Extremely Disturbing Accident Essay Example for Free

Extremely Disturbing Accident Essay There was an extremely disturbing accident a couple of years ago. I will never be able to forget that scene which made Daniel lost his words and made him stay in the darkness for such a long time. Daniel was a wonderful man who cared about his family more than anything else. He had a lovely wife who was called Mary and between them, he had the most adorable daughter. I have never seen such a caring and loving family who knows to take care about their neighbors as well. They were especially kind to me who was living next door, old and alone. They knew I had no relatives so they often invited me at dinner and on the special occasions such as Christmas and Birthdays. They regarded me as a member of the family. We used to sing every night and, oh, I remember, the family was very fond of reciting poems. Therefore, we had this party in which all had to recite favorite poems very often. Daniel used to write the poems by himself and the poems were always about love in the family and each time, we were touched and impressed by high qualities of them. However, the happiness did not last long. On Daniels 40th Birthday, Mary and her daughter, Kate, and I planed to surprise him by taking a birthday cake and a lot of nice food to share with his friends to where Daniel was working. In spite of the fact that Daniel was very angry when we once visited him long time ago, he said the place is too dangerous, we were taking food to where Daniel was working. Having thought back about what he said, he was right; He did a lot of physical works for building up the structures and the place where he worked was very dangerous indeed. Kate was singing, excited with joys, she couldnt wait to see her dads smile at her little- hand made birthday card. She was running down the hill and at the same time, I just realized that she is not safe any longer at that distance. Mary and I were running after her, shouting to stop, but it was too late. By accident, one of the workers dropped a huge-hard wooden material from high floor of the building, and Mary was hit by it so hard that even before the ambulance came to help her, she was already gone to the other world. Daniel thought her death was his fault and he quit the job. He acted like an insane person and people started to avoid him, even his wife gave up trying to turn him back to normal. At last, they got divorced in few months. I didnt see Daniel for a few months around his house, and then I found him in his garden. I asked him whether he feels better and he always nodded at my questions. I noticed he became the person I used to know, the person before faced his daughters death, but I knew something was wrong. He was quiet, too quiet. His eyes were always full of sorrow and made my heart broke. They reminded me of Mary who was gone long ago. I did my best to make him to speak again, not out of pity, but I felt I am the one relative left to take care of him. He hardly got out from his room; it was so hard to make him to get along with people, to get socialized again. I thought it would be impossible to make him speak again unless Mary comes back to him. One day, I have succeeded to take him to the poetry club where he used to love to go and listen to the poems. I thought this rally was the last chance I have and played to God desperately. That, that was a miracle; he was listening the poems quietly and suddenly, he stood up. After a while he started to mumble something and soon he made a perfect sound. I was frozen, alert. The people around him listened to him. He found the music of speech which was concealed in this heart deeply for a long time. When he is done, before the applause, we observed the flowers silence. A thrush sings and the daffodils are flame

Grocery Retail Market Analysis Essay Example for Free

Grocery Retail Market Analysis Essay Grocery retailing in the US is a very mature, saturated market. Consumers will, however always need to buy food. The industry is generally a high volume/low margin market, which is made up of over 65,000 supermarkets, hypermarkets, and grocery stores combining for annual revenues of about $938 billion. The necessity of effective supply chain management, keeping costs low, has resulted in an extreme concentration of the market, where the top 20 competitors generate over 67% of the industry annual revenue. Wal-Mart, which is considered to be a hypermarket, leads in grocery retailing with 225. 12 billion sales resulting in 24% value share during 2010. The second and third leading grocery retailers in the US are Kroger and Supervalu with 76.7 billion (7%) and 40.8 billion (4%) 2010 sales (value shares), respectively. (GMID Global Market Information Database) The industry is made up of four types of channels, consisting of supermarkets, hypermarkets, discounters, and convenience stores. Supermarkets are the largest channel and continue to appeal to shoppers because of the proximity to their homes and workplaces. Hypermarkets, which include Wal-Mart, are predicted to be the fastest growing channel and although are often less convenient for consumers than other grocery outlets, many believe it is worth the trip to save some money and are willing to drive a bit further to visit hypermarkets. Discounters offer a low-cost option for consumers by streamlining many operations. Finally, Convenience stores are known for quick shopping trips, but consumers typically do not think of convenience stores as a place to stock up on groceries. Grocery retailing as a whole grew by 2% in 2010, however the discounters experienced the strongest growth of 6%. Retailers in the discounters channel generally hold smaller inventories and tend to carry only a single brand of each item to keep costs low. The uncharacteristically