[Paleopsych] Jeremy P. Hunter and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: The positive psychology of interested adolescents.
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Jeremy P. Hunter and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: The positive psychology of
interested adolescents.
Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Feb 2003 v32 i1 p27(9)
Author's Abstract:
Using the experience sampling method (ESM) and a diverse national sample of
young people, this study identifies two groups of adolescents: those who
experience chronic interest in everyday life experiences and another who
experience widespread boredom. These groups are compared against several
measures of psychological well-being: global self-esteem, locus of control, and
emotions regarding one's future prospects. It is hypothesized that a
generalized chronic experience of interest, an innate physiological function,
can be used as a signal for a larger measure of psychological health, while
chronic boredom is a sign of psychic dysfunction. A strong association between
the experience of interest and well-being was found.
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INTRODUCTION
Recently, increased attention has been devoted to positive psychological
phenomena. While the West has a long tradition of inquiry about what makes life
worthwhile, including in the past century William James, John Dewey, Carl
Rogers, and Abraham Maslow, concern with psychic well-being has seldom been
systematically investigated. However, as Maslow might have predicted, now that
many in the postindustrialized world have temporarily solved the problems of
physical sustenance, attention is free to turn towards psychic development and
fulfillment. Inglehart's exploration of world values supports a similar
conclusion, showing that the "returns to happiness" attributable to economic
gain substantially decrease once a nation's GDP moves beyond basic needs
(Inglehart, 1997). In the course of human history, perhaps more people than
ever before have reached this rarefied level of material well-being and are now
ready to explore the psychic frontiers of the good life. One area of special
promise is the experience of in terest and the relevance it has for developing
youth.
While the process of modernization has wrought incredible changes on the human
condition in the past 300 years, the everyday lives of contemporary children
bear perhaps the least resemblance to their peers of the past. To be a young
person in preindustrial Europe meant that everyday life was an insecure and
backbreaking affair where about half the population people reached adulthood.
Even then, most died by 30. By the age of 7, most young boys started work,
often as servants in the homes of others, gradually taking up apprenticeship in
yet another household (Gillis, 1974). The nasty and brutish existence of most
youth left little thought to notions of "optimal development" or even
"development" for that matter. For these people, survival was the watchword.
Not until the 1880s, when a growing middle class could afford to systematically
educate their children, did youth issues come into awareness as something
deserving of attention. Instead of being sent out to learn a trade, middle
class children were sent to school. This new circumstance of elongated
dependence and removal from the cycles of production led to the "discovery of
adolescence" and established, more or less, the pattern that most youth in the
industrial and postindustrial world follow today (Aries, 1965; Gillis, 1974).
The rise of youth movements like scouting, the YMCA and YWCA, the enactment of
child labor laws, the development of the kindergarten movement, and universal
education have made the lives of children safer, culturally richer, and more
secure than ever before in history.
Yet, these relatively recent developments in the human condition do not seem to
be perfect. Despite these hard-won advances, it is not atypical to imagine a
middle class teenager bored and despondent, alone, angry, and alienated. While
universal education is certainly preferable to children toiling in mines, the
system that consumes the lives of most youth does not seem to be optimally
calibrated for their developing selves. Csikszentmihalyi et al. (1993) have
shown that school for most young people is a dull and uninspiring place to be
in. Far from nurturing youngsters into expressive, intellectually alive and
curious, confident, and able beings, school for many American youth is a trial
to be endured. Boredom is so common that many consider it a normal phase of
growing up.
However, most children do not start out bored and detached. Interest and
curiosity about the world is a hallmark of childhood experience. Maria
Montessori, the Italian pediatrician-turned-educator, believed that the
expression of high intrinsic interest characterized a "normalized" (e.g.
healthy) child (Montessori, 1949[1967]). Interest is present from birth and
fosters human development by mobilizing resources for worldly engagement. It
does this by engendering "the feeling of being engaged, caught up, fascinated,
or curious. There is a feeling of wanting to investigate, become involved, or
expand the self by incorporating new information and having new experiences..."
