Post by Bozur on Sept 5, 2008 9:43:51 GMT -5
How to survive your first college roommate
blogs.usatoday.com — If the separation anxiety isn't enough, teens headed to university have to face a scary fact: They've got no choice in a first-year college roommate. But that doesn't have to spell dorm doom, according to a study from University of Michigan researchers.
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If the separation anxiety isn't enough, teens headed to university have to face a scary fact: They've got no choice in a first-year college roommate. But that doesn't have to spell dorm doom, according to a study from University of Michigan researchers.
Psychologists Jennifer Crocker and Amy Canevello of the Institute for Social Research report in September's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that certain strategies can help young people make the most of any roommate.
"Roommate relationships can be really good or they can be really bad. And the fear is that they'll go from bad to worse," said Crocker. "But our study shows that you can create a supportive relationship and turn the stranger who's your roommate into a friend."
Crocker and Canevello studied over 300 college freshmen who were matched to roommates they didn't know before their first school semester. One study interviewed students once a week for 10 weeks about three things: How they thought about friendships in general, if they felt lonely, and how they experienced conflicts. A second study required 65 roommate pairs to do daily reports about their interactions during a three-week period halfway through the semester.
For the first study, students were asked these kinds of questions: "How often do you try to be supportive of others?" "How often do you avoid being selfish or self-centered?" "How often do you avoid showing weakness?"
The study's overall aim was to explore how teens' view of relationships affected how they got along with roommates and how healthy they were emotionally.
The first week of the study, 32% reported always or almost always feeling lonely. By the 10th week, only 17% reported loneliness. Also during the first week, about 34% said they always or almost always avoided showing weakness to others. Only about 13% describe this behavior by the 10th week of the study.
Students who tried to enhance or protect their own self-images weren't as likely to have improving friendships with their roommates.
Crocker says the best way to avoid loneliness and build a good roommate relationship is choosing to have an 'eco-system' approach, not an 'ego-system' one. In an 'ego-system' approach, people think most about their own needs and work to preserve a pristine version of themselves to others. In an 'eco-system' approach, folks focus on genuinely caring about and showing compassion for others.
"Basically, people who give support in response to another person's needs and out of concern for another person's welfare are most successful at building close relationships that they find supportive," Canevello said. "We get support, in other words, by being supportive."
"The transition from high school to college is challenging for a variety of reasons," Crocker said. "The academic environment is usually more difficult and more competitive, and moving away from the nuclear family for the first time disrupts established social support networks. Along with meeting academic challenges, creating and maintaining friendships ranks among the most important tasks of the first semester of college.
"So these findings provide some good news -- students can be the architects of their roommate relationships, enhancing or undermining the quality of these important relationships."
So, freshman, take note: Try to feel a little compassion and give genuine support, and you'll find your roommate is someone to write home about, rather than someone who makes you long for the good old days of annoying siblings skilled at hair-pulling.
By J.Z.
Photo: Incoming freshman walk across the Tulane University campus during orientation. By S.G. for USA TODAY.
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