What are the various causes of stress in today's urban society

Most of us probably have experienced being in stress, from the simplest of things like having to speak in front of the class or rushing to finish your assignment in time. In fact 75% of the general population experiences at least “some stress” every two weeks. Furthermore up to 5 million people in the UK are ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ stressed through work, and can u believe that in Asia Singapore ranks 4^th in stress levels? Just what is causing all this stress in today’s society? Well there are various reasons be it work related, financial problems or even school related.

            First of all how do we define work-related stress? Work-related stress can be defined as an individual’s emotional and physical response to the demands of a job that is incongruent with his or her abilities, resources, or needs (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, No. 99–101). Basically Social work professionals often face challenges or obstacles that may cause them to feel overwhelmed and stressed. (Coyle,Edwards, Hannigan, Fothergill & Burnard, 2005; Fahy, 2007). According to the NASW Membership Workforce Survey about 31% of the participants indicated that the lack of time to do their job is a major issue, about 25% says they are stressed because of the heavy workload they are required to do, around 19% is saying that their salaries are not comparable to colleagues in similar jobs and about 16% says there are overall inadequate compensation plus the issue with dealing with difficult/challenging clients. There are also additional factors such as being expected to work in long hours and having few opportunities for advancement/promotion. Another concern is that according to the Grant Thornton International Business Report (IBR) which covers the opinions of 7,200 privately owned businesses in 32 countries found that 56% of business leaders worldwide feel their stress levels have increased in the last year. This is bad for the society considering it is now proven that being in a stressful working environment, whether caused by individual or situational factors, can lead to health problems and risk of injury. Stress at work not only affects the individual but has also been estimated to cost the American industry more than 100 billion dollars annually in absenteeism, productivity loss and health related expenses (Jacobson, Aldana, Goetzel, Vardell,

Adams & Pietras, 1996; Rosch, 1984).

            Financial stress is another important source of distress in people’s lives because many fundamental activities of daily living and opportunities for success are closely related to current levels of personal financial resources (Peirce, Frone, Russell  & Cooper,  1996).  Financial stress has been referred to by researchers as economic stress, economic hardship, economic strain, and economic pressure.  Economic strain is an evaluation of current financial status such as perceived financial adequacy, financial concerns and worries, adjustments to changes in one’s financial situation, and one’s projected financial situation (Voydanoff, 1984). A question was raised, are financially troubled employees as productive as others? Twenty-seven percent of those responding to a recent survey conducted by the Los Angeles Times characterized their personal finances as shaky. Forty percent reported difficulty paying installment loans, car payments or insurance premiums (Atkinson, 2001). Brown (1993, 1999) reported that at least 10% of employees experience financial problems and bring those issues to work where it affects their productivity. In a study of both civilian and military research, Garman, Leech, and Grable (1996) calculated that 15% of employees in the United States are experiencing personal financial stress to the point that it negatively impacts their job productivity. These statistics proves the statement in which it is widely believed that many personal life stresses,  such as marital, family, illness, and financial, influence an individual’s psychological state and behavior at work (Families and Work Institute, 1997).

            While most of us have experienced being in school, in reality school is the first place in which you would experience stress. From the start during ages 5 to 7 the feeling of being away from home and the fear of wetting themselves can be a factor leading to stress. When you get to primary school there’s the fear of bullies and mixing in with the crowd, from then on there’s the worrying of unfinished assignments which would lead to punishments from teachers and parents. (Youngs, Bettie. B.1995). As they enter colleges and universities there would be even more greater sources of stress such as public examinations, financial responsibilities, making your own decisions and exposure to new people, ideas and temptations. In 2005, the National College Health Assessment (NCHA) surveyed 17,000 college students. Twenty-five percent of the students reported they have "felt so depressed it was difficult to function" three to eight times in the past 12 months. Twenty one percent of the students reported that they "seriously considered suicide." According to the 2005 National Survey of Counseling Center Directors, 154 students committed suicide. It is depressing to think that the second leading cause of death among college students is suicide. (Hardy, 2005).

            From all this stress can be considered a big concern for all of us, however this doesn’t mean that stress is bad for the society. There are stressors which would benefit the person such as stresses caused by rivals or competitors which would make the people contesting thrive even better. This said there is one thing which all of us unconsciously know, stress would never disappear from our lives. (1079 words)

           

References:

1) Healthy People 2000, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

2) Arrington, P. (2008). Stress at work: How do social workers cope?. NASW Membership Workforce Study. Washington, DC: National Association of Social

Workers.

3) Jaffe–Gill, E., Smith, M., Larson, H., & Segal J. (2007). Understanding stress: Signs, symptoms,

causes, and effects.