(Izard, 1991, p. 100). Interest impels growth-oriented behaviors--exploration,
learning and creativity--increasing the likelihood for successful adaptation
and survival (Izard, 1991; Izard and Ackerman, 2000; Piaget, 1981).
To effectively live in a demanding and changing environment, one must
necessarily actively relate to it. Interest functions as the tool
self-organizing creatures (Brandtstadter, 1998) use to direct attention to
select information from the environment. William James' pithy description
captures this aspect of interest:
Millions of items of the outward order are present to my senses which never
properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they have no interest for me.
My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice
shape my mind--without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos.
Interest alone gives accent and emphasis, light and shade, background and
foreground--intelligible perspective, in a word. (James 1890, p. 402)
By focusing on certain things and not others, the world is reduced to a
manageable place. Akin to parts of a camera, interest alters the size of the
aperture of attention by widening or constricting the amount of information
that enters awareness. By influencing the contents of consciousness, interest
mediates the relationship between person and world.
Selection, however, is only one facet of interest, another is to provide
motivation for developing skills and abilities. According to Sylvan Tomkins,
interest is so essential for cognitive growth that the "absence of the
affective support of interest would jeopardize intellectual development no less
than destruction of brain tissue ... There is no human competence which can be
achieved in the absence of a sustaining interest" (Tomkins, 1962, p. 343).
Because of this basic role in learning John Dewey felt that individual interest
should be the center of educational endeavor (McDermott, 1981). Learning
complex tasks requires persistence and focus, interest provides concentrative
"staying power" in the face of difficulty. When things are interesting,
concentration comes easy and persisting at them is less laborious and
burdensome. Interest is also associated with a drop in heart rate, a quieting
response, which prepares the senses to receive and respond to information,
(Izard, 1991). Interest cultivates an inter nal milieu that optimizes the
acquisition of information. Research shows that when students are interested in
what they are reading, they
are likely to recall more points, recall more information from more paragraphs,
recall more topic sentences, write more sentences, provide more detailed
information about topics read, make fewer errors in written recall, and provide
additional topic relevant information. (Renninger, 2000, p. 374)
The benefits of interest extend beyond comprehension too. When interested in a
topic, students are likely to earn higher grades and test more successfully
(Csikszentmihalyi et al., 1993; Schiefele and Csikszentmihalyi, 1995).
Interest's role in cognitive development cannot be underestimated.
The cognitive boons of interest and its motivational power are also
complemented by the fact that interest feels good. Izard (1991, p. 108) reports
the phenomenology of interest is also characterized by a relatively high degree
of pleasantness, self-assurance and a moderate degree of impulsiveness and
tension. Joy is often part of the pattern of emotion in an interest-eliciting
situation.
The experience of this positive state is characterized by 3 qualities: (1)
being caught up and fascinated, (2) enjoying what one is doing while (3) in a
state of arousal or excitement. Deci (1992) holds that the convergence of
interest, enjoyment, and excitement signals the presence of intrinsic
motivation. Others also report the experience of interest is enjoyable,
rewarding, and associated with good feelings (Fazio, 1981; Renninger, 1989,
1990, 2000). Examples of intense interest, like optimal experience or flow
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1975, 1990, 1997; Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi,
1988), are among the most enjoyable moments of being alive. Abiding interests,
sources of interest engaged in over time, can even provide intellectual and
behavioral structures around which the life course forms (Csikszentmihalyi et
al., 1993; Csikszentmihalyi and Beattie, 1979; Rathunde, 1993). The complexity
of the experience of interest with its overlap into emotional, volitional, and
cognitive areas, provide an optimal s tate for interfacing the psyche to the
environment. Through the experience of interest, nature wires us for worldly
involvement.
Consider what happens when the experience of interest is absent. The loss of
interest is one of the key features of depression (Klinger, 1993). Instead of
bringing James' "intelligible perspective" (James, 1890, p. 402) characteristic
of normal functioning, depression makes the world dull, gray, and lifeless. The
things that usually make us sit up and take notice seem strangely unpromising
and empty. Even the fundamentals associated with being alive: the company of
others, food, and sex are not compelling enough to devote energy to.
