Could school be the cause of many of the psychological problems we take for granted?

Studies on extrinsically incentivized environments have shown for quite some time that people experience a loss of intrinsic motivation, enjoyment, and overall interest. But there are also a number of other side psychological effects that stem from these environments:

- Reduced creativity / increase in rigid thinking
- Reduced curiosity, experimentation, and playfulness
- Reduced initiative
- Dependent decision making
- Reduced responsibility for tasks that they haven't been told to do
- Increased stress, anxiety, and burn out
- Increased externalized sense of self-worth
- Increased conformity and social comparison
- Increased fear of failure and risk aversion

Now, we know that between the ages of 5 and 17, students experience a dramatic loss of intrinsic motivation. This, on its own, wouldn't necessarily indicate that school environments are the cause - although this would line up with many studies on overjustification. However, the fact that every one of those psychological changes appears to take place among our student populations is quite telling.

For some time now, many of these psychological changes have been normalized. But if all of the psychological effects of extrinsically incentivized environments are appearing in our student populations (and not, say, 40 or 70 percent of these effects), it makes it hard to believe that this represents a natural part of growing up. Statistically, it would be extremely improbable.

If you also find it statistically improbable that all of the psychological effects of extrinsically incentivized environments (ones characterized by things like evaluation, discipline, and rewards) have a kind of impact on people that precisely matches the changes we see in our student populations, then I'd like to hear about it. Also, if you believe there's another explanation, I'd be interested in that as well.

Submitted December 04, 2025 at 11:08AM by UnscriptedByDesign https://ift.tt/EhxL6yp