- A study of more 63,000 students begun in 1938 finds that students are more isolated, misunderstood, and emotionally unstable than students in the 1930s and 40s.
- They are more narcissistic, have lower self control, and express more feelings of worry, sadness, and dissatisfaction with life.
- Eighty-five percent of today's college students scored below average in mental health measures such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory.
"When you talk about generational change, as this study does, it's really about changes in culture," Dr. Jean Twenge, associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University, said in a Dec. 10 article by Courtney Hutchison of ABC News. "These results suggest that as American culture has increasingly valued external and self-centered goals such as money and status while increasingly devaluing community, affiliation, and finding meaning in life, the mental health of American youth has suffered."
If parents are under too much stress, they become role models for putting work and success first and relationships second, said Dr. Bruce Rabin, director of the Healthful Lifestyle Program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
"Children learn from those they love," Rabin told ABC News. "If their role models are short tempered or tell children to leave them alone because they are under a lot of stress, that will have an effect on the child's mental health development."
Labels: depression, mental_health
Posted By: Aspen/CRC