The reading habits of higher education students seem to be suboptimal. Reading materials are sometimes not engaged with, read haphazardly, or not at all. Psychological explanations for this behavior include the overjustification effect (i.e., an expected external incentive decreases intrinsic motivation), self-handicapping (i.e., behaviorally sabotaging the potential for achievement or excusing poor performance a priori), poor self-regulated learning (insufficient mastery of cognitive strategies, metacognition, or motivation), and individual differences in reading comprehension related to prior knowledge of effective reading etiquette.

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This post examines these explanations and proposes strategies to alleviate bad reading habits and foster positive reading behavior. A promising way to encourage reading behavior is the cognitive strategy of defensive pessimism (i.e., envisioning anxiety-provoking potential undesirable outcomes and proactively planning for them to not actualize) is discussed in detail. Other solutions include self-affirmations, literate circles, and facilitation of intrinsic motivation. Lastly, socioeconomic factors are briefly considered.

Table of Contents

The Skill of Reading

The skill of reading is a developmental process that takes place during the lifespan of an individual. Reading is thus an acquired skill that needs to be honed and continuously practiced; a purposeful act that facilitates critical thinking abilities (Isakson & Isakson, 2017). Being literate opens gateways to knowledge that otherwise would be closed, and in modern society, opportunities for gathering knowledge have reached unprecedented levels. People who strive for higher education are undoubtedly literate. Thus, compulsory textbook reading materials should not pose a problem for pursuers of higher education. However, research suggests that a growing number of students are not engaging with the reading materials, reading only a part of compulsory reading material, glossing over it for test preparation, or not even buying course textbooks (Baier et al., 2011; Berry et al., 2010; Sikorski et al., 2002). In what follows, the question of what factors could explain the decreased reading behavior among higher education students will be examined and possible solutions suggested.

Historically, academic pursuit has been characterized by heavy reading. For example, in the 1870s, the University of Copenhagen made it possible to major in psychology when studying for a master’s degree in philosophy. This, however, was no easy task. Students were tasked with reading approximately one hundred books and their knowledge was only assessed at the end of a five-year program (except for a single test after the first year). By then, students were expected to have mastered the contents of those hundred books and could be tested on any one of them in their final assessment (Pind, 2014). A structure like this is, self-evidently, different from modern academic customs, and arguably academia has positively progressed. Nevertheless, a point could be made that psychology majors’ structure in philosophy in the early days at the University of Copenhagen fostered a situation that kept students on high alert, a point which we shall return to later in this post.

Psychological Explanations for Poor Reading Habits

Overjustification Effect

When people are motivated, they engage in purposeful, goal-directed behavior. They have an inkling to act on the world around them in a goal-directed manner. In motivational literature, a distinction is typically made between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. An intrinsically motivating act is enjoyable and rewarding for its own sake. The behavior itself is the driving force for behaving when feeling intrinsically motivated. Meanwhile, something that is extrinsically motivating is rewarding for reasons that lie outside of the behavior itself (e.g., money). Therefore, no external incentive is required for taking part in an intrinsically motivating task. Hence, intrinsic motivation could be looked at as an end in itself, but extrinsic motivation as a means to an end (Ryan & Deci, 2000).

All things being equal, a person who decides to devote time, money, and resources to education at a higher educational facility is intrinsically motivated to do so. Nevertheless, all things are not always equal, and external motivational factors (e.g., presumed fame, glory, or financial benefits) can influence a person’s decision to pursue a certain diploma or study in a specific field. However, for the sake of argument let us presume that higher education students are at least to some degree intrinsically motivated to work in the field of their study of choice and consequently gain knowledge in the discipline. As previously mentioned, intrinsically motivating behavior does not need external incentives. Thus, all things being equal, a student should look at the act of studying their field and mastering the discipline as a genuinely enjoyable act.

