Socialized Anxiety

795 Words2 Pages

Anxiety is a fundamental emotion that is experienced by all beings, and is often associated with feelings of worry, nervousness, or unease. Socialized anxiety is a type of anxiety that is defined by feelings of tension, which influence behavior. Adolescents, particularly teenagers, are especially prone to socialized anxiety due to the many stressors that typically occur in this stage of life. The correlation between teenagers and social anxiety forms the basis of much research conducted by Allison Davis, an American anthropologist. Davis’ work focused on socialization, the process by which adolescents adapt their behaviour to the norms of the society or culture in which they live. He outlined that social anxiety, in the proper amount, is a …show more content…

In particular, he referenced academic pressures to be a significant cause of social anxiety during adolescence. Based on personal experiences in my school and home environments, I strongly agree with Davis’ theory of socialized anxiety. I believe that this theory accurately reflects the development of adolescents. In my investigation, I was curious to apply socialized anxiety to the pressure students feel to peruse a post-secondary education immediately after completing high school. Therefore, I decided to narrow my focus on girls in their graduating year at St. Mildred’s. I hypothesized that the grads face socialized anxiety due to pressure from their school and home environments to enter university right after completing high school. This, in turn, causes feelings of tension and discomfort in the grads, which motivates them to earn better marks in order to receive acceptance into a post-secondary …show more content…

I found that the data I collected demonstrated the truth of some parts, whereas failed to demonstrate the truth of others. To begin with, the data collected from my interview proved that girls in GY at SMLS experience socialized anxiety due to pressure from their school and home environment to peruse a post-secondary education immediately after high school, with 90% of participants agreeing that they felt this strain. Many stated that they felt they had to live up to the competitive atmosphere at SMLS, meet to their parent’s expectations and follow to “norm” of going to university straight out of high school. Furthermore, the data collected from my interview manifested that girls in GY at SMLS are generally relaxed about earning high marks for university applications, with 70% of participants agreeing that this was not a concern of theirs. Many stated that they already had the appropriate marks for the post-secondary institution of their choice, therefore felt that they did not need to worry. This data disproved the second part of my hypothesis, which supposed that the tension and stress caused by the pressure from school and home environments to go to university would motivate them to earn higher marks in order to receive acceptance to a post-secondary institution. Finally, I asked the participants their opinion on taking a gap year. To my surprise, 100% of participants had a positive response.

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