Event Title
“I go to a crazy competitive HS and I hate it”: A Reflexive Thematic Analysis of High School Competitive Suffering Using Reddit
Location
Science Center: Bent Corridor
Document Type
Poster
Start Date
4-28-2023 12:00 PM
End Date
4-28-2023 2:00 PM
Abstract
Competitive suffering describes a situation in which one student shares their suffering with a peer, and instead of being met with compassion, advice, or simple listening, that peer decides to one-up their peer’s suffering. Though heavily talked about informally on social media, in blogs, and conversationally, competitive suffering has not been defined or studied in a psychological setting. The goal of this thesis was to conduct exploratory research on competitive suffering using a qualitative framework. To get a broad spectrum of participants, I collected data through the Reddit forum “r/highschool” and used a reflexive thematic analysis approach to analyze the text of 32 posts. Through this, suffering in a high school context was operationalized and four themes were identified and discussed: Quantifiable Reason for Suffering, Helplessness, Attribution, and Motivation for Posting. Using these, a theoretical model for competitive suffering was created. Implications include working towards providing school counselors and teachers a greater understanding of detrimental competition culture, communication to students that mistakes are recoverable, and high school students opting for compassion, not competition, between each other.
Keywords:
Competitive suffering, High school, Qualitative
Recommended Citation
Houle, Ish, "“I go to a crazy competitive HS and I hate it”: A Reflexive Thematic Analysis of High School Competitive Suffering Using Reddit" (2023). Research Symposium. 1.
https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/researchsymp/2023/posters/1
Major
Psychology
Project Mentor(s)
Cindy Frantz, Psychology
Christine Wu, Psychology
Travis Wilson, Psychology
2023
“I go to a crazy competitive HS and I hate it”: A Reflexive Thematic Analysis of High School Competitive Suffering Using Reddit
Science Center: Bent Corridor
Competitive suffering describes a situation in which one student shares their suffering with a peer, and instead of being met with compassion, advice, or simple listening, that peer decides to one-up their peer’s suffering. Though heavily talked about informally on social media, in blogs, and conversationally, competitive suffering has not been defined or studied in a psychological setting. The goal of this thesis was to conduct exploratory research on competitive suffering using a qualitative framework. To get a broad spectrum of participants, I collected data through the Reddit forum “r/highschool” and used a reflexive thematic analysis approach to analyze the text of 32 posts. Through this, suffering in a high school context was operationalized and four themes were identified and discussed: Quantifiable Reason for Suffering, Helplessness, Attribution, and Motivation for Posting. Using these, a theoretical model for competitive suffering was created. Implications include working towards providing school counselors and teachers a greater understanding of detrimental competition culture, communication to students that mistakes are recoverable, and high school students opting for compassion, not competition, between each other.