Why Grades Don’t Make Students Happier

There is a huge myth that drives a lot of thinking around education and schools and it is this – that working hard at school and getting good grades is the key to making students happier. It’s built on the broader myth that ‘success’ leads to happiness. I think it’s important that we challenge and deconstruct these myths because they are contributing to the fact that 1. Children are increasingly unhappy with school and 2. Children are increasingly unhappy with their futures (Good Childhood Report, 2024). Below I lay out clearly five interlinked reasons why grades don’t make students happier and start to think about an alternative approach to helping children achieve well academically and be happier.  

1. Diminishing marginal utility 

Ever had a slice of cake that was so delicious that you savoured every crumbly, sweet mouthful? And then someone offers you another slice and, of course, you say “Yes”. But, it never quite tastes as good as that first slice. Well, that is the economic law of diminishing marginal utility in action. Basically, the more you have of something, the less satisfaction you get from each additional unit of it. And this is the first reason why grades don’t make us happier. Let’s say you were struggling in History. You found it really hard to write good essays that got above Cs and Bs. And then you get your first A for an essay. You might be really pleased. Genuinely so. But, then you start to get the knack of history, your essays became more consistent, as do the As you’re getting. The likelihood is, you’ll never feel the same elation you did with that first A because of the law of diminishing utility. 

2. Hedonic Adaptation 

Part of the reason the joy we feel from slices of cake or getting good grades diminishes is because of adaptation or habituation. That is, we become accustomed to that new thing/experience and so our expectations and enjoyment of it wanes. So, the first A that you got in History brought satisfaction but once they became the norm, you got used to As and habituated to them. Habituation is one of the main reasons cited in economics for why money doesn’t have as big an impact on happiness as people think. Once we get a pay rise, for example, there may be a spike in wellbeing initially but then we adapt to our new income, our spending typically increases, and we’re back to where we started before the pay rise. All of this can lead us to being on ‘the hedonic treadmill’ – basically when we’ve adapted to the happiness the grades first brought us, we now need to chase bigger and better things, almost always in the future. When our happiness is tied to extrinsic rewards, constantly in the future, happiness always evades us because we end up on the treadmill – constantly running but not getting anywhere.  

3. Social comparison 

One of our greatest past-times as humans is to compare ourselves to others and this typically makes us unhappier. When I was doing my A-levels, I was predicted an A in English but I got a B in my final exams. I was a bit disappointed but I could still get into the university I wanted to, so I felt OK about it. What made matters worse was, though, was that my good friend, who got Cs and Bs throughout his studies suddenly pulled it out of the bag and got an A in his final exams. Well, blow me down, I found it very hard not to fixate on the fact that I got a B and my mate got an A! There is a lot of research that shows that humans mostly care about what they get (be that money or grades) relative to others. And exams are a zero-sum game. That is, there can only be a finite number of top grades, so there will always be winners and losers and people comparing what they got to others, with many people feeling worse through social comparison.  

4. Prediction errors 

Results from the study by Levine et al

Human beings are prediction machines. We’re constantly predicting what outcomes we’ll get from certain actions and behaviours. The only problem is, we are notoriously bad at predicting how we’ll feel about the future. One really interesting study by Levine et al (2012) compared how happy people would feel if they got better grades than expected, expected grades or lower grades, and then looked at how they actually felt when they got their grades (asking them to rate happiness on a scale of 1 – 10). In short, the study showed people vastly overestimate how happy or disappointed they are when their grades are better or worse than expected. In other words, when our grades are better than expected we are happier but not as much as we expect to be and when our grades are worse, we’re disappointed but not nearly as much as we think we will be. 

5. The Arrival Fallacy 

The biggest prediction error of all may be the ‘arrival fallacy’. It is well documented among elite athletes that achieving big, long-held goals can leave people feeling empty. This is the arrival fallacy in action and it links to habituation and prediction errors. Yale psychology professor, Laurie Santos, explains this beautifully in one of her blogs and she quotes British Olympian Chris Mears who, after achieving his ultimate goal of winning a gold medal, stated:  

“For years I told myself: ‘I’ll be happy when I get this. When I get to this position, I’ll be happy’. And I got it… and I wasn’t.” 

Santos explains there are two main reasons why the arrival fallacy exists. Firstly, humans are notoriously bad at predicting (and overestimating) what will make them happy or unhappy. Secondly, it’s due to opportunity cost. Becoming an Olympic gold medallist or getting straight As at school often comes with a lot of sacrifices and trade-offs. We forgo other things that may have made us happier – our hobbies, socialising, partying, and having more balance in our lives. We pin our happiness on this big, future-focused goal and, when we arrive, it’s no where near as good as we thought it would be. The negative prediction error can be crushing, especially when we’ve pinned a lot of our happiness to that goal. 

What should students, teacher and parents focus on instead? 

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not saying grades don’t matter at all and students should stop caring about how well they do in school. That would be stupid. Grades and qualifications can be a gateway to getting a job we want, for example, and employment is inherently good for our wellbeing. What I am saying is simply this – do not fixate too much on getting good grades. Be aware if you, your parents or your teachers are focusing too much on the end product/goal and pinning too much of your happiness on that achievement. Successful people, who also show high levels of wellbeing, tend to focus more on the process and the journey of learning and achieving. They enjoy the training that goes into working towards winning a medal, or they enjoy the process of studying hard for exams*, and they try to find balance along the way. The grades, trophies or medals at the end are the bonus rather than the whole aim and end of your endeavours. And we could all do well with remembering that. 

*If you enjoyed this blog, I will be writing a follow up on how teachers can help students enjoy the process and journey more so they can get good grades and learn to be happier.    

Laurie Santos – Arrival Fallacy Why Winning A Gold Medal Can Leave You Feeling Sad.