strong growth in 2010 was due in large part to the expansion of Aldi throughout the US. After seeing considerable success in 2009, Aldi decided to expand its presence in the US and reported 68 billion in 2010 sales (Hoovers). Along with the growth in 2010, the number of grocery outlets declined by 1% in the US. During this year the consumer purchasing habits changed, resulting in shoppers making more trips to the grocery store each week and spending slightly more. Shoppers are spending 1.5 percent more weekly on groceries, bring the average to $99.90, but are spending less at their primary grocery store. At these stores the share of total grocery dollars spent fell to 75.4 percent in 2010 from 76.6 percent in 2009 according to the 2010 US Grocery Shopper Trends report by the Food Marketing Institute. The busy and fully scheduled American lifestyle leaves consumers constantly seeking convenient shopping solutions, and grocery retailing is no exception. However, with the recession in 2009, consumers focused more on value and price than on convenience. Consumers have become more willing to go out of their way to drive to and find venues that offer lower prices. This has resulted in intense price-based competition from mass merchandisers and warehouse clubs. In 2010, competition intensified across channels within the grocery retailing sector. As hypermarkets and discounters took share away from supermarkets in 2009, many supermarkets reacted by opening new formats or lowering prices in 2010 to win back consumers. Several national supermarket chains discounted prices and expanded their private label offerings. Coupon use also grew significantly in 2009 and 2010, as consumers became more comfortable looking for and using coupons (GMID Global Market Information Database). Additionally, the channel shifting caused by the economic downturn caused many new trends to help lure customers back and retain loyal customers. Many supermarkets are offering greater incentives through loyalty cards, while others are expanding product selections and focusing on the growing Hispanic population in the US. Primarily supermarkets have begun employing dieticians to be on-site in stores focusing on health and wellness. Consumers can ask dieticians questions about specific conditions and help find the right products. Another factor that will greatly affect this channel is the growth of grocery delivery in the US. Peapod currently operates in several markets, as does Safeway. Sears and Meijer both announced plans to test grocery delivery in certain cities, while Publix is testing curb-side pick-up.

The Success Factors Of The Nintendo Company Marketing Essay

The Success Factors Of The Nintendo Company Marketing Essay Nintendo Co., Ltd is a multinational public listed company but privately held that develops, manufactures ,and auction home entertainment products (Reuters).The company is currently the one dominating the handheld console market with its Nintendo DS as well as its preceding incarnations of its best-selling Game Boy handheld (Nintendo). Nintendo Company was Founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi ,a Japanese man in the year 1889 (Ben, 2011) .The current president of Nintendo however is Satoru Iwata. The company is based in Kyoto, Japan (Marketwatch, 2012) and has a large number of employees both hardware and software based people, this includes programmers ,business people and thinkers . The name of the company is derived from a Japanese proverb, when translated in English language means Leave luck to heaven (Dominic, p. 1). Nintendo company is widely acknowledged for making video games (Ben, 2011) and is considered as one of the most successful gaming industry worldwide (Dominic, p. 1) . The co mpany has branches in America and Europe with Japan being the leading market (Nicole, Jann, Kelsey, 2005). and operates in more than 26 sub branches and five associated companies. The companys branches consist of the Nintendo of America Inc., Nintendo of Canada Ltd., Nintendo of Europe GmbH, Nintendo France S.A.R and along with others. Products Nintendo offers include but are not limited to :- leisure machine such as portable and console game like the Wii , Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo DSi as well as the Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo Entertainment System(NES), Nintendo 64 till the latest product the Wii U (Nintendo, 2012). 1.2. Reason For Choosing Nintendo : The company is considered as a technology-based venture as it produces high technology games, uses 3D gaming technology as in the case of the Nintendo 3DS systems , graphics, digital images and so forth. The company has revolutionize the gaming world by changing the way video games is perceived today (Sebastian, 2008). The reason for which the company has been chosen was not limited to the creativity and innovation they emphasize on their products which grabs attention nor for their console being user-friendly , portable making it easy to use , but also due to the fact that the company offers a brilliant example of one that has been able to stand on difficult moments, face failure at some point and succeeded in a market dominated by larger competitors (Sony and Microsoft) by continuously innovating and improving their products. 