Two studies conducted by professors at the University of Michigan revealed that college students prefer activities that boost their self-esteem over other social activities such as hanging out with friends, eating or having sex.
The studies examined a combined 282 college students by asking them to rate how much they wanted those things at the moment of the survey and in general.
Ralph E. Cash, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology in the Center for Psychological Studies, said, “But self-esteem is somewhat different from most of the other rewards because most of the other rewards are associated with a physical drive.”
The authors concluded that the students’ preference for self-esteem boosts could be due to the way they were raised.
Cash agreed.
“Many parents bring up their children as little princesses and princes and teach them from a very young age that they’re special,” he said.
The first study asked 130 students to rate how much they liked food, sex and self-esteem only.
Bao Tran, junior finance major, agreed with the results.
“I think getting an A is better than spending time having sex, drinking or wasting time. I think most people with common sense would think about studying and getting a career now and worry about that stuff later.”
The second study asked 152 students to rate their desire for self-esteem boosts over getting other rewards including getting a paycheck, seeing their best friend and drinking alcohol.
Steven Bell, freshman psychology major, disagreed with the results. “The feeling you get hanging out with friends is better than getting a compliment,” he said.
Since students valued self-esteem so much, researchers also looked into the possibility of students being addicted to self-esteem. They asked students how much they wanted self-esteem and how much they liked it. If students answered they wanted it more than they liked it, researchers said it could be a sign of addiction.
Cash said someone could be addicted to self-esteem but it must be correctly assessed, which he did not think the study did.
Cash said, “We should be very cautious when using ‘addiction’ referring to things that may not necessarily produce a physiological dependency.”
The studies also showed that, although both men and women preferred self-esteem over sex, men valued sex more than women.
However, Cash said there the results of the studies may not apply to everyone. The students in the studies were mostly Caucasian and, Cash said, culture could affect the way people feel about self-esteem. Age could also be a factor, he said.
“But I don’t have any particular reason to believe that college students at other universities are any different. So, there is some generalizability,” he said.
The studies were published in the Journal of Personality last month. They are also online at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00712.x/pdf.