A thing to note regarding the structure of the education system is its potentially extrinsically motivating arrangement. That is, students are tasked with reading a certain book as a means to the end of finishing a course in their program or getting an acceptable grade. As a result, a task that presumably was initially intrinsically motivating has now become motivated and rewarded by external factors. When a previously intrinsically motivated behavior is extraneously incentivized and the external reward for doing a certain task becomes expected, the initial intrinsic motivation decreases. This phenomenon is known as the overjustification effect (Smith et al., 2017).

The behavior of people is strongly influenced by the power of the situation and context they are in. Applied social psychology and its potential to influence the behavior of people is dependent on the power of the situation (Schneider et al., 2017). Hence, an argument can be made that the educational situation of academic learning has the potential to decrease the motivation of an intrinsically motivated student and lower their ambitiousness for reading materials that are related to their field.

Self-Handicapping

In an academic environment, students are graded for their work. This means that if an assignment is not up to standard or a test score falls below a predetermined set point, the student gets a failing grade. Failure can threaten a student’s self-esteem, self-efficacy, or their academic self-concept. In order to cope with such a threat, measures can be taken to help cope with such failure, namely self-handicapping strategies (Smith et al., 2017). A distinction is generally made between behavioral and claimed self-handicapping. Behavioral self-handicapping is characterized as deliberate acts that run counter to the goal in question (e.g., going to a party the night before a test), while claimed self-handicapping is characterized by reporting to others possible hindrances or obstacles that stand in the way of performing up to a certain standard (e.g., reporting to others that they did not get a good night’s sleep the night before a test). While behavioral self-handicapping strategies are often more believable, they are also more costly. Meanwhile, claimed self-handicapping can often serve as an excuse and affect peoples’ perception of the self-handicapper (Schwinger et al., 2014).

In Schwinger’s et al. (2014) meta-analysis on academic self-handicapping, several interesting points are made. Firstly, they point out that the best predictor of future performance is prior performance. This means that a lack of performance is the result of using self-handicapping strategies, it sets in motion a self-perpetuating feedback loop of degrading performance. Secondly, it has been noted that chronic use of self-handicapping strategies can lead to negative academic achievement outcomes in the long term. Lastly, several researchers have suggested that the relationship between academic achievement and self-handicapping is bidirectional (i.e., reciprocal) meaning that self-handicapping seems to lead to poorer performance and poor performance to increased self-handicapping. The results of Schwinger’s et al. (2014) meta-analysis show, among other things, a negative correlation between self-handicapping and achievement (r = -.23), indicating that people who are more prone to self-handicapping are likelier to perform poorly.

In the context of this post, self-handicapping implies that a student does not engage with the reading materials in an academic course. An academic environment can be challenging to manage and as mentioned before, self-handicapping provides a student with a reason for failure (i.e., justification or rationalization). If the reading materials in a course are not engaged properly, a failing grade can easily be explained for that very reason. Hence, interventions that can aid in decreasing such behavior can be of high value. For example, Schwinger et al. (2014) suggest a promising six-week cognitive behavioral coaching intervention that seems to reduce perfectionism and self-handicapping behavior. As today’s students are society’s future innovators (e.g., teachers, academics, leaders, etc.), interventions that seek to help them implement strategies to better cope with difficult tasks are of tremendous value. If a student has gotten into the habit of self-handicapping, such behavior might endure in their professional life. For example, Smith et al. (2017) point out that faculty members often admit to waiting for as long as possible to start a research grant application, possibly driven by the ego-protective element that self-handicapping can provide.

Poor Self-Regulation Strategies

In a higher education setting, students are expected to read course literature, at least insofar as to be able to participate in group discussions and/or articulate their knowledge in a written format. Higher education courses can be quite demanding and include a lot of reading material. For example, in a study by Gorzycki et al. (2019), an overwhelming majority of college students reported that the reading materials magnitude in their courses was disproportionate to the benefits of actually reading it all. Self-evidently, engaging with a lot of reading material, properly, and extracting its knowledge so it can be put to use, is time-consuming. Therefore, the ability to regulate oneself in one’s education is a skill of high value. Self-regulated learning has been conceptualized as awareness of one’s learning environment and being able to influence it. It includes cognitive strategies, metacognition, and motivational factors (Schraw et al., 2006).

