The Sociological Approach

6 Pages 1597 Words

The Sociological Approach

Several years ago the New York Times asked several foreign photographers to comment on which one of their captured images is most telling of Americans (Jeffrey, 1993). Observed one about his photograph of an Ernest Hemingway look-alike festival in Key West, Florida: "There is no other country where people so cherish the ability to look like famous people. I could spend the rest of my life photographing look-alike contests as well as ugly baby contests, conventions of twins. Although these are fascinating events, there is a sense of desperation and emptiness in a society that places such a high regard on looking like someone else."
What distinguishes sociological from psychological approaches to self and mind is the focus on the ways in which one person’s “identity” is negotiated with others as well as the environment around them. In this essay I argue that mental illness is a collapse in the face of social environmental stress and the best way to treat this illness is to eliminate or reduce social stressors by encouraging social support as well as teach the affected individual better coping strategies. In part, I also feel as though our peculiar cultural obsession to search for a self we supposedly don’t know involves the extreme individualism of American culture, which is by far one of the largest stressors Americans face today.
The sense of identity is important to both psychology and sociology. Not only does having the sense of self provide one with feelings of free will, but it is also a basis of social control. Consider the expression "I know the type," when referring to a particular person. That statement carries assumption that there are types of selves and that each self can be expected to act in distinctive ways in different types of situations. For children, it can start as early as the first day of elementary school. Kids classify themselves and others into typical “groups...