In a critical research paper, you would normally conduct a research and write a report in IMERaD format. However, since we were not able to conduct our own research, we read a research that was already conducted, and we found holes in it and based on those holes we suggested a research extension.  After, we would prove whether the hypothesis that we created was right or wrong using other research results and articles. My focus for this paper was to find if there exist a gene that would explain why men have a harder time dealing with stress than women.

Why Men Have a Harder Time Dealing with Stress than Women?

 

Figure 1: Age-Adjusted Suicide Rates in the United States (1999-2016)

                

Figure 2: Pictures of what happens to the brain when it experiences stress

 

Abstract
This paper examines and critiques a research conducted by Zhang and Ji title, “College Students’ Stresses and Coping Strategies.” In this research, students were surveyed to determine how they typically respond to stress. The results gathered from the research help determine the major causes of stress in college students, in specific students from Changchun University of Science and technology.  The authors of the research claim briefly that “mental stresses of boys are bigger, longer, and stronger than that of girls.”5 However, they did not give any reason why boys experience mental stress for a longer time and at stronger levels than girls. Hence, I suggested that the research should be extended. By including a larger and diverse number of subjects (not just from the same university) we could determine whether there exists a genetical difference between boys and girls that allows them to react differently to stress, or its just because of socially constructed ideas created over the past decades. After doing a lot of research, I found that the reason why men experiences longer and stronger level of stress is because social expectations have shaped men and restrict them from looking for mental health care. This social expectations have also make men believe that looking for help when they need it would make them look weak and vulnerable. Hence, demonstrating that the fact that men struggle more with stress than women has nothing to do with their genes, but rather with the way in which they were shaped by society.

Introduction
Stress is a common reaction that the body has everytime it experience any change. The human body can respond to stress differently, but the three most common ways in which it responds to stress are physically, mentally, or emotionally. On this research, the word stress would only refer to mental stress. In today’s society, stress is often considered to be normal. However, regardless of whether stress is seen as something normal by many or not,  it is important that we treat it in the same way we would treat any other health problem. Stress can be very dangerous for a person’s mental health since everyone copes with stress differently. In fact, stress should be considered a topic of importance in today’s society since it “is linked to 6 of the leading causes of death in the United States: heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver, and suicide.”3

Hong Ji and Lei Zhang conducted an experiment about stress on 2011.  They wanted to determine what situations cause stress on college students and see how they deal with it. The research title is, “Research on College Stresses and Coping Strategies” and it was published in a journal named Asian Social Science on the 1st of October of 2011. The research was survey based, and it was given to a group of college students in China. In the introduction, the authors of the research concluded that “the mental stresses of boys are bigger, longer, and stronger than that of girls”5 However, they did not give a brief explanation of why males are more likely to experience longer and stronger stress levels than females. Therefore, I suggested that the research should be extended. If further studies reveal more facts explaining why men are more likely to struggle with stress than women, new strategies and organizations could be created to help and teach men how to deal with stress. As stated before, stress can lead to suicide, therefore, by finding more facts about this problem we can help prevent more suicides.

This new research would not focus on college students from China. However, it would focus on both male and females from the United States and the participants would be selected randomly. Choosing the participants randomly is a great strategy because the data gathered would be an accurate representation of the larger population. The experiment would focus on 16 years old and older (There would also be an equal amount of males and females). Additionally, instead of conducting just a survey we would also include a one to one meeting with a psychologist to try to understand what things make men struggle more when they are under stress, and what makes women handle stress better. In other words, the purpose of this research is to determine why eventhough women experience more stress than men, men are more likely to experience depression caused by stress because of socially constructed ideas that men should always be strong, making them less likely to seek professional help and more vulnerable to the effects of stress.

Methods

The research by Zhang and Ji about college students stress and coping strategies selected its participants from a single university named Changchun University of Science and Technology. The research was based on a survey, and the subjects had to respond to certain questions on a scale from 1 to 5, “1” meaning completely disagree, and “5” completely agree. There was a total of 800 college students (373 boys and 361 girls). Out of the 800 surveys, 734 copies were considered to be valid for the research. The other 66 surveys did not meet the requirements either because there were not filled completely or at all. The sample size was not selected with the appropriate characteristic for the research since the participants were from the same university. These participants are studying under the same system and environment, consequently, the results would be very similar. As a result, the information gathered from the research should not be generalized to all college students since the study did not include other universities from China or any other part of the world.  Therefore, the results should only be considered valid for the students of China or just the students from Changchun University of Science and Technology. During the research, the subjects were not assigned to specific groups. The authors did not specify whether the participants were grouped by gender, age, or educational level they just selected them from the same university. Consequently, I would argue that Zhang and Ji were biased since they choose all the participants from the same university. If the authors were only interested in conducting the research on students from China, the best way to present more accurate and viable results would have been by selecting the students from different universities of China not just a single one. Something good about the way in which the research was conducted was that the authors selected almost the same amount of males and females (373 males and 361 females). Having the same or almost the same amount of females and males in a research protects the research from being considered gender bias.

There was a total of 800 participants, and only 734 surveys were counted. This number of subjects might seem big however, it is not sufficient for the researchers to draw conclusions of this level. A small sample size increases the chances of your data falling into a wider margin of errors. Having a number of subjects bigger than 5,000 makes any data gather more accurate.4 Hence, if  Zhang and Ji want their data to be considered accurate, they should include a larger number of subjects.

