Society's Pressures

Killa App

2009-05-05T18:38:00.000-07:00

I have found the most perfect online tool for the topic of this blog: PsychWidget. PsychWidget was created by the Social Psychology Network organization (SocialPsychology.org) and was funded by the National Science Foundation. It is designed for psychologists, students, teachers, faculties, and others who are interested in psychology. PsychWidget is a very useful tool for psychology-related topics, especially social psychology. Although it includes a wide variety of psychology-related topics, its emphasis is mainly on social psychology. This is helpful to this blog because our topic can also fall under a variety of different categories although it mainly falls under social psychology as well.

PsychWidget features a search box for psychology news stories and even includes the latest psychology-related headlines from all around the world. It also features a search box for psychology web links and allows you to do advanced search on your topic. PsychWidget provides forums for student discussions, professional discussions, job postings, adding website links, and sending e-mail messages through the listservs of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, and the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. PsychWidget provides a directory where you can search for Social Psychology Network profiles, or you can choose to specifically search for Social Psychology Network mentors or media contacts. You can even use the GeoSearch Profiles to locate them by regions. You can also browse through certain topics such as attitudes, attributions, emotion, gender, and culture/ethnicity.

PsychWidget displays icons with links to the main Social Psychology Network website and other websites that are owned by or partnered with the organization:

*Society for Personality and Social Psychology – Seeks to expand the interest and research in personality and social psychology by providing information, journal articles, links, and a search engine and by promoting membership to the society. The organization also offers funding and educational programs to people interested in studying personality or social psychology. As a member, you can communicate with other members through bulletins, announcements, and discussion boards.

*Society of Experimental Social Psychology – Seeks to advance the research and experiments in social psychology by providing information and a search engine and by promoting membership to the society. As a member, you are given access to the organization’s journal articles.

*Understanding Prejudice – Seeks to help others understand the causes and consequences of prejudice by providing links to prejudice-related resources, searchable databases to prejudice-related topics, and interactive exercises online on prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination.

*eInterview - Conducts web-based interviews that can change questions, response options, and wordings based on previous answers to the questions.

*Research Randomizer – Generates random sampling and random assignments for trials, surveys, experiments, etc.

*Stanford Prison Experiment – Gives information about the Stanford Prison Experiment. Provides a slide show on the experiment, a discussion board for the experiment, and links related to the experiment. It even sells the experiment on DVD.

*Jigsaw Classroom – Advocates the Jigsaw Classroom, a technique that reduces racial conflicts amongst young students while increasing cooperative learning.

*Joe Chemo – Educates about the causes and consequences of smoking.

Usefulness of PsychWidget

PsychWidget is a very useful tool for the readers of this blog. It provides a resource for psychology-related topics, particularly social psychology. It places an emphasis on social psychology while still providing a wide variety of other psychology-related topics. This is helpful because although our topic mainly falls under the category of social psychology, it can also fall under a variety of other different psychology categories as well. By using PsychWidget, you can specifically search for social psychology topics while still being able to broaden and expand your search to the general aspect of psychology.

PsychWidget features a search box for psychology news stories and even includes the latest psychology-related headlines from all around the world. You are constantly updated with the most recent news and you can also search for certain news stories. PsychWidget also features a search box for psychology web links and allows you to do advanced search on your topic. PsychWidget provides forums so you can communicate with other students or professionals about psychology or about topics related to psychology. It also provides forums for job postings, sharing website links, and sending e-mail messages through the listservs of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, and the Society of Experimental Social Psychology to get information. PsychWidget provides a directory where you can search for Social Psychology Network profiles, or you can choose to specifically search for Social Psychology Network mentors or media contacts. You can even use the GeoSearch Profiles to locate them by regions. You can also browse through certain topics such as attitudes, emotion, and culture/ethnicity. PsychWidget also provides links to a couple useful Social Psychology websites.

PsychWidget Part 2

PsychWidget is a somewhat popular tool. Since its release on August 13, 2008, there have been 14,592 downloads. Its first version was updated to Version 2.0 on March 18, 2009, with faster search engine results, more information about partner sites, and a retractable slide-out panel. It was updated again to Version 2.1 on March 28, 2009.

