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The
Dramatic Rise of Anxiety and Depression in Children
and Adolescents: Is It Connected to the Decline in
Play and Rise in Schooling?
by Peter
Gray, Boston College
Children are more anxious and depressed than
ever before. Why?
Rates of
depression and anxiety among young people in America have
been increasing steadily for the past fifty to seventy
years. Today five to eight times as many high school and
college students meet the criteria for diagnosis of major
depression and/or an anxiety disorder as was true half a
century or more ago. This increased psychopathology is
not the result of changed diagnostic criteria; it holds
even when the measures and criteria are constant.
The most recent evidence for the sharp generational rise
in young people's depression, anxiety, and other mental
disorders comes from a just-released study headed by Jean
Twenge at San Diego State University.[1] Twenge and her
colleagues took advantage of the fact that the MMPI--the
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, a
questionnaire used to assess a variety of mental
disorders--has been given to large samples of college
students throughout the United States going as far back
as 1938, and the MMPI-A (the version used with younger
adolescents) has been given to samples of high school
students going as far back as 1951. The results are
consistent with other studies, using a variety of
indices, which also point to dramatic increases in
anxiety and depression--in children as well as in
adolescents and young adults--over the last five or more
decades.
We would like to think of history as progress, but if
progress is measured in the mental health and happiness
of young people, then we have been going backward at
least since the early 1950s. The question I want to
address here is why.
The increased psychopathology seems to have nothing to do
with realistic dangers and uncertainties in the larger
world. The changes do not correlate with economic cycles,
wars, or any of the other kinds of world events that
people often talk about as affecting children's mental
states. Rates of anxiety and depression among children
and adolescents were far lower during the Great
Depression, during World War II, during the Cold War, and
during the turbulent 1960s and early 70s than they
are today. The changes seem to have much more to do with
the way young people view the world than with the way the
world actually is.
Decline
in Young People's Sense of Personal Control over their
Fate
One thing we know about anxiety and depression is that
they correlate significantly with people's sense of
control or lack of control over their own lives. People
who believe that they are in charge of their own fate are
less likely to become anxious or depressed than are those
who believe that they are victims of circumstances beyond
their control. You might think that the sense of personal
control would have increased over the last several
decades. Real progress has occurred in our ability to
prevent and treat diseases; the old prejudices that
limited people's options because of race, gender, or
sexual orientation have diminished; and the average
person is wealthier today than in decades past. Yet, the
data indicate that young people's belief that they have
control over their own destinies has declined sharply
over the decades.
The standard measure of sense of control is a
questionnaire, developed by Julien Rotter in the late
1950s, called the Internal-External Locus of Control
Scale. The questionnaire consists of 23 pairs of
statements. One statement in each pair represents belief
in an Internal locus of control (control by the person)
and the other represents belief in an External locus of
control (control by circumstances outside of the person),
and the person taking the test must decide which
statement in each pair is more true. One pair, for
example, is the following: (a) I have found that what is
going to happen will happen. (b) Trusting to fate has
never turned out as well for me as making a decision to
take a definite course of action. In this case, choice
(a) represents an External locus of control and (b)
represents an Internal locus of control.
Many studies over the years have shown that people who
score toward the Internal end on Rotter's scale fare
better in life than do those who score toward the
External end.[2] They are more likely to get good jobs
that they enjoy, take care of their health, and play
active roles in their communities; and they are less
likely to become anxious or depressed.
In a research study published a few years ago, Twenge and
her colleagues analyzed the results of many previous
studies that had used Rotter's Scale with young people
over the years from 1960 on through 2002.[3] They found
that over this period average scores shifted
dramatically--for children aged 9 to 14 as well as for
college students--away from the Internal toward the
External end of the scale. In fact, the shift was so
great that the average young person in 2002 was more
External than were 80% of young people in the 1960s. The
rise in Externality on Rotter's scale over the 42-year
period showed the same linear trend as did the rise in
depression and anxiety.
It is reasonable to suggest that the rise of Externality
(and decline of Internality) is causally related to the
rise in anxiety and depression. When people believe that
they have little or no control over their fate they
become anxious. "Something terrible can happen to me
at any time and I will be unable to do anything about
it." When the anxiety and sense of helplessness
becomes too great people become depressed. "There is
no use trying; I'm doomed."