2. Nintendo Company (An Overview) : 2.1.History of Nintendo: The Company started as a manufacturer of Hanafuda  [1]  playing card in the town of Kyoto , due to its popularity at the time the company expanded all over Japan (Dominic, p. 2). During World War II, meanwhile the Japan economy was distraught , the demand for playing cards however decreased slightly and thrived in the years that followed the war. In the year 1949, Nintendo welcomed its new president Hiroshi Yamauchi who tried to modernize the company by developing plastic playing cards earning its place as the largest playing card company in Japan at the time (Fukuine). In 1959, Nintendo and Disney signed an agreements that allows Nintendo to print their card with Disney cartoon on it and by the year 1962, Nintendo went out public. Due to the success of their cards, and huge sales , the company extended its branches all over the world (Minami-ku) . The company later made an attempt for other business like clothing ,taxi service ,TV network, food company and toy-making company but only the toy-making company turned out to be the successful while the rest of the buisness experiment led to major failures. The toy-making company experienced success in the late 190s when Gunpei Yokoi a developer at Nintendo designed an extending arm toy The Ultra-hand. The creativity nature of Gunpei led to future release such as the baseball throwing machine and other related products (Manali) . Nintendo later turned into the video market which in later years proved to be their most profitable decision (Wikia). Nintendos first global large scale success came in the year 1981 with the release of the arcade game Donkey Kong. This game provided colorful graphics, Disney cartoon figures and had multiple levels where by players had to jump over barrels, ride elevators and many others. The goal of the game was to save a princess from obstinate gorilla, the game was alluring and the story attracted people. Alongside the release of the arcade Donkey Kong, was Mario Bros which allowed p layers to kick enemies using the game display established Nintendos place firmly in the video game industry. In 1985, Nintendo began to advertize their console in America and other parts of the world beneath the name of Nintendo Entertainment System(NES). In 1989, Nintendo introduced the first portable by hand game system , the Game Boy and its successive iterations mainly the Game Boy Color, Pocket, Light and other. The years that followed introduced the 16-bit Super Nintendo Entertainment System(SNES) in America alongside with Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda : A Link to the Past and more for use with the SNES (Eric, 1999) which was a huge success . Moreover Nintendo began losing it grounds to their competitors mainly Sony and Microsoft when Sony released its play station console in 1991 (Dominic, p. 2). This however let them to the launch the Nintendo N64 ,with a 64-bit home video game system by the year 1996 which led to huge sales and its come-back featuring the adaptat ion of the previous arcade game and enhancing the game features (Eric, 1999). In the years that followed, Nintendo products gained popularity while others were failures or criticized. In 2001, Nintendo introduced the WII, a home video game console which target people of all age group and gender as it is easy to use and attractive. It was a year later that Satoru Iwata succeeded Hiroshi as President (Manali). Nintendo further launched the Nintendo DS devices in 2004 followed by the Nintendo DS I the most recent the Nintendo 3DS version enabling players to play virtually on 3D platforms without the need of any glasses, the release of the 3DS was on 2011 and drifted a huge success (Yahoo). With the release of the latter products, Nintendo earned worldwide reputation (Manali). The latest Nintendo product is an incarnation of the Wii namely the Wii U which launch date is settled on the 17 November 2012 . The picture below summarizes the key historical dates of the Nintendo company . 2.2. Success Factors Nintendo : The key to Nintendo success is the incorporation of the hardware and software needed to develop their products .Meanwhile different factors exists that makes the Company successful, three out of all are discussed as follows : 2.2.1. Good Working Environment : A Good working environment is one in which the employees and the entrepreneur/president of the company entertain a good and stable relationships .The employees are happy about their work and are encouraged to work harder. The entrepreneur/leader encourages employees to speak freely and express their ideas without restrictions. This motivates employees to be open-minded ,express their creativity and work harder towards the achievements of the same goal. Nintendo, provide a good working environment , the employees feels like they all belong to the same family as most of them have been working under Nintendo name for many years (Ben, 2011). Employees are encouraged to take decisions, and speak-up their ideas, share their knowledge, by doing so, Nintendo keeps the most talented employees as was the case with Gunpei Yokoi, the maintenance engineer working at Nintendo who had the idea to design the Ultra Hand product and was given full support by the company president to design the product which later proved to be successful in the late 1970s (Manali). The creative nature of Gunpei in the years that follows beneficiated Nintendo company as the product designated under his whelm let to huge sales. Other than Gunpei, Nintendo has talented employees like who worked together all as a whole. 