College students feel more pressure to be perfect than they did a generation ago

 College students feel more pressure to be perfect than they did a generation ago, finds research published by the American Psychological Association. That increase in perfectionism may be tied to social and economic factors such as rising inequality and slowing economic growth, the researchers found.

“Perfectionism is a public health risk – it’s associated with increased depression and anxiety,” said lead author Thomas Curran, PhD, of the London School of Economics and Political Science. “If we want to tackle the youth mental health crisis, we need to focus on these cultural and economic factors.”

The research was published in Psychological Bulletin.

In previous research, Curran and his colleagues found rising rates of perfectionism in college students through 2017. In the current study, they wanted to see whether the rise had continued since then and explore the reasons behind it. They analyzed data from 307 studies conducted between 1989 and 2024, with a total of more than 82,000 American, Canadian and British college students. All of the studies asked the students to rate themselves using one of two standard scales of perfectionism.

Overall, the researchers found increasing rates of self-reported perfectionism between 1989 and 2024. They also found that since the early 2000s, different aspects of perfectionism had increased at different rates: “Perfectionistic concerns” (fear of failure, indecisiveness, and fear of being negatively judged by others) increased much faster than “perfectionistic strivings” (the motivation to set extremely high standards and work hard to achieve them).  

The researchers also looked at how rates of perfectionism overlapped with economic conditions over time and across countries. They found that slowing GDP per capita was associated with higher rates of perfectionistic striving, while rising economic inequality was associated with steeper increases in perfectionistic concerns.

“When there’s a lack of economic opportunity, young people seem to compensate with striving,” Curran says. “And when inequality grows, what you see is that fear and worry about making mistakes and other people’s opinions starts to become a more central feature of young people’s psychology.”

The researchers also found that the link between perfectionism and mental health remained stable over time – higher levels of perfectionism were associated with mental health symptoms including depression and anxiety irrespective of time period. Since perfectionism has increased over time, the researchers say, it may be a factor in increased mental health concerns.

“These findings provide additional context for recent debates about youth mental health,” Curran says. “Phones and social media have received a lot of the blame, but the rise in perfectionism predates social media. This research study suggests something deeper is at work.”

Article: “Perfectionism is accelerating over time: A cross-temporal meta-analytic review of 35 years of college student data,” by Thomas Curran, PhD, and Pia Marie Pose, PhD, London School of Economics and Political Science, and Andrew Hill, PhD, York St. John University. Psychological Bulletin, published May 28, 2026. 

Youth with mental health and neurodevelopmental issues: Negative online experiences are common

 

New Child Mind Institute study finds more than one in four youth experienced a negative online experience in the past year, yet only one in five reported the incident through platform tools

A new study from researchers at the Child Mind Institute finds that negative online experiences are common among children and adolescents with mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions, and that most incidents are not reported through platform reporting tools.

Published in JAACAP Open, the study examined negative online experiences among 1,009 youth ages 9 to 15 with a history of mental health or neurodevelopmental concerns, all of whom were current or previous participants in the Child Mind Institute’s Healthy Brain Network. More than one in four reported at least one negative online experience in the past year. Among those who had such an experience, nearly 69% reported multiple incidents, yet only 20% reported the incident through platform reporting tools.

The study defined “negative online experiences” as any unwanted or uncomfortable experiences while online, including cyberbullying, cyberstalking, doxxing, impersonation, sexual harassment, and related forms of digital harm. The research used a mixed-methods design, combining a quantitative survey with an in-depth qualitative follow-up involving a three-day moderated online bulletin board with a subset of participants.

“These findings point to a large and often hidden problem,” said Michael P. Milham, MD, PhD, Chief Science Officer at the Child Mind Institute and senior author of the study. “Many young people are encountering harmful or uncomfortable experiences online, but the systems designed to help them often do not receive a report. That creates a major gap for parents, educators, clinicians, and platforms trying to keep children safer online.”