As cited in Schraw et al. (2006), cognitive strategies include simple cognitive solutions applicable by students to facilitate their learning, problem-solving strategies, and critical thinking. For example, forming questions to answer before engaging in reading materials is a simple cognitive strategy that can help facilitate understanding of the material. Such a strategy encourages the student to engage in active learning (i.e., seeking out new information, identifying vices and virtues, and making connections with prior knowledge), as opposed to passive learning (APA Dictionary of Psychology, 2014).

Metacognition is traditionally defined as the ability to be aware of one’s own cognitions and control or regulate them. Regulating one’s own cognition includes planning for future events (i.e., goal setting), allocating time to set goals, and comparing goal material to one’s prior knowledge. Additionally, monitorization and evaluation of cognitions are key components in cognitive regulation (Schraw et al., 2006). Without being able to monitor and evaluate one’s cognitions concerning set goals, knowing when success is met becomes nearly impossible. Metacognitive factors have a great impact on academic reading behavior since monitoring and evaluations of one’s understanding affect how one approaches reading materials (Isakson & Isakson, 2017).

Motivational factors that affect self-regulation learning include self-efficacy and epistemological beliefs. Epistemological beliefs are beliefs about the origins and essence of knowledge and relate to one’s capability to learn new skills and acquire knowledge. For example, if the acquisition of knowledge is believed to be tied to an innate capability for knowledge acquisition, a student is less likely to motivate themself than if they subscribe to a growth theory of knowledge acquisition (Hochanadel & Finamore, 2015; Schraw et al., 2006). Self-efficacy in turn refers to a person’s perceived ability to tackle problems effectively and is affected, among other things, by observational learning and modeling. Self-efficacy is crucial in self-regulation since it is a powerful predictor for persistence in difficult tasks, affects how a challenge is engaged with, and influences goal setting and goal commitment (Gist & Mitchell, 1992; Schraw et al., 2006).

The preceding discussion suggests that self-regulated learning is a malleable intrapersonal phenomenon. For example, as cited in Schraw et al. (2006), problem-solving strategies can be explicitly taught to students and critical thinking abilities can be refined through instructional measures. Furthermore, self-efficacy can be improved by explicit instruction and modeling interventions that highlight behavioral and psychological skills needed to successfully complete a task, setting in motion a self-perpetuating positive feedback loop that improves a person’s self-efficacy (Gist & Mitchell, 1992). Therefore, if higher education students are struggling with self-regulation in relation to their studies, numerous ways of action can be taken to intervene and aid them.

It is not at all clear to what extent poor self-regulation strategies influence higher education students’ learning. One must consider that in higher education, there is a vast diversity in the body of students. As a result, other factors might be better able to explain what can seem like a lack of self-regulatory skills (e.g., occupational- and marital status, age, and what the student intends to get out of the education).

Individual Differences in Academic Reading

In higher educational environments, a variety of people have the potential to be included with different backgrounds. Although undergraduate college students should, more-or-less, have the same educational background, that does not seem to be the case. Different schools adopt dissimilar pedagogical approaches and differ in terms of how they deliver education to students. As a result, when students from a large pool of different schools graduate to a college level, their educational customs and habits differ. Some schools teach reading skills and foster good reading behavior at the individual level, while others don’t. The skill of reading is a developmental process that continues throughout life and needs to be treated as such. Therefore, students don’t necessarily have the same ability to engage intelligently with complex reading materials, simply because they have never been put into an environment that demanded such practices (Gorzycki et al., 2019; Isakson & Isakson, 2017).