Wakefulness becomes dreadful and oppressive. When depressed, the disappearance
of psychic handles to hold on to severely impacts a person's ability to
function normally. From this extreme case, we can see that even in the most
mundane of waking states interest binds us to the surrounding world.
While not as intense as a full-fledged depressive state, boredom is also
characterized by an absence of experiencing interest (Farmer and Sundberg,
1986; Klinger, 1993). Where interest is enjoyable, stimulating, and focused,
boredom is an unpleasant state of low arousal and motivation (Mikulas and
Vodanovich, 1993). If interest is viewed as the drive an individual uses to
learn, discover, and grow, boredom marks an entropic state of disengagement
impeding psychological growth over the long term. Zuckerman (1979) suggests
that boredom -prone persons are likely to fall into alcoholism and other types
of substance abuse like marijuana, psychedelics, and other stimulants. Later
research reveals that in addition to drug use, boredom -prone youth are
attracted to extreme forms of sensation-seeking and antisocial behavior (like
burglery or vandalism) (Hamilton, 1983; Orcutt, 1984; Sommers and Vodanovich,
2000; Wasson, 1981).
A bored kid's attraction to "cheap thrills" may originate from an inability to
structure experience in pleasurable ways, what Scitovisky calls "skilled
consumption" (Scitovsky, 1976). Delinquent adolescents have been shown to be
poor at creating fantasies and elaborate ideas, "Their thought world appears to
be a rather barren place." (Hamilton, 1983, p. 366, Cited in Spivack and
Levine, 1964). Without the generative possibilities of the imagination and the
skills to manifest them, the allure of destructive and thrilling behavior
becomes an easy source of entertainment. Even many nondelinquent youth live for
the weekend when they can party and get drunk with their friends, suggesting
the skills for structuring enjoyment are not particularly widespread. If
interest provides the foundation for building skills that can be converted into
enjoyable activity, boredom may be the result of an inability to cultivate such
talents. Without such skills, the possibilities inherent in the world become
fewer and fewer. Vanda lism and getting high emerge as easy ways to find
excitement. Considering this, the chronic experience of boredom could be
thought of as the "evil twin" of interest.
To test this hypothesis, this study examines those youth who maintain a
widespread experience of interest in daily life and compares them to those
whose experience is much less optimal. By uncovering whether Interested youth
compared to their Bored peers have higher, more stable global self-esteem, an
internal locus of control, and view their futures with hopefulness adds
credence to the notion that experiencing interest is associated with positive
development. This research program is distinct from past efforts to either
investigate situation-specific examples of interest (Hidi, 1990) or the
development of individual interests centered on specific subject matter
(Renninger, 2000). This approach examines persons in natural settings who
encounter everyday life with a sense of inquiry and enjoyment. In other words,
the focus here is less the "target" of interest, that is, particular
interest-piquing moments or abiding material relevant to an individual, and
more the person who chronically experiences interest. However, this approach
does not forego the possibility of either type, situational or individual, but
examines persons for whom experiences of interest are a salient feature of
everyday life.
METHODS
Sample
The data from this study comes from the 1st year of a 5-year (1992-1997),
longitudinal project, where 1215 junior and senior high school students from 33
public schools across the country, representing the 6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th
grades, participated in a multimodal research effort geared toward
understanding career development (Csikszentmihalyi and Schneider, 2000). The
study was sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and conducted at the
National Opinion Research Center's Ogburn-Stouffer Center (Bidwell et al.,
1992) at the University of Chicago. Twelve communities representing the full
range of socioeconomic conditions, from poverty-level urban areas to affluent
suburbs, participated in this study. Furthermore, students from these locales
were randomly chosen to proportionally represent their school in terms of
ethnicity, gender, race, and scholastic ability level. They were given a
full-scale instrument battery that included the NELS questionnaire (modified
from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988, NELS:88), a Friend
Sociometric Form (FRIENDS), and the Career Orientation Scale (COS), which
measures the student's knowledge of working life and their career goals. They
also participated in a week of Experience Sampling (ESM). This group of
students is referred to as the "focal group." Seventy-four percent of the focal
students completed the ESM over the5 year period, whereas 87% of the focal
students completed the NELS, COS, and FRIENDS surveys.
