Tagged: psychology

Opinion / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Children / Sociology of Health & Illness

You are what you swallow? Considering the moral implications of psychiatric diagnosis for children

It’s not easy to question things that have been life changing for some people. As more and more people seek or receive psychiatric diagnosis, it becomes a very personal thing to question its validity. When I wrote an opinion piece in 2023 suggesting moral implications associated with increasing psychiatric diagnosis of children, I felt nervous. Nervous of invalidating the experiences of others but also nervous of the implications of questioning medical hegemony without undermining the hard fought for systems of...

Opinion / Science & Technology / Sociology of Health & Illness / Sociology of Media & Communication

How to make sense of the debate on “study drugs”?

“Medicalization“ as a theoretical concept has received much attention in sociology throughout decades and people’s drug use is a social phenomenon investigated from different perspectives in the social and life sciences. Research on “study drugs” is an area where many of these perspectives converge – not only because it prompts us to reconsider the treatment/enhancement distinction. In this article, Stephan Schleim describes how the topic of (allegedly) performance-enhancing drugs has fascinated him since high school. When scholars started discussing this...

Opinion / Science & Technology / Social Movements / Social Change / Social Psychology & Lifecourse

My Happiness Experiment

Last month I wrote about a new method of measuring happiness, or ‘subjective wellbeing’ as sociologists like to describe it, in our daily lives (you can read that post here if you haven’t already). My starting point was that most of us rely on our ‘evaluative self’ at the expense of our ‘experiencing self’. This means that when we are asked if we are ‘happy’ in our lives/job/relationship/location etc  (or if we reflect on this question internally), we too often...

Opinion

"How was your 2015?" and other daft questions

Christmas. Our post-christian festival of gluttony, consumption and indulgence on a (post-) industrial scale. Office parties and festive meals are a time for living in the moment, of justifying a round of sambuccas, or a snog with your work-colleague with a disclaimer of “Oh well, it’s CHRISTMAS!”. You might feel fat, foolish and poorly the next day but for now, hang the consequences. I always think that New Year is a follow-up of a slightly different flavour – best-of-the-year round-ups...

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

"Team Bublé" Part II : Critique is not criticism

[This post is a re-write and expansion on a previous post, that can be found here.] This post comes with an apology, and a part-retraction. My previous post: “Not being on “Team Bublé”: Musicians, Gender and Unspeakable Inequalities” was subjected to great criticism by a good friend of mine, who was at the concert with me. In order to rectify that I have made some edits to the original piece, but wanted to explain them more fully in a follow...

Science & Technology / Social Psychology & Lifecourse

the normative influence of prescription drugs – why do placebos work so well?

Inquiries as to whether many of the drugs that millions of Americans take are any more effective than say, a sugar pill, or any other placebo pill used in clinical trials are on the rise. Sadly, especially with many anti-depressants, it does not seem as though there is any clear evidence that the drugs are more effective than the placebos and this may also be an issue in non-psychotropic drugs. What if a blood pressure medication wasn’t any more helpful...

Opinion

Virtual Conference – 6 days to go

For anyone who has not registered, you can do so for free at https://compassconference.wordpress.com/ and enjoy. – Virtual Delegates Pack – 20% conference discount on EVERY Wiley book! – 60 days free access to over 200 Wiley-Blackwell journals – Win a year’s subscription to a Compass Journal of your choice with post-conference feedback!

Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Sociology of Media & Communication

Ten Years Later: Three Academic Perspectives on the Columbine Massacre

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_lBgaUpmu4] by NickieWild A decade after teenagers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students, one teacher, and wounded 23 at their high school in Colorado, academic writers in different fields still debate the source of their rage. Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters by Langman is a new book offering a psychological evaluation of the incident, which argues that sociocultural factors have been overemphasized. He writes that certain children are predisposed to violence through schizophrenia or...

Sociology of Culture

Selling the Emotional Self

nmccoy1 Critical Theorist Eva Illouz offers a cultural historical revision to our understandings of the relationship between emotions, capitalism, and psychological discourse.  Her conception of emotional capitalism links the fundamental convergence of notions of self in modernity as both subject of emotional exploration and objectified commodity.   A recent article (see below) about how to sell yourself using Internet technology exemplifies the naturalized use of psychological and self-help discourse as a means to understand oneself and to sell oneself in...