Linda Burney criticised the paractice, and although she stopped short of calling it abuse, she said that mothers should not force their daughters to mature too quickly.
“Most people would be pretty aghast that girls as young as nine would feel that they need to have their legs waxed,” Ms Burney said.
“It raises the broader issue of children growing up too quickly and brings up the issue of sexualisation of children. Children should be allowed to be children and not feel they need to emulate what they see in gossip magazines and the advertising industry.”
Too young, too painful
She warned that the sexualisation of young girls through such beauty treatments could lead to depression, anxiety and eating disorders.
Parents needed to use common sense in deciding when the right time was to allow their child to wax, but there was also an onus on the beauty industry, although regulation was not the answer, she said.
“At the end of the day, it is really on the proprietor to make a particular decision about whether they will allow that client in the salon,” Ms Burney said.
Bullied
Ms Burney said that there may be exceptional circumstances, for example, if a child was being teased or bullied because they were particularly hairy.
Child sexualisation expert and humanities and social science lecturer at Charles Sturt University, Emma Rush, said she was “disturbed” parents were taking young children to have the procedure.
“It might seem like a nice thing to do for a little girl, but not at that age. Mid-teens, sure. Children aged nine or younger have not got the cognitive (capacity). They don’t have the need for it. There is the question of whether they are ready to cope with the attention that can attract,” Dr Rush said.
She said girls in primary schools were now exhibiting depression, anxiety and eating disorders, which had all been strongly linked to sexualisation.
“Parents also need to think about the message that this is sending to their children,” she said.
“It is very limiting for a child how much focus there is on looks.”
She said children should never be pressured to undergo such beauty treatments and discouraged from starting them until at least 14.
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Leg waxes for nine year olds?
Alison Godfrey
Sunday, April 18, 2010 at 11:17am
THE Sunday Telegraph this weekend reported that parents were forcing girls as young as nine to get leg waxes.
In the article NSW Community Services Minister Linda Burney said mothers should not force their daughters to mature too quickly.
“Most people would be pretty aghast that girls as young as nine would feel that they need to have their legs waxed,” Ms Burney said.
“It raises the broader issue of children growing up too quickly and brings up the issue of sexualisation of children. Children should be allowed to be children and not feel they need to emulate what they see in gossip magazines and the advertising industry.”
She warned that the sexualisation of young girls through such beauty treatments could lead to depression, anxiety and eating disorders.
Firstly I was horrified, then I wondered – are they really forcing them? Or are nine-year-old girls asking their parents if they can shave their legs and mums are taking them to the salon instead? Are mums just buckling to pester power?
Either way, it does raise the issue of sexualisation of young children. The story about leg waxing follows a run of other stories of inappropriate products aimed at children. Take a look at this padded bra for seven-year-olds which a UK retailer was forced to remove from sale after The Sun called the bra a “paedo (pedophile) bikini”.
Last month, Professor Newman, the president of The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrist said she had seen four-year-olds who wanted to go on diets. She said the overt sexualisation of society was pushing teenage concerns about body image, “sexiness” and of being a “worthwhile individual” well into a child’s first years of life.
If you need any more proof of the issue – there’s this article about Noah Cyrus, Mylie’s 10-year-old sister selling fishnet stockings and knee high dominatrix boots.
Last week I was shopping for clothes for my soon to be born baby girl. I was shocked by the by the rock star style mini-skirts and leather jackets in Best and Less. I just wanted something cute, simple, elegant and baby like. What girl under one wears black leather and studs? What are they thinking?
But then, we should also be asking what are the parents thinking? Because ultimately it is the parents that agree to buy these items for children. It is parents who say yes, rather than no.
Yesterday I made my husband turn off Video Hits because CJ was watching a scantily clad woman gyrating to hip hop music. It made me uncomfortable. It wasn’t appropriate for a two-year-old. I can only imagine the conversations that must generate in families with older children.