ESM Procedures
The ESM involves the participant wearing a wristwatch programmed to signal 8
times a day for 1 week. The watch signaled randomly within every 2-h period
between 7:30 A.M. and 10:30 P.M. and no signal was within 30 min of another. At
each signal, the participant fills out an experience sampling form (ESF) that
asks various questions about the participant's activities, location,
companionship, and mood. To insure a level of quality control, only those
participants who completed 15 or more ESF were included in the final database.
This keeps with past practices by Csikszentmihalyi et al. (1993).
For the 1st year data (the data reported in this paper), 74% of the total ESM
study returned the sufficient number of forms, which is similar to past ESM
studies of adolescents (Csikszentmihalyi and Larson, 1987; Csikszentmihalyi and
Schneider, 2000). The final sample consisting of 806 individuals represented by
28,193 responses, were included. These responses captured nearly every aspect
of daily life, from school, to work, to play, to home life.
MEASURES
The primary measure, the Interested-Bored construct, was created to capture the
nuances of the experience of interest. It combines 3 questions from the ESM: a
9-point Likert scale asking "Was this activity interesting?," a 10-point Likert
scale asking "Did you enjoy what you were doing?" and a 7-point Likert scale
defined by "Excited--Bored." This formulation follows theoretical treatments on
the nature of interest offered by Dewey (McDermott, 1981) and others (Tomkins,
1962; Izard, 1991). Because the 3 component questions are scaled differently,
they were proportionally equalized by converting them to z-score variables
keyed to the average of the whole sample, or grand mean, for each variable.
After this they were summed to form the Interested--Bored construct. The
measure describes a continuous state of varying levels of engagement with the
world at the experiential level. We then calculated average Interest scores for
each person and divided the distribution into quartiles. The extreme ends, 2
equal-sized groups (n = 207), form the main analytical characters of this
study. At one end are youth who experience stimulation, enthusiasm, and
pleasure, and on the other, adolescents in a disconnected state of apathy.
Table I displays the demographic composition of the Bored and Interested
groups. The groups differ significantly in several criteria, namely social
class of community (SCC) ([chi square] = 23.0; p < 0.0001), ethnicity ([chi
square] = 20.5; p < 0.001), and age (as measured by grade) ([chi square] =
10.4; p < 0.015). The largest and most significant differences in SCC occur in
poor and upper middle classes, where poor Interested students outnumber Bored
ones and upper middle class Bored students outnumber Interested ones.
Similarly, Interested African Americans outnumber Bored Blacks; while Whites
represented in the Bored group outnumber those in the Interested. Gender
distribution tilts toward girls and no difference between the groups was found.
Finally, Interested students have greater representation in the 6th grade than
do the Bored ones, while the 10th grade has a larger share of Bored students.
Because of these differences, later analyses will control for the effects of
SCC, race, and grade in analyses o f covariance (ANCOVA).
The remaining measures come from the NELS, namely scales of self-esteem, locus
of control, optimism, and pessimism. Data for the entire group is not available
because some students failed to complete the forms fully. The missing data come
from throughout the sample, so no one group is systematically absent. The
available N will be reported in the tables.
Global self-esteem (GSE) measures the positive and negative feelings one holds
about the self. Based on the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (1965), it consist of
7 items, 4 positively and 3 negatively phrased, exemplified by statements like
"In general, I feel good about myself," "I am a person of worth," "On the whole
I am satisfied with myself' "At times, I think I am no good at al1' "I usually
feel emotionally empty," "I don't have much to be proud of," and "I am able to
do things as well as others" (Rosenberg, 1986). These are 4-point items ranging
from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). Cronbach's alpha for these 7
variables was 0.82 for the entire sample, 0.84 for the Bored group and 0.77 for
the Interested. Factor analysis of these 7 items found that they form one
factor with an eigenvalue of 3.4, accounting for 48.8% of the variance. To
create a single construct the negative items were summed and subtracted from
the sum of the positive ones.