2.2.2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) : CRM describes the way an enterprise interacts with its customers. It is a strategic issue that the company undertakes to make sure they handle customers interactions and provide better way to respond to customers requests or through their strategy , target what the customers need (Wendy). Nintendo uses Disney cartoons figures as stated earlier. This grabs children attention and encourage them to afford a Nintendo product. They target their customers at an earlier age and their games are kid-friendly and educative gaining them popularity parents. For Nintendo , Expanding the gaming industrys customer was their vision. They wanted to attract more people , people that are not usually used to play video games. The company were the first to target players from all age groups and gender not just the normal age 5-22 but rather 3-120 . Unlike Sony and Microsoft , Nintendo did not try to impress their customers by adding more technical features on their products, rather than doing that, they continuously search for a way to adapt to their customers needs and make radical innovation. They fit their products to best benefit their customers and this is one of the most important success factor the company has. Nintendo provide a discussion forum for their product in their website . The forum is open and is accessed by all Nintendo fans as well as potential consumers . People can interact with each other discussing their experience with the Nintendo product they own or think of purchasing , the product they liked the most , dislike, what they think could be done to improve on any of the Nintendo product, or just stipulate their expectation. Nintendo later uses this information as a step forward to adapt the need of their customers to their product. This maintains a firm relationship between Nintendo and their customers and shows how much they care about their needs . Nintendo also provides reasonable prices for their products as compared to their competitors. they make sure the common people will gain or benefit from their products thereby increasing their own profit (Nicole, Jann, Kelsey, 2005, p. 14). They have incorporated a free game with each Wii unit with a price of $250 that surely was not comparable as the playstation3 of Sony with a price of $350 by the time (Brian, 2012). With the venture of the Nintendo WII product, came the WII sport feature. Nintendo decided to launch WII sport trying to find a healthy way for people not to become obese by spending their whole time playing game, those who wants to loose weight or just normal people wanting to stay fit by doing sports without going out of their homes. They realized the adult population needed it, and requested it, so they launch the WII sport feature, which was easy to learn and to use, adapting itself to normal life. The product brought in a new sort of social and physical interactive entertainment in a new form that can be played with friends or family , The console did not only revolutionize the gaming industry by giving the market a product that suits their needs and desires but also helped Nintendo strengthen its place as a leader in the video industry. 2.2.3. Innovation and Technology : It is important for an enterprise to identify the technology required for its buisness to keep growing as technology is changing in order to widen their audience and keep their target customers beneath (Marian, 2000). When coming to technology and innovation issues, Nintendo moves as fast as technology changes occur. Since players often purchase the game they want based on the features that the console offers. Nintendo succeeded by adapting its consoles with the features and needs its target audience desires . From history Nintendo has been the leader of hardware design, they were the first to feature shoulder buttons on the controller for the Super Nintendo, they implement joystick first, enabling gamers to have a hold on their games and this rendered the games more interesting even to casual gamers (Joshoua, Randolf, Bradley). Nintendo has always been innovative continuously adding up new features on their existing product as well as creating a total new sort of product to target new audience. At each steps forward, Nintendo continuously figured out a way to improve on their product by applying new technology as was the case for the Nintendo 3DS which opened up a new generation of gaming systems. Nintendo 3DS was the first game represented in 3D that was played without any glasses. Players would not need to bother themselves and could actually live the experience. This pretty much attracted interest, adding-up to the beautiful amazing graphics processing it offers. Nintendo keenness to revisit old-fashioned technologies that many gamers thought outdated was one of the reason they are successful today. They did concentrate themselves on selecting the correct technologies that its target audience will apply, find it easy to use while having fun. With the release of the wii, Nintendo showed to the world a new way to control a device through the use of the wii remote control. A new air for the gaming industry began. Their way of integrating technology is just amazing, just like their latest product WII U Gamepad which has added a touch screen , a technology never used before in the video game world to control games. This relates that the games played on the Wii U will offer a player any way he wants to control the game . The gamer can choose to control the game using either buttons, knobs, Wii remote control or lately through the touch screen. 3. Conclusion : Nintendo would likely be the first game child-play ever . Throughout the years, it has faced huge failures and extremely strong competitors as Sony and Microsoft, though the Nintendo products cannot be comparable to those two due to the complicated hardware they use, and their technology advancement, Nintendo still stands as the number one in the Video game Industry for hand-held console. The Company brilliant working team, managerial process , relationship with their customers and continuous innovation has earned them along lasting position in the gaming industry. One cannot go without saying that Nintendo products has changed the way we look at video games today. They may not be tough in front of Sony and Microsoft but they are most inevitably the most creative. The value they offer with the technology that matches up the needs is what makes Nintendo an outstanding and successful company .

