“You matter” is the tagline of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, and with good reason. A fascinating article in Scientific American posits that “the psychological concept of mattering gauges the risk of suicide, depression, and other disorders.” According to Gordon Flett of York University in Ontario, author of The Psychology of Mattering: Understanding the Human Need to Be Significant (2018), “mattering overlaps with self-esteem, social support and a sense of belonging…but is not identical. Crucially, there is something you can do about it. “People can learn to engage with others in ways that foster their own sense of mattering,” he says.

What is mattering – and how do you measure it?

In the early 1980s, sociologist Morris Rosenberg tried to quantify it, creating a five-item mattering scale with questions like the following: “How much do other people depend on you?” and “How much would you be missed if you went away?”

Brown University sociologist Gregory Elliott describes mattering as having three components:

Awareness: Do people pay attention to you? Or do they pass right by you?
Importance: Are there people in your life who take a real interest in your well-being?
Reliance: Are there people who would seek you out for help, support or advice?

How significant – or insignificant – you feel begins in childhood. “What makes neglect by parents so destructive,” Flett explains, is “the message it sends to the child who is made to feel irrelevant, invisible and insignificant.”

Mattering, suicide, and homicide

Children aren’t the only ones who need to feel like they matter. For teens, “an absence of mattering is highly destructive,” research has shown. In a 2009 study of 2,000 adolescents in 2009, Elliott discovered “that as teens’ feeling of mattering in their family decreased, antisocial, aggressive or self-destructive behaviors rose. Conversely, if you believe you matter to your family, you are less likely to go astray.” Robin Kowalski, a psychologist at Clemson University, notes that on an online “Suicide Watch” page, about half of teenagers felt that they did not matter. She cited posts such as “I just want to matter” and “No one cares about me.”

Multiple scholars have noted that not mattering to another person is linked to not only suicidal but homicidal thinking. They attributing mass shootings in part to this lack of mattering. A 2003 study examining the writings of 10 mass shooters, researchers found a consistent theme. Flett summarizes it this way: “I have been made to feel like I don’t matter, but I matter more than you people realize.”

How can trusted adults help youth feel like they matter?

In response to a 2021 statewide health survey that discovered that “51 percent of high school students and 45 percent of middle school students believe they do not matter in the communities where they live,” the state of Maine launched a statewide mattering initiative.

A librarian in Maine noticed a group of kids vaping in a vacant lot after school and recruited them to convert a school storeroom into a better hangout. Getting involved in something larger than yourself – volunteering or helping others – can also increase a sense of mattering.

Mattering can be as simple as noticing. Kini-Ana Tinkham, director of the Maine Resilience Building Network, explains that even a community store owner who notes, “Justin, I haven’t seen you in a while. How you doing?” can have an impact. Relatives, teachers, and coaches can all be trusted adults who care or pay attention to a neglected or abused child – and turn the tide.

“Once they matter to someone,” Flett says, “they can no longer think, ‘I don’t matter to anyone.’”

IF YOU NEED HELP
If you or someone you know is struggling or having thoughts of suicide, you are not alone. Help is available. Call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, use the online Lifeline Chat, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.

Read the full article here.

Russo, Francine. “Do You ‘Matter’ to Others? The Answer Could Predict Your Mental Health.” Scientific American, 6 Oct 2022, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-you-matter-to-others-the-answer-could-predict-your-mental-health1/.

Photo by Christopher Campbell on Unsplash