If students do not have the necessary skills to engage with reading materials and/or have never been taught how to do that, their reading comprehension, seems to be worse than among students who have had such an opportunity (Isakson & Isakson, 2017). Gorzycki and colleagues qualitatively analyzed the attitudes undergraduate students held about reading in relation to their scores on a standardized reading comprehension test. The results suggested that students who have poorer reading comprehension tend to subscribe to the notion that reading is not essential to obtaining high grades. Conversely, students with better reading comprehension held the opposite attitude; that reading is essential to obtain high grades (Gorzycki et al., 2019). This suggests that fostering positive attitudes to reading is valuable, as attitudes appear to mediate students’ persistence in engaging with complex academic reading materials. Furthermore, explicit instruction that teaches students how to engage with complex reading materials is greatly important since not all higher education students have been subjected to such explicit instruction. Reading can become a sort of hidden curriculum if students do not possess the skillset needed to engage with reading materials at the higher educational level (Isakson & Isakson, 2017). Therefore, an argument can easily be made for including instructional sessions that aim to teach proper etiquette or methodology when it comes to reading complex material.

It should also be noted that Gorzycki’s et al. (2017) research provides valuable insight into the perceived workload of reading academic material in a higher educational environment. Although a vast majority of the students questioned the claim that reading was important, almost equally as many students perceive the workload that comes with reading all course material to be too high. This perception among students was unrelated to their actual reading comprehension and thus begs the question: “Is the assigned reading material proportionate to the benefits of reading said material”. Many students seem to have been under the assumption that it was the duty of lecturers and teachers to teach the material and provide the necessary understanding for tackling the phenomena in the reading materials, rendering the actual act of reading supplementary. Perhaps students would feel more inclined to dive deep into the readings if it would be perceived to actually be beneficial and doable within the timespan of a course.

Ways to Facilitate Positive Reading Habits

Self-Affirmations

A self-affirmation can be defined as behavior that makes one’s skill or values salient, confirming the adequacy of oneself (APA Dictionary of Psychology, 2014). Research cited in ‌Smith (2017) suggests that self-affirmations can aid in alleviating self-handicapping behavior. The self-affirmation took the form of written statements from the students, highlighting their virtues and values important to them. Students who engaged in self-affirmatory action had a more salient picture in mind as to why they were in the educational program to begin with, and in turn, seemed better prepared in exams.

Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation

Effective applied social psychological interventions are highly dependent on situational power. The very field rests on the assumption that in order to influence the behavior of people, one can interfere with the situation (Schneider et al., 2017). One potential way to rearrange the educational situation of higher education students could be to set the class up in a way that facilitates intrinsic motivation. For example, students could be allowed to choose between a variety of coursebooks, all essentially covering the same material but with different approaches (Schraw et al., 2006). By letting the students choose their textbooks, they might feel empowered and approach the material more on their own terms. Furthermore, if different textbooks cover the same material but in different ways, group discussions could potentially give rise to more fruitful peer conversations and dialogue (e.g., in compulsory seminars). Moreover, by stimulating students with different approaches to the same material, they could inform each other via dialogue, thereby giving rise to knowledge that is greater than its individual parts.

Defensive Pessimism

As has been hinted at several times in this post already, higher education can be quite demanding. A bulk load of literature is often thrown at students, and they are expected to master its contents by the end of a course. This can undoubtedly be anxiety-provoking, but arguably could anxiety in this context be put to good use. Recall that in the early days of psychology at the University of Copenhagen, students were presented with a long list of complex books, any of which could be subject to a final examination (Pind, 2014). Presumably, they were flooded with at least comparable amounts of anxiety as a function of their situation. Hence, for them, just as students nowadays, anxiety is an inescapable factor in the situation of higher educational settings.