Shift Toward Extrinsic Goals, away from Intrinsic Goals
Twenge's own theory is that the generational increases in
anxiety and depression are related to a shift from
"intrinsic" to "extrinsic" goals.[1]
Intrinsic goals are those that have to do with one's own
development as a person--such as becoming competent in
endeavors of one's choosing and developing a meaningful
philosophy of life. Extrinsic goals, on the other hand,
are those that have to do with material rewards and other
people's judgments. They include goals of high income,
status, and good looks. Twenge cites evidence that young
people today are, on average, more oriented toward
extrinsic goals and less oriented toward intrinsic goals
than they were in the past. For example, a poll conducted
annually of college freshmen shows that most students
today list "being well off financially" as more
important to them than "developing a meaningful
philosophy of life," while the reverse was true in
the 1960s and '70s.[4]
The shift toward extrinsic goals could well be related
causally to the shift toward an External locus of
control. We have much less personal control over
achievement of extrinsic goals than intrinsic goals. I
can, through personal effort, quite definitely improve my
competence, but that doesn't guarantee that I'll get
rich. I can, through spiritual practices or philosophical
delving, find my own sense of meaning in life, but that
doesn't guarantee that people will find me more
attractive or lavish praise on me. To the extent that my
emotional sense of satisfaction comes from progress
toward intrinsic goals I can control of my emotional
wellbeing. To the extent that my satisfaction comes from
others' judgments and rewards, I have much less control
over my emotional state.
Twenge suggests that the shift from intrinsic to
extrinsic goals represents a general shift toward a
culture of materialism, transmitted through television
and other media. Young people are exposed from birth on
to advertisements and other messages implying that
happiness depends on good looks, popularity, and material
goods. My guess is that Twenge is at least partly correct
on this, but I am going to suggest here a further cause,
which I think is even more significant and basic. My
hypothesis is that the generational increases in
Externality, extrinsic goals, anxiety, and depression are
all caused largely by the decline, over that same period,
in opportunities for free play and the increased time and
weight given to schooling.
How
the Decline of Free Play May Have Caused a Decline in
Sense of Control and in Intrinsic Goals, and a Rise in
Anxiety and Depression
As I pointed out in my posts of July 22 and July 29,
2009--and as others have pointed out in recent popular
books[5]--children's freedom to play and explore on their
own, independent of direct adult guidance and direction,
has declined greatly in recent decades. Free play and
exploration are, historically, the means by which
children learn to solve their own problems, control their
own lives, develop their own interests, and become
competent in pursuit of their own interests. This has
been the theme of many of my previous posts (see, for
example, the series of posts on "The Value of
Play" beginning with Nov. 19, 2008). In fact, play,
by definition, is activity controlled and directed by the
players; and play, by definition, is directed toward
intrinsic rather than extrinsic goals (see definition of
play).
By depriving children of opportunities to play on their
own, away from direct adult supervision and control, we
are depriving them of opportunities to learn how to take
control of their own lives. We may think we are
protecting them, but in fact we are diminishing their
joy, diminishing their sense of self-control, preventing
them from discovering and exploring the endeavors they
would most love, and increasing the chance that they will
suffer from anxiety, depression, and various other mental
disorders.
How
Coercive Schooling Deprives Young People of Personal
Control, Directs Them Toward Extrinsic Goals, and
Promotes Anxiety and Depression
During the same half-century or more that free play has
declined, school and school-like activities (such as
lessons out of school and adult-directed sports) have
risen continuously in their prominence. Children today
spend more hours per day, days per year, and years of
their life in school than ever before. More weight is
given to tests and grades than ever before. Outside of
school children spend more time than ever before in
settings where they are directed, protected, catered to,
ranked, judged, and rewarded by adults. In all of these
settings adults are in control, not children.
In school, children learn quickly that their own choices
of activities and their own judgments of competence don't
count; what matters are the teachers' choices and
judgments. Teachers are not entirely predictable. You may
study hard and still get a poor grade, because you didn't
figure out just exactly what the teacher wanted you to
study or guess correctly what questions he or she would
ask. The goal in class, in the minds of the great
majority of students, is not competence but good grades.