When my baby girl is born in, hopefully just over 10 weeks, I know that I will probably be even more protective with her. And leg waxing will have to wait until I am ready for it.
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Teen Myths Busted: New Science Reveals That Common Assumptions Are Wrong
A new book, The Teen Years Explained: A Guide to Healthy Adolescent Development, dispels many common myths about adolescence with the latest scientific findings on the physical, emotional, cognitive, sexual and spiritual development of teens. [Book is available for download through the Center of Adolescent Health website at Johns Hopkins Center for Adolescent Health (CURRENTLY FREE).] Authors Clea McNeely and Jayne Blanchard from the Center for Adolescent Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, provide useful tips and strategies for real-life situations and experiences from bullying, to nutrition and sexuality.
Created in partnership with an alliance of youth-serving professionals, The Teen Years Explained is science-based and accessible. The practical and colorful guide to healthy adolescent development is an essential resource for parents and all people who work with young people.
“Whether you have five minutes or five hours, you will find something useful in the guide,” said McNeely. “We want both adults and young people to understand the changes – what is happening and why – so everyone can enjoy this second decade of life.”
Popular Myths about Teenagers:
Myth: Teens are bigger risk-takers and thrill-seekers than adults. Fact: Teens perceive more risk than adults do in certain areas, such as the chance of getting into an accident if they drive with a drunk driver.
Myth: Young people only listen to their friends. Fact: Young people report that their parents or a caring adult are their greatest influence – especially when it comes to sexual behavior.
Myth: Adolescents live to push your buttons. Fact: Adolescents may view conflict as a way of expressing themselves, while adults take arguments personally.
Myth: When you’re a teenager, you can eat whatever you want and burn it off. Fact: Obesity rates have tripled for adolescents since 1980.
Myth: Teens don’t need sleep. Fact: Teens need as much sleep or more than they got as children – 9 to 10 hours is optimum.
Three years in the making, the guide came about initially at the request of two of the Center’s partners, the Maryland Mentoring Partnership and the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, who felt there was a need in the community for an easily navigated and engaging look at adolescent development.
“Add The Teen Years Explained to the ‘must-read’ list,” said Karen Pittman, director of the Forum for Youth Investment. “In plain English, the book explains the science behind adolescent development and challenges and empowers adults to invest more attention and more time to young people.”
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The Teen Years Explained: A Guide to Healthy Adolescent Development will be available for purchase on April 10 through Amazon.com. Electronic copies will also be available for download through the Center of Adolescent Health website atJohns Hopkins Center for Adolescent Health (CURRENTLY FREE).
The Center for Adolescent Health is a Prevention Research Center at the Bloomberg School of Public Health funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that is committed to assisting urban youth in becoming healthy and productive adults. Together with community partners, the Center conducts research to identify the needs and strengths of young people, and evaluates and assists programs to promote their health and well-being. The Center’s mission is to work in partnership with youth, people who work with youth, public policymakers and program administrators to help urban adolescents develop healthy adult lifestyles.
Source:
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
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Kids Who Bully Want Status But Long For Affection
Read The Original Research Paper HERE (Free PDF-internal link)
From ScienceDaily (Mar. 27, 2010) — Bullying is common in classrooms around the world: About 15 percent of children are victimized, leading to depression, anxiety, loneliness, and other negative outcomes. What’s driving bullies to behave the way they do? According to a new large-scale Dutch study, most bullies are motivated by the pursuit of status and affection.
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The longitudinal study was conducted by researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. It appears in the March/April 2010 issue of the journal Child Development.
In their work, the researchers questioned almost 500 elementary-school children ages 9 to 12. Based on their findings, they conclude that bullies generally choose to gain status by dominating their victims. But at the same time, they try to reduce the chances that they’ll end up on the outs with other classmates by choosing as victims children who are weak and not well-liked by others. In short, even bullies care a lot about others’ affection and don’t want to lose it.