The Biological Basis of Language Development Essay -- Health Medicine

The Biological Basis of Language Development "The principles and rules of grammar are the means by which the forms of language are made to correspond with the universal froms of thought....The structures of every sentence is a lesson in logic." BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF LANGUAGE "[H]uman knowledge is organized de facto by linguistic competence through language performance, and our exploration of reality is always mediated by language" (Danchin 29). Most higher vertebrates possess ‘intuitive knowledge’ which occurs as the result of slow evolution of species. However, the ability to create knowledge through language is unique to humans. According to Benjamin Whorf, "language†¦. is not merely a reproducing instrument from voicing ideas but rather is itself the shaper of ideas†¦. We dissect nature along lines laid down by language" (Joseph 249). In addition, the development and acquisition of language seems to be related to "complex sequential processing, and the ability to form concepts and to classify a single stimulus in a multiple manner" (Joseph 178). Antione Danchin suggests that the knowledge we create through language allows us distinguish ourselves from the rest of the world to produce models of reality, which become more and more adequate due to the "self-referent loop" which enables us to understand ourselves as objects under study. This "path from subject to object," which is common to all humans, Danchin claims, suggests the existence of a universal feature of language (29). Biological foundation of language may contribute significantly to such universality. The issue here is not whether language is innate, for, clearly, language must be learned. Nor is the issue whether the aptitude for learning a la... ...guage. Vol 58(2) 265-326, Jun 1997.    Modgil, Sohan and Celia Modgil. Noam Chomsky: Consensus and Controversy. New York: The Falmer Press, 1987. Persson, Inga-Britt. Connectionism, language production and adult aphasia: elaboration of a connectionist framework for lexical processing and a hypothesis of agrammatic aphasia. Helsinki, Finland: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 1995. Schachter, Jacquelyn. Some semantic prerequisites for a model of language. Brain & Language. Vol 3(2) 292-304, Apr 1976. Schnitzer, Marc L. Toward a neurolinguistic theory of language. Brain & Language. Vol 6(3) 342-361, Nov 1978.    Skinner, B. F. Verbal behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1970. Vocate, Donna R. The Theory of A.R. Luria: Functions of Spoken Language in the Development of Higher Mental Process. Hillsdale[NJ]: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 1987.

The Current Status of the Australian Economy :: AustralianEconomics Trade Cycle Essays

The Current Status of the Australian Economy Assignment 3 A Collect, organize, present and analyse a range of data which describes the current state of the Australian economy(with respect to the trade cycle). B Describe and analyse the monetary policy stance which has been adopted by the RBA over the past 2 years. How effective is monetary policy in achieving the policy objectives of the government? Introduction Part A =================== This report contains an informed and balanced analysis of a range of data which assists in depicting the current state of the Australian economy in relation to the trade cycle. Relevant Data For various reasons, economic activity fluctuates from year to year. Periods of rising activity, output and income are called booms and periods of slower activity are called a trough. Generally when real GDP is above 4 per cent p.a. it would be considered a boom year and when there are technically, two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth it would be considered a trough or a recession. In the short term the level of economic activity fluctuates. In some years, growth is fast and business conditions are booming. In other years, the level of activity is slow, so growth in output, income and employment is also less than average. These fluctuations are called the trade cycle. There are a number of economic indicators which are useful for determining what stage of the trade cycle the Australian economy is currently in, such as Gross domestic product, unemployment, inflation, interest rates, building approvals and home loan approval, just to name a few. Changes in Aggregate Demand Changes in the level of Aggregate Demand (AD) are critical determinants of trade cycle fluctuations. GDP is the sum of consumption, investment, government purchases and net exports. Y = C + I + G + NX The following table outlines these elements and influencing factors. Elements of GDP Major factors affecting this component Consumption (C) Disposable income (Yd); interest rates (r); expectations about the future; stock of wealth. Investment (I) Past levels of profit; expectations about the futre business conditions; interest rates (r) Government expenditure Determined in accordance with government policy Net exports Determined by the interplay of C & I conditions in other countries and Australia. Output and Unemployment As Gans, King and Stonecash state, â€Å"Changes in the economy’s output of goods and services are strongly correlated with changes in the economy’s utilization of its labour forces†. Generally as Gross Domestic Product declines then the rate of unemployment rises, basically as companies produce less goods and services, they require less staff or are not employing new members, thus the number of people

The Fourth Law Of Robotics :: essays research papers

