Working
Title: The Student as Consumer Mentality: A Cancer to Existence
Topic
Many college
students today are finding themselves in psychological turmoil because the conditions encountered in higher education
hinder the ability for the mind to learn, adapt, and function in society. This is problematic for the very internal growth and development that higher education is meant to offer for developing minds. I
will examine the possible factors that may be leading to such intellectual deficiency—academic
pressure, financial burden, perceived control, etc.—and attempt to relate them to the aftermath of
the privatization of higher education and its effects on the human psyche. Privatization
has lead to a paradigm in which students are “consumers” and degrees are
“products,” and this market-driven nature contributes to lower academic
performance, less internal growth, and poor mental health for students. This
epidemic is surely raising eyebrows, but the exact causes are both
controversial and difficult to quantify. After all, these environmental effects
can surely exist without privatization. In order to establish a relationship
between privatization and the present environment from which students intellectually
suffer, I will first attempt to explain the inner workings of the human mind
through the psychology of motives, behavior, and learning. Basic environmental
conditions that deter the mind from purposeful growth and retainment will be examined.
I will then explain the effects of privatization and how it has contributed to
a college atmosphere plagued by consumerism and automaticity. After, I will
demonstrate how such an atmosphere impairs learning and internal development by
encouraging flawed motives that are detrimental to wellbeing and productive
behavior. It is this type of environment that heavily contributes to the lack
of development and intrinsic growth of students. I am interested in this topic
because, from my own experiences, it is evident that college life is infused with automatic, robotic
behaviors. Many students I know just attend to get by in life without
experiencing any meaningful, internal drive to pursue goals that feed their
intellect. This makes it hard for people to identify with themselves and their
paths in life. I am also minoring in psychology and interested in speculating
possible ways in which humanity can successfully evolve and prosper without
destroying itself. The environment that privatization creates in higher
education, specifically through consumerism and automacity, is contributing to
a crisis that is reducing intellect, wellbeing, and the ability for students to
be aware and responsive to a rapidly changing environment.
Research Question
Does the environment that privatization
creates for college students elicit behaviors, motives, and attitudes that
contribute to less knowledge retainment and a lack of meaningful, internal growth?
Theoretical Frame
As previously mentioned, a degree is now
essentially a “product” while the student is the “consumer” who strives to
acquire it. This concept is addressed in many scholarly works. One example can
be derived from the view of Molesworth et al., who draw from Fromm’s humanist
philosophy (Fromm, 1995) to argue that higher education is moving toward an
atmosphere in which students are adapting to a “student-as-consumer” mindset
due to the nature of the “market-led” university. With this mindset, intellectual
capacity of students can decrease while they seek to ‘have a degree’ rather
than ‘be learners’ (278). Such an environment can cause students to be passive
to learning rather than having a learner identity by which they are actively engaged.
This type of existential mindset in itself can reduce mental awareness and
responsiveness.
Another work discusses the theme of
“automacity” in behavior and the burdening need for fulfillment created by
consumerism, which both decrease “mindfulness”. Mindfulness, or the awareness
and ability to see the happenings of one’s inner and outer worlds, is crucial
for mental health and wellbeing. Reflecting on other works cited within her own
(Cushman, 1990; Fromm, 1955), Erika L. Rosenberg explains the automacity of
consumer behavior, “What and how much we consume stems more from unconscious
choices than from mindful deliberation. Advertising capitalizes on this
automaticity to exploit the insatiable need for fulfillment that burdens many
modern humans in industrialized countries” (107). Accordingly, consumerism can create
a mindset in which people have the motive to constantly fulfill themselves by
acquiring materialistic products to the point that it becomes automatic
behavior. When automacity is the driving force, fulfillment resides only on the
surface where it is not consciously embedded. This causes it to be temporary
and extrinsic rather than intrinsic and long lasting; lifestyles tend to be
rather robotic. Therefore, the fulfillment always recedes and the empty self
continuously and unconsciously tries to recover. This burden takes a huge toll
on the human mind.
In terms of the degree as a product, it
becomes extrinsic rather than intrinsic. Students turn toward pursuing degrees
that are more career-focused and likely to offer employment with higher
salaries (Bunce et al. 3). In this common scenario, the motive to acquire a
degree is more materialistic than it is mindful. This encourages a state of have while discouraging a state of being. A state of have can be extremely detrimental to enthusiasm and motivation in
some ways. Tori DeAngelis, a freelance journalist for the American
Psychological Association, discusses how Knox College psychologist Tim Kasser, PhD, explains
extrinsic motives: “Kasser distinguishes extrinsic goals—which tend to focus on
possessions, image, status and receiving rewards and praise—from intrinsic
ones, which aim at outcomes like personal growth and community connection and
are satisfying in and of themselves.” He continues to explain that an extrinsic
goal like product acquisition leads to greater unhappiness, poorer moods, and more
psychological problems (52). Degrees are increasingly being perceived as an
extrinsic goal. They are approached with the student-as-consumer mindset due to
the privatization of higher education, and this is shifting the motive from a
goal of deep, meaningful fulfillment to a goal more along the lines of product acquisition.
This kind of mental navigation throughout college is so automatic and external that
students become more passive and disconnected, as described in many works that
will be examined. This influences the idea that feeling better depends on
others and events changing for the better; there is a low degree of personal
control. Jerry M. Burger examines research of personal control and concludes in
part that “situational and
personality variables that increase the likelihood of a poor outcome and
increase the severity of the consequences of the poor outcome will lead to a
greater chance that the person will relinquish control, experience anxiety, or
do more poorly on a subsequent task” (254). If students accept that they exist
as a commodity, this situational variable can cause a loss of personal control
while leading to psychological distress and decreased responsiveness. This can also lead to a decrease in social
connectedness, which may be responsible for rising levels of depression. This
and the other situational variables discussed are all affects of privatization
that hinder internal growth and skillful adaptability.
Research
Plan
I will begin
my research by examining the rise of privatization in higher education and the effects
it has had on institutions thus far by discussing works of Collinge, Nathan,
and Steel & Williams. I will then discuss studies that demonstrate problems
with the higher education paradigm and how students are lacking in growth and
skill development. Many of these can be related to the aftermath of
privatization. Furthermore, the study by Molesworth et al. is a great source
for bringing up the theory of the “student-as-consumer” mindset within higher
education. It sheds light on some of the negative effects this can have on the
human psyche and is related to many of the affects of privatization. From here,
I will bring up the literature of Erich Fromm to examine the having mode and the being mode (theme of “being versus having”). This will help me
demonstrate more of what the human mind experiences when it is influenced by
such a mindset, and as a result link privatization, student-as-consumer
mentality, and poor mental health.
The next work
I will examine is that of Erika L. Rosenberg to discuss the “automacity” of
consumer behavior, which reduces mindfulness and intrinsic motivation in
achieving goals—like receiving a degree. At this point I will discuss the
article by Tori DeAngelis from the APA to help me outline the significance of
intrinsic goals that lead to personal growth, fulfillment, and connection with
others. A lack of personal control and social connection is associated with
extrinsic goals and automacity, so it is useful to proceed by discussing the
works of Burger and a few others. Again, I will link these variables to the
affects of privatization. I will end by examining paradigms in which mental
health prospers, suggesting ways to battle this detrimental mindset to overcome
the intellectual impairment that is partly caused by current educational
practices (i.e. mindfulness, creating an association between the product and
something pleasant).
Working Bibliography
Cheney, George, Jill McMillan, and Roy Schwartzman.
"Should We Buy the “Student-As-Consumer” Metaphor?" The Montana
Professor, vol. 7, no. 3, 1997, pp. 8-11, http://mtprof.msun.edu/Fall1997/Cheney.html. Accessed 22
Oct. 2016.
Collinge,
Alan Michael. The Student Loan Scam. Boston: Beacon Press, 2009. Print.
Fromm, Erich. To Have or To Be?. Harper
& Row, 1976.
Goldstein,
A., Déry, N., Pilgrim, M., Ioan, M., & Becker, S. (2016). Stress and binge
drinking: A toxic combination for the teenage brain. Neuropsychologia, 90251-260.
doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.07.035
http://fortune.com/2015/06/16/ryan-smith-internship-advice/
Kruisselbrink Flatt, Alicia. "A Suffering
Generation: Six Factors Contributing to the Mental Health Crisis in North
American Higher Education." College Quarterly, vol.16, no. 1, 2013.
Accessed 15 Oct. 2016.
Mike Molesworth , Elizabeth Nixon &
Richard Scullion. “Having, being and higher education: the marketisation of the
university and the transformation of the student into consumer.” Teaching in Higher Education, vol. 14,
no. 3, pp. 277-287, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562510902898841.
Accessed 23 Oct. 2016.
Misra, Ranjita, and Michelle McKean. "College
students' academic stress and its relation to their anxiety, time management,
and leisure satisfaction." American Journal of Health Studies 16.1
(2000): 41.
Nathan,
Rebekah. My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student. New
York:
Penguin, 2006.
Ross, Shannon E., Bradley C. Niebling, and Teresa
M. Heckert. "Sources of Stress Among College Students." Social psychology,
vol. 61, no. 5, 1999, pp. 841-846.
Schmookler, Andrew Bard. The illusion of choice:
How the market economy shapes our destiny. SUNY Press, 1993.
Steele,
James B. and Lance Williams. "Who Got Rich Off the Student Debt
Crisis?" Reveal News (June 28, 2016). Web.
https://www.revealnews.org/article/who-got-rich-off-the-student-debt-crisis/