The research team identified three major categories of barriers that prevent youth from reporting negative online experiences: reporting process barriers, such as not knowing how to make a report; reporting policy barriers, including uncertainty about what qualifies for reporting or how platform rules apply; and emotional barriers, such as embarrassment, fear, and worry about consequences, or lack of confidence that support will be helpful.

The study also found that reporting decisions were often shaped by how young people interpreted the incident itself. In the qualitative follow-up, youth considered whether the harmful behavior seemed intentional, how malicious it appeared, and how severe or repeated the harassment was. When those cues were ambiguous, youth were less certain about whether reporting was appropriate.

“Reporting is not simply a matter of telling young people to speak up,” said Mirelle Kass, lead author of the study. “Youth are making complicated judgments about intent, severity, platform rules, and the possible consequences of disclosure. If we want young people to report harmful experiences, the tools and systems around them need to be clearer, safer, and easier to use.”

The findings suggest that online safety efforts should be tailored to the needs of youth who may already be managing mental health, developmental, or social challenges. Social aptitude, mental health symptoms, and parenting style were associated with youths’ likelihood of encountering negative online experiences and with the barriers they faced when deciding whether to report them.
Participants also expressed a clear desire for better tools and guidance. Most youth wanted platforms to provide more information about how to protect themselves online, how to use safety features such as blocking and reporting, and how to access support during and after the reporting process.

“Families, educators, clinicians, policymakers, and technology developers all have a role to play,” said Dr. Milham. “We need reporting systems that children can understand, policies that are transparent, and trusted adults who can respond without blame or overreaction. Safer digital spaces will require more than awareness. They will require systems designed around how young people actually experience online harm.”
The study underscores the importance of developmentally appropriate safety tools, clearer platform policies, and stronger support systems for youth navigating digital spaces. For children and adolescents with mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions, improving reporting pathways may be an important step toward reducing hidden online harms and building safer online environments.

Social media bans for teenagers lack evidence and pose risks

 

In December 2025, Australia banned young people under 16 from having social media accounts. France, Greece, Spain, Denmark, Malaysia, Norway, India, Egypt, Canada, Türkiye, and the United Kingdom are hot on their heels. French president Emmanuel Macron said, “Banning social media for those under 15: this is what scientists recommend.” American senator Brian Schatz, author of the Kids Off Social Media Act, said, “Studies have revealed that when children and teens reduce or eliminate exposure to social media for longer than a month, their mental health benefits.” Proponents of youth social media bans claim that we have strong scientific evidence showing that bans will improve teenagers’ wellbeing. 

As a clinical psychologist and parent, I would be thrilled if this were true, but it is not. We do not know how social media bans will affect youth because we have never studied that question. Let me explain.

Searching for evidence

When we want to test claims like ‘banning social media improves youth wellbeing’, scientific experiments are one of our most powerful tools to figure out what is causing something to happen. In experiments testing the effects of social media restriction on wellbeing, we randomly assign people to at least two groups: one quits using social media for a period of time and the other is the control or comparison group, which continues to use social media as usual. Given the strength of ban proponents’ claims, my co-authors and I were curious to know how strong the experimental evidence supporting their position was. In our new study, we collected and reviewed all of the experiments that have tested whether social media restriction improves wellbeing, and we were shocked by what we found.

Not a single social media restriction experiment has included people under the age of 16. We do not know how social media bans will affect the young people being targeted by them because we have never tested this with them! 

To be fair, sometimes strong evidence in adults warrants making the leap to apply the same conclusions to teenagers. But even that leap is not justified here. The experiments with adults show weak, null, and mixed effects, with 40% of experimental studies showing harmful effects (eg, decreased life satisfaction and increased loneliness) or no effects of social media restriction. So even when adults are told repeatedly that social media is bad for their mental health and that giving it up will help, we find, on average, few to no benefits.

Unintended consequences?

