The older they get, the more pressure they feel to perform

The study by Rianne Kloosterman, Math Akkermans, Maartje Tummers-van der Aa, Marleen Wingen and Carin Reep shows that almost half of girls often or regularly feel pressure from their own expectations, compared with three in ten boys. Among young adults, this so-called ‘internal performance pressure’ affects seven in ten women and more than half of men. The performance pressure that young people place on themselves therefore increases significantly with age. However, the pressure clearly differs by level of education: 46 percent of pre-university secondary students and 73 percent of university students feel pressure from their own expectations, compared with 26 percent of prevocational secondary students and 52 percent of senior secondary vocational students.

Pressure from others

Performance pressure resulting from the expectations of others also increases with age: from one-third among teenagers to 45 percent among young adults. The source of this external performance pressure varies with age. For around one-third of teenagers, it comes from their teachers and parents. More than 40 percent of young adults mainly feel pressure from society and, like teenagers, from their parents. In addition, 36 percent of working young people say they experience performance pressure from colleagues or supervisors. One-third of school pupils and students experience this pressure from teachers and lecturers.

Internalization

“This study confirms what we already knew about the increasing performance pressure among children and young people. We see that, as a result of this self-imposed pressure, they are experiencing burnout at increasingly younger ages,” says Anita Kraak of the Netherlands Youth Institute. “Children internalize the social norm that achievement makes you happy.”

Kraak sees the finding from the CBS study that internal performance pressure increases with age as an indication of this. “Among teenagers, that pressure probably still comes more from outside—from the expectations of their parents, teachers or sports coaches. Young adults have internalized this performance norm to a greater extent, but they still experience pressure from society and their parents as well. This causes a great deal of stress, especially among university students.”