Gender also plays a role. For example, the study finds that at this age, bullies only care about not losing affection from classmates of their own gender. So when boys bully boys, it doesn’t matter whether girls approve or disapprove. The same holds for girls. Moreover, boys will bully only those girls that aren’t well liked by other boys, regardless of what girls think about it, and girls will do the same in their bullying of boys.
“To understand the complex nature of acceptance and rejection, it’s necessary to distinguish the gender of the bully, the gender of the target, and the gender of the classmates who accept and reject bullies and victims,” according to René Veenstra, professor of sociology at the University of Groningen, who led the study.
Read The Original Research Paper HERE (Free PDF-internal link)
An Attractive Lady Makes The Boys Go Gaga:Testosterone And Risk Taking Behavior
Read The Original Research Paper HERE (Free PDF-internal link)
From UNIS : University of Queensland research suggests that the presence of a beautiful woman can lead men to throw caution to the wind. Professor Bill von Hippel and doctoral student Richard Ronay, from UQ’s School of Psychology, have been examining the links between physical risk-taking in young men and the presence of attractive women.
To examine this issue, they conducted a field experiment with young male skateboarders and found the skateboarders took more risks at the skate park when they were observed by an attractive female experimenter than when they were observed by a male experimenter.
This increased risk-taking led to more successes but also more crash landings in front of the female observer.
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Professor von Hippel and Mr Ronay also measured testosterone from participants’ saliva, and found that the skateboarders’ increased risk taking was caused by elevated testosterone levels brought about by the presence of the attractive female.
According to the researchers these findings suggest an evolutionary basis for male risk-taking.
“Historically, men have competed with each other for access to fertile women and the winners of those competitions are the ones who pass on their genes to future generations. Risk-taking would have been inherent in such a competitive mating strategy,” said Professor von Hippel.
“Our results suggest that displays of physical risk-taking might best be understood as hormonally fuelled advertisements of health and vigour aimed at potential mates, and signals of strength, fitness, and daring intended to intimidate potential rivals.”
The researchers point out that although evolution may have favoured males who engage in risky behaviour to attract females, such behaviours can also be detrimental in terms of survival.
“Other instances of physical risk-taking that contribute to men’s early mortality, such as dangerous driving and physical aggression, might also be influenced by increases in testosterone brought about by the presence of attractive women.”
Read The Original Research Paper HERE (Free PDF-internal link)
Game On: The Decline of Backyard Play
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I found this post from Peter G. Stromberg @ Psychology Today. It really got me thinking about kids and the pressure that we may put on them as parents…What do you think?
A few weeks ago I flew to Denver with my younger daughter so that she could participate in a volleyball tournament; she has been travelling to tournaments for the last two years but this is the first time we had to fly. My daughter is 11 years old.
Shouldn’t my daughter be riding her bike around the neighborhood and jumping rope with her friends? Why is she, at age 11, playing on a team coached by a former Olympic-level athlete and competing against nationally-ranked teams based thousands of miles from our home? There is research to suggest that unstructured play and basic movement activities (running, jumping, balancing) are more beneficial for children of her age than specialized training in one particular sport. Why in the world should an 11 year old child be in year-round volleyball training? Well, let me explain.
I would guess that many readers who are older than 30 will share my own experience: at my daughter’s age and into my early teens, I spent every possible minute getting into pick-up games of basketball and football with my friends or just roaming around outside. This approach didn’t produce a skilled athlete, but it sure was fun (and cheap). Today, in most areas of the country, such activities are simply less available. One reason my daughter doesn’t head down to the park to play with her friends is that they aren’t there-they are at soccer practice, or piano lessons, or having pre-arranged play dates.