There is also good reason to believe that bans may backfire. First, enforcing a youth social media ban raises major ethical concerns. Enforcement efforts invade people’s privacy and are likely to hurt marginalized people more. For example, the technology that determines age based on selfie uploads makes more mistakes with young faces and people of color. Banned youth may also miss out on important resources and communications provided via social media, as schools, clubs, and most other youth-serving organizations use social media as a main form of communication.

What happens when enforcement efforts fail? Many young people will circumvent bans by creating fraudulent ‘adult’ accounts or lurking anonymously. They will retain access to social media without any of the benefits of parental controls or content filters enabled by youth accounts. The vast majority of young people oppose youth social media bans, and teens are well known for their defiance of top-down edicts that disregard their needs. Expect more conflict between teens and caregivers, not less.

To recap, we don’t know how social media bans will affect teens, and the bans may backfire. Yet the bans are still happening! Like other policies that consume resources, political capital, and time, it is imperative for governments to evaluate these actions by funding comprehensive assessments of the bans’ impacts. 

What next?

The first step in measuring the impact of these bans is to determine if the bans actually change teenagers’ social media habits. Three months in, Australian authorities reported that close to 70% of social media accounts owned by people under 16 remained active. 

Second, we need a careful and well-resourced plan to measure both positive well-being and mental health problems from multiple sources, including self-report, caregiver report, and objective behavioral data, to get a full picture of whether and how altered social media use affects youth. 

Third, we need creative approaches to capture the real-world impacts of the bans, since true experiments are not possible and effects may be at the community as well as the individual level. For example, we could randomly assign a subset of youth (eg within a certain region) to delayed enactment of the ban. Whatever approach is taken, governments must collaborate with diverse stakeholders – including young people – to rigorously and openly evaluate potential impacts. Rushed or improvised assessment will leave room for politicization and motivated reasoning.

Big Tech has become infamous for ‘moving fast and breaking things’. Policymakers rushing to enact these bans risk repeating Big Tech’s mistakes and compounding the problems the bans are trying to solve. We cannot ban our way out of a youth mental health crisis. Rather than take things away, we should make things better.

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Journal

Frontiers in Developmental Psychology

DOI

10.3389/fdpys.2026.1805989 

As AI Transforms education, new article highlights the human dimensions of teaching

 

As artificial intelligence and digital technologies continue to reshape education, the role of teachers is becoming increasingly complex and demanding. A new article published in ECNU Review of Education (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20965311261421964) on May 13, 2026, by Andreas Schleicher of the OECD explores what constitutes quality teaching in the age of AI and argues that the future of education depends not only on technological advancement, but also on the human qualities of teachers.

Expectations for teachers have always been high and continue to grow. Teachers are expected to possess deep subject knowledge, understand diverse learners, and apply effective pedagogical strategies. Beyond these traditional responsibilities, they are also expected to respond to students' varied needs, promote inclusion and social cohesion, and foster collaborative learning environments. In addition, teachers today are increasingly expected to serve as role models for lifelong learning. Students are more likely to develop lifelong learning habits when they see their teachers continuously expanding their own knowledge and questioning existing ideas.

The article highlights how AI and digitalization have introduced new challenges for teachers. These include managing information overload, addressing issues such as plagiarism, and protecting students from online risks including fraud, privacy violations, and cyberbullying. Teachers are also expected to help students become critical users of digital technologies and informed consumers of online information. In this context, teaching extends far beyond academic instruction.

Looking ahead, the article presents AI as a powerful but neutral tool that could reshape educational opportunities. According to the author, AI has the potential to make learning more accessible and better tailored to individual learners' needs. It may also create more flexible learning pathways, allowing learners greater control over what, how, and when they learn. At the same time, however, the article stresses that AI is not inherently beneficial. It can amplify both effective and ineffective educational practices. AI may help reduce inequities in some contexts while reinforcing them in others. Although it can support inclusion through adaptive learning opportunities, it may also deepen existing inequalities, as seen during the pandemic. Similarly, AI can help teachers design innovative learning experiences, but it may also limit teacher autonomy by encouraging reliance on pre-set algorithms or scripted teaching methods.