Research investigating cognitive biases and attributional styles has identified a cognitive strategy known as defensive pessimism. It is broadly defined as the tendency to envision catastrophic possible outcomes with the expectancy of performing poorly, regardless of prior performance achievement (Spencer & Norem, 1996). Envisioning possible negative outcomes can invoke anxiety but in turn, also arousal, which can facilitate action. For example, when giving a speech or performing in front of others, arousal can be to the person’s benefit (i.e., through social facilitation), given that the person is prepared (Aiello & Douthitt, 2001). By envisioning possible negative outcomes, measures can be taken to hinder the less preferred negative outcomes to actualize, and thus the defensive pessimist is more likely to be prepared in an anxiety-provoking situation leading them to be able to reap the benefits that social facilitation can bring with it.

Defensive pessimism is not a new concept by any stretch of the imagination. It can be traced back to the Stoics who advocated premeditatio malorum, which is Dog-Latin for premeditations of evil. It has also been known as negative visualization which is characterized by envisioning the potential future thorns in one’s side (see for example Seneca & Campbell, 1969). If higher education is presumably anxiety-provoking, a known strategy among those who use defensive pessimism is to proactively plan ahead, so as to get ahead of and manage anxiety-provoking situations (‌Smith, 2017). If anxiety is indeed an inescapable part of higher educational learning, then students should be better off if they dampen their performance expectations. Furthermore, doing so makes them more likely to engage in planning and preparation for anxiety-provoking situations. By focusing on what could go wrong, instead of having potential positive outcomes salient in mind, a person is more likely to take action to lessen the likelihood of unwanted cognitions coming true.

Needless to say, promoting defensive pessimism would have to be framed positively. The key element that relates to reading behavior is an internal locus of control and perhaps that could be promoted. However, an internal locus of control does not fully grasp the behavior of planning and preparing, characteristics of defensive pessimism. One could internally attribute a cause without taking any action to change the cause. Defensive pessimists tend to take proactive action in order to prevent perceived catastrophes and not change their attributional style or expectations of performance, even when evidence suggesting their capabilities piles up (‌Smith, 2017). Therefore, informing students about defensive pessimism could have lasting effects, and doing so in an educational setting could be an ethical way of promoting it.

As an example of how the opposite (i.e., positive thinking) can backfire, Baumeister et al. (2003) cite legislation in California that was passed in the 1980s that aimed to boost the self-esteem of children and young adults in the education system. The legislation set afoot a sort of “self-esteem movement” that was thought to have the potential to eradicate major societal problems, such as drug abuse, academic failures, and early pregnancies to name a few. The goal was noble, well intended, and would have had substantial financial benefits, had it come into fruition. Nevertheless, Baumeister’s et al. (2003) theoretical overview does not support the conclusion that bolstering self-esteem leads to the aforementioned societal benefits. At the very least, not when it’s unwarranted. Hence, a pessimistic outlook seems to have a better theoretical backing.

For example, Gabriele Oettingen (2012) points out that focusing on positive thinking can reduce effortful action and lead to worse coping in the face of adversity. Wishful thinking, which is essentially what the “self-esteem movement” promoted, seems to potentially be detrimental to a person’s willingness to apply themself. Students who engage in positive fantasies seldom see them pan out or actualize, illustrating the ineffectiveness of wishful thinking. In contrast to popular belief, positive fantasies predict academic failure and serve as a mediator for depression among students. The problem with positive thinking and wishful fantasies is that they don’t translate into action. However, students employing the cognitive strategy of defensive pessimism feel an urge to act on their anxiety-provoking cognitions, doing everything within their power to get ahead of them (Spencer & Norem, 1996; Oettingen, 2012).

To sum up this overview of the benefits of using defensive pessimism, there is an analogy that can be made. If one thinks of the world in terms of the potential harms the future can bring with it, such cognitions can invoke a strong crippling anxiety response. However, if one frames the problem in terms of what could happen if the anxiety-provoking situations are not acted on and the fruits of concurring the situation are desirable, by the person’s own definition, the anxiety of not doing the task can become greater than the anxiety related to the actual task. In that way, the frightening creature of anxiety is chasing the person instead of standing in their way, thus making the anxiety a useful phenomenon. Arousal is often preferable for completing a task, and in a defensive pessimistic scheme, the arousal caused by thinking through anxiety-provoking situations and coming up with solutions to combat the potential negative outcomes can strengthen the person’s capability to engage with the situation effectively.