The study was not appropriately designed to solve the research issue since it was designed to see what events can cause stress on college students and their coping strategies. As stated before, the number of participants was not large enough, hence the results from the research are not really accurate. Consequently, the research results and suggested solutions are only accurate for the students from the university where the research was conducted.
The study’s independent variables are the economic status, the study conditions, employment situations, and personal factors of college students. The variables are valid and comprehensive since three out of the four variables can cause stress not only for college students but to any person. The independent variables are also comprehensive since personal factors cover any variable that is not work-related like feeling lonely and sad because of a personal event. On the other hand, the dependent variable is, whether college students experience mental stress when any of the four independent variables are present in their lives.  An example could be if you are going through a tough economic situation due to unemployment (the independent variable), you could experience mental stress (the dependent variable).

During the course of the study, the researchers did not control effectively the extraneous variables of the experiment. First, they did not specify what the questions of the survey were for the readers to have an example of how the survey would help determine what causes stress on college students. They did not include if the survey had a time limit to be filled or how long the research tooked. They do not specify the age of the participants, since not only young people go to college. Age is an important extraneous variable because older people have gained experience from their past mistakes and decisions, hence they handle better their problems and stress.
The study’s statistical analyses are appropriate and accurate if we are only basing the results gather for the college students of the Changchun University of Science and Technology. The reason why I argue that the results are only accurate if we are only talking about the students from where the research was conducted is because every university has a different teaching style and have different requirements for the students. If that university requires that all students must take a weekly quiz and that is the main cause of the students stress we cannot say that other students from different universities would experience stress because of the same reason since they might not be required to take a weekly test. They also mentioned that boys experience stress for a longer time than girls, however it is not specified how they noticed it. The authors did not include a lot of details explaining how the research help them determine the reasons why boys experience stress for a longer time. Consequently, their statistical analysis and results cannot be considered completely accurate.

Results Section/Discussion Sections

In this paper, I claim that men are more vulnerable to the effects of stress than women, and as a consequence, they do not seek professional help because they perceive stress and depression as a weakness. I have made this argument because I strongly believe that the only reason why men do not seek professional help it’s because of the socially constructed ideas that man should always be strong. As a consequence, men have kept themselves from seeking professional help when they experience stress. Stress can lead to depression and depression can cause negative thoughts in the mind of a person that could lead to suicide. Hence, because of this manliness idea, men can end up committing suicide if they experience stress. As we can see in figure 1, the number of males who killed themselves is bigger than the number of females who commit suicides. Hence, stress could be indirectly linked to suicide rates among the male population of the United States, and this manliness idea could be the reason why the suicide rates of men are bigger than women.

Gender explains why men are more likely to struggle with stress than women. “Several studies have concluded that social expectations affect how we react to stress… men and women are exposed to different types of stress and deal with that stress based on cultural norms. This type of restrictiveness of gender roles can have negative implications.”2 In other words, social expectations have shaped men and restrict them from looking for mental health care. Another factor that explains why men struggle more with stress than women is the fact that women cope with stress all the time. Women have got used to stress and as a consequence women know how to handle stress better. However, when men are exposed to stress, they are vulnerable to its effects because “they have not learned to cope with stress as effectively as those who experience it more.”1 Therefore, men could experience longer and stronger stress level because of two reasons, one is because of socially constructed ideas and the second is because they have not experienced stress frequently, consequently, they do not know how to respond and deal with stress. Hence, we can conclude that men struggles more with stress not because they were genetically born with this, but rather because of an idea that has been socially constructed over the past decades.

Conclusion

This paper not only analyzes the research conducted by Zhang and Ji about “College Students; Stresses and Coping Strategies” but rather it also suggested a new way in which stress could be studied. Stress might seem, inoffensive, however, when we study it, we found ourselves learning that society, the environment, and the cultural norms in which we grow up would play an important role determining how we faced, and deal with stress in the future. Hence, if we feel that the way in which our society is affected by stress harms our society, we should change most of the socially constructed ideas that affect how males and females respond to stress. This would not only benefit the science community but also the wider world since eliminating social pressure would not only create great scientist but also better human beings. Remember, stress is indirectly linked to suicide rates, therefore by solving this social issue we could save many lives that can be lost to depression caused by stress.

 

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Works Cited Page

 

Assari, S. (2018, September 19). Why stress is more likely to cause depression in men than in women. Retrieved November 15, 2018, from http://theconversation.com/why-Stress-is-more-likely-to-cause-depression-in-men-than-in-women-57624

Calvarese, M. (2015, November 30). The Effect of Gender on Stress Factors: An Exploratory    Study among University Students. Retrieved November 15, 2018, from    https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/4/4/1177/htm

Cleveland Clinic. (2015, February 05). What Is Stress? Symptoms, Signs & More. Retrieved   November 15, 2018, from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/11874-stress

Science. (2012, April). Sample Size: How Many Survey Participants Do I Need? Retrieved     November 15, 2018, from https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/references/sample-size-surveys

Zhang, L., & Ji, H. (2011, October 1). Research on College Students’ Stresses and Coping  Strategies. Retrieved November 5, 2018, from file:///home/chronos/u- 99909cbf3e2261bf  76b670b5802330ef6e54921c/Downloads/12451-37352-1-SM (3).pdf