PsychWidget has been getting fairly good ratings. Its average rating is four stars out of five. Although there have not been many reviews, all the reviews that it has received are very good reviews. Many users comment that it is a very cool widget and that it is a useful tool. They also comment that it works fine. One user even said that it was fun. According to the Yahoo! Widgets users, PsychWidget falls under the fun category (versus the categories beautiful and useful). I think it could also fall under the category useful too because it provides you with information as well as resources to more information. The only limitation with PsychWidget is that it places a great emphasis on social psychology and might not include as much information about other aspects of psychology as you might want or need. Although it does include other aspects of psychology, its main emphasis is on social psychology. So, you would only find this widget useful if you generally want information about social psychology or topics related to social psychology.

When you type your topic into the news search engine in the widget, it directs you to the Social Psychology Network website with your headline search results. You can choose to either have all the results displayed or to only display results from the past year, the past month, or the past week. When you type your topic into the Social Psychology Network search engine in the widget, it directs you to the Social Psychology Network website with your Social Psychology Network search results. You can choose to either have all the results displayed or to only display publications (you can choose to display all the publications or only books, only journals, only articles, or only others), people (you can choose to display all the people or only Social Psychology Network profiles, only Social Psychology Network mentors, or only Media contacts), and other (you can choose to display all the other results or only courses, only organizations, or only miscellaneous). You can also do advanced search to narrow or specify your results.

When you click on the forum button in the widget, it directs you to the Social Psychology Network website that provides you with either student discussions or professional discussions. In these discussions, you can choose a discussion topic you want to discuss about. You can also post or look for jobs that are hiring under Job Postings. Also, you can add and share website links under Add-a Link. When you click on the directory, it directs you to the Social Psychology Network website where you can search for Social Psychology Network profiles, or you can choose to specifically search for Social Psychology Network mentors or media contacts. You can even use the GeoSearch Profiles to locate them by regions. You can also browse through certain topics such as attributions, emotion, and gender.

Portfolio (Paper #1)

2009-05-04T16:47:00.000-07:00

Hello

Hi! I am an aspiring psychologist who is naturally inclined to the field of psychology, especially social psychology. I am interested in people’s thoughts and behaviors and why they think and behave the way they do. My blog might not be as bizarre and absurd as some of Sigmund Freud’s theories (although I must say that his theories, no matter how bizarre and absurd they seem, are highly valid). Do not psych yourself out. I will not be blogging about how your behaviors are driven by your libido (your sexual impulses), nor will I be blogging about how you are unconsciously jealous of your same-sexed parent because he/she is taking away the attention of your opposite-sexed parent that would have otherwise been given to you.

I will be blogging about society’s pressures on people and how those pressures affect the way people think and behave. I will be blogging about the different pressures that society puts on an individual: the pressure to be good-looking, the pressure to be successful, the pressure to get married, etc. It interests me how society’s pressures affect us: the way we think, the way we behave, the way we live. We judge what we should be and what our lives should be like based on what society thinks. As much as we would like to think otherwise, we, in a way, conform to society’s pressures. Ironically, though, we do not realize that we individually make up this society. So, in a way, it is not only society’s pressures on us but it is also the pressures we put on ourselves and the pressures we put on others.

I am interested in this topic because I feel like everyone, including myself, gets overwhelmed with society’s pressures from time to time. As a young adult, I have been faced with many societal pressures such as the pressure to obtain higher education, the pressure to dress well, and the pressure to know what I want to do with my life, to name a few. Sometimes we do not realize that everyone else faces the same societal pressures as we do. We are all affected by societal pressures. These societal pressures cause us to think and behave a certain way, whether we realize it or not. I, for instance, might not be studying as hard in school, go shopping as often, or fixating on my future as much if it were not for the pressures I felt from society.

For the next couple weeks, I will be blogging about how societal pressures affect the way we think and behave. I will be trying to decode the reasons why we think and behave the way we do in response to a societal pressure. I am hoping this will help me and my readers to understand the role of societal pressures in our lives, and how influential it is.