Literate Circles

Engaging with reading material in a meaningful way, questioning it, and applying the knowledge within it can facilitate understanding the material. Such engagement is in other words the definition of active learning (APA Dictionary of Psychology, 2014). One way to encourage active learning is the arrangement of students in literate circles (West, 2018). Literate circles can be thought of as book clubs but in an educational environment. Students are split up into groups and tasked with taking notes on a predetermined topic or reading material that is to be discussed in class. A template for effective note-taking is provided to students which should be submitted 24 hours ahead of class. Students’ notes are then briefly commented on by the teacher (i.e., feedback is given with regards to the quality of the notes and their utility in relation to the subject matter) and implemented, by the teacher, into the lesson, thus giving students the feeling of their notes being purposeful.

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As noted by West (2018), students’ notetaking is supported and built upon in an educational environment that makes use of literate circles and serves as a motivator to come prepared to class. By giving students the responsibility for taking notes on a certain topic, scaffolding their current abilities, and making their work meaningful in the context of the course, students claim to enjoy the class to a higher degree. Literate circles include peer discussions and by supplementing them with responsible notetaking, discussions are less likely to be superficial. Furthermore, the usage of literate circles could have lasting effects in the sense that students get a feeling of how effective peer groups operate and deepen their understanding, thus making the formation of analogous groups in classes that do not employ literate circles more likely.

But Is It Necessary to Read Textbooks?

In modern times, the rise of knowledge available on the internet for free has grown exponentially. Indeed, platforms such as YouTube provide visually stimulating educational material, and the web domain Wikipedia has a profound body of information. This begs the question: “Why should students even bother to read textbooks?”. Aside from the obvious conclusion that one cannot easily distinguish reliable information from unreliable, biased information (e.g., misinformation) on the internet, it can be argued that textbooks provide a solid grounding from which it is possible to build upon. Furthermore, engaging wholeheartedly with a course textbook sets a student up for being able to intelligently participate in discussions with their peers and teachers about the material from a common ground.

That is not to say that textbooks are the “be-all, end-all” origins of knowledge. Quite the contrary, since often the material covered in textbooks is already dated. For example, Edward Titchener famously translated Wilhelm Wundt’s educational textbooks, only for them to be considered outdated by the time the translation was published (Greenwood, 2015). However, the value of educational textbooks cannot be understated. They provide a solid theoretical background that can be built upon, often providing a schema for understanding complex phenomena.

Summary and Concluding Remarks

Higher education students do not seem to be engaging with the reading material of their courses. Several potential explanations for this problematic behavior (i.e., overjustification effect, self-handicapping, and poor self-regulation strategies) have been outlined. Furthermore, I proposed that to alleviate poor reading habits, cognitive strategies such as defensive pessimism, usage of literate circles, self-affirmations, and facilitation of intrinsic motivation could serve to foster positive reading habits. The general assumption of this post is that students are intrinsically motivated to study their chosen subject. This assumption could, of course, be false. Other factors (e.g., socioeconomic, cultural, and social) could undoubtedly affect a student’s willingness to participate in their studies and/or affect their motivation.

One important confounding variable must be addressed: textbooks are expensive. The price of college textbooks is unquestionably a factor that influences students’ willingness to buy them. For example, the average cost of new college textbooks increased by 88% between 2006 and 2016, while inflation only rose about 20% (U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016). One could of course point to the fact that at the same time, e-books have risen in popularity, and perhaps even more so since 2016. Nevertheless, an overview of reading habits among higher education students would be lacking if the seeming price of admission via textbooks would go unmentioned.

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