There has been a recent and enormous shift in the way children play in our society, away from unstructured outside play and towards organized competition under adult supervision. Why? One reason that will come quickly to mind is stranger danger. Many parents (including me, by the way) now believe it is unsafe for children-perhaps particularly girls-to be outside without adult supervision. Although neighborhoods vary, statistics that I have seen on this issue do not support the belief that in general accidents or attacks on children are more frequent now than, say, 30 years ago. It seems more likely that what has changed is extensive news coverage of issues such as attacks on children, which often fosters the belief that such events are frequent.
In short, actual danger from strangers is probably not the real reason for the decline in outside play. Well, how about this? Public funding for playgrounds, parks, and recreation centers has been declining since the 1980s. There aren’t as many places to go for public play anymore, and the ones that persist are likely not as well-maintained.
That’s relevant, but it still isn’t really at the heart of why my daughter plays highly competitive volleyball at such a young age. The fact is that if she doesn’t play now and decides to take up the sport at 14 or 15, the train will have left the station. Unless a child has extraordinary athletic gifts, she will be so far behind by that age that she will not be able to find a place on a team. It isn’t only that opportunities for unstructured public play have declined, it’s that opportunities for highly competitive play have expanded to such an extent that in some sports that is all that exists. There are simply no possibilities in my part of the country for recreational volleyball for children 10-18. And the situation is similar for many other sports as well: our focus on producing highly competitive teams with highly skilled participants leads to a lack of focus on producing opportunities for children who simply want to play a sport casually.
This, I think, gets us close to probably the most important reason that highly competitive sport for the few has begun to replace recreational sport for the many among children today. We as a society don’t care about recreational sport for the many. The logic of entertainment has come to control youth sports. Parents, kids, and the society as a whole are excited by the possibility of championships, cheering spectators, and (for the really elite) media coverage. And we aren’t really excited by our children playing disorganized touch football until they have to come in for dinner. What’s the point of that? Nobody is watching.
This isn’t anyone’s fault, it’s just the way our society works. I really wish my kids could play pick up games and intramurals the way their not-so-athletically-talented dad did. But the intramurals and pick up games are far fewer now. Strangely enough, childhood obesity rates have skyrocketed as they have faded. Or maybe that’s not strange at all.
This post reflects on issues I have been thinking about for years, but it is also heavily influenced by a recent book called Game On by ESPN writer Tom Farrey. To learn more about play in general, visit my website
from Peter G. Stromberg @ Psychology Today
Academic Dishonesty = Fail: Procrastination & Copying Homework Increases Failure Rate Irrespective of Aptitude
Read The Original Research Paper HERE (PDF)
From ScienceDaily (Mar. 21, 2010) — The history of students who copy homework from classmates may be as old as school itself. But in today’s age of lecture-hall laptops and online coursework, how prevalent and damaging to the education of students has such academic dishonesty become?
According to research published online March 18 in Physical Review Special Topics: Physics Education Research, it turns out that unnoticed student cheating is a significant cause of course failure nationally.
A researcher from the University of Kansas has teamed up with colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to get a better handle on copying in college in the 21st century.
Young-Jin Lee, assistant professor of educational technology at KU, and the Research in Learning, Assessing and Tutoring Effectively group at MIT spent four years seeing how many copied answers MIT students submitted to MasteringPhysics, an online homework tutoring system.
“MIT freshmen are required to take physics,” said Lee. “Homework was given through a Web-based tutor that our group had developed. We analyzed when they logged in, when they logged out, what kind of problems they solved and what kinds of hints they used.”
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Lee said that it was easy to spot students who had obtained answers from classmates before completing the homework.
“We ran into very interesting students who could solve the problems — very hard problems — in less than one minute, without making any mistakes,” said Lee.
Students also were asked to complete an anonymous survey about the frequency of their homework copying. (According to the survey, students nationally admit to engaging in more academic dishonesty than MIT students.)
Among the researchers’ most notable findings:
* Students who procrastinated also copied more often. Those who started their homework three days ahead of deadline copied less than 10 percent of their problems, while those who drug their feet until the last minute were repetitive copiers.