A central argument of the article is that human capacities remain essential in education, particularly in areas where technology has clear limitations. Teachers need strong social and emotional competencies to effectively support students. The author notes that many people attribute their success to teachers who provided emotional support, showed genuine care, or served as role models. These dimensions of teaching are difficult to measure, yet they are fundamental to student development and well-being.

In addition to emotional competence, teachers need professional judgment to navigate the complexities of classroom practice. Classrooms are described as dynamic environments shaped by diverse learners, limited resources, and unpredictable challenges. Teachers must therefore combine subject knowledge and pedagogical expertise with adaptability, creativity, and responsiveness.

In this sense, teaching is portrayed as both a science and an art. On the one hand, effective teaching draws on research-based knowledge of learning processes and pedagogical strategies. On the other hand, it requires adaptability, creativity, and sensitivity to the unique needs of each classroom. Teachers must constantly make complex decisions in dynamic and often unpredictable environments, balancing curriculum demands with students' individual differences and emotional needs.

Ultimately, the article concludes that the future of teaching lies in preserving the human dimensions of education while thoughtfully integrating technological advances. Teachers are encouraged to act as designers of learning experiences, critical guides in a digital world, and role models for students. By balancing technological innovation with human judgment and empathy, teachers can support meaningful and equitable learning in an increasingly digital society.

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Journal

ECNU Review of Education

DOI

10.1177/20965311261421964 

The absence of gender and racial minorities often goes unnoticed in the classroom

 During a staff meeting we may look around to take account of who is present—an observation that could consider the race or gender of who is in the room. But would everyone notice a complete absence of women, colleagues of color, or even men, in these settings?

Probably not, shows a new international study by a team of psychology researchers. 

A series of surveys and laboratory experiments conducted in the United States and Israel finds participants quite often failed to notice when men, women, and racial minority groups were absent from certain settings, including university campuses, kindergarten classrooms, and academic conferences. This bias was found regardless of political ideology and was evident even among participants from the same minority group. 

Moreover, across these studies, participants were more likely to notice when even one woman or member of a racial minority group was present than they were to spot the complete absence of a female, male, or a non-White person—depending on the context. They were also more likely to notice the absence of the majority group than the minority group—for instance, participants were more likely to notice the absence of women among kindergarten teachers, where they compose the majority, than they were the absence of men, who are a minority in the profession. 

“These findings suggest that underrepresentation can be hard to see—regardless of who you are,” says Rasha Kardosh, a postdoctoral fellow at New York University and the lead author of the paper, which appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “People often notice who stands out, but not who is missing altogether, with these blind spots occurring in everyday settings.” 

The study included an examination of participants’ ability to detect the absence of female neurosurgeons—a STEM profession in which women are less represented relative to men—and the absence of men among kindergarten teachers, who are predominantly female.

“The results reflect a broader feature of human attention: people tend to notice what is in front of them, while absence requires more deliberate attention,” adds Ran Hassin, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and one of the paper’s authors. “A person might attend a conference, read an article, or move through the workplace without realizing that an entire group is absent.”

It’s been long established that the human mind is tuned to what is present and is unlikely to notice, consider, or learn from what is not—in other words, from what is absent. However, the circumstances of when and how this phenomenon takes place are less understood. 

To address some of these questions, the research team, co-led by NYU’s Yaacov Trope, conducted a series of experiments in which American participants were asked about the presence or absence of different groups based on texts they read or on faces they were shown on a computer screen:

• In one text experiment, participants read a short article that quoted six expert neurosurgeons. Some participants read a version in which all six experts were men. Others read a version that included five men and one woman. Afterward, participants were asked about the experts. Most failed to notice when no women were quoted at all, but they were much more likely to notice when even one woman was included.

