Attitudes and Behaviors Essay Example for Free

Attitudes and Behaviors Essay So let’s start by saying that attitudes have two main components those happen to be beliefs and values. Beliefs are statements while values are judgments. When it comes to persuasion a person might have their own attitude and have it rub off so to speak onto another person or several other people. We tend to use this on a daily basis for things that we want whether that be for ourselves or from other people. When it comes to conformity many individuals will change their behaviors to fit in with other people that they involve themselves with. This could potentially mean that you could lose your own identity and become someone completely different from whom you truly are. When it comes to bias we are all wired to have judgments and prejudice many times people will use this judgment and have a set attitude on people, places and things. Only people can change their behaviors. Psychologists define attitudes as a learned tendency to view things in certain ways. This can include people. Places, issues and events that occur in a person’s life. Attitudes form from the experiences that you go through, they could direct from personal experiences or from the observation of other individuals. Attitudes can be learned in several different ways. Classical conditioning can impact your attitude to different products. Operant conditioning can also help in how attitudes are developed. When someone you like has a different attitude your attitude more than likely will change to be the same as the other individual. Researchers have come to the belief and conclusion that people behave according to their attitudes under a lot of circumstances. Cognitive dissonance is when an individual experiences, psychological stress caused by conflicts from thoughts and beliefs in a person’s everyday life whether that be from work, relationships, money problems. In order to gain back control people often change their attitudes based on actual behaviors. Attitudes can change just like people can. You can turn your thought process around just  like you can with many other things. Classical conditioning can create positive emotional reactions. Operant conditioning can be used to strengthen attitudes and behaviors that you are lacking or that are weak. People can also see how negative people act and decide that they don’t want to be that way and that can drastically change a person’s mind on how they think. Life events such as death, sickness, relationship loses and other important things can make a person realize what they have and what they need to be grateful for but also can help them understand their thought patterns were incorrect and that they need to change that in order to have a better life for not only themselves but the people that they associate themselves with. The theory of persuasion says that people can alter their personal attitudes in two ways. They can be motivated to listen and to think about what is being said to them which can make them open up to different ideas and thoughts or they could simply be influenced by good positive people that they are around on a daily basis. In order to change a individual s behavior you must change your thought process completely. http://www.examiner.com/article/bias-attitude-and-prejudice http://www.cios.org/encyclopedia/persuasion/Aintroduction_4nature.htm http://psychology.about.com/od/socialinfluence/f/conformity.htm

Ticket to Listen :: Music Rolling Stones Personal Narratives Essays

Ticket to Listen One little remnant of my past that I hold dear to me is a tiny scrap of paper. Though it is somewhat creased because of wear and tear, it still is able to tell a tale. The background is a pale white; the back is filled with tiny font disclaimers throughout it which leave no unusual scenario unexplained. The front has a broad blue stripe and a thinner orange strip underneath. Some of the black lettering is faded but the most important words still stand out, they are â€Å"The Rolling Stones†, â€Å"Landover, MD† and â€Å"Fed ex Field†. Those few words are all that need to be legible on my ticket for me to remember and still be able to tell the tale no matter how many years pass this stub by. The story on how I got this ticket is a little unusual. It all started when I found out the Stones were playing in Landover, MD which is far when you compare it to their next stop which was California. Both my boyfriend and I are huge Rolling Stones fans and all he ever wanted was to go see them live in concert. So of course after finding out they were playing in MD only five days before the show I had my work cut out for me. The next few days consisted of me calling every ticket distributor known to mankind to no avail, there was always some problem no seats available or seats available but none together†¦ The list went on and on, but I have this thick-skinned thing about me that once I want something I’m just going to have to find some way to get it and I was determined to pull this one off. Despite all my efforts the day of the concert came and I still had no tickets, yet I knew it didn’t matter I was still going to get us there somehow. I spent the whole day on and off the phone with my boyfriend’s older sister Candi scheming up some brilliant plan to get in. It ended up being our plan to just wing it. We were going to surprise my boyfriend and hop in the car and head down to Maryland right after school.