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/vaksam/">Sam Vaknin's Psychology, Philosophy, Economics and Foreign Affairs Web Sites Sigmund Freud said that we have an uncanny reaction to the inanimate. This is probably because we know that - despite pretensions and layers of philosophizing - we are nothing but recursive, self aware, introspective, conscious machines. Special machines, no doubt, but machines althesame. The series of James bond movies constitutes a decades-spanning gallery of human paranoia. Villains change: communists, neo-nazis, media moguls. But one kind of villain is a fixture in this psychodrama, in this parade of human phobias: the machine. James Bond always finds himself confronted with hideous, vicious, malicious machines and automata. It was precisely to counter this wave of unease, even terror, irrational but all-pervasive, that Isaac Asimov, the late Sci-fi writer (and scientist) invented the Three Laws of Robotics: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws Many have noticed the lack of consistency and the virtual inapplicability of these laws put together. First, they are not the derivative of any coherent worldview and background. To be properly implemented and to avoid a potentially dangerous interpretation of them - the robots in which they are embedded must be also equipped with a reasonably full model of the physical and of the human spheres of existence. Devoid of such a context, these laws soon lead to intractable paradoxes (experiences as a nervous breakdown by one of Asimov's robots). Conflicts are ruinous in automata based on recursive functions (Turing machines) as all robots must be. Godel pointed at one such self destructive paradox in the "Principia Mathematica" ostensibly comprehensive and self consistent logical system. It was enough to discredit the whole magnificent edifice constructed by Russel and Whitehead over a decade. Some will argue against this and say that robots need not be automata in the classical, Church-Turing, sense. That they could act according to heuristic, probabilistic rules of decision making. There are many other types of functions (non-recursive) that can be incorporated in a robot. True, but then, how can one guarantee full predictability of behaviour? How can one be certain that the robots will fully and always implement the three laws?

Learned Helplessness in the Workplace

Running Head: Learned Helplessness in the Workplace Paper Learned Helplessness in the Workplace Psychology 320 November 22, 2010 Professor: Sprinkle Abstract In the late 1960’s and early 1970s Mr. Martin Seligman began to study what effects surroundings have on not only animals, but human beings. His studies were an attempt to determine what ramifications outside influences could have on a live beings motivation and drive for success. He started his studies by giving rats electric shocks.They were inadvertent and without cause, and this was so the rats had no way of reasoning what could cause or prevent the shocks, and how to avoid them. What he found, was that eventually the rats would give up on trying to avoid or escape the shocks. Seligman eventually applied these studies to human infants and what he discovered was a theory he deemed, â€Å"Learned Helplessness. † Learned Helplessness in the Workplace When Martin Seligman chose to study human infants and the effects of outside influences, he wanted to determine whether a lack of control over one’s surroundings could lead to a lack in motivation.What he found was that just like the rats, humans would learn helplessness, and hence the reason his theory is known as the Learned Helplessness Theory. In short, the theory states that with no control over one’s surroundings, the response will be helplessness. He also found that those who learn this will have an interference with the rest of their development. They may have emotional problems along with anxiety and depression as adults. One of the ways that Seligman believed children learned helplessness was if there was no correlation between actions and there outcome.Just like the rats who tried to escape but where still punished with shocks, they felt that no matter what they did the outcome would be the same. Children who had parents with poor parenting skills or who didn’t recognize their successes, learned that no matter what they did, it didn’t change the outcome. Kids who struggled in school may begin to fail repeatedly as they would feel that even if they did try, they would fail. People who have learned helplessness suffer from low self-esteem, and tend to blame themselves for everythingWhile studying learned helplessness in humans, Seligman found that it also can be associated with different ways of thinking about the events that form person's â€Å"explanatory style. † Seligman believed there were three major components of explanatory style associated with learned helplessness. He termed those as permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization. Permanence pertained to the idea that no matter what happens or the events leading up to them, the outcomes were in fact permanent. Pervasiveness referred to the thought that if something negative happened in one situation it would happen in other situations as well.For instance if a person struggles with math, they then assume they are stupid and struggle in every aspect. Personalization, the third and final component of explanatory style, refers to whether one will attribute negative events to their own flaws or to outside circumstances or other people. Most people with Learned Helplessness will attribute everything to their own flaws or shortcomings. Seligman believes in order to help a person overcome Learned Helplessness; they must strive to Learn Optimism.He believes parents and others who celebrate young kid’s mastery of new subjects can lead to optimism as well as their own attitudes toward life. In my own position as a business