The Power Of Context, By Malcolm Gladwell, Steven Johnson,...

People are the products of their environment. The lifestyle children adapt to at a young age is what molds them as they grow up and mature. This is why children who typically are raised in a lavish lifestyle grow up to be proper, while those who live in poverty follow the path to failure. In the essays â€Å"The Power of Context,† â€Å"The Myth of the Ant Queen,† and â€Å"Biographies of Hegemony,† written respectfully by Malcolm Gladwell, Steven Johnson, and Karen Ho, the theme of minute changes in one’s environment, continuing to affect one heavily in the long term is brought up numerous times. Gladwell asserts the concept by talking about the incident with Bernherd Goetz and the stigma attached to the shooting. Johnson reflects upon this point numerous times by using anecdotes involving the ants and other complex discussions of Turing’s shortcomings in the era he lived in. Karen Ho talks about the business side of Gladwell’s point by corr elating it with the practices used by superpower Wall Street firms and their recruitment process. In this essay, I argue that cultural and communal changes are affected by both small and large-scale contexts; and that the power of context has a strong correlation to Wall Street and the different types of societies discussed by Johnson and Gladwell. The immediate connection to be made with the harsh effects of an unmaintained society is seen in the effects discussed by Gladwell. The broken windows theory, that Gladwell refers to, states that somethingShow MoreRelatedStephen P. Robbins Timothy A. Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words   |  1573 PagesPerception and Individual Decision Making 165 Motivation Concepts 201 Motivation: From Concepts to Applications 239 3 The Group 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Foundations of Group Behavior 271 Understanding Work Teams 307 Communication 335 Leadership 367 Power and Politics 411 Conflict and Negotiation 445 Foundations of Organization Structure 479 v vi BRIEF CONTENTS 4 The Organization System 16 Organizational Culture 511 17 Human Resource Policies and Practices 543 18 Organizational ChangeRead MoreDeveloping Management Skills404131 Words   |  1617 PagesSenior Operations Supervisor: Arnold Vila Operations Specialist: Ilene Kahn Senior Art Director: Janet Slowik Interior Design: Suzanne Duda and Michael Fruhbeis Permissions Project Manager: Shannon Barbe Manager, Cover Visual Research Permissions: Karen Sanatar Manager Central Design: Jayne Conte Cover Art: Getty Images, Inc. Cover Design: Suzanne Duda Lead Media Project Manager: Denise Vaughn Full-Service Project Management: Sharon Anderson/BookMasters, Inc. Composition: Integra Software Services

Key Elements Of A Stress Management Program - 1063 Words

1. Three things are necessary for stress to occur: a stressor, a perception of stress, and a stress response. The three main elements of a stress management program include the elimination/modification/reduction of the number of stressors, an alteration of our perceptions, and the reduction/modification/control of the stress response. 2. Often, when we think of stress, we automatically think of the bad kind. In all reality, stress isn’t always a bad thing; it is just the body’s response to changes that create some demands in our lives. There are many different positive stressors that are short-term and motivate us as we work to improve our performance in our day-to-day lives. It is important to note that these positive stressors have the potential to cause some distress at a certain point. There is a peak at which stress switches from eustress to distress. Eustress or â€Å"good stress† increases performance up to the peak. Once the peak is reached, distress or â€Å"bad stress† kicks in and performance declines. When that certain amount of stress is reached and the tipping point occurs, we may need to use various stress management strategies to help us get back on the right track and alleviate some of this distress we are feeling. 3. Stress, to a certain degree, is a necessity in our lives. It gives us precious, powerful fight-or-flight hormones that have the ability to keep us safe in times of danger. Along with that, small amounts of stress often help us perform tasks moreShow MoreRelatedThe Concise Encyclopedia of Management1645 Words   |  7 Pagesan understanding of this is foundational to the psychological underpinning of successful change management and the strategies for managing change that will deliver that. 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I had the constant tightening of the stomach that very frequently turned to churning in response to many simple events that occurred in my day to day life. This was exasperated by my inability to breatheRead MoreThe Impact Of Refresher Training On Job Knowledge And Attitude878 Words   |  4 PagesRefresher training is for current employees who are repeatedly written up for deficiencies in job-knowledge and attitude. This course includes, time management, hands-on task training and stress management. Leadership training is for high-performing workers who have mastered their core competencies and are ready for management and leadership roles. It also provides a venue for advanced skills development training. This course will address topics such as decision making, employment laws, managingRead MoreCompetitive Advantage And Stress Of Organizational Health1459 Words   |  6 Pages Competitive Advantage and Stress Organizational health means profit; therefore, to gain profits organizations must secure and grow their competitive advantage. Competitive advantage is the means of strategically differentiating products and/or services an organization from its competitors, such as branding, customer base, product quality, reputation, leadership, organizational culture, innovation, intellectual property, patents, leadership, and customer or governmental relationships, to reduce

