An Army One Me Analysis

The Westerners tried to change a whole culture’s point of view on illness simply for the purpose of selling their drug. Although, “cultural beliefs about depression and the self are malleable and responsive to messages that can be exported from one culture to another,” that does not mean that it will not have negative outcomes(519). Changing the culture’s idea of depression severely affects the people suffering from that disease, even though the marketing team did not think of that. The drug would change how Japan views depression for a long time. “Cultural conceptions surrounding illnesses such as depression could be influenced and shifted over time.”(519)There are going to be patients that will be confused because they do not fit into the Western idea of depression, or if the drug does not work for them. Medication that does not work can cause those patients to believe that something is wrong with them, not the drug or the ideology. “By applying a one-fits-all notion of depression around the world, Kirmayer argued, we run the risk of obscuring the social meaning and response the experience might be indicating”(518). This could lead to an even higher concentration of depression and a higher concentration of patients keeping it to themselves in the fear of being different. Another issue with advertising is that they are not considerate and make the patients feel worse. For example, Watters recounts on how the company tried to relate

Begley argues that although everyone’s goal in life is to be happy, “too much happiness might not be such a good thing” (555). Begley believes that happiness is overrated and the media is forcing people to be happy against their will. For example, the media forces people to be happy against their will by advertising their self-help books, magazine articles and motivational speakers. The media also promotes the pharmaceutical companies that claim they are “working on a new drug to make [people] happier” (556). Begley also states that research has concluded “that being happier is not always better” and “the

The purpose of the lecture is to encourage people to understand the true phycology of happiness. Most people do not understand the way of thinking or how the brain works. Dan Gilbert states the understanding of thought as an unknown bias because of the “psychological immune system”(4:30) making humans have a preconceived notion about happiness. People subconsciously divide happiness in to two categories: natural happiness and synthetic happiness. Natural happiness occurs in the brain when someone gets what they want.

One can be happy because they won the lottery, or one can be happy simply because someone smiled at them. Happiness is not hard to acquire, but establishing a consistent and enduring happiness in one’s life is almost impossible if one does not have a strong mental foundation built by a sense of self-fulfillment and independence. Modern society openly ridicules any form of self-content. It is filled with ever-changing advertisements for new ways to become happy quickly. Modern society has essentially spread a narcotic-like addiction to fads; overloading our brain with spikes of serotonin then leaving us in a state of withdrawal. In this society, one is no longer allowed to simply achieve set goals and live the rest of their life in peace; they must evolve, or they will be left behind. Society power and influence is growing at such a rapid rate that there will be a point where no human

Self-esteem is essentially how you feel about yourself and how you judge your value. It is a state of mind that can be changed. These days many people are having low self-esteem issues. In this article by Amee LaTour, she has talked about what are the causes of low self-esteem. She presents her points in the form of an article. This paper will review Amee LaTour’s arguments and will assess the quality of her writing and concentrate on any zones of shortcomings in this article.

To be depressed and joyless is just insupportable in today's society, happiness is becoming an argument in today's world. The article, “Happiness: Enough Already” by Sharon Begley, is to inform people that everyone undervalues the state of being happy; instead, they wanna push away the natural process of healing from melancholia. I believe this article can be directed to anybody who has suffered a maximum of happiness and sadness at least once, which almost every human being has or will experience once in their lifetime. The author makes valid statements throughout the article, an example would be everyone does not want to acknowledge that they are depressed, they either wanna “pop” a pill and forget about it or emotionally try to forget about it by just showing happy expressions. Even though everyone wants to have maximum happiness all the time, being depressed or heart

Low self-esteem has been an issues with many people since before the 1970’s. This issue has gradually picked up since the 70’s and has progressed 37% in the last 200

In the essay “The Trouble with Self-Esteem”, Lauren Slater is arguing that the theory of self-esteem should be banned. Slater states that “People with High Self-Esteem pose a greater threat to those around them than people with low Self-esteem”. Humans with low self-esteem humble themselves more and work harder to be noticed and to maintain the status quo of society. Slater stated that humans with high self-esteem were dangerous and posed a threat. Slater discuses facilities that could assist with humans who cope with self-esteem issues.