owner, I believe I have employed a young woman and possibly a few others with who had learned helplessness. There is one young woman in particular who seemed to struggle with the struggles Seligman outlined in his theory. I felt a daily battle in trying to convince her she could change her life and the outcomes of the events in her life if she became motivated.When I bought my healt h club Cassie was the young woman who was the receptionist at the front desk. What I quickly learned was that Cassie had two drug addicted parents who had spent her entire life beating each other up, a father who was in and out of jail who tried to use her to get drugs, and a mother who tried to get her to do drugs with her. I quickly recognized in Cassie the ability to be different than her upbringing, but I couldn’t see a desire from her to get there. She had an inner voice that told her she never could be successful, as mediocrity was all she felt she deserved.I rewarded her for her work in attempt to motivate her, but it seemed no matter what promotion or reward I offered I couldn’t get her motivated to make changes in her life. She would come to work on time, and do what was asked of her, but I never saw any motivation to rise above and excel to the next level, even though I could see she was naturally intelligent and capable of many things. I felt for Cassie as I am not sure she ever had a chance given her parents, but I couldn’t change her as I so wished I could.No amount of positive praise or reward could convince Cassie that she could change her life, even though her intelligence was high and her ability was great. She just didn’t believe it was possible. I tried for four years to be a role model for Cassie, and there were many days when I thought she was making the choices to change her life, but she never followed through as she really believed change for her was impossible. Cassie had tried for her entire youth rise above both her parents, but eventually she felt no matter what she did the end was inevitable.It’s as if she predetermined her future by thinking it was going to be the worst future possible. In the end it seems she figured if she couldn’t beat her parents, she should join them. I tried very hard to be a positive impact for Cassie and help change her life, but the damage that she had incurred se emed to be too great. No matter what I did, she couldn’t become an optimist or change the way she felt about the outside influences in her life. No matter how hard I encouraged or pushed her in a positive direction, she always wound up back on the bottom because she truly believed that is where she belonged.I often think about her and wonder if there is anything else I could have done to help her crawl out of her life and into one she was worthy up, but in the end I think that she couldn’t change her way of thinking and truly believed the type of life she had was meant to be permanent. She is living somewhere now in a rundown apartment off of welfare with her young daughter who I believe will turn out exactly like her. She has no job because she doesn’t want to lose her food stamps and welfare, and she is back on drugs.My only hope in life is that somebody will be able to walk into her life and tell her daughter that she is smart, and capable of so much in life. I have learned from Cassie the value of celebrating a child’s little successes, and encouraging them to be something in life. It’s sad, but Cassie’s case of Learned Helplessness has taught me about promoting optimism, and I plan on spreading it to any children I come in contact with. References: Learned Helplessness (2001) Encyclopedia of Childhood and Adolescence. Retrieved at: http://findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_g2602/is_0003/ai_2602000349/Theory Name| Major Theorist(s)| Time Period Created| Key Theory Concepts| First Grand Theory: WILL| Socrates, Plato and Descartes| Ancient Greeks and 17th-18th centuries| Socrates and Plato literally broke down the concept into mind and body. Mind over matter. According to Plato there was a way to keep body in check. This could be accomplished by the will. In other words the will was in control of all aspects of intention both bodily needs and that which would be considered spiritual. Descartes was convinced that motivat ion was the will. He believed that the will was in charge of whether to act or not to act.Bodily needs pleasures, pain, impulses were just means to an end. Will had the ultimate say. He and other philosophers at the time were convinced that they had the answer. In the end the will turned out to be something of a mystery. In dealing with just the will to explain motivation, it just proved to be a purpose and it was not universal in its theory because some people had more willpower than others. | Second Grand Theory: Instinct| DarwinWilliam JamesMcDougall| 19th-20th Century| Darwin’s thoughts were dealing with the biology of mankind.His theory is still being dealt with today. Religions and scientists still trying to prove or disprove his theory. His main distinction was between animals and humans. Darwin took away the idea of will when he was able to show that animals were able to use their resources (motivation) to adapt to like humans. So in this sense the will was no longer an explanation of motivated behavior. James’ theory consisted of introducing stimulus into the picture. Reflex and instincts is what makes human motivation. McDougall took the research on a generation after Darwin.Once researchers embraced this idea the next thing to do was to identify the instincts. This became a daunting task. On top of that the instinct theory was exposed as circular. In other words, instinct theory failed because theorists were unable to determine if instincts really exist. | Third Grand Theory: Drive| Sigmund Freud Robert Woodworth Clark Hull | 20th Century| Freud, all behaviors were satisfying needs. Behavior serves bodily needs and drive acted as a guard or middleman to ensure that behaviors occurred when needed for comfort of the body. Satisfaction of the bodily need quieted drive.Freud’s theory was crushed due to three factors (1) overestimation of biological forces (2) overreliance on data taken from case studies of mentally ill individuals a nd (3) ideas that were not scientifically testable. Hull’s drive theory did had one thing the other will and instinct did not have and that was prediction. Drive came from environmental conditioning which marked the beginning of scientific study of motivation. If the answer to the environmental question could be answered as to the motivation created then, one would be able to manipulate or predict motivational states in the laboratory.Eventually though drive met its fate too. It was clear that drive reduction was neither necessary nor sufficient for learning to occur. Robert Woodworth: responsible for the so called â€Å"dynamic: interactional metaphor of nature vs. nurture. He saw the essential task of psychological investigation as ‘the give and take’ between the organism’s mentality and the requirements of its physical and social existence. According to the scientific world of the 21st century these thoughts are holding the discipline back. |Goal Setti ng| Locke| Late 1960s| Mini-theories represented attempts by researchers and theorists to focus on more and more specific aspects of behavior rather than to account for ALL motivating factors by relying on one single theory. As a result of this emphasis, mini-theories were developed to help explain some but not all of motivated behavior. For example, mini-theories might attempt to explain why a student is performing poorly in elementary school or why Mini-theories became popular because they focused largely on cognitive approaches to understanding behavior.They represented a reaction to the idea that humans are inherently passive. They also reflected a growing need for psychology to provide answers to questions that had important social implications or solved problems that were socially relevant. Edwin Locke’s Goal Setting Theory states that people who set goals for themselves will become motivated to achieve those goals, solely as a result of making those goals. Furthermore, those who set specific goals that are more difficult are able to achieve a higher level of performance than those who set easier and abstract goals.The Goal Setting Theory outlines five important principles of goal setting that motivates individuals and they are: clarity(measurable and unambiguous goals with a specific completion time ensure that there is no misunderstanding about what is required to reach the goal), challenge (difficult goals are often more motivating than easier goals), commitment (when there is a strong commitment to the goal, there is a higher level of motivation), feedback (it is important to provide opportunities for clarifying and reassuring), and task complexity (allowing time for people to achieve the goal or learn what is needed to achieve the goal).One important aspect of the goals is that they must be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time bound (SMART). In 1975 the theory was scientifically proven by researchers Latham and Baldes. Common criticisms of this theory are that it is a technique rather than a theory, it can produce undesirable competition, and it emphasizes some aspects over others (quantity over quality). | Cognitive Dissonance Achievement Motivation Learned HelplessnessOthers? | FestingerAtkinsonSeligman| 1950s19641975| The Cognitive Dissonance Theory is based off of the idea of cognitive dissonance.Cognitive dissonance is the uncomfortable feeling that arises from having two conflicting thoughts at the same time. Dissonance is referred to as the uncomfortable feeling and can often be projected as feelings of guilt, embarrassment or immorality. Dissonance can also be greater in some cases such as with big decisions or decisions that will have a great impact, decisions that are particularly difficult to solve (such as with two similar decisions), and decisions that are concerned with oneself.This theory states that when a person has these conflicting thoughts, then they will be motivated to resolve the conflict as humans tend to seek consistency within their thoughts. Often there are three ways that a person will resolve the conflict. They may change their behavior, justify their behavior by changing the conflicting beliefs to reduce dissonance (such as by reducing the importance), or justify the behavior by adding more beliefs that will reduce dissonance (such as focusing on strengths).It is important to note that one will be more likely to change their attitude or beliefs as there would be less dissonance involved, rather than changing one’s behavior. Atkinson’s theory states orientation is the result of two separate motives: the motive of achieving success and the motive to avoid failure. A persons motivation to achieve success depends on three factors: the need to succeed, the persons estimate of the ability to success and likelihood of succeeding, and the incentive for success.The motive to avoid failure shares the same three conditions, but in relation to avoid ing failure. This theory has been criticized due to the fact that a persons needs must be known before behavior can be affected. The Learned Helplessness theory speculated after testing on dogs, that humans too learn to be helpless when placed in a situation in which their actions seem to not have an effect, leading to depression. It has been criticized for not distinguishing between universal and personal helplessness. |