Locus of control measures beliefs about personal causation. People with an
internal locus of control feel they are more masters of their own destiny, and
are referred to as "Origins" while "Pawns" are those who locate control
externally and believe they are victims of fate and circumstance (Rotter,
1966). This measure, abridged from Rotter's Locus of Control scale (Rotter,
1966), also consists of 7 items, with 1 positively phrased while the remaining
were negative. They are "When getting ahead somebody/thing stops me," "My plans
hardly ever work out," "I feel useless at times," "I do not have enough control
over my life," "When I make plans, I am certain they work," "Good luck is more
important that hard work," and "Luck is very important in life." Like
self-esteem, these are also 4-point items ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to
4 (strongly agree). Cronbach's alpha for these 7 variables was 0.77 for the
entire sample, 0.69 for the Bored group and 0.74 for the Interested. Factor
analysis found that they for m a factor with an eigenvalue of 2.7 accounting
for 38.5% of the variance. To create a single construct the single positive
item was subtracted from the sum of the negative ones.
Optimism and pessimism are assessed through 8 items, 4 positive and 4 negative,
that gauge the kinds of feeling one has towards the future. These scales,
ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much), each ask about a different
emotion. The positive ones include feeling confident, curious, enthusiastic and
powerful, while the negative ones are doubtful, lonely, angry, and empty. We
formed 2 variables, 1 negative (eigenvalue = 2.5, explaining 31.1% of the
variance), and I positive (eigenvalue = 1.6, explaining 20.5% of the variance)
by summing the corresponding items. The optimism variable had a Cronbach's
alpha of 0.60 for the entire sample, 0.70 for the Bored group and 0.50 for the
Interested. The pessimism variable had a Cronbach's alpha of 0.72 for the
entire sample, 0.71 for the Bored group and 0.75 for the Interested.
RESULTS
For each of these constructs, an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) controlling
for grade, race and SCC was performed to see if the averages between Bored and
Interested groups were notably different. To summarize, the measures of
self-esteem, locus of control, optimism, and pessimism all showed highly
significant differences between the 2 groups.
Global Self-Esteem
Table II shows that Interested students report significantly higher self-esteem
(M = 8.38) than the Bored (M = 5.25), F(1, 293) = 50.00, p < 0.0001. The
influence of grade, race, and social class does not yield significant results.
Furthermore, the average self-esteem of the entire sample is between both
groups at 7.04. Therefore, even compared the to entire focal group, Interested
students report a higher level of esteem. A between-groups t test (t = -7.0, df
= 309, p < 0.0001), reveals that the standard deviation of an Interested
student's self-esteem is 3.37, while Bored students show greater variability at
4.03.
Locus of Control
Table III shows that Interested youth are more likely to believe they originate
their actions (M = 8.16) while Bored students lean more toward the "Pawn" end
of the scale (M = 10.56), F(1, 206) = 37.9, p < .00001. Again, the two groups
fall between the sample mean, with the Bored group showing less signs of
personal causation and the Interested showing more. As with self-esteem, the
effects of the covariates showed no significant differences.
Optimism
When envisioning their future, Table IV shows that Interested students feel
more hopeful (M = 5.43) than do the Bored students (M = 4.73), F(1, 371) =
33.31, p < 0.0001. The entire sample's daily experiences are between these two
at M = 5.10. Unlike the case of the previous variables, the covariates Grade (F
= 3.83, p < 0.051) and Race (F = 3.98, p < 0.047) had a significant impact on
optimism. Whites and Blacks reported feeling greater amounts of optimism than
Latinos or Asians, while 8th graders reported less optimism than the other
grades.
