A Sociological Imagination

A sociological imagination is the way the world around you shapes you. The 2 main things that influence this are history and biography. In the Meyer article, Milgram learned that Germans are not the only group of people that are obedient. In fact, the majority of the people used in his experiment did follow orders even though they felt a rush of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is when your actions do not pair up with your feelings and you are in a state of tension. I think alot of high schoolers experience cognitive dissonance. There are so many new situations in high school that a lot of people do not know how to handle. Peer pressure is all around us. For example, if all your friends are smoking cigarettes and you know they are bad for you but you do it anyone, you feel tension. I believe the reason we sometimes do things we don't agree with is because we want to be accepted. This relates back to a sociological imagination. We have been conditioned from a very young age to do this and do that. If we don't do certain things, like raise our hands when asking a question or stand up during the pledge, we can sometimes feel like we are out of place. The idea of a sociological imagination raises the question of what if we were not conditioned the way we are? How would our lives be different? The year is 2009 but imagine if you had been living during the times of the Great depression or the Vietnam war? How would you and everyone around you be affected? You would be a completely different person. It's interesting to imagine how different my life and my personality would be if my history was changed.

Who am I?

Hey! this is my first blog ever. I've never had a site like this before but I'm excited to try it out. This blog is dedicated to my sociology class and is all about how sociology influences everyday things in our lives. Enjoy :)
Who am I? This is a question that can't really be fully answered yet. Each year through high school I think that i have grown as a person and i think that will only continue as i move on to college. My parents and my brother have definitely been a huge influence on the person I am becoming. I have learned from their mistakes and seen it's important to make mistakes to grow as a person in life. My dad has been a huge influence on me. He is the hardest worker i know and will do anything in order to support his family. He is one of the reasons that i have been so motivated to do well in school. After graduation, I plan on attending a 4 year university and majoring in either nursing or psychology. When i'm older i want to be able to help people and make a difference in someone's life. Thats why i think becoming a nurse or psychologist would be ideal for me because both are very people-person jobs.
Silence can definitely be an awkward situation. I have experienced this many times. It is something that i feel just naturally occurs and in order to break the tension you feel like you need to spark up a new conversation. I can't really explain why i think that its awkward. Maybe its because when no one is talking you are always wondering what someone else is thinking about. I do think people just fill the air with words because they don't know what else to do. Because people feel the need to always be saying something, i feel like that does affect our ability to become better listeners. If people weren't so caught up in thinking things were "awkward" they would be more likely to absorb the conversation that they were having. I think everyone could afford to become a better listener. Sometimes all you want is someone to listen to you. You don't always need feedback; you just need someone to be there for you.