Meaning of Free-Enterprise System Essay

Free-enterprise is defined as the freedom of individuals or groups of individuals to engage in business ventures with the minimum intervention of the state (or its political apparatus, the government) (Smith 1776/1904). There are three parts in this definition. First, free-enterprise is defined as freedom of individuals; in classical economic theory, freedom to engage in economic activities is an extension of individual freedom. Added to that, this freedom to participate in economic activities is corollary to making personal choices, which unrestricted, constitute individual freedom (like other freedoms). The second part of this definition is the statement that individuals can engage in business ventures. This can be achieved so long as the individual has the capital to establish his business. In economic theory, capital is defined as the assets, in the form of money, technology, physical infrastructure, human skills, etc. that can have a possible rate of returns. Individuals can use this capital to accumulate wealth, that is, to create more capital and profit. Nevertheless, in a free-enterprise, capital however is dictated by the laws of supply and demand. Capital will only have a fruitful rate of return if it is utilized to producing goods demanded by the consumers. Capital utilized for producing products not demanded by the public will either have a lower rate of returns or push the business into exiting from the market. Lastly, the requisite for free-enterprise is what economists call â€Å"minimum intervention of the state. † In simple terms, in order for the laws of supply and demand to take effect, the government must not intervene in the economic activities of the country. The laws of supply and demand cannot work in a system wherein economic activities are either restricted or controlled by the state or government. Whenever the government restricts business activities, the natural mechanism of adjusting production and demand becomes blurred (policies), and thus may create an artificial shortage in the market. Added to that, Adam Smith (1776/1904) argued that if markets are left on its own, it will naturally supply the public its demand. The capitalists or businessmen, eyeing public demand as an opportunity for acquiring profit, utilize their capital for producing products that the public demands. The self-interests of both the businessmen and the consumers will naturally lead to prosperity. Smith (1776) noted however that the government’s roles in the free-market system are limited to the following: 1) military protection of the state, 2) creation of an amiable economic climate, and 3) construction of public works. However, in real life, it is impossible for government not to intervene in the market. Environmental disasters may create a shortage in the market, raising prices to multiple folds. The government then can institute some price mechanisms in order to protect the consuming public from unregulated and irresponsible business activities. Good and Bad Kinds of Markets in a Free-Enterprise System Because free-enterprise is defined as the freedom of individuals or group of individuals to engage in economic activities with the minimum intervention of the government or state, it is noteworthy that a loose classification of such had been made by different economists. These economists either favor a virtually unrestricted form of free-enterprise or a combination of command and free-market system. The first set of economists argued that free-enterprise system necessitates the establishment of an economy under perfect competition. These classical economists argued that if government will let the market do its natural function, relative adjustment in prices for certain products will cause a relative change in demand, and also a corresponding change in supply. In the supply side, because every firm in a perfectly competitive market has an equal share of market, a change in the price of one firm will cause a change in the price of other firms. In the end, the consuming public will benefit from this relationship because prices are well adjusted by market mechanisms. On the wage side, whenever a change in the production inputs occurs, a corresponding change in the wage side also occurs. Firms will adjust their wage schedules and a level of equilibrium is achieved which would benefit the general public. On the production side, classical economists argued that in a perfectly competitive market changes in prices of goods will have a corresponding change in the wage level; the price level described as flexible and the wage rate inflexible. Whenever a change in prices of goods occurs, all will follow, and thus the market will be in a state of equilibrium. In this condition, the supply and demand for goods are situated in one price (for a particular good). When equilibrium is reached in the market, both the aggregate demand and aggregate supply in the market becomes relatively equal. This will prevent the creation of an artificial shortage in the market. These conditions of free-enterprise however work in an ideal situation. In reality, the government can intervene in the market in at least three ways: 1) control the activities of monopolies and cartels, 2) set price controls for certain basic goods, and 3) control the supply of money. These functions may be classified as effective or necessary. It can be necessary because these activities and conditions will naturally affect the