Sometimes companies try to change culturally believes in order to be able to place their product in the market. Pharmaceuticals benefit from the way society sees certain diseases. In “Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan,” Ethan Watters presents the difference between depression in Japanese culture and depression in American culture. He explores how some of the big pharmaceutical companies try to bring their products for depression into the Japanese market, but to do that they have to change the way people see depression in Japan. Watters divided his essay into different categories which are: “The Culture of Sadness”, “Junk Science and First World Medicine”, “Mega-Marketing of Depression” and “Speeding the Evolution”. In “The Culture of Sadness” he explains how different cultures express the way they feel in different ways. There is not a specific word on The Japanese language that means exactly the same as depression in English, which means that there is not the same context for the experiences of the disease. In the rest of the sections of his essay, Watters presents how certain pharmaceutical companies started to advertise depression in Japan by manipulating the researchers and media about depression and the Western solutions to it. Cultural beliefs about disease usually have a lot to do with the way people describe who they feel and what symptoms they have, but economic reasons push people to try to manipulate them; the result of these is that the cultural, scientific

Everyone enjoys happiness. Sure, we exude it a multitude of ways, but overall, everyone loves to be happy. For the majority of our world’s past, people have experienced this emotion through doing activities that make them happy, such as watching a comedy show, exercising, or listening to music. In the more recent decades, however, “happiness pills”, more commonly known as “antidepressants”, have been the substitute for how to feel this emotion. They are prescribed to patients who have been diagnosed with depression in hopes that taking the pill will stop the depression and fill the mind with feelings related to positivity. What researchers have begun to notice though is that sometimes it’s more in the patients head than they think. Because of this observation, placebo pills were introduced as a way to distinguish if antidepressants are truly beneficial for a patient or if the power of positive thinking is enough. One article titled, “Prescriptions for Happiness”, uses the question, “how much greater is the recovery of those taking an active drug as compared to those taking the inactive placebo” as a thesis for their research, and in doing so, they make a few surprising observations.

The concept of self esteem is widespread in life. When it comes to academics and extracurricular actives people associate high self esteem is necessary for success. Society makes promoting self esteem an important goal. With that in mind, it is surprising that only recently scientific literature began providing insight into the nature of development of self esteem.

Narcissism – the American way of thinking and we don't have to look far to find it. Todays celebrities flaunt their oversized egos and “too hot for you” bodies. Access Hollywood thrives on potential celebrity truths and gossip magazines. Society operate under the pleasure principle, accepting nothing less that what we deserve. We buy houses on easy credit with an APR of 18% or higher. Facebook has become a way of expressing ourselves. Clothing has become optional and we question how we got here? Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, authors of The Narcissism Epidemic, have compiled enticing and compelling evidence for the development of culturally accepted narcissism. According to the two, there are more narcissists than ever; even non–narcissistic people are being seduced by cultural emphasis on material wealth, physical appearance, and celebrity gossip (Twenge & Campbell, 2009, pp. 1–2). Standards have shifted, trapping otherwise humble people into believing societies standards for success. Twenge and Campbell’s book was designed as a wake–up call. The two authors work together to uncover the truth behind societal narcissism, while revealing its long–term consequences.

Brummelman, Thomaes, and Sedikides (2015) conducted a systematic review to define narcissism and self-esteem separately and stressed the idea they are not the same trait. Narcissism was defined as a feeling of superiority over others, while self-esteem was defined as feeling worthy, but not necessarily better than others (Brummelman et al., 2015). In another study by Campbell, Rudich, and Sedikides (2002) narcissists and high self-esteem individuals were shown to have positive, yet unique self-views. As supported by other research in the literature, this study found narcissists wished to be admired, while high self-esteem individuals wished to be popular and well-liked by others (Campbell, Rudich, & Sedikides, 2002). These findings suggested narcissism was not simply high self-esteem, as the two traits differ in their presentation. Individuals who are narcissistic often have a preoccupation with self-appearance and vanity, which may be a result of low self-esteem (Lipowska & Lipowski,

Humans have a fundamental tendency to seek positive information of themselves, namely engage in self-enhancing (Sedikides, 1993; Swann, Pelham, & Krull, 1989). However, individuals are also motivated to seek the subjective truth of themselves, namely engage in self-verifying. (Sedikides, 1993; Swann et al., 1989). Simultaneously, individuals struggle and deject to seek objective and accurate truth of themselves, namely engage in self-assessing (Sedikides, 1993). Self-assessment can occur through the process of self-awareness, where individuals become conscious about their behavior and thoughts and regulate according to their internal standards and values (Huggon, 2014).

People’s self-esteem either high or low is shaped by their life experiences. I believe a person’s self-esteem begins to take shape at an early age, with their parents being a major influence. Kind, positive, knowledgeable and caring parents help children create a positive self-image. Parents who do not feel good about themselves or others, sometimes take it out on their childern by belittling them or discouraging them. This leads the child down a path of self-doubt and eventually given the right circumstances a lower self-esteem.