Daddy Dialectic

Daddy Dialectic is a blog about parents of the 21st Century America. Although the blog consists of six contributors, the blog starter and the main contributor is Jeremy Adam Smith. Smith is the senior editor of Greater Good magazine, the author of The Daddy Shift, and the co-editor of The Compassionate Instinct. His essays, articles, and short stories are also in many books and periodicals. He has a son and he used to be a stay-at-home father. He seems to be very passionate about parenting and about expanding knowledge in family and parenthood. Smith has two other blogs that he has worked on: his own blog, Jeremy’s Journal on Media and Democracy and another blog with other team members, Science of the Greater Good. His most recent posts are from Daddy Dialectic, where he blogs every couple days. Some of his interesting posts from Daddy Dialectic include: The Failure of Success, about how different parenting styles have different influences on children’s success, and The Way We Were vs. The Way We Are, about how marriage has transformed from business-based to love-based. Based on the number of comments the blog receives, Daddy Dialectic is not a very popular blog.

Daddy Dialectic does not relate to my topic very much. It consists of a lot of other subjects that are unrelated to my topic. Also, the subjects that do relate to my topic tend to be more focused on society’s expectations of people rather than society’s pressures on people. However, although it does not completely relate to my topic, it still relates to my topic enough to be helpful. For instance, in the post The Failure of Success, Smith talks about how middle-class and upper-class parents are more concerned about their children’s success than working-class parents are. Smith points out that the reason for this is because middle-class and upper-class parents live a lifestyle where success is expected of them and their children. Simply put, we feel pressured to live up to expectations because

“[w]e feel intense pressure to follow the norm around us.”

Daddy Dialectic could be considered a scholarly and academic post. Smith often makes references to books and journal and magazine articles. He also often includes studies and research that have been conducted on the topic he is writing about. In The Failure of Success, Smith made references from Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: the Story of Success and included a study conducted by sociologist Annette Lareau. Smith’s posts are detailed enough to give his audience an understanding of what he is talking about and what he is trying to prove. Daddy Dialectic’s intended audience is "twenty-first-century parents” (or in other words- modern parents), although not all of its topics are limited to parents or parenting. Parents are relevant to Daddy Dialectic because the blog was written by, about, and for them. Daddy Dialectic will give me topics about the different types of societal pressures that parents, wives/husbands, and families face. However, my blog is not going to be limited to only parents, wives/husbands, and families. It will reach out to everyone who feels pressure from society in general, not just to people who feel pressure for the particular roles they hold in society.

Voice Critique

Weight has become such a huge problem in our society today. Eating Disorder Hope is a blog concerning the health of girls and women, particularly their weight. It is written by Jacquelyn Ekern, the founder of Eating Disorder Hope website. Eating Disorder Hope seeks to help girls and women with eating disorders to recover and to adopt healthy eating habits. It encourages eating-disorder victims to seek help and promotes eating-disorder survivors to guide them and to share stories with them. It explains to family and friends of eating-disorder victims how they can help them, such as how to listen to them and how to approach them about the disorder. It also advertises ways that other people can help victims with eating disorders, such as attending fundraising events like benefit concerts and fashion shows.

In Eating Disorder Hope, not only does Ekern seek to help girls and women who have eating disorders, she also seeks to prevent girls and women from getting them. She discusses the causes for eating disorders and their effects on girls and women’s thoughts and behaviors. She blames society’s pressure to be thin for the increasing eating disorder amongst girls and women. She exclaims that girls and women who have eating disorders are misunderstood by society because society blames them for having the disorder when in fact it is society’s fault for putting pressure on them to look a certain way. Due to this misunderstanding, eating-disorder victims lack help and support from society. In Fight Back Against Eating Disorders, Ekern points out that

“shame, stigma, and lack of awareness lead to eating disorders being largely misunderstood.”

For this reason, she felt the need to create the Eating Disorder Hope site to help victims with eating disorders. At times, she is a bit too harsh on society. She completely blames society for the eating disorders amongst girls and women and she accuses society of not being concerned with eating-disorder victims.

