Do you matter to the people in your life? A small,
but growing group of researchers – including a new UF Counselor
Education scholar – says “mattering” may be the hidden key to a variety
of psychological phenomena.

By Tim Lockette

An ailing woman hangs on just long enough to see her grandson graduate
from college, and dies the week after commencement. A wounded soldier
refuses a chance to be transferred home, because his buddies are still
in Iraq. A homeless man, barely able to find food for himself, adopts a
stray dog as a pet.

What do all these people have in common? Andrea Dixon thinks she just might know.

“Mattering to others is one of the most vital elements of mental
health, and possibly one of the most overlooked,” said Dixon, who
joined the faculty of UF’s College of Education this year as an
assistant professor in counselor education. “People have a fundamental
need to be important to others, and if that need isn’t met, it can have
adverse effects on mental and even physical health.”

Dixon
is a member of a growing group of researchers who are putting this
simple idea on the scientific map once again. In the past few years,
researchers have linked mattering to a wide variety of psychological
and social phenomena – from the stresses on medical residents’
marriages to job satisfaction to suicide rates among adolescents. Their
studies have shown a striking number of consistencies, suggesting that
mattering may be a key to fighting depression, high dropout rates and
even poor physical health.

For Dixon– one of the few researchers who study mattering in an
educational setting, and perhaps the only researcher to look at
mattering from a counselor’s perspective – the excitement of this newly
re-emerging field is palpable.

“There’s a lot of work to be done here, and it’s good to be in on more
or less the ground level,” Dixon said. “Everyday I hear about people
doing new work in mattering, and everyday someone in the ‘mattering’
community calls me to compare notes. There’s a sense that we’re all
mapping out new territory.”

Self-Esteem’s Little Brother

Mattering, as a subject of study, isn’t entirely new. Famed
sociologist Morris Rosenberg first began exploring the concept in the
early 1980s.

Rosenberg is best known for his pioneering 1960s studies on the mental
health role of self-esteem, which changed the way America raised a
whole generation of kids. Toward the end of his career, however,
Rosenberg began asking people – homeless men, for instance – whether
they felt important to society at large, or to anyone in particular.

Being important, Rosenberg theorized, was a key element of good
self-esteem, and therefore mental health. It wasn’t enough to be
accepted as a member of a group, or have a social support network to
help out when things get rough. People also need to needed. They need a
pet to feed, a diaper to change, a rehearsal they cannot miss. These
simple duties provided a feedback loop that could shore up a person’s
self-esteem even on tough days, Rosenberg figured.

His concept was deceptively simple. That may be why, for more than a decade, very little work was done to follow up on his.

“This is such a powerful idea, it’s hard to understand why researchers
ignored it for so long,” said UF alumna Jane Myers (EdS 76, PhD 78), a
professor of counseling and educational development at the University
of North Carolina at Greensboro.

In recent years Myers has researched the effects of mattering on a
number of phenomena, from the marital happiness of medical residents to
the coping skills of West Point cadets. But she wasn’t even aware of
mattering as a topic of research until she took on Dixon as a doctoral
student.

“We were discussing possible dissertation topics, and Andrea seemed
very interested in a phenomenon she’d observed as a school counselor,”
Myers said. “She’d noticed that kids seemed to fare better when they
were connected to other people in relationships in which the students
were important.”

Dixon and Myers searched a name for that concept, and soon came
across Rosenberg’s. They quickly realized they’d found an important
field of study that was almost entirely unexplored – one they seemed to
have all to themselves.

As it turns out, they weren’t as alone as they thought. Across the
country, others were rediscovering mattering. Researchers at Florida
State University and the University of Maryland found that mattering
was an important factor in depression among women. A study at Brown
University and the University of Pennsylvania found strong correlation
between mattering and suicidal thinking among adolescents. Other
studies found links between mattering and job satisfaction, the
duration of romantic relationships and a number of other phenomena.

In other words, a community of “mattering” researchers was beginning to
emerge. And Andrea Dixon became their “go-to” person for questions
about counseling and education.

Do Students Matter?

“Our society often ignores kids’ need to matter,” Dixon said. “We
focus on caring for kids and providing them support – but we often
don’t show them that they are important, or give them a chance to
matter. And mattering may be the one thing they need most.”

Dixon’s early studies bear that out. She and Myers surveyed 500
adolescents, asking questions designed to gauge their sense of
mattering and a number of other psychological factors.

They found that mattering was the best predictor of a student’s overall
psychological and social well-being. Mattering was a better predictor
than “acculturation” – psychological jargon for a student’s sense of
fitting in. Minority students with a strong sense of ethnic identity
were often emotionally healthier than others, but mattering had a far
stronger effect.

Mattering may explain why some students act out or display emotional
problems even when they appear to have ample social support at home,
Dixon said.

“When you ask students whether they matter to their parents or their teachers, you get some very revealing results,” she said.

Mattering may also explain why students in sports programs and other
school activities tend to stay in school longer and show better overall
mental health, Dixon said. Even if you’re not the star player, the
theory goes, having a practice to attend or a zone to defend can
improve your state of mind.

Curiously, students who matter more often report higher levels of
stress than those who matter less – but they are less likely to show
the ill effects of stress. Dixon found that out when she did a study of
533 freshmen at a Southwestern college. The women in her sample
consistently reported higher levels of mattering, social support and
general well-being – but they also reported higher levels of pressure
to succeed. Studies by Dixon and others suggest that students who feel
they matter are more likely to stay in school despite higher levels of
stress.

“Mattering is a great buffer against stress,” Dixon said. “Students
who matter may feel a lot of pressure in life, and they may even feel
pressure from the responsibilities that allow them to feel a sense of
mattering, but they tend to perform better under that stress.”

Why did female freshmen report a stronger sense of mattering?
Researchers aren’t sure, but a number of studies have shown that women
in general report a stronger sense of mattering than men.

“It’s probably due to the fact that women are more focused on
relationships,” she said. “Men may not be paying close attention to
their mattering issues, but they’re still affected by them.”

If mattering lowers dropout rates, and women matter more than men,
does that explain why boys are now lagging behind girls in academic
achievement? If sports participation increases a student’s sense of
mattering, can Title IX be credited with turning around the academic
fortunes of girls? Do students have a “right” to matter, and can
schools institute programs to boost a sense of mattering among all
their students?

All those questions have yet to be completely answered, Dixon said,
which is why mattering is such an inviting field of study. But there
are simple things parents, teachers and counselors can do to boost a
child’s sense of relevance.

“Just tell them,” said Dixon. “If someone matters to you, you should let them know.”

Teachers and counselors can also prompt kids to think about
mattering. As any teacher knows, a little introspection goes a long
way.

“Ask them if they do matter, and to whom,” said Dixon. “Ask them to think about what they can do to matter more.”