The Sociological Imagination: How To Use It In Your Life

Question One 

Mills defines sociological imagination as a thinking process that an individual engages in which involves a deeper understanding of self-abasing on the day to day experiences with the wider society. In this case, individuals view and think of themselves away from the day to day experiences in an attempt to welcome new ideas and experiences ( Mills, 2000) . Additionally, sociological imagination has also viewed as the ability of an individual to identify and relate experiences with the wider society. In this case, social logical imagination is viewed as an individual's ability to view different elements socially and establish the interdependence of the elements within a society in influencing each other ( Mills, 2000) . For example, in the recent past, the need to exercise among people of all ages have been increasing steadily. While focusing on this behavior from a social imagination point of view, an individual's behavior to exercise is not a personal behavior, but rather, it is a behavior that has been widely influenced by the society. An additional example is an act of meeting for coffee when two people want to come together and discuss a topic. In most cases, people prefer to call it as meeting for coffee, from a sociological imagination, the act of taking coffee have been used symbolically to mean a meeting and the matters discussed are the important elements rather than the cup of coffee. 

Question Two 

Mill brings out a major difference between sociology and psychology, whereby sociology is significantly influenced by an individual's view of the society, which is an external factor while on the other hand psychology is viewed as an individual's reaction to specific conditions that arise from internal factors such as stress, anxiety, and anger ( Mills, 2000) . Sociology revolves around how a person and the society influences each other to control an individual behavior and the fact that a person's behavior is primarily influenced by the social aspects such as social norms and social context of the society they live in. Additionally, while focusing on the psychology, it primarily relates with an individual well-being regarding health such as stress, memory, creativity, aging among other factors. On the other hand, sociology involves evaluating and view individuals from the wider view of society as opposed to viewing and thinking about an individual at the personal level. Lastly, when focusing on psychology, psychological problems arise from an individual way of life such as exposure to stress, and traumatic events. On the other hand, in sociology, an individual's well-being is significantly shaped by the outcome of their actions on the society, in this case, are the actions socially acceptable or not ( Mills, 2000) . Socially acceptable actions tend to be repeated due to the outcome that individuals experience because of conducting themselves by the society code of conduct. 

Question Three 

Personal troubles refer to the individual problems that individual faces in one's daily life. In this case, personal problems are significantly associated with individual characters and the inner areas of social life of which the individual is personally and directly knowledgeable ( Mills, 2000) . Additionally, since personal problems arise from individual factors, the person who can change the situation is the individual himself by desiring to change. On the other hand, public problems arise from the social structure of the society such as poor leadership or failure of social institutions such as schools and health facilities ( Mills, 2000) . In this case, when solving a personal problem, it must be carried out by the individual himself, and when dealing with a public problem, the issue must be addressed based on the structure of the society or the institutions in the society. 

Reference 

Mills, C. W. (2000).    The sociological imagination . Oxford [England: Oxford University Press.