Literature Review #5

2. Citation: Becker, Dana. One Nation under Stress: The Trouble with Stress as an Idea. New York:

                       Oxford UP, 2013. Print.

3. Summary: 

Dana Becker explores a different view of stress in her book called One Nation Under Stress. She introduces her book with the idea that the media has put in our heads that stress is something that we all have all the time. All we can do is find ways to cope with stress. This is a concept that has evolved over time, and it has caused panic is people. She believes that is is not worth our time to individually cope with this stress. In her view, it makes a lot more sense to target the source of all the stress, which would be the media and our society as a whole. Her view point is very different from the general view, and I will learn more about it as I continue through her book.

4. Author: 

Dana Becker- Dana Becker has her Ph.D., and she is a professor of Social Work at Bryn Mawr College. Her book is very useful for my paper because her view serves as a counter-argument for my view.

5. Key Terms:

Stressism- This is a term that Becker coined and mentioned at the end of the first chapter of her book. She says that the word describes the current belief that "the tensions of contemporary life are primarily individual lifestyle problems to be solve through managing stress". This term opposes her view that this "stress" needs to be solved through social means.

Medicalization- This is another term mentioned by Becker in the first paragraph of her book. It basically describes how all of the tensions in peoples' lives today are becoming linked to different illnesses. In the end, people are being told that they need medication to fix these tensions.

6. Quotes:

 "The stress concept draws the outside in- and in such a way that we end up believing that we need to change ourselves so that we can adjust to societal conditions, rather than changing the conditions themselves" (3 Becker).

"The stress concept often obscures injustices and inequalities by seducing us into viewing those injustices and inequalities as individual problems" (7 Becker).

"Examining stress brings light to many of our cherished cultural preoccupations and predispositions, exposing existing tensions and inequities related to class and gender; and our increasing dependence on stress to explain our lives has consequences for the way we see ourselves and the world, the way we act, an the world we create as a consequence of that vision and those actions" (18 Becker).

7. Value: 

This material is very valuable for by paper because, as I mentioned early, Becker's view on today's stress is much different from my view on it. Therefore, her work serves as a perfect counter-argument for my paper. I was only able to read the first chapter so far, and it is filled with valuable information. With further reading I am sure I will find even more to include in my paper.

Research Blog #9: Counter-Argument

The argument for my research paper as of now is that stress is individualized. This means that everyone has their own sources of stress, and therefore they need to find individual ways to cope with their stress. In my paper I will discuss why college students are so vulnerable to stress. Millennial college students are faced with increasingly high tuition and therefore a lot more stress to carry than previous college students. This is just one of the factors that cause them stress. I will include in my paper the different ways that Ken Ilgunas, from Walden on Wheels, copes with his stress that stems from student debt. From there, I can introduce my counter-argument, in which I will use Dana Becker's book called One Nation Under Stress: The Trouble With Stress as an Idea as my main source. She expresses the idea that stress is not individualized but it actually stems from the social conditions surrounding us. She believes we should not strive to decrease our own stress, but we should try to stop the overall problem of stress. In her book she states,"The stress concept draws the outside in- and in such a way that we end up believing that we need to change ourselves so that we can adjust to societal conditions, rather than changing the conditions themselves" (3 Becker). Her idea is vey different from what Ilgunas follows, because Ilgunas changes himself in order to reduce stress and Becker feels that is not the solution; it only diverges our attention from the problem at large. I agree with Ilgunas' method of dealing with stress, although maybe not to the extent he took it to, and that is why individualized stress will be emphasized throughout my paper, along with Becker's idea as the counter-argument.

Research Blog #8: Interview

I interviewed my floor mate Nicole for my project. I met her when I moved into my dorm in September, and we became really good friends. I soon learned that she has an anxiety disorder, and she has had a lot of difficulty handling stress in the past. Just as I get stressed from all of the work I need to complete, Nicole does as well but it has a larger impact on her. This is why I decided to interview her. She is the perfect example of a stressed out college student. I learned that she believes that all college students are especially vulnerable to stress due managing all of the work and exams. When I asked her about college stress she responded, "It is a big adjustment from high school. You have to learn how to manage your time and work load properly. No one is telling you what to do anymore." I then asked her about her stress prior to and during college and she responded, "Yes, I have had stress prior to entering college due to my anxiety disorder. I am on medication and learned to cope fairly well with stress. There are good days and bad days." She, also, mentioned that her major is undecided, and this is stressing her out since she does not know what she wants to do with her life. She believes that students majoring in the sciences have a lot more stress than other majors. All of her points made could definitely be made in my final research paper to support my ideas.

Research Blog #7: Case

Case:
The case I will explore in order to illustrate my argument will be Helen Bland's study on stress in the millennial college students. Her study is found in the article called "Stress Tolerance: New Challenges for Millennial College Students". I have used the article for a literary review, as well as for my visual because I believe it contains significant information to answer my research question. My research question is: Why are college students especially vulnerable to stress? The article discusses a study exploring the factors of college life and coping strategies that are associated with high and low stress levels. The study concluded that there are a multitude of factors in college that make students stressed, and these students do not have proficient coping mechanisms, therefore they have low levels of stress tolerance.
All of this information provides answers as to why college students are so vulnerable to stress, and it also allows argument on whether or not college students are vulnerable for these reasons. Other information that might be useful to know to explore this case would be how different groups of people relate to the findings in this study. For example, I could explore whether men or women experience more stress and what factors and coping strategies the two groups have. I actually found an article that explores a topic like this. The article is called "Effective Lifestyle Habits and Coping Strategies for Stress Tolerance Among College Students", and it makes a point that genders and races are faced and deal with stress differently. I'm sure I can find many other articles like this that will help support my case.

Citation:

Welle, Paul D., and Helen M. Graf. "Effective Lifestyle Habits And Coping
           Strategies For Stress Tolerance Among College Students."American Journal Of Health    
           Education 42.2 (2011): 96-105. ERIC. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.

Bland, Helen W., et al. "Stress Tolerance: New Challenges For Millennial College Students." College 
           Student Journal 46.2 (2012): 362-375. Academic Search Premier. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.

Research Blog #6: Visual

The image above is one visual graphic that can illustrate my project. The visual is a chart that was included in a previous article I used for a literary review. The article, called "Stress Tolerance: New Challenges for Millennial College Students", is about a study performed in order to identify habits, as well as coping strategies, that are associated with high and low stress levels in college students today. The chart includes the top ten life events, factors in a college setting, and coping mechanisms that students in the study reported. This is very significant for my project because it shows why college students are so susceptible to stress and the ways in which they deal with it.

Citation: Bland, Helen W.1, et al. "Stress Tolerance: New Challenges For Millennial College 

                          Students." College Student Journal 46.2 (2012): 362-375. OmniFile Full Text Mega 

                          (H.W. Wilson). Web. 1 Apr. 2014.