The students who copied frequently had about three times the chance of failing the course.
* Results of the survey show that students are twice as likely to copy on written homework than on online homework.
* This study showed that doing all the homework assigned is “a surer route to exam success” than a preexisting aptitude for physics.
“People believe that students copy because of their poor academic skills,” Lee said. “But we found that repetitive copiers — students who copy over 30 percent of their homework problems — had enough knowledge, at least at the beginning of the semester. But they didn’t put enough effort in. They didn’t start their homework long enough ahead of time, as compared to noncopiers.”
Because repetitive copiers don’t adequately learn physics topics on which they copy the homework, Lee said, the research strongly implies that copying caused declining performance on analytic test problems later in the semester.
“Even though everyone knows not doing homework is bad for learning, no one knows how bad it is,” said Lee. “Now we have a quantitative measurement. It could make an A student get B or even C.”
At the beginning of a semester, the researchers found that copying was not as widespread as it was late in the semester.
“Obviously, the amount of copying was not so prevalent because the academic load was not as much at the beginning of the semester,” said Lee. “In order to copy solutions, the students need to build their networks. They need to get to know each other so that they can ask for the answers.”
But the KU researcher and his MIT colleagues also demonstrated that changes to college course formats — such as breaking up large lecture classes into smaller “studio” classes, increasing interactions between teaching staff and students, changing the grading system — could reduce student copying fourfold.
Read The Original Research Paper HERE (PDF)
Adapted from materials provided by University of Kansas
Youth Today: The “Me” Generation Or More Of The Same?
Read the original research paper HERE (Free PDF)
Today’s youth are generally not the self-centered, antisocial slackers that previous research has made them out to be, according to a provocative new study co-authored by a Michigan State University psychologist.
In a scientific analysis of nearly a half-million high-school seniors spread over three decades, MSU’s Brent Donnellan and Kali Trzesniewski of the University of Western Ontario argue teens today are no more egotistical – and just as happy and satisfied – as previous generations.
“We concluded that, more often than not, kids these days are about the same as they were back in the mid-1970s,” said Donnellan, associate professor of psychology.
The study appears in the research journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. Donnellan acknowledges that many people will be surprised by the findings, which refute previous studies classifying today’s youth as selfish loafers with extremely high levels of self-esteem.
But while much previous research has relied on “convenience studies” of relatively small samples of young adults, Donnellan said, the current study analyzes the psychological profile data of 477,380 high school seniors from 1976 to 2006. The data comes from the University of Michigan’s federally funded Monitoring the Future survey, which each year tracks the behaviors, attitudes and values of American students.
In other findings:
* Today’s youth are more cynical and less trusting of institutions than previous generations. But Donnellan said this is generally true of the broader population.
* The current generation is less fearful of social problems such as race relations, hunger, poverty and energy shortages.
* Today’s youth have higher educational expectations.
Ultimately, Donnellan said, it’s common for older generations to paint youth in a negative light – as lazy and self-absorbed, for example – which can perpetuate stereotypes. It can be easy, he added, to forget what it’s like to grow up.
“Kids today are like they were 30 years ago – they’re trying to find their place in the world, they’re trying to carve out an identity, and it can be difficult,” Donnellan said. “But lots of research shows that the stereotypes of all groups are much more overdrawn than the reality.”
Read the original research paper HERE (Free PDF)
Source: Brent Donnellan
Michigan State University
About Peter
Peter Brown BHMS (Hons) MPsychClin MAPS
I’m a Clinical Psychologist and have a private practice and consultancy in Brisbane Australia. I have 24 years experience in child, adult and family clinical psychology. I have a wonderful wife and three kids.
I am co-founder of Christian Wholeness Counselling Services.
I like researching issues of the brain & mind, reading and seeking out new books and resources for myself and my clients. I thought that others might be interested in some of what I have found also, hence this blog…
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