1. The Sociological Imagination
Personal Troubles vs. Public Issues

2. Personal Troubles
Occur within the character of the individual...and within the range of his/her immediate relations with others.
These have to do with one’s “self”
Personal troubles are “private matters”
“Solutions” appear to stem directly from individual decisions.

3. Public Issues
Have to do with matters that transcend the individual…especially his/her inner life.
They have to do with larger social systems and historical process.
Issues are public matters that in some way affect everyone in a given collectivity.
“Solutions” transcend individuals.

4. EXAMPLE ONE Eating Disorders History of Eating Disorders
Cause of Eating Disorders
When viewed as “personal trouble”
When viewed as “public issue”

5. EXAMPLE TWO Women and Happiness
By almost every social and economic indicator, the last 35 years have been positive for women
Controlling reproduction, obtaining more education, working in male professions, gender-wage gap has declined, they live longer, men are doing more housework
Are women “less happy” or “more happy” today than they were 35 years ago?

6. EXAMPLE TWO Women and Happiness They are “less happy”
This is true for working women, stay-at-home women/moms, married and single women, highly and less educated, moms and childless women, young and old
EXCEPT: black women are happier today
How can sociology help women?

7. Why might women be “less happy”?
EXAMPLE TWO
Why might women be “less happy”?
Their anticipated happiness 35 years ago was overinflated
Women’s lives are more like men’s lives – and men are less happy than women
There was pressure in the past for women to pretend they were happy – even when they weren’t
So they erroneously reported being happy

8. EXAMPLE THREE
You have a group of friends and you’re a non believing liberal Democrat
Some are happy and other are not so happy
Some are extremely religious and others are atheists or agnostics
Some are conservatives and others liberals
You are not so happy and you want to be like some of them but not like others
You try to mimic their personalities by asking them what their secret is…until…

11. SEXUAL ACTIVITY AND COLLEGE
EXAMPLE FOUR
SEXUAL ACTIVITY AND COLLEGE
When we ask (young) college students about the sexual activity of their peers:
They think they don’t have enough sex
They think others have lots of sex
Naturally they feel:
Happy about this?
Unhappy about this?
Neither if they attend a Christian college…

12. SEXUAL ACTIVITY AND COLLEGE
EXAMPLE FOUR
SEXUAL ACTIVITY AND COLLEGE
From a 2005 study:
80 percent of students had 0 or 1 sexual partner in preceding year
59 percent had no sexual activity in previous 30 days
But only 22 percent of those students believed that fellow students had one or no sexual partner
Most believed that “most other” students had 3 or more sexual partners

13. SEXUAL ACTIVITY AND COLLEGE
EXAMPLE FOUR
SEXUAL ACTIVITY AND COLLEGE
When students learn this information and interpret it through the lens of sociology…
It makes it a lot easier to take cold showers or stay home and have sex with themselves.