Pessimism
[Click for Full Size] When it comes to projecting negative emotions toward the
future, Table V shows that Bored students do so more strongly (M = 2.61) than
Interested students (M = 2.10), F(1, 374) = 17.83, p < 0.0001. The sample
average is again between these two at M = 2.34. In this case, the covariates
exhibited little influence on the amount of pessimism.
DISCUSSION
This paper aims to establish evidence that the widespread experience of
interest can be seen as a symptom of larger psychological well-being. After
identifying 2 groups of students whose daily experiences falls at opposing ends
of a continuum of interest, we compared them on a variety of measures of
well-being. These results indicate a clear difference between young people who
experience chronic interest in their everyday lives versus those who experience
boredom. In general, the findings suggest that the Interested children are much
more likely to view themselves as effective agents in their world.
Believing that the self is good and worthy provides a setting for effective
personal functioning. The global self-esteem measures showed significant
differences between Bored and Interested students. However, research has
suggested that having high self-esteem alone is not enough, esteem must be both
high and stable (Kernis et al., 1993; Waschull and Kernis, 1996). Though there
are several varieties of esteem variability (Rosenberg, 1986; Savin-Williams
and Demo, 1983), Kernis and colleagues suggest that "the essential nature of
unstable self-esteem involves the propensity to exhibit variability in
self-feelings across time" (Kernis, 1993, p. 1190). We can test this if we
examine the repeated ESM measures of self-esteem, also based on the Rosenberg
Scale. Here we find the standard deviations of the Bored (SD = 1.40) and
Interested (SD = 0.99) students differ significantly (p < 0.000). As with the
GSE scores, the mean value of Interested student's ESM esteem is significantly
(p <0,000) higher (7.2) than Bored students' (5.4. This suggests that
Interested students enjoy a more durable positive self-concept, while Bored
students are less stable and negative in their self-assessment.
The literature on boredom proneness (BP) has found similar results regarding
self-esteem. McCleod and Vodanovich (1991) reported a significant negative
correlation between boredom-prone students and both self-esteem and autonomy. A
line of research that has produced consistent results is the tendency of
boredom prone individuals to dwell on themselves and their internal states.
Research like that conducted by Wink and Donahue (1997) found boredom proneness
to be significantly related to high narcissism. Seib and Vodanovich (1998) have
shown that BP relates strongly to high negative self-awareness, while those
high in positive self-awareness were much less likely to be Boredom Prone, a
finding consistent with the Interested students. Some have suggested that those
high in negative self-awareness may actually not be particularly aware of their
internal states at all and also experience lower self-esteem (Conway and
Giannopoulous, 1993).
It is also expected that Interested students are more likely to perceive
themselves as having greater internal locus of control. If interest is the
psychic "relational mechanism" between person and world, then those who honor
interest would also be more likely to believe that the ability to influence
one's fate is also high. The relationship between locus of control and global
self-esteem also bears itself out. Statistically, global self-esteem correlates
negatively with greater external locus of control (r = -0.62, p <0.0001). This
is to say that if I do not believe myself to be a person of worth, then the
likelihood of also believing that there is little I can do to influence my fate
might also be high, and Bored students seem to sympathize with this
circumstance. The lack of a sense of personal causality from one's efforts also
undermines the effort to act with intrinsic involvement in the world, the body
at rest stays at rest.
[Full Size Picture] Students who chronically experience interest, however, take
a different tack. To experience interest, by definition, implies that one is
interested in something. Interest does not occur without a referent, whether it
might be the attractive person standing across the room from me, or the
fascinating book on the bestseller list. This necessarily means that to
facilitate experiencing interest I must grapple with my reality in a way that
somehow affects it. This could be walking across the room to start up a
conversation, or going to the library to borrow the desired book. Interest
requires action. It follows then, that those who experience a great deal of
interest in their lives would also likely believe they are the volitional force
behind their actions.
[Full Size Picture] The strength of the positive findings regarding Interested
students continues on towards their feelings regarding the future. They are
much more likely to feel more positive (enthusiastic, powerful, and confident)
and less negative (lonely, Doubtful, and Empty) about growing older than Bored
students. These emotional projections take on an even more interesting cast
when considered in the light of the prevalence of upper middle class Boredom .