• In one visual experiment, female and male American participants viewed blocks of faces that, as a whole, largely mirrored the prevalence of each social group in the US population. The test block varied among the participants: in one condition, White faces were absent and in the other Black faces were absent. Participants were then asked about the group that was absent in their condition. Participants were 14 times more likely to notice when White faces were absent than when Black faces were absent.

• In an experiment of classroom settings, participants were shown visuals of teachers and asked if they noticed the absence of male or female teachers. Participants were far less likely to notice the absence of male teachers than they were female teachers. 

Across the experiments, participants failed to detect the absence of the minority demographic group in that context. Notably, this finding held across demographic and ideological differences, including among female and Black participants when their demographic was the minority group in a given experiment. In addition, participants were more likely to notice the absence of White faces than they were Black faces. Notably, neither ideology nor social attitudes had an impact on these perceptions. The same held, conversely, for the classroom experiment—two-thirds of the participants did not notice the absence of a male teacher.

“Because this blindness appeared across the political spectrum and even among people who themselves belong to minority groups, it appears that the effect is not about prejudice or political ideology, but about shared expectations regarding who is typically present in different social settings,” observes Trope.

The experiments were supplemented by three surveys—with the aim of detecting whether or not respondents recognized the absence of minority groups in real-life professional or educational settings. The researchers surveyed faculty, undergraduate, and graduate students at Hebrew University and attendees at an international academic conference held in New York City. 

Overall, the majority of those surveyed in both settings gave responses that were consistent with the experimental outcomes. For instance, 86 percent of the participants reported that they did not attend any talks by a Black speaker throughout the duration of the academic conference. Among these, 52.9 percent reported that they did not notice this absence until they were asked about it by the researchers. Additionally, nearly 90 percent of surveyed employees at Hebrew University reported not noticing the absence of Palestinian colleagues until they were asked. The study’s authors add that once the absence was pointed out, a majority of participants in all the surveys expressed support for addressing matters of representation in their professions and at their institutions. 

“Our research points to a practical lesson: representation is not always obvious to the eye,” concludes Kardosh. “This bias in perception can mask inequality and make our environments appear more diverse than they truly are. Simply prompting people to ask ‘Who is missing?’ may change how they see a setting and how they think about possible responses.”

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Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2516655123

Impacts of Free Community College on Degrees and Earnings

This study involves Tennessee Promise, Tennessee’s tuition-free community college program, which preceded similar programs in over twenty states and multiple federal proposals, examining how Promise affected college enrollment and early adult outcomes as the program expanded from a single-county pilot to statewide eligibility. 

Promise increased college enrollment by 5.4 percentage points among 19-year-olds, increased transfers from two-year to four-year schools, increased associate’s degree attainment by 2.9 percentage points among 21-year-olds, imprecisely increased bachelor’s degree attainment by age 24, and weakly increased income from age 21. 

The authors estimate that the program pays for itself under reasonable assumptions about returns to college.

Will The University Endowment Tax Slow Scientific Progress?

 The 2025 university endowment tax hike and other sources of financial pressure may lead the schools that train the most prolific economics researchers to reduce graduate enrollment. Will this affect long-run research output? 

This study uses a novel sample of MIT Economics PhD program applicants to estimate the research value-added of eight elite schools. The estimates mitigate selection bias by controlling for MIT admissions committee rankings—a remarkably strong predictor of long-run research success—and for applicant aspirations as revealed by their application portfolios. 

While rank controls substantially reduce estimated gaps between elite and non-elite graduates, large differences in value-added remain. Graduates of high-tax and other top-eight schools produce 60-75% more impact-adjusted publications than do comparable graduates from non-top-eight US schools. The elite-school advantage is especially pronounced for top five journal publications. Differences in research success within the elite tier, however, are relatively modest. The out-performance of elite-school PhDs does not appear to be explained by editorial connections or peer effects in elite programs.