Mass Media Analysis Essay Example For Students

Mass Media Analysis Essay ***Uses and Gratifications Theory History Early in communication research, an approach was developed to study the gratifications that attract and hold audiences to the kinds of media and the types of content that satisfy their social and psychological needs. Researchers Jay G. Blumer and Elihu Katz introduced the Uses and Gratification Theory not asking the question of What do media do to people? rather asking, â€Å"What do people do with media? The Uses and Gratification Theory A theory of Mass Communication that places the needs, motives and gratifications of media users in the center of interest and sees media users playing an active role in the media consumption process. It presents the use of media in terms of gratification of social and psychological needs of an individual. Categories of the Uses and Gratification Theory * Cognitive needs People use media for acquiring knowledge, information and understanding. The audience gains understanding of the world around by consuming media text. * Personal Integrative needs People use media to treasure their status, gain credibility and stabilize social condition. Often people identify a part of themselves in media characters or in presented circumstances. There must be value reinforcement or reassurance; self-understanding and reality exploration. * Social Integrative needs People create personal relationship with the characters in the media. It encompasses the need to socialize with other individuals. * Tension release needs Media allows the user to relieve the tension by offering an escape to reality and creating a break from daily routines and problems. Entertainment Consumed purely for entertainment purposes, there are no other gratifications. Assumptions Uses and gratifications theory attempts to explain the uses and functions of the media for individuals, groups, and society in general. There are three objectives in developing uses and gratifications theory: 1) To explain how individuals use mass communication to gratify their needs. â€Å"What do people do with the media†. 2) To discover underlying motives for individuals’ media use. 3) To identify the positive and the negative consequences of individual media use. At the core of uses and gratifications theory lies the assumption that audience members actively seek out the mass media to satisfy individual needs. Criticisms James Lull (2002) criticized the main assumption that people seek out media to satisfy a personal need, especially to entertain themselves. Lull suggested that audiences don’t always accept the content of the media and that not all media are meant to prove gratification or satisfy the need for entertainment. Audiences don’t always benefit from the use of the media and don’t take on in media assumption willingly and independently. Ien Ang criticized that the theory only tends to focus on individual needs and disregarding social content. ***Spiral of Silence Imagine you and some other people are sitting around at dinner talking about a movie you had just seen. You dont know these people all that well so youve just been listening to the conversation. You loved the movie, but they all keep talking about how much they hated it. You cant understand why, but dont want to express your views in front of all of them. Later you start talking to one of the other people at dinner and learn that they too liked the movie. History and Orientation Neumann (1974) introduced the â€Å"spiral of silence† as an attempt to explain in part how public opinion is formed. She wondered why the Germans supported wrong political positions that led to national defeat, humiliation and ruin in the 1930s-1940s. Core Assumptions and Statements The phrase spiral of silence actually refers to how people tend to remain silent when they feel that their views are in the minority. The model is based on three premises: 1) People have a quasi-statistical organ, a sixth-sense if you will, which allows them to know the prevailing public opinion, even without access to polls 2) People have a fear of isolation and know what behaviors will increase their likelihood of being socially isolated, and 3) People are reticent to express their minority views, primarily out of fear of being isolated. The closer a person believes the opinion held is similar to the prevailing public opinion, the more they are willing to openly disclose that opinion in public. Then, if public sentiment changes, the person will recognize that the opinion is less in favor and will be less willing to express that opinion publicly. As the perceived distance between public opinion and a persons personal opinion grows, the more unlikely the person is to express their opinion. Conceptual Model Scope and Application It is related to the mass media, in such a way that mass media influences public opinion. Shifts in public opinion occur commonly and therefore this theory is used to search an explanation for behavior (speak up or stay silent). The theory has also been criticized for ambiguity and methodological weakness, but the idea has persisted. Evidence of the spiral effect is usually small but significant. Example * The 1991 Gulf War the U. S. support for the war was measured. Either it is a consensus view or did media coverage contribute to a spiral of silence that dampened opposition to the war? In a survey that asked about people’s opinions, respondents were clearly less supportive of the war than the popular support depicted by the media. Those who watched television and perceived that the public supported the war, were more likely to support the war themselves. This study supports the spiral of silence and suggests that people are swayed by bandwagon effects rather than fearing social isolation. * Adolf Hitler is known for his skillful speeches, but his propaganda also helped the party get a large amount of support from the citizens. There is a clip of footage of an example of the Nazi propaganda from 1939, which shows German military maneuvers of tanks, troops, and combat planes. It suggests that the Nazi party is superior to other countries and displays their great source of power. It says that their combat planes can even fly under bad weather conditions. It also describes that people are watching the sky with some fear, but at the same time they are smiling for hope and faith. The film is made with brave music and emphasizes the Nazi’s military strength. Also, it shows German tanks moving in to attack the Soviet Union. Nazis used not only films, but also other media such as newspapers, radio and magazines. The magazine â€Å"Signal† was a magazine which was published by the Nazi party from 1940 to 1945. It published about 2,500, 000 copies and was about German’s with a modern blend of articles and pictures about stories from the battlefield. cloning and stem cell