Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, a podcast from the American Psychological Association.

I'm your host, Caitlin Luna. I'm joined by APA CEO Arthur C. Evans Jr., who's here to talk about

our Stress in America report that was released at the end of October, and the findings are quite

stark. Sixty-nine percent of American adults report significant stress about

our nation's future, and it's not just them. Teens and young adults in Generation Z are also

reporting significant stress about issues like mass shootings, school shootings, sexual assault,

and news headline issues like immigration. Welcome, Dr. Evans. Thank you. Glad to be here.

There's a lot happening in the country

and the world right now and it's clearly affecting the health for young people. What is the state of

the mental health of our young people today in Generation Z? Well, what our survey found is that

young people are experiencing a significant amount of stress and it's related to a number of things

that are happening in our society.

While young people are not, and we refer to them as Generation Z, that's the age group between

15 and 21, while they're not experiencing different stressors, they are experiencing those

stressors at a greater intensity than the rest of the population.

So we're concerned about that.

And we're also concerned that when we ask about their mental health and the state of their mental health,

young people, that age groups, actually say that their mental health is fair or poor at a greater rate than other generations.

And so what are some of the unique stressors that this generation faces today?

One of the things that we're concerned about is that while Generation Z is experiencing the

same things as older generations, they are not as equipped to deal with that. First of all,

from a developmental standpoint, you know, our executive functioning, the part of the brain that controls

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