One would assume that access to resources increases the likelihood a person
would feel optimistic and hopeful about the future. However, this does not seem
to be the case. The prevalence of material resources does not seem to
automatically result in the accumulation of psychic ones.
[Full Size Picture] The experiences of Interested youth indicate the calculus
for well-being extends beyond familial finances to the economy of the psyche.
Interest's association with other measures of well-being suggests this innate
process is the foundation for building what might be thought of as
psychological capital (Csikszentmihalyi, in press). If the experience of
interest is an innate means of optimally relating to the environment, then
those individuals who maintain a widespread sense of interest over time develop
greater internal resources than those who are disengaged. The dividend that
comes from acting with interest is the sense of personal effectiveness arising
from being the causal agent of one's life. The fact that Interested youth look
to their future with greater confidence, enthusiasm, and power reflects this
"past performance." Because they trust their own experience and skills, the
probability of their success is certainly higher than a person wracked with
doubt and emptiness.
[Full Size Picture] Of course, as we mentioned, just as interest does not
happen without a referent, people who maintain a widespread sense of interest
do not grow in a vacuum. The Interested person requires the support of a social
system and cultural resources to direct the raw impulse of interest towards
complex, useful, and rewarding ends (Eccles et al., 1998; Rogoff, 1990;
Valsiner, 1998). So in a sense, the development of psychological capital must
be girded by social capital. Renninger (2000) details how nascent interests in
children often require adult influence to modulate the level of challenge or to
help develop goals before the child can do so autonomously. Therefore, support
in enhancing and directing interest might provide an effective fulcrum to
leverage personal development.
Material circumstances are certainly better for first world middle class youth
than they were in the Middle Ages. Therefore, widespread malaise among
adolescents is also not only an undesirable circumstance but a tremendous waste
of opportunity and resources. Fortunately, a substantial number of young people
do not succumb to this malaise. Interested youth present a picture of vitality
and well-being that stands in sharp contrast to their Bored counterparts.
Interested students believe in their basic worth, are confident and effective
agents in the world, and are optimistic and hopeful about their future. Of
course, we cannot make statements about causality, but it seems clear that
interest is associated with a matrix of beliefs that govern active involvement.
The implications of this are vast. While these children do not have to face the
hardships of their ancestors, the modern world of work still presents daunting
challenges. According to management theorist Peter Drucker (1999, p. 163),
workers in the emerging Knowledge Economy,
will have to MANAGE THEMSELVES. They will have to place themselves where they
can make the greatest contribution; they will have to learn to develop
themselves. They will have to learn to stay young and mentally alive during a
fifty-year working life. They will have to learn how and when to change what
they do, how they do it and when they do it.
If Drucker is right, the Interested youth reported about here will be ideally
suited for life in the twenty first century. What remains to be answered is how
young people acquire the predilection for the openness to experience that
results in experiencing interest. Our studies suggest that the social
environment plays a significant role in this development. In the coming years,
we will further explore these relationships.