research EssayWells’ â€Å"War of the Worlds† on October 30, 1938. On Halloween Eve, radio programming was interrupted with a news bulletin and the listeners heard that Martians had begun an invasion in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey. About one million of the 12 million who heard it actually believed that a Martian invasion was at hand. Hysteria filled the streets, interrupting religious services, causing traffic jams, and clogging communication systems. People stormed groceries and started panic buying. This broadcast was the best example of how the theory worked. It showed how the media can manipulate a gullible and passive public. ***Interdependence Theory Interdependence implies that mass media and society are continually interacting and influencing each other. The media respond to the demand from society for information and entertainment and, at the same time, stimulate innovation and contribute to a changing social-cultural climate, which sets off new demands for communication. The French sociologist Gabriel Tarde, writing about 1900, envisaged a constant interviewing of influences. Technological developments made newspapers possible, newspapers promote the formation of broader publics, and they, by broadening the loyalties of their members, create an extensive network of overlapping and shifting groupings’ (Clark, 1969). Today, the various influences are so bound together that neither mass communication nor modern society is conceivable without the other, and each s a necessary, though not a sufficient, condition for the other. From this point of view we have to conclude that the media may equally be considered to mould or to mirror society and social changes. ***Cultivation Analysis Television shapes concepts of social reality. * Cultivation theory (sometimes referred to as the cultivation hypothesis or cultivation analysis) was an approach developed by Professor George Gerbner, dean of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pe nnsylvania. It is derived from several large-scale projects concerned with the effects of television programming (particularly violent programming) on the attitudes and behaviors of the American public (Miller, 2005, p. 281) * This theory was developed to study whether and how watching television may influence viewers ideas of what the everyday world is like. * Cultivation theorists argue that television has long-term effects which are small, gradual, indirect but cumulative and significant. Core Assumptions ; Statements Cultivation theory suggests that television is responsible for shaping, or ‘cultivating’ viewers’ conceptions of social reality. * The combined effect of massive television exposure by viewers over time subtly shapes the perception of social reality for individuals and, ultimately, for our culture as a whole. * Gerbner argues that the mass media cultivate attitudes and values which are already present in a culture: the media maintain and propagate these value s amongst members of a culture, thus binding it together. Cultivation theory presents television as not a window on or reflection of the world, but a world in itself. * The cultivation effect of television viewing is one of levelling or homogenizing opinion referred to as mainstreaming effect. * The cultivation effect is divided into two order: 1. First-order cultivation effects refer to the effects of television on statistical descriptions about the world 2. Second-order cultivation effects refer to effects on beliefs about the general nature of the world * There is also a distinction between two groups of television viewers: light viewers – views television for less than 2 hours * heavy viewers – views television for more than four hours * People who watch a lot of television are likely to be more influenced by the ways in which the world is framed by television programs than are individuals who watch less * The difference in the pattern of responses between light an d heavy viewers (when other variables are controlled), is referred to as the cultivation differential, reflecting the extent to which an attitude seems to be shaped by watching television. ‘Resonance’ describes the intensified effect on the audience when what people see on television is what they have experienced in life. This double dose of the televised message tends to amplify the cultivation effect. Steps in Cultivation Research 1. Content Analysis In 1969, Gerbner and his colleagues began to chart the content of prime-time and weekend childrens television programming, and Gerbner et al. (1986, p. 25) noted that 2,105 programs, 6,055 major characters, and 19,116 minor characters had been analyzed by 1984. Significantly, Gerbner et al. pp. 25 26) noted the following patterns: * Men outnumbered women three to one on television * Older people and younger people are underrepresented on television * Blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented on television * Seventy perc ent of television characters are middle class * Crime is 10 times as rampant in the television world 2. Cultural indicators analysis The process of assessing individuals beliefs about what the world is like; this analysis involves surveys of individuals using factual questions about the world Miller (2005) says a separate measure (often at a different point in time) would be used to assess the overall viewing habits of the individual 3. Cultivation analysis A comparison between light television viewers and heavy television viewers: If heavy television viewers tended to provide answers that were more in line with the television response, researchers would have support for the cultivation hypothesis. Conceptual Model Scope and Application * Gerbner and Gross (1976) say elevision is a medium of the socialization of most people into standardized roles and behaviors. Its function is in a word, enculturation (p. 175). * Cultivation research looks at the mass media as a socializing agent and investigates whether television viewers come to believe the television version of reality the more they watch it. Example: In a survey of about 450 New Jersey schoolchildren, 73 percent of heavy viewers compared to 62 percent of light viewers gave the TV answer to a question asking them to estimate the number of people involved in violence in a typical week. The same survey showed that children who were heavy viewers were more fearful about walking alone in a city at night. They also overestimated the number of people who commit serious crimes. This effect is called ‘mean world syndrome’. One controlled experiment addressed the issue of cause and effect, manipulating the viewing of American college students to create heavy- and light-viewing groups. After 6 weeks of controlled viewing, heavy viewers of action-adventure programs were indeed found to be more fearful of life in the everyday world than were light viewers.

