{"id":38534,"date":"2010-12-03T12:15:19","date_gmt":"2010-12-03T17:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/home.bates.edu\/?p=38534"},"modified":"2017-11-03T14:28:12","modified_gmt":"2017-11-03T18:28:12","slug":"sociologist-duina-winning-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2010\/12\/03\/sociologist-duina-winning-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Sociologist Duina's book 'Winning' captures media interest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"duina-42u7404\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Winning makes us happy? Not so fast, says Associate Professor of Sociology Francesco Duina,<\/a> author of Winning: Reflections on an American Obsession<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

In interviews prompted by his book, Duina explains that Americans’ zeal for victory, whether on the playing field or at the ballot box, leads us not to contentment but toward antagonism.<\/p>\n

Interviewed by the public radio show The Academic Minute<\/em><\/a>, Duina notes that most surveys find that American’s are not a happy lot. “We are an anxious and worried people.”<\/p>\n

A possible reason is linked to “our love of competition.” In much happier countries like Denmark, Duina notes that “children are taught lessons that to Americans sound almost offensive: that they are not<\/em> to stand out and not<\/em> to believe that they are good at anything.”<\/p>\n

Yet in America, social pressure to compete, win and shine above the rest “creates its own enormous tensions and problems.\u00a0We develop assumptions about the world, that we should approach others with an antagonistic mindset.”<\/p>\n

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