Speaking of Psychology - The mental price of affluence (SOP18)

Episode Date: December 8, 2014

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You may have heard that money can't always buy happiness. Well, that's especially true for children from affluent families who may feel pressure to succeed, get good grades, and be modeled children. In this episode, we talk with one psychologist who is teaching her own children how to be happy without relying on money. I'm Audrey Hamilton, and this is speaking of psychology. Sunil Luther is a psychology professor at Arizona State University. She has studied the vulnerability and resilience of youth in poverty and children. and families affected by mental illness. Her most recent work has focused on children in affluent communities.

Welcome, Dr. Luther. Ah, thank you for having me. Is depression very common among children from affluent families? You know, how do these depression rates compare to children from lower-income families? What we found already is rates of about one and a half to two and a half times as high as national normative samples. Of problems like depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and even higher rates of problems. higher rates of problems of substance use, that would be alcohol, marijuana, and even heart drugs.

Wow. So when you were studying this, was it a surprising finding to you? Oh, it was awfully surprising. Actually, I stumbled upon these findings quite by accident. My first study on upper-middle-class youth was conducted essentially to look for a comparison group for inner-city kids. And while doing this comparison, we found, much to my surprise, that the sort of the so-called privileged or rich kids were doing much more poorly, again, mostly on substance use,

but also in depression and anxiety. So that was way back in the late 90s, and since then we followed that trail and replicated these findings over and over again. What have you found to be the reason behind these high numbers? Can you describe the research a little bit more in detail on this area? Yes. People have a tendency to say, oh, it's the parents. And I cannot think of something that is more misguided than to pick on either the parents or the schools. There is not a single unitary factor that will explain all this. It is a problem that derives from multiple levels. Let's start with just American society and what our values are.

More is better. Go ahead. The title of my last chapter, I can, therefore I must. If you can, therefore you must. Achieve more and move ahead. So this starts at the level of society. Then it goes into the schools. It goes into the universities.

What is it that admissions people value in making their selections? It's all about accomplishments and achievements. So the bottom line is it is not just the family, it is not just the child, it is the culture we live in, the universities, the schools, everybody coming together to reinforce that one big message. If you can, therefore you must. Do not stop. So how does this relate to the problems of depression, substance, pressure to achieve? You see, if your sense of self-worth gets tied into how much you can accomplish, two things happen. One is if you don't accomplish, you feel small, inadequate, lousy, what have you. And the other is you live in a state of fear of not achieving.

If I can tell myself I'm a good person because I'm a good mother, a good friend, that's one thing. If I tell myself I'm a good person to the degree that I get that mixed grant or I get famous or I get these accolades, I'm living in fear. These are things that are not as much in my control as are things like being a good mother or being a good friend. So living in this constant state of tension, fear, if I don't achieve, who will I be? Is something that puts us in a state of anxiety and the failures in a state of depression. To self-medicate these feelings of anxiety and depression, unfortunately, a lot of our kids are turning to drugs and alcohol, as are we their parents. Is your advice that affluent parents simply lower the pressures they put on their children?

Or how do they go about to balance the need? for success versus, you know, mental health. In terms of advice for parents, I'm thinking back on when we had first started doing in-depth research on families and poverty, right? Now, mothers in poverty living in inner city areas where there's a lot of violence and so on, they have to work extra hard to make sure that children do not hang out after dark in places that are dangerous. It almost becomes extra important for them to pay attention to this front.

In much the same way, we have to be. parents in upper middle class societies have to work extra hard at ensuring that our children have a balanced value system, that they are not all about who can I be, how far can I go at whatever cost, but they are equally, if not more, invested in, how can I be a decent kind person, invested in the good of humanity and not just myself. So to summarize that, just as the inner city parents must work. extra hard to keep their children physically safe and out of trouble with gangs, we in upper middle class white-collar families need to work extra hard to make sure our children do not get

swept away in this feeling of, I must do more, and stay grounded more in decency, kindness, and true compassion, concern for humanity. And that in turn will affect their own well-being. Absolutely. There are more and more studies now saying if you are good and compassionate and kind, that this helps your own well-being. Altruism helps you feel better about yourself. There are studies showing psychological well-being is better. They're physiological studies that show this. So yes, doing for others makes you feel good.

Well, that's one thing. And doing for others also, obviously, strengthens your connections with others. So just the sheer act of generosity of altruism is going to make you feel better yourself. And the FOIA, the second thing, is that you're going to strengthen and your relationships with the people for whom you are doing good. They will appreciate it.

And there's another stronger social network, a link in your social network. What other behavioral mental health problems do you see among children and parents of more privileged families? Anything beyond depression, substance abuse? Yes, we have, in order, if I were to go in order, the problems that we've seen among upper middle class kids is starting with alcohol and drug use,

depression and anxiety. Now here's one that really startled me. High levels of rule breaking. Now we're talking about random acts of delinquency. We found levels are comparable actually to levels in inner city settings. The only difference is the inner city kids are doing things like carrying a gun or getting into a fight and so on, which could potentially be in self-protection and gangs. Our upper middle class kids are doing things like stealing from a friend or stealing from a parent or defacing property, as I said, random acts of delinquency. And these rates are much higher, again, two to two and a half times as high as average rates in America. Then there is envy, particularly among our girls, levels of envy of peers are much higher than we find among inner-city girls or boys

or upper-middle-class boys. For some reason, our girls are showing problems in multiple domains. So it's not just the depression, the anxiety, the typically female problems, but also the more typically male problems of drug and alcohol use and rule breaking. It's very troubling. How can parents teach their kids to have this balanced value system? And my answer almost invariably is, you know what, we really can't teach what we have to do as model. So I can tell my kids tell the cows come home, listen, be a good person.

But if I'm driving past people, cutting the grocery land, being inconsiderate to their teachers, to the household gardener or whatever, that's what the children pick up. They don't pick up what you say to them. They pick up what you do. The second thing is we need to be very conscious about our own values. See, it's very easy for us to say, no, I really want my child to be a good person. But take a step back and say, if your child did not make the starters in the basketball team, if the child did not get into the advanced reading group, might you, even with a slight raised eyebrow,

a slight gesture, be conveying, I'm disappointed? You see, we fall into this trap without realizing. it sometimes that we are conveying to them that I geez it's not quite as uh it's not quite as direct or blatant as saying oh my god you you've got five a is why the one be can be much more subtle and say just yeah well that's hopefully nice um and what did jimmy get or you know how did he do giving off impressions of competition exactly so we have but that means in turn that we need to look deep within ourselves see many of us and these upper middle class families we are hardworking, we've reached levels of professional accomplishment and so on, that mean a great

deal to us. If I feel like my work, my career brings me such enormous gratification, somewhere subconsciously, otherwise I want my child to have a very successful career path, too, so that he or she can have the same gratification. That can lead us to, again, inadvertently doing and saying things that we don't mean to. Yes, it's lovely if my child has a PhD, but you know what? There are other things in life. As I often tell young people, including my own children, when they're applying to college, you'll get an education. It's all right.

You'll get an education. Life does not begin and end at being at the top. Great. Well, thank you, Dr. Luther. I appreciate you taking the time. Thank you so much. It was my pleasure. Thank you so much.

To listen to more podcast episodes, please visit our website at speakingof psychology. With the American Psychological Association's Speaking of Psychology, I'm Audrey Hamilton. Thank you.