Given a choice between really learning a subject and
getting an A, the great majority of students would,
without hesitation, pick the latter. That is true at
every stage in the educational process, at least up to
the level of graduate school. That's not the fault of
students; that's our fault. We've set it up that way. Our
system of constant testing and evaluation in
school--which becomes increasingly intense with every
passing year--is a system that very clearly substitutes
extrinsic rewards and goals for intrinsic ones. It is a
system that is almost designed to produce anxiety and
depression.[6]
School is also a place where children have little choice
about with whom they can associate. They are herded into
spaces filled with other children that they did not
choose, and they must spend a good portion of each school
day in those spaces. In free play, children who feel
harassed or bullied can leave the situation and find
another group that is more compatible; but in school they
cannot. Whether the bullies are other students or
teachers (which is all too common), the child usually has
no choice but to face those persons day after day. The
results are sometimes disastrous.
A few years ago, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Jeremy
Hunter conducted a study of happiness and unhappiness in
public school students, in 6th through 12th grades.[7]
Each of the 828 participants, from 33 different schools
in 12 different communities across the country, wore a
special wristwatch for a week, which was programmed to
provide a signal at random times between 7:30 am and
10:30 pm. Whenever the signal went off participants
filled out a questionnaire indicating where they were,
what they were doing, and how happy or unhappy they were
at the moment. The lowest levels of happiness by far
(surprise, surprise) occurred when children were at
school, and the highest levels occurred when they were
out of school and conversing or playing with friends.
Time spent with parents fell in the middle of the
happiness-unhappiness range. Average happiness increased
on weekends, but then plummeted from late Sunday
afternoon through the evening, in anticipation of the
coming school week.
As a society we have come to the conclusion that children
must spend increasing amounts of their time in the very
setting where they least want to be. The cost of that
belief, as measured by the happiness and mental health of
our children, is enormous. It is time to re-think
education.
Another
Way
Anyone who looks honestly at the experiences of students
at Sudbury model democratic schools and of
unschoolers--where freedom, play, and self-directed
exploration prevail--knows that there is another way. We
don't need to drive kids crazy to educate them. Given
freedom and opportunity, without coercion, young people
educate themselves. They do so joyfully, and in the
process they develop intrinsic values, personal
self-control, and emotional wellbeing. That's the
overriding message of the whole series of essays in this
blog. It's time for society to take an honest look.
In my last post I invited readers to submit their stories
of self-directed education, and many of you have
responded. That invitation is still open, but please
respond soon (look back at the last post for details).
Over the next several weeks I will post essays about how
children learn to read through their self-directed play
and exploration, how and why the learn math, and how they
develop special interests and skills that lead eventually
to careers. Stay tuned.
------------
Notes
*Some hyperlinks in these posts are automatically
generated and may or may not link you to sites that are
relevant. Author-generated links are distinguished from
automatic ones by underlines.
[1] Twenge, J., et al., (2010). Birth cohort increases in
psychopathology among young Americans, 1938-2007: A
cross-temporal meta-analysis of the MMPI. In press,
Clinical Psychology Review 30, 145-154.
[2] For references, see Twenge et al. (2004).
[3] Twenge, J. et al. (2004). Its beyond my control: A
cross-temporal meta-analysis of increasing externality in
locus of control, 1960-2002. Personality and Social
Psychology Review, 8, 308-319.
[4] Pryor, J. H., et al. (2007). The American freshman:
Forty-year trends, 1966-2006. Los Angeles: Higher
Education Research Institute.
[5] Examples of such books are Hara Estroff Marano's A
Nation of Wimps and Lenore Skenazy's Free Range Kids.
[6] Consistent with this claim is evidence that the more
academically competitive the school, the greater is the
incidence of student depression. Herman, K. C., et al.
(2009). Childhood depression: Rethinking the role of
school. Psychology in the Schools, 46, 433-446.
[7] Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Hunter, J. (2003).
Happiness in everyday life: The uses of experience
sampling. Journal of Happiness Studies, 4, 185-199.
Source
Peter Gray is a research professor of psychology at
Boston College. He has conducted and published research
in comparative, evolutionary, developmental, and
educational psychology; published articles on innovative
teaching methods and alternative approaches to education;
and is author of Psychology (Worth Publishers), an
introductory college textbook now in its 6th edition. He
did his undergraduate study at Columbia University and
earned a Ph.D. in biological sciences at Rockefeller
University. His current writing focuses primarily on the
life-long value of play. His own play includes not only
his research and writing, but also long distance
bicycling, kayaking, and back-woods skiing.
--
See also
School Is Prison Article by Peter Gray
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