Table I
Demographic Representation of Interested (N = 205) and Bored (N = 204)
Groups by Percent
Percentage breakdown
Interested group Bored group t Value
SCC ([chi square] = 23.0, p
< 0.0001, df = 4)
Poor 19.0 10.3 -2.5
Working 19.0 14.2 -1.3
Middle 40.0 33.3 -1.4
Upper middle 17.6 36.2 4.6
Upper 5.3 5.9 0.2
Race ([chi square] = 20.5, p
< 0.001, df = 5)
Asian 5.4 7.8 1.0
Latino 18.0 14.7 -0.9
African American 28.3 12.8 -4.0
White 47.3 64.2 3.5
Gender ([chi square] = 1.3,
NS, df = 1)
Male 39.0 44.6 1.1
Female 61.0 55.4 -1.1
Grade ([chi square] = 10.4, p
< 0.015, df = 3)
6th 35.6 22.6 -2.9
8th 26.4 29.4 0.7
10th 19.5 29.4 2.3
12th 18.5 18.6 0.0
B/W group
difference significance
SCC ([chi square] = 23.0, p
< 0.0001, df = 4)
Poor
Working NS
Middle NS
Upper middle
Upper NS
Race ([chi square] = 20.5, p
< 0.001, df = 5)
Asian NS
Latino NS
African American
White
Gender ([chi square] = 1.3,
NS, df = 1)
Male NS
Female NS
Grade ([chi square] = 10.4, p
< 0.015, df = 3)
6th
8th NS
10th
12th NS
Percent representation
in total sample
SCC ([chi square] = 23.0, p
< 0.0001, df = 4)
Poor 14.1
Working 16.3
Middle 33.5
Upper middle 25.9
Upper 10.2
Race ([chi square] = 20.5, p
< 0.001, df = 5)
Asian 6.6
Latino 15.8
African American 17.4
White 59.3
Gender ([chi square] = 1.3,
NS, df = 1)
Male 40.9
Female 59.1
Grade ([chi square] = 10.4, p
< 0.015, df = 3)
6th 28.1
8th 28.6
10th 23.6
12th 19.8
Table II
Analysis of Covariance of Global Self Esteem With Experience of
Interest, Controlling for Race and Social Class of Community
Adjusted mean Unadjusted mean Unadjusted SD
Bored (N = 153) 5.25 5.29 4.03
Interested (N = 145) 8.38 8.33 3.38
Total sample mean (N = 623) = 7.04 [+ or -] 3.7; F = 50.00, p < 0.000.
Main effect df = 1; residual df = 293.
Table III
Analysis of Covariance of Locus of Control With Experience of Interest,
Controlling for Race and Social Class of Community
Adjusted mean Unadjusted mean Unadjusted SD
Bored (N = 163) 10.56 10.47 3.07
Interested (N = 148) 8.16 8.26 3.64
Note. Larger means indicate greater external locus of control.
Total sample mean (N = 641) = 9.3 [+ or -] 3.34; F = 37.90, p < 0.000.
Main effect df = 1; residual df = 306.
Table IV
Analysis of Covariance of Optimistic Emotions With Experience of
Interest, Controlling for Race and Social Class of Community
Adjusted mean Unadjusted mean Unadjusted SD
Bored (N = 189) 4.73 4.75 1.26
Interested (N = 187) 5.43 5.41 1.07
Total sample mean (N = 744) = 5.1 [+ or -] 1.11; F = 33.31, p < 0.000.
Main effect df = 1; residual df = 371.
Table V
Analysis of Covariance of Pessimistic Emotions With Experience of
Interest, Controlling for Race and Social Class of Community
Adjusted mean Unadjusted mean Unadjusted SD
Bored (N = 189) 2.61 2.62 1.19
Interested (N = 186) 2.10 2.10 1.1
Total sample mean (N = 748) = 2.34 [+ or -] 1.11; F = 17.83, p < 0.000.
Main effect df = 1; residual df = 374.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study is part of a longitudinal research program of youth and social
development supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation given to
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Charles Bidwell, Larry Hedges, and Barbara Schneider
at The University of Chicago.
Accepted April 11, 2002
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Jeremy P. Hunter, (1) and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2)
(1.) Research Director, The Quality of Life Research Center, Peter F. Drucker
School of Management, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California.
Received PhD in psychology (human development) from The University of Chicago
in 2001. Major research interests include the experience of interest, intrinsic
motivation, and meditative practice and the quality of life. To whom
correspondence should be addressed at Quality of life Research Center, Peter F.
Drucker School of Management, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont,
California; e-mail: jeremy.hunter at cgu.edu.
(2.) C. S. and D. J. Davidson Professor of Psychology and Management and
Director, Quality of Life Research Center, Peter F. Drucker School of
Management, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California. Received PhD
in psychology (human development) from The University of Chicago in 1965. Major
research interests include the psychology of adolescence and the study of
optimal experience, creativity, and intrinsic motivation.
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