Ekern shows a lot of passion for her cause. She has been blogging in Eating Disorder Hope since May 2005 and blogs about once a month. Most of her blog posts are of resources for eating-disorder victims, their family and friends, and potential helpers. She offers resources to give them access to help and knowledge about the disorder, such as websites for information and places for treatment. She also promotes and advertises resources where other people can help eating-disorders victims, such as applying for a job that specializes in treating victims with eating disorders. Ekern shows a great deal of sympathy and compassion for eating-disorder victims, particularly because she had an eating disorder herself. In Hungry For Hope - Restoring Identity: 2009 Remuda Ranch Christian Conference on Eating Disorders, she related herself to other victims of eating disorders, explaining that

“[t]heir identity can feel lost in calories, numbers on the scale and habitual behaviors.”

Through her use of language such as this, she attempts to gain her readers’ sympathy and compassion for eating-disorder victims, which can be a bit overwhelming at times.

Ekern’s goal in Eating Disorder Hope is to gain support for victims with eating disorders. Because she mainly posts resources, her use of language tends to be simple and straightforward and she makes her points obvious. Her posts are really more like announcements rather than typical blog posts. Her post titles are usually the announcements (such as programs and events that are going on) and then her actual posts usually contain descriptions of the announcements (such as when and where the programs and events are being held). She sometimes uses banners as links to her resources. Through her advertisements of programs, events, etc. on her blog, Ekern has maintained enthusiastically supportive of eating-disorder victims by promoting eating disorder awareness for almost four years. Her passion for this cause is quite inspiring.

Society's Pressure for an Intimate Relationship

2009-04-23T14:02:00.000-07:00

For a girl, it is almost like a ritual to sit around and talk and catch up with your girlfriends about each other’s lives. Of all the aspects of our lives, our love life tends to become the main top of our discussions. In my own personal experience, I have sat around countless times, listening to my girlfriends talk about their relationships, or their lack of one. I listen to my girlfriends who are single whine and complain about how lonely they feel due to the fact that they do not have a boyfriend and how much they badly want one. Conversations after conversations and topics after topics, the discussion about our love lives has never seized to be left out from our girl talks.

Society places a lot of pressure on us to have the most perfect life possible. We tend to feel that we should have it all: impressive education, successful career, loving family, supportive friends, and a significant other who we are perfectly compatible with, as well as a fairy-tale ending sealed with an adorable little baby in a carriage. This happens even when I get together with my friends to catch up. My friends would ask me what is new in my life, expecting an exciting story about a new boyfriend or at least a new eye-candy. When my response is that I do not have time for a love life because I am too busy focusing on school, they immediately exclaim that I can have both at the same time. After these conversations, I would start to believe that I should go out and meet new guys who could potentially be my new boyfriend or eye-candy, even though I have no interest in doing so, just so I would not disappoint my friends at our next get-together. Society puts a lot of pressure on us to have all kinds of wonderful relationships, so we seek out intimate relationships in hopes of relieving those expectations.

The American Dream: The Pressure to Succeed?

2009-04-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

In America where life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are greatly and proudly emphasized, every dream is believed to be attainable. It is deeply rooted in the American dream that anything is possible if only you can dream and seek to make those dreams come true. Dreams are believed to be attainable as long as you work hard enough and are motivated enough to reach that goal. With all these opportunities and possibilities, one is encouraged, and even expected, to succeed. If one does not succeed, they are deemed as lazy and non-goal-oriented. So, along with opportunities and possibilities come the pressure to succeed and the pressure to be successful.

Weight is a factor in Infertility

2009-04-16T13:36:00.000-07:00

It is important for teenagers to adopt and maintain healthy eating habits. Teenagers’ unhealthy weights can affect their fertility rate in their adulthood. Teenagers who are underweight or overweight are likely to have fewer children than they normally would if they were normal weight. Abnormal body weight can cause difficulties and complications in reproductions and pregnancies. It is unclear, though, if teenagers with abnormal body weights would have fewer children than teenagers with normal body weights.

