The retention of college students and degree completion is a significant problem for colleges and institutions. Sources of public, state, and federal funding for higher education are more than ever predicated on college achievement as measured by graduation rates. Institutions of higher education must devise, implement, and acknowledge this reality to support student success. There is an excellent association between stress to deviance, arguably the distraction factor to achieving such success in college education. This paper analyzes the association between stress and deviance in colleges while seeking to answer some main concepts, theories, research methods, controversies, inconsistencies, and unanswered questions.
One of the factors that cause deviance in school can be explained by the causes of stress among students, particularly in colleges. The classical strain theory can best explain the association between stress and deviance in college education. According to the traditional strain hypothesis, deviation is more likely to happen if one’s culturally established objectives for financial success and the ability to realize those aspirations are incompatible (Zhang, 2019). This theory provides that deviance occurs when there is a disconnect between goals and the ability to achieve them. In colleges, several factors create a disconnect between the dreams of college students and their abilities which causes deviation from their studies. Such factors summarize what stress is; in other words, stress creates a barrier for students hampering their abilities to achieve their dreams.
The other concept of the connection between deviance and stress is the stress factors. On its own, stress is the body’s and mind’s reaction to demands placed on it. It is the outcome of how people respond to outside events; it is not always a function of the events themselves. The breakdown of people’s capacity to manage life’s demands results in negative stress. The stress chemicals remain in the blood if they do not break them through media such as physical exercises and therapy that keeps the body from relaxing. Since stress is a significant concept in deviance, as determined in the discussion above, it is vital to understand what stress factors are for college students who cause deviance for them. Students have cited reasons such as poor housing, examination deadlines, tuition debts, balancing school work and paid work, domestic issues at home, and relationship breakups, among other factors. Stress is a significant concept in understanding its role in raising barriers to goal achievement hence deviance in college education.
There are controversial findings that can have theoretical explanations concerning stress as a factor in college deviance. One of the controversial issues emerging from research studies is that students are powerless over life stressors which many scholars may find untrue. According to the Threat Appraisal and Coping Theory, when people face stressors, they feel helpless to change them, resulting in maladaptive coping alias deviant actions. A study examining the relationship between five deviant behaviors and their association with powerlessness determined that life stressors are directly associated with the increment in watching porn, medication misuse, cross-dressing, and other maladaptive behaviors (Black & Hendy, 2019). When students get stressed, they engage in deviant behaviors after feeling that they are very powerless against their situations. In the more significant part, this may not be true, as can be explained by other theorists.
Several research methods have been used in studying deviance as a behavior among college students. Literature reviews, surveys, interviews, focused group discussions, secondary data analysis, longitudinal studies, and mixed methods have been deployed to understand the concepts of deviance and its relationship to stressors. One such study is a longitudinal study that examined adolescents’ tolerance to deviance. The study that builds on previous literature reveals shocking inconsistencies on this topic. The results reveal that compared to abstainers, adolescents with a higher tolerance for deviance were more likely to be a part of any smoking trajectory group (Macy et al., 2019). It is awkward to establish through research that students with more deviant behaviors like smoking are more tolerant of deviance than those who are not.
Many researchers have worked on several projects concerning stress and deviance. In doing so, they have endeavored to answer many pertinent questions pertaining to what stress is, what deviance is, and the relationship between the two. Further examinations prove that these two parameters have been investigated among college students. However, some questions are yet to be answered. Management of stressors and the consequent effects on deviance among college students is yet to be investigated.
To further make the potential studies even more interesting, incorporating the concept of technology would be intriguing. In the wake of a techno-savvy world, one research study investigated the efficacy of a mindfulness meditation app, which yielded to be effective. Many students in the intervention group registered calm against stress to limit the effects (Huberty et al., 2019). The study provides evidence that it is possible to deploy technology to reduce stress among college students to reduce deviance. Since such studies have yet to be implemented, it forms a grey area to guide future research.
References
Black, P., & Hendy, H. M. (2019). Perceived powerlessness as a mediator between life stressors and deviant behaviors.Deviant Behavior, 40(9), 1080–1089. Web.
Huberty, J., Green, J., Glissmann, C., Larkey, L., Puzia, M., & Lee, C. (2019). Efficacy of the mindfulness meditation mobile app “calm” to reduce stress among college students: Randomized controlled trial. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 7(6), e14273. DOI: 10.2196/14273
Macy, J. T., O’Rourke, H. P., Seo, D. C., Presson, C. C., & Chassin, L. (2019). Adolescent tolerance for deviance, cigarette smoking trajectories, and premature mortality: A longitudinal study.Preventive medicine, pp. 119, 118-123. Web.
Zhang, J. (2019). The strain theory of suicide. Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology, p. 13. Web.