Literature Review 3

                                                         

Becker, Dana. "Stress: The New Black Death?". One Nation Under Stress: The Trouble With Stress As An Idea. Oxford University Press. New York, NY. 2013. 1-18.

Becker, Dana. "Getting and Spending: The Wear and Tear of Modern Life". One Nation Under Stress: The Trouble With Stress As An Idea. Oxford University Press. New York, NY. 2013. 18-48.

Dana Becker is a professor of social work at Bryn Mawr College. She recieved her graduate education in Social Work at Bryn Mawr College and has done extensive research on the concept of stress. Her previous work examines the various relationships between mental health and social conditions in the United States. Due to her extensive exposure to the topic of stress, Becker should provide an authoritative voice as to how stress has become such a prominent aspect of American life that it has become salient in virtually all situations as well as ways to create alternatives to reduce the prevalence of stress among individuals.

The first two chapters of Dana Becker's book are what I will examine here. She begins the book by citing numerous effects the concept of stress may have on our mental and physical health, stating that our current society has been "elevating stress to the status of an actual disease" (Becker 3). She terms this concept the medicalization of stress whereby a social phenomenon is transformed into a disease. This is an important concept to consider when thinking about the widespread nature of stress in America, because the health care sector has transformed the idea of stress into a money-making industry which perpetuates a desire for stress alleviation which Foucault classifies as "technologies of the self," or strategies used to attain a particular state of happiness (Becker 5). Similarly, Becker notes that the solutions available to Americans to cope with stress are middle-class solution middle-class problems. She clarifies this when she states, "The achievement of a 'healthy lifestyle' requires more than individual 'healthy choices.' When the stressor is poverty, we need to reckon with inequalities that make the universal attainment of a healthy lifestyle so exclusive" (Becker 13). She further illuminates the effects of the American obsession with mental health when she claims that stress has the ability to "produce people who can act and think about themselves in certain ways" (Becker 5). She validates this with a discussion of Type A personalities and the physical ramification this obsessive personality type has on individuals, such as heart attack, stroke, and high blood pressure. But Becker claims that this Type A personality is harmful for the individuals, but even more harmful for society as a whole. "Type A was the first of may attempts to quantify the social and psychological nature of our society in terms of the individual" (Becker 44). This exemplifies the vicious cycle that Americans remain trapped in as stress is produced by social and societal factors, yet is only treatable on the individual level.

Dana Becker's book will be explicitly helpful in my research as it provides a mode of analyses that contrasts sharply with many of my other sources. Because many other scholars on the topic of stress offer solutions which Becker explicitly refutes throughout her research, her book will be helpful in understanding why the solutions that have been proposed thus far are not working.

Research Blog 5: Working Bibliography

References:

Avard, Stephen, et al. “The Financial Knowledge of College Freshmen.” College Student Journal 39.2 (2005): 321-339. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.

Becker, Dana. One Nation Under Stress: The Trouble With Stress As An Idea. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Print.

Default: The Student Loan Documentary. Dir. Aurora Meneghello. Perf. Anya Kamenetz, Carmen Berkeley, Alan Collinge, Robert Applebaum. Krotala Films, 2011. Film.

Lewin, Tamar. “Record Level of Stress Found in College Freshmen.” The New York Times     26 Jan. 2011, sec. Education: 1-3 The New York Times. Web. 7 Mar. 2014.

Pedersen, Daphne E. "Stress Carry-Over And College Student Health Outcomes." College Student Journal 46.3 (2012): 620-627. ERIC. Web. 4 Mar. 2014.

Research Blog 4: Research Proposal

Research Proposal

Topic:

College students at today’s higher education institutions are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress. Not only are students faced with situational changes and shifts in personal responsibility when they enter college, but also worries about their ability to effectively pay back student loans and guarantee themselves a job when they enter the vicious job market. These heightened expectations have led to stressed and depressed students who rely on prescribed medications even before they enter college (Lewin 2011). Unlike America’s Golden Age when pursing a college degree would only catapult a student towards the American Dream, twenty-something’s of 2014 are all but required to earn a Bachelor’s Degree if they want a career and a successful life.

Research Question:

The overwhelming presence of stress among college students suggests an absence of a solution to this mounting problem. In his New York Times article Record Level of Stress Found in College Freshmen, Tamar Lewin suggests that, “Often people think they are the only ones having trouble” (Lewin 2011). This sentiment is echoed throughout much of the literature available on the topic of stress in students particularly in relation to financial stress. Similarly, the film Default: The Student Loan Documentary highlights the situations of several loan borrowers buried in massive amounts of debt without the resources to dig themselves out. One borrower, Matt, attended NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and left his undergraduate education $200,000+ dollars in debt which threatened not only his financial security but also his emotional health and relationships. However some scholars believe that financial stress is a social problem deriving from a lack of financial preparedness in high school. A study conducted by Stephen Avard found that the overwhelming majority of graduating high school seniors were unprepared to deal with the finances they would encounter in college and he suggests that financial education in high school would lessen the problem of financial stress in college students. (Avard et. al. 1). Dana Becker also supports the idea of stress as a social problem when she explains, “The stress concept often obscures injustices and inequalities by seducing us into viewing those injustices and inequalities as individual problems” (Becker 7). So far, many of the solutions to the problem of stress in students have focused on coping for the individual instead of considering the role of privatization in creating a much broader social health problem. Throughout my research I seek to answer the question: How is stress as a social problem individualized among college students?