In a recently finished study, researchers studied about 1,300 Finnish men and women. The research started in 1980 when the subjects were between the ages of three and eighteen and ended when they reached their adulthood and were reproducing. The research measured their body mass index (BMI) and kept a record of their health. The study showed that adults who were underweight as teenagers had 10 to 16 percent fewer children than adults who were normal weight as teenagers. Also, adults who were overweight as teenagers had 32 to 38 percent fewer children than adults who were normal weight as teenagers.

This study shows that the body weight during teen years can have a major impact on the fertility rate in the adulthood. Even if teenagers who have abnormal body weights eventually manage to have normal body weights as adults, their teen BMI can still decrease their fertility rate. For females, being underweight can break their menstrual cycle. For males, being both underweight and overweight can decrease sperm quality. For both males and females, being overweight can create problems and dysfunctions in the reproductive system.

PsychWidget Part 2

2009-04-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

Usefulness of PsychWidget

2009-04-09T12:00:00.000-07:00

PsychWidget

2009-04-07T11:59:00.000-07:00

PsychWidget displays icons with links to the main Social Psychology Network website and other websites that are owned by or partnered with the organization:

*eInterview - Conducts web-based interviews that can change questions, response options, and wordings based on previous answers to the questions.

*Research Randomizer – Generates random sampling and random assignments for trials, surveys, experiments, etc.

*Jigsaw Classroom – Advocates the Jigsaw Classroom, a technique that reduces racial conflicts amongst young students while increasing cooperative learning.

*Joe Chemo – Educates about the causes and consequences of smoking.

Lit Review for Paper #3

2009-03-31T13:28:00.000-07:00

How would you know you have lived up to society’s expectations and how would you know whether society regards you as successful or not? The answer is: through other people. You rely on other people’s approval. “In order to be successful you have to be acknowledged by somebody else. You need proof and most of the times you need somebody else to tell you that you are a successful human being” (Dragos). The meaning of success is difficult for an individual to figure out because it is defined by society. In order to be successful, society has to think of you as successful. Success is also a comparison between people. For example, if two people were compared to each other (whether they are both successful or both unsuccessful), the more successful one would be considered successful and the less successful one would be considered unsuccessful. One cannot be successful if society does not accept them as successful because society defines what success is. Real success, however, is doing what makes you happy. As Dragos asserts, doing what makes you happy inevitably leads you to success because you want to do it, rather than being forced to do it.

We know that society’s pressure to succeed puts a lot of stress on us. We know that stress causes us to adopt unhealthy habits and lifestyles such as getting only a couple hours of sleep each night, skipping a meal, and putting ourselves down when we do not reach our goal. What we might not know, though, is the extent to which the pressure affects our actions and behaviors. Under pressure to succeed, many students resort to academic dishonesty in order to get good grades in school. Academic dishonesty is the violation of “the submission of work for assessment that has been produced legitimately by the student who will be awarded the grade, and which demonstrates the student's knowledge and understanding of the content or processes being assessed” (de Lambert, Ellen, and Taylor). Such violations include lying, cheating, and plagiarizing. A survey conducted by McCabe in 2001 shows that 72% of high school students admitted to academic dishonesty (Finn and Frone). Another survey conducted by McCabe and Travino in 1993 shows that 78% of undergraduate college students admitted to academic dishonesty (Finn and Frone).

The purpose of school is education. School is supposed to be an institution that provides us with the skill and knowledge that would be useful in our lives. Today, however, school is deemed nothing more than a prerequisite to our career. We no longer value school for the sake of learning. We only find it significant because we believe it is a requirement to a successful future.

“People don’t go to school to learn. They go to get good grades which brings them to college, which brings them the high-paying job, which brings them to happiness, so they think. But basically, grades is where it’s at” (D. Pope).

We take the opportunity to learn and to be educated for granted. We also take the opportunity to succeed for granted. We no longer see success as a privilege that we have to earn and work hard for. We now view success as an expectation that we must fulfill. We do not appreciate success anymore because we expect it. When we do not succeed, on the other hand, we become frustrated because we believe we did not get what we deserved.

