EDITORS: See graphs at
http://www.umich.edu/~newsinfor/Releases/1999/Oct99/r101999
a.html

ANN ARBOR—Two-thirds of the U.S. teens and young
adults studied by University of Michigan researchers say
they feel stressed at least once a week, and one-third say
they’re stressed every day.

The study of more than 8,000 students in high school
and their early 20s was conducted by U-M psychologist
Harold W. Stevenson and colleagues and funded by the
National Science Foundation and the Grant Foundation. It
is part of a series of studies conducted over the past 18
years examining cross-national differences in academic
achievement.

“American students experience greater amounts of
stress because of the unclear goals provided by their
families and society,” says Stevenson, a senior researcher
at the U-M Center for Human Growth and Development. “They are expected to have a job, do chores, lead an active social
life, engage in sports, and also do well in school. The
conflicts experienced in trying to meet all of these
challenges appear to result in a great deal of stress.”

In contrast, Stevenson says, Japanese students know
that parental and societal expectations focus on academic
achievement. “Japanese parents support their children if
they choose to engage in other activities,” he says. “But
the single most important goal they seek to inculcate in
their children is a devotion to their schoolwork.”

It’s a common misconception, Stevenson points out,
that emphasizing academic achievement produces high levels
of student stress. “The charge is often made that the
Japanese, along with other countries whose students are
high-achievers, must pay a price for the high levels of
performance and their greater devotion to studying. That
price is assumed to be an increase in various types of
psychological maladjustment.”

But Stevenson’s studies suggest that this isn’t the
case. U.S. students, who performed poorly on tests of
11th-grade math compared with students from Japan, Taiwan,
and China, experienced a feeling of stress or being under
pressure more often than East Asian students.

U.S. students also reported feeling anxious and
aggressive more often. In particular, they were more
likely to say they felt like hitting someone, destroying
something, or getting into serious arguments or fights with
other students in the month before being surveyed.

Even after high school and college age, young adults
in the United States report feeling under stress and
pressure more often than East Asians. “There’s a lot of
attention about the stress young people are under in high
school and college,” says Stevenson. “But it’s just as
high when they’re out of school and on their own.”