Theoretical Framework:

The very title of Dana Becker’s book One Nation Under Stress: The Problem With Stress As An Idea provides an interesting framework for analyzing the problem of individualized student stress as it suggests that 1) stress is a problem and 2) that stress is not concrete unavoidable fact but an idea which can be perceived differently by different people. I particularly plan to utilize this framework when comparing the contrasting viewpoints of stress as individual deficit versus stress as a social problem. Author Daphne Pedersen also examines stress in students as it affects multiple aspects of everyday life which she defines as stress carry-over (Pedersen 621). This concept refers to the idea that stress in one area of an individual’s life can adversely affect other aspects of an individual’s life. As mentioned earlier, students do not often realize they are not alone in their struggle with stress which in turns leads to alternate manifestations of stress within the individual. The concept of stress carry-over will be useful in analyzing the ways in which stress manifests in the individual who does not share the difficulties of their struggle with others.

Research Plan and Additional Questions:

I will begin my research with an analysis of the ways privatization broadly affects the college experience and mental health. This progression will lend itself to a discussion of stress in college students and the different types of stress that students experience. I then plan to introduce the frame works with which I will answer my research question, and employ them in an analysis of how stress manifests itself and morphs within the individual.

            Several other questions which lend themselves to a discussion of stress in college students are: When does stress first develop in students? Does social interaction have an effect on an individual’s stress level? Which types of stress seem to have the greatest effect on an individual’s everyday life? How is stress treated as a social problem? Is stress treated as a social problem?  How is stress commodified? How do scholars suggest dealing with this increasingly prominent phenomenon?

Literature Review 2

                                            

Daphne E. Petersen is an associate professor currently teaching at the University of North Dakota with a Ph.D. in Social Psychology and the Psychology of Health. Her extensive psychology background will be useful in analyzing the underlying mental health effects of privatization in college students.


Pedersen, Daphne E. "Stress Carry-Over And College Student Health Outcomes." College Student Journal 46.3 (2012): 620-627. ERIC. Web. 4 Mar. 2014.


Pedersen's article "Stress Carry-Over And College Student Health Outcomes" examines the way that one stressor may be transferred to other aspects of that individuals life. She states that "the transition from adolescence to emerging adulthood is a time of great change, and often, of great stress," (Pedersen 620) and cites multiple areas of stress in a students life, workload, social obligations, and family relations. However, and important and reoccuring theme that Pedersen addresses in the beginning of her article is the "subjective" nature of stress (Pedersen 620). For each person stress comes from different outlets and is experienced in very different ways. The particular framework of the article is of stress "carry-over" where "the experience of stress may spill from one domain or role to another, one person to another, or across stages of life" (Pederson 621). This has been evidenced in the case study provided by Hamilton and Armstrong in their analysis of dorm resident, Alana, and appears across much literature available on student stress. 

This article further expands the "carry-over" framework by distinguishing two specific categories of carry-over: school-spill over and family-spill over (Pedersen 623). School spill-over involves the inability to maintain an even balance between school and other aspects of life. Some students may feel that they can not have a social life due to the capacity of their school work-load, or may feel that they are unable to maintain family ties due to the same reason. Similarly, family spill-over refers to the idea that one is not able to reach their full academic and/or social potential because of family interference. Both of these ideas refer back to concepts discussed in some of my other sources, but which do not have a term for this phenomenon. This article will be useful in contextualizing several articles from the New York Times which cite examples of stress in multiple areas of a students life but which do not give a framework with which to contextualize this phenomenon. 

Literature Review 1

 Davis, C.G., & Manter J. (2004). The consequences of financial stress for individuals, families and society. Accessed 2 March 2014, from http://www.pfeef.org/research/edf/Consequences-fin-stress-for-Individuals-Families-and-Society.pdf

Author Christopher Davis offers interesting insight into the topic of financial stress with a strong background in cognitive and emotional adaptations which should offer insight into the coping mechanisms of individuals struggling with this stress. 

As the title suggests, this article discusses mental, emotional and physical implications of financial stress in the context of the individual as well as other far reaching consequences of financial strain. The article begins with an explanation of financial stress as the author defines it: "the subjective, unpleasant feeling that one is unable to meet financial demands, afford the necessities of life and have sufficient funds to make ends meet" (Davis & Manter 6). Financial stress is precipitated by a stressor (a force coming from internally or the outside world which which causes stress (Davis & Manter 11)) and is a major cause of anxiety and depression in individuals, and by extension relationship strain among individuals and their families. It was observed that individuals suffering from financial stress "often became less socially competent" (Davis & Manter 28) much as well discussed through Armstrong and Hamilton. But while the effects of financial stress may begin as mental manifestations of depression and anxiety, authors Davis and Manter cite "the effect of financial distress on physical health was attributed to the effect of financial stress on mental health" (Davis & Manter 7). But to better manage stress, it is believed that a strong sense of personal mastery, a belief that one can manage stressful situations, is of paramount importance. It is later discussed that financial insecurity in parents has the ability to affect their children's economic outlook. They state, "As parents became pessimistic about their economic outlook, their children came to expect that they will not be able to find a good job in the future" (Davis & Manter 29). This is particularly important to consider in the context of higher education privatization, as we see increasing numbers of college graduates unsure of their future once they graduate and their parents worrying about how they will be able to pay back their child's student loans. 

This article will be useful to me in my research as it offers a substantial framework for not only the implications that financial stress has on an individual, but then how that stress individual affects others around them. The links that this article makes to physical health, life outlook, and social competency are recurrent themes through college stress literature and will provide a useful framework for other articles in my research.