Implications of My Argument

2009-03-26T13:49:00.000-07:00

Society puts a lot of pressure on us to become successful. It pushes us to do well in school, get accepted to good colleges, and have a great career. These are believed to be the stepping stones to becoming successful. Society believes that being successful will lead us to a lot of money and power and inevitably ultimate happiness.

‘Doing well in school,’ ‘good colleges,’ and ‘a great career’ are all terms defined by society. Society judges what a good grade is, what a good college is, and what a great career is. Society ultimately decides what being successful constitutes. This is where the pressure comes from. We all want to be deemed as successful. Being successful is held by society as a worthy quality, and we obviously all want to feel like we are worthy to society. In order to do so, we feel we have to live up to society’s expectations of what being successful is. We feel the pressure to get at least a 4.0 gpa in high school, to get accepted to all the colleges we apply to, and to have a career that society appreciates and respects, such as being a CEO, a doctor, or a politician.

Yes, society seems to have it all figured out for us. What society does not seem to realize, though, is that the pressure it puts on us to become successful has also created a strain on us. It has led us to adopt unhealthy habits and lifestyles. We focus so much on becoming successful that we disregard our mental and physical health, such as working so hard that we do not allow ourselves to get enough sleep or putting ourselves down when the outcome is not what we want or expect.

The Pressure on Parents to Have Successful Children

2009-03-24T13:10:00.000-07:00

When we discuss the topic about society’s pressure for success, we tend to focus on an individual’s own success. What we do not realize is that people do not only feel the pressure to be successful themselves, they also feel the pressure to have successful children as well. Success is no longer just a goal for oneself. Because one’s children represent one’s genes and/or one’s parenting skill, success has also become a goal for one’s children as well.

If a parent has a very successful career but his/her children fail to also have a successful career as well, he/she is deemed as a bad parent because he/she fails to make use of the resources he/she has in order to guide his/her children down the same path to success. Even if a parent does not have a successful career, he/she is also deemed as a bad parent because he/she lacks the capability to provide the means necessary in order for his/her children to succeed. Society holds the parents responsible for the outcome of their children’s success. If the parents do not have children who are genetically destined for success (for example, let’s just bluntly say that the child is academically stupid), the parents must provide an enhancing environment that would lead their children down the path towards success (such as enrolling them in a good school, helping them with homework, getting them a tutor, etc.). When a parent fails to have successful children, he/she is regarded as a bad parent.

Parents feel intense pressure from society to have successful children. This pressure to be regarded as a good parent, or to not be regarded as a bad parent, causes them to do whatever it takes to make sure their children succeed. They make sure their children study, complete their homework, take college prep classes, participate in extracurricular activities, etc. Parents believe that they must push their children to do all these stuff in order for their children to become successful. What they do not realize is that they are now putting pressure on their children to succeed. They put pressure on their children to do well in school, get accepted to top colleges, have a great career, etc. Although this can be a motivating factor for the children to do well in school (which obviously is not a bad thing), it can also be a stressor that makes them feel like they must live up to society’s standards in order to be good enough.

Parents who have gotten used to the opportunities to succeed may take it for granted. They no longer see success as a great opportunity for their children, but more as an expectation that their children have to fulfill. Parents who have not had the opportunities to succeed may feel the need to prove to society that their children can be just as successful too. Because of this, the children feel the pressure to succeed, not for themselves but for their parents and society’s expectations of what they should do and what they should become.

Topoi

2009-03-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

By applying the Topoi to this topic, we can examine it through different categories:

Contrast - There are two different ways society influences an individual: directly and indirectly. Directly: Society forces or puts pressure on the individual to act and behave a certain way. An example of this is when students study or do homework because their parents tell them that they have to. Indirectly: Society shapes the way an individual thinks in order to get them to act and behave a certain way. In comparison to the last example, it is when students study or do homework because they were told that doing well in school would lead to a great career in the future.

Values: The pressure that society puts on us to be successful can either be a motivator or a stressor. In the practical realm, it intends to serve as a motivator to push people to work hard in order to succeed. In the ethical realm, it serves as a stressor that makes people feel they must live up to expectations in order to be deemed worthy in society.

Cause/Effect: Society’s yearning for perfection caused society to put pressure on people to succeed because being successful is an asset of perfection. This pressure on people affects the way people think and behave because they feel they must act a certain way in order to succeed, such as taking AP courses, applying for grad school, etc.

Change: The pressure to be successful is gradually being exerted to younger and younger students. When I was in high school (which was only three years ago), AP courses were only offered in high school. Now, they are being offered in middle school too. A couple years ago, students did not start interning until they have graduated from college. Now, they are interning as early as their sophomore year in college.

Form/Structure: The superficial problem of the pressure to be successful is the stress it puts on people to do well in school, get accepted to good colleges, have a great career, etc. Its deep problem is the misconception it gives people that they must follow a specific path or they must have a certain career in order to be successful.

Tour of My Pageflake

2009-03-03T13:53:00.000-08:00

Pageflakes is a one stop research spot where you can store your resources for convenient retrieval. You can add search bars, RSS feeds, and bibliographies to your pageflake. Everything you add serves as a flake and is conveniently displayed in a bar on your page. You can label and organize your flakes accordingly. On my page, my flakes include: RSS feeds, active searches, my Zotero bibliography, my Diigo bookmarks, and my Del.ic.ious social bookmarking soul mate (Richardkulisz).

RSS Feeds: My RSS feeds consist of blogs that have been useful to me or blogs that I think will be useful to me in the future. Some RSS feeds contain specific social pressures such as the pressure to be skinny, the pressure to get married, the pressure for higher education, etc. Other RSS feeds contain broader topics such as the pressure to be perfect, the pressure to be a good person, the pressure to be cool. Whichever way, my RSS feeds contain useful information that can either help me on a specific topic or can give me ideas about new topics.

Asma’s Blog gives insights about the pressures that the author and her friends experience, along with her analysis of them. It discusses the pressure to get married, the pressure to be good looking, and the pressure to make a difference in the world in a couple different posts each.

Bradley Krone AP Blog contains blogs that argues against society’s pressure for perfection and society’s pressure for beauty.

Daddy Dialectic concerns how the children in our society are raised nowadays as well as the lifestyle of our modern families. It discusses the pressures we face as parents and as wives and husbands and the pressures we put on our children. More information…

Dating Speech contains posts about the pressure to date, the pressure to get married, and the pressure to not get divorced.

Everyday Sociology provides a list of categories of topics that relate to social pressures such as Popular Culture and Consumption, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change, and Social Psychology. It also analyzes specific pressures and their effects on our thoughts and behaviors. More information…

Happiness is Life’s Journey rambles about the pressures that society puts on people that prevent them from fulfilling complete happiness. More information…

Jayniechip contains an interesting post about society’s pressure to be right-handed.

Mind Readers Dictionary lays out the blogger’s observations of people’s actions and behaviors in given events and situations. It discusses how certain pressures influence people to think and behave in a certain way. More information…

Reflections reports the author’s observations of and experiences with people. Some of the topics he covers are conformity, obedience, and expectations, which are the basis for people giving into societal pressures. More information…

Sociological Stew recounts the author’s encounters with political and societal pressures as well as her discussions with her students about these issues. She explains what people do to cope with these pressures. More information…

Search Flakes: In both the Universal Blog Search and the Universal News Search, the search term is ‘society’s pressures.’ When other search terms such as ‘society pressures’ and ‘social pressures’ are typed into the search bar, the results tend to be about politics. Although ‘society’s pressures’ also resulted in mostly articles about politics as well, it offered the most useful articles on this topic. Some articles that showed up were the pressure to maintain abstinence until marriage and the pressure to stay in a marriage despite unhappiness.

Zotero Bibliography: My bibliography contains annotations for a couple sources. Most of these sources’ annotations (Being Successful, How the Educational Process Puts Pressure on Students, Students Face Mounting Pressure to Succeed, and There’s No Pressure Here!) can be found on this post. Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed-Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students discusses how the American society’s pressure on students to excel in school has caused students’ to adopt unhealthy habits and lifestyles in order to succeed in school. This pressure on students has made them unappreciative of education and the purpose of learning. Student Stress: Effects and Solutions discusses the stress that students face at school and suggests how they can reduce it. Students nowadays are pressured to do well in every aspect of school that it causes them to get stressed out and to adopt an unhealthy lifestyle. Parents and faculties push students so hard toward success and achievement that they do not realize the negative effects they are putting on the students.

Diigo Bookmarks and Del.ic.ious Social Bookmarking Soul Mate: My Diigo bookmarks include blogs and articles that either talks directly about specific social pressures or it relates to the general topic of social pressures. This, in a way, serves in a similar way to my RSS feeds. More information on my Del.ic.ious social bookmarking soul mate (Richardkulisz) can be found on my post.

Society's Pressure to be Successful (Annotations)

2009-02-24T13:21:00.000-08:00

Roua, Dragos F. Being Successful. The Choice of a Personal Path (2008).

Being Successful discusses the definition of success. Dragos states that most people have a difficult time trying to figure out the meaning of success, and asserts that people who try to figure out what success means are probably not enjoying their life. The meaning of success is difficult for an individual to figure out because it is defined by society. In order to be successful, society has to think of you as successful. Success is also a comparison between people. For example, if two people were compared to each other (whether they are both successful or both unsuccessful), the more successful one would be considered successful and the less successful one would be considered unsuccessful. One cannot be successful if society does not accept them as successful because society defines what success is. Real success, however, is doing what makes you happy. As Dragos asserts, doing what makes you happy inevitably leads you to success because you want to do it, rather than being forced to do it.

Z, Leanne. How the Educational Process Puts Pressure on Students. Associated Content (2008).

How the Educational Process Puts Pressure on Students points out that education is a part of life; that we learn throughout our lives. However, LeannZ states, society has “formalized” education. As a result, children are compared to each other and are labeled as “geniuses,” “dumb,” etc. This in turn puts pressure on the “dumb” children to level up to the other children and puts pressure on the “geniuses” to live up to the expectations of becoming successful. However, LeannZ might have overlooked the possibility that this can also help them by encouraging them to work harder. LeannZ claims that instead of encouraging our children to become what they truly want to be, our society puts pressure on them to become someone more successful (ex. magician vs. doctor). So in a sense, she is arguing that “formalized” education merely has a concern for success, and not for the education itself.

Welsh, Meghan. Students Face Mounting Pressure to Succeed. Generation Next (2006).

Students Face Mounting Pressure to Succeed asserts that the life of a typical student is consumed with school, work, and activities that are supposed to prep them for success in the future. Regardless of their goal, students are faced with the pressure to succeed. Welsh claims that students nowadays tend to set unattainable goals for themselves. You can call me one of these typical ambitious students, but I on the other hand believe all goals are attainable; some goals are just more difficult than others. Because students set unattainable goals for themselves, Welsh continues, they get stressed out and they panic. Due to the fear of failure or to the fear of not living up to society’s expectations, students sometimes resort to cheating and plagiarism, which defeats the whole purpose of going to school to get educated. But then again, Welsh adds, students’ goals nowadays is to become successful, not to be educated.

Chartier, Tom. There’s No Pressure Here!. Lew Rockwell (2007).

There’s No Pressure Here! takes an interesting approach on the subject of the pressure to succeed. He approaches the subject from an alternate perspective: the pressure to not fail. Chartier explains that good grades and high SAT scores in high school get us accepted into good colleges, and good colleges open the doors for good careers, which allow us to have successful futures. Because we want the best for our children’s future, we put pressure on them to succeed. However, because good grades and high SAT scores have decreased, we now put pressure on our children to not fail. Although this may be true, Chartier might have overlooked the possibility that some children may face more pressure to succeed since other children are doing poorly. However, whether it is the pressure to succeed or the pressure to not fail, we still put pressure on our children nonetheless. What is the value of success, Chartier asks, if it causes our children to become unhappy adults?

Pope, Denise C. Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed-Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students. Yale University Press (2003).

Clark, Claire H., David C. Spendlove, Neal A. Whitman. Student Stress: Effects and Solutions. Jossey-Bass (1984).