Injection Molding Essays - Injection Molding, Injection Moulding

Injection Molding Injection molding is a process used to form products from plastic. The process requires a mold, clamping component, injection unit, and some sort of plastic. As time has advanced so has injection molding by developing new techniques and new products to aid in the manufacturing of the injection molded parts. Injection molding was used as early as the 1860's. It can be used to form many different products. Whether the products are small, large, complex, or simple they can be produced. Injection molding has derived from metal die casting. However, the polymer can't just be poured into a mold, it has to be forced into the mold cavity. The polymer is forced into the mold and pressure is held on it to avoid shrinkage in the mold cavity as it cools. Injection molding is capable of producing a large number of parts with very high precision. All thermoplastics except polytetraflouroethylene (PTFE), polyamides, and some aromatic polyesters can be used by the injection molding machine. Some thermosetting plastics can also be used. The typical fabrication process can be done by one of two different types of injection molding equipment. Either a plunger, or reciprocating screw type machine can be used. The process starts by melting the polymer resin. Once the resin is melted, a mold is placed in the clamping unit. The clamping unit is to hold the mold together. The plunger or reciprocating screw then force the polymer resin into the mold. In the plunger operated machine, the plunger is hydraulically operated. This forces the plastic through a heated area, where it is then spread into a thin layer by the torpedo. Then the melt comes to the nozzle and is injected into the mold. The reciprocating screw rotates, this moves the polymer resin forward for injection. As the screw rotates it acts to melt, mix, and pump the polymer to prepare it for injection. The reciprocating screw machine is the most widely used of the two machines. Once the polymer resin is injected into the mold cavity, the mold is allowed to cool. The mold has a gate, which limits back flow and directs the flow of the melt into the mold cavity. Once the mold has cooled and the polymer has solidified the mold can be removed and the part can be ejected. When the gate freezes, the screw begins to rotate again and the part is ejected. This completes the cycle time. Cycle times range due to the amount of time the polymer needs to cure or solidify. This is called the hold time. Some advantages of injection molding are high production rates, design flexibility, low tolerances, can process wide range of materials, low labor, little or no finishing, and scrap is held to a minimum. However, some disadvantages are high startup and running costs, part must be designed for effective molding, accurate cost prediction is difficult, and machine cost is very high. The high tooling costs come from the molds being built to a high level of precision. The molds are usually constructed of hardened tool steel, and aluminum or other soft metals when tooling life is not an issue. Tooling costs can range from $5,000 to $100,000. However, there are some parts that can not be formed by any other method of processing except injection molding. These parts typically become feasible around 1,000 pieces. To go with the high tooling costs there are a large number of variables that go along with it. Injection molding machines may require special plant services that other equipment does not. As technology advances so must the industry to keep up production. One way injection molding is keeping up is by becoming automated. Usually, operators are placing parts into molds, and then taking the parts out. Now, robotic devices are being used to place inserts before molding and remove parts after molding as well as a host of other operations as well. Not only does the robotics speed up the process, but makes it much more cost effective. Another way industry is trying to keep up with technology is by using computer software. The software is called "Mold Adviser," which is a mold design and analysis package that can be used to help speed up operations while reducing tooling costs. Using the past standard operation of designing molds a company could easily waste six to twelve weeks and anywhere from $30,000 to $40,000 on fixing a mold that has a problem with filling correctly. The new software will detect these problems up front before production begins. It