4) Coyle, D., Edwards, D., Hannigan, B., Fothergill, A., & Burnard, P. (2005). A systematic review of stress among mental health social workers. International Social Work, 48(2), 2001-211.

5) World economic outlook : a survey by the staff of the International Monetary

Fund.  — Washington, DC : International Monetary Fund, 1980–

v. ; 28 cm. — (1981–1984: Occasional paper / International Monetary Fund,

0251-6365). — (1986– : World economic and financial surveys, 0256-6877)

6) Youngs, Bettie. B. (1995) Stress and Your Child: Helping Kids Cope with the Strains and Pressures of Life. New York: Fawcett Columbine.

7) "Stress in Children: Strategies for Parents and Educators," Ellis P.

Copeland, Helping Children at Home and School II: Handouts for Families and

Educators, NASP, 2004.

8) Hardy, M. (2005, 04 12). Statistics on college student stress. Retrieved from http://stress.lovetoknow.com/Statistics_on_College_Student_Stress

How does an individual’s definition of needs and wants influence his/her notion of success?

If you had to give and example of countries where people are happy and satisfied with their life what would be the answer? Successful countries such as USA, Japan, China or maybe somewhere in Europe? Well according to a 2003 World value survey of people in 65 nations was published in the British magazine New Scientist. The survey results show that world's happiest countries with the most satisfied people are Puerto Rico and Mexico, and those with the most optimistic people are Nigeria and Mexico. What does this say about successful countries? The people’s definition of needs and wants are different, since in most cases success brings happiness there are other factors such as their position in social status, materialistic wealth and their own ego which greatly influence his/her concept of success.

 An individual’s social status in society has a significant impact on one’s concept of success. “Hip-hop is more about attaining wealth. People respect success. They respect big. They don't even have to like your music. If you're big enough, people are drawn to you” as quoted by Jay-Z. The norm is that the higher your social status the likelier you are to be successful in life. We can even see a real life example of this happening in India. Apparently in India social status have been strongly reinforced for more than 3000 years and it does affect most areas even today. These carefully ranked inherited divisions of society are known as Castes. The highest status one can achieve is called Brahman, they consists of priests and teachers. The second highest would be the Kshatriya, which are the rulers, warriors and landowners. Third and fourth would be Vaishya and Shudra, which mainly consists of farmers, merchants and laborers. The lowest caste identity are called the Scheduled Castes, these are the poorest people who woks as polluted laborers whose job is sweeping streets, cleaning toilets; etc. As you can see there is a significant difference in occupation in priests and polluted laborers, furthermore they are categorized as the highest and lowest status in a society so this example sort of justifies the norm in which the higher your social status is the more successful you are.

Wealth is something all of us naturally desire, in most cases this will be the key factor for the majority of society in measuring how successful someone is. From Bill gates who has a net worth of somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 billion dollars and owning mansions all over the world, Oprah Winfrey who has her own Television show and is donating her wealth regularly to American citizens, to Mark Zuckerberg who co-invented the ever popular social networking site Facebook, as of 2011 his personal wealth was estimated to be $17.5 billion making him one of the world's youngest billionaires. These people have one thing in common, a form of materialistic wealth in which people consider as being “successful”. Another example would be Singapore which is the richest country in Asia with $62,100 GDP per capita according to http://www.aneki.com/asia_richest.html, this data creates a natural feeling causing people to call Singapore a successful country. All in all there must be some kind of noticeable evidence of material wealth which would naturally influence one’s thinking of it being successful or not.

Last but not least is their own ego, ego referring to a person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance. A characteristic of a person with a huge ego would be “having a strong tendency to talk about themselves in a self-promoting fashion, and they may well be arrogant and boastful with a grandiose sense of their own importance. Their inability to recognize the accomplishments of others leaves them profoundly self-promoting; while sensitivity to criticism may lead on the egotist's part to narcissistic rage at a sense of insult” Kowalski ed., p. 111-121. Most of the time being successful means having a large ego, however this is not true in some cases. Some lower class people are content and happy with their life yet hey still call themselves as being “successful”. For example about a year ago I went to Ngawi village in Surabaya, Indonesia they live on wooden houses and has less than $2 of income everyday but when I talked to them they don’t show any signs of discomfort or dissatisfaction in their life, probably because they are used to it but this means that the greater your wealth is the higher potential for your ego to grow as well. Since there are many things you can do with wealth, but then there are people who don’t need wealth and consider it as a want. These people with a lower ego would be happy being “successful” in their own way.

All of the above explains how social status, materialistic wealth and how a person’s ego influence their concept of success. But then again is being successful enough? As we know humans have a natural desire to want everything and anything they desire, each and everyone’s needs and wants are different this makes being successful unique in each person’s own needs and wants.