general welfare of the public. Effective because government interventions may take the form of a general welfare policy far removed from the rumblings of the political arena. Monopolies and cartels are perverted forms of the free-enterprise system. Monopolies usually control the larger portion of the market supply of a particular good. The implication is that these monopolies can dictate the price in the market at the expense of the general public. It is expected that the deadweight loss in this condition will be much larger than economies with imperfect market competition (economies differentiating products), precisely because the welfare surplus is converted into a certain rate of profit by the monopolies. They can do this by controlling the supply of goods in the market. Since they control most of the supply of a particular good, prices will be adjusted based on the profit schedule of the firm. Cartels function the same way as monopolies but differ in two ways. Monopolies usually involve one firm who controls most of the supply of a particular good in the market. Cartels are composed of firms producing the same product and have relatively equal share of the market pie of a particular good. These firms may corrode to control the price of a good in the market to achieve the expected level of profit, and of course to avoid competition. Welfare surplus in this case will still be large due to the corresponding fall of expected returns to the consumers. What I have outlined are the good and bad kinds of markets in a free-enterprise system. The perfectly competitive market is the ideal free-enterprise system. For theoretical purposes, the perfectly competitive market is itself the free-enterprise system since it well transcribes the characteristics of a laissez-faire system. However, because this is only an ideal type, perverted forms are well imbibed in the free-market system, that is, they are assumed to be part and parcel of this economic system. In a sense, the definition of free-enterprise that I presented is the definition that captures the postulates of classical economics. Classical economics classified good and bad forms of the so-called free-enterprise system, although it is wrong to argue that there is such thing as â€Å"bad free-enterprise† because theoretically it is an ideal type that strives for the good of the general public. This approach to the definition of a free-enterprise system is classical in nature and does not take into account some of the contemporary economic arrangements that are shaping the economies of many nations, poor and rich nations alike. Capitalism, Neo-Classical Economics, and Free-Enterprise In his book, Carson (2001) argued that the so-called free-enterprise system that classical economists are boasting is in fact transformed into the so-called capitalist system. The capitalist system provides the businessmen when the capacity of limiting the wages of the laborer. The state now, protects corporations (which are embodiments of the capitalist ordeals) through limited liability, laws on protection of assets, high interest rates, and of course low taxes. It seems that the free-enterprise system which was meant to be at the service of the general public is now an apparatus of the capitalists to expand their share of the market. Capitalism is not free-enterprise. Free-enterprise system is the contradiction of the capitalist system in its economic goals and assumptions. Keynes (1936) noted that in the era of modern economics, prices of goods in the market are inflexible in the short-run. Short-run adjustments of production schedules and wages will not be smooth since the overall inventory of the firm depends on the expected rate of demand of the public, the actual expenditure, and the price itself. The implication of this is the fact that free-enterprise can only be achieved partially in the long-run. In the short run, distortions in the market will create monopolies and cartels,; in the long-run these will be eliminated, thus the achievement of the so-called â€Å"free-enterprise† system.

The Effects Of Solitary Confinement On The Mental Health...

In recent years, the use of solitary confinement has become a topic of interest in the mental health field, criminal justice system, and political arena. Despite being deemed Constitutional by the Supreme Court, many mental health professionals are beginning to investigate the negative psychological effects of solitary confinement. Although there is growing concern regarding the humaneness of solitary confinement, a topic of interest that has yet to be explored in much detail is the relationship between theories of criminal behavior regarding aggression and solitary confinement. For the most part, inmates, regardless of whether or not they are in solitary confinement, are insufficiently socialized in prison. Given this lack of proper†¦show more content†¦Next, I will give a brief overview of what solitary confinement is, who can be put in solitary confinement, and how solitary confinement is different from seclusion. Finally, I will explain the psychological effects of solitary confinement, specifically as they relate to aggression and violence. Given the current psychological research and political debate surrounding solitary confinement, I will ultimately conclude that solitary confinement not only has significant negative psychological effects, but it serves as a risk factor promoting aggressive tendencies in inmates. Theories of Criminal Behