Ivy Leaguers' Mortality Is High, Happiness Is Low, According To New Study

It wouldn't be hard to find a high school junior at a place like Scarsdale Senior High School or Harvard-Westlake who would admit (off the record!) that they would kill to get into an Ivy League school. But would they be willing to die?

A new study on ambition in this month's Journal for Applied Psychology, suggests that they might have to be. When Timothy A. Judge of Notre Dame and John Kammeyer-Mueller of Business University of Florida looked at the impact of striving on the life outcomes of 717 Americans, they found a troubling trend. The ambitious ones -- defined by responses to questions about life attitude -- tend to die young. What's more, they aren't even happy during their short lives.

Many ambitious youngsters in the study did end up going to selective universities and having high-prestige jobs. But neither educational achievement nor career success led to much greater life satisfaction.

The ones who fared worst in the study were ambitious underachievers. They shared the mediocre happiness scores of their higher-achieving, equally-ambitious peers -- but tended to have much higher rates of mortality. In other words: wasting a Yale degree on a low-prestige, low-income job is a surefire recipe for an early grave.

But high schoolers, before you take use this study as an excuse to watch another episode of "Breaking Bad" instead of doing your AP Chem homework, you should know that it was the product of research on 717 Americans born around the start of World War I.

"The advantage of this study -– that it followed the lives and careers of a unique sample of individuals over the better part of the 20th century –- is also a significant limitation," the authors admit in the study. "Specifically, the sample was comprised of intelligent individuals initially raised in California whose working careers peaked a half century ago. Thus, it is difficult to know whether the findings observed here generalize to other samples of individuals."

So if you're a not-so-intelligent individual initially raised in New Jersey, or a brilliant individual initially raised in Doha, you might want to take Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller's conclusions with a grain of salt. But Los Angelenos? We don't need to tell you guys how good "Breaking Bad" season 4 is.

Comments

[debbiedowner]

12:54 AM on 03/07/2012

"The ones who fared worst in the study were ambitious underachievers. They shared the mediocre happiness scores of their higher-achieving, equally-ambitious peers -- but tended to have much higher rates of mortality. In other words: wasting a Yale degree on a low-prestige, low-income job is a surefire recipe for an early grave."

Are the Occupy zombies venting their frustration in public with their liberal arts degrees and six-figure student loan balances reading this???

[michelv]

11:56 PM on 03/06/2012

As kids with high academic potential sink ever more into academia, they develop a warped sense of self-worth that is mostly based on their academic achievements. Then they find out it isn't as important in the real world, or that they don't get jobs as "important" as their school pedigree was supposed to provide. They get crushed and really depressed. Add to the fact that those who devote the required focus on academia to enter these schools often lose out on some social life. Many were probably kind of socially shy to begin with anyway. So add all these factors together and you increase the likelihood of unhappiness and even depression, which can adversely affect your health.

As to those who do succeed "on paper", ie. great prestigious jobs, etc., they often end up in fast-paced and high-stress work environment that wears them down, that takes time away from family and social activities, etc. Again, health can take a hit.

Even when you are in a job on that is great on paper, and that you really liked at the beginning, it simply wears you down emotionally, mentally, and physically. These kinds of jobs aren't the kind you can just leave at the office and forget until the next day. There will be periods when you will get sick of it, that you will dread working. Those can turn into long lasting affairs and take a toll on you.

[michelv]

11:59 PM on 03/06/2012

contd.

Technology driven efficiency was supposed to give us more leisure time. Instead, we keep on working longer and harder. Sometimes it really sucks. But we are conditioned, now more than ever, to just be thankful we have a job and keep on slaving away :-)

So maybe happy go lucky is the way to live. Put in a respectable effort and let the rest to faith and accept the outcome instead of getting sucked into the never-ending rat race.

[DuffyShort]

04:44 PM on 03/06/2012

I guess Bush is in trouble.....Don't go hunting with Cheney.....

[lookbuzz]

12:07 PM on 03/06/2012

I don't know about this study...I graduated from Princeton, I'm 53, and I'm very ha..........UUUGGGHHH!!! (thud).

[realpragmatist]

09:39 AM on 03/06/2012

If this story is true, I am glad that my kid chose Cal over Brown and Cornell, over my recommendation of the prestigious biology program at Brown.

[MrUnlimited]

02:27 PM on 03/06/2012

Check out the story again and ignore the headline. From the article:

"When Timothy A. Judge of Notre Dame and John Kammeyer-Mueller of Business University of Florida looked at the impact of striving on the life outcomes of 717 Americans, they found a troubling trend. The ambitious ones -- defined by responses to questions about life attitude -- tend to die young. What's more, they aren't even happy during their short lives."

So if your kid was ambitious enough to even consider Brown and Cornell as serious options (and reject them both, based on your post), then he/she(?) falls into the 'ambitious' group. The fact that your kid went to Cal only means that your kid will be an ambitious student at Cal instead of Brown or Cornell.

Yeah, sort of depressing but maybe being aware of this study will allow you to intervene (during high stress periods in your kid's life) in the years to come.

[michelv]

11:42 PM on 03/06/2012

Yeah, because Cal is a school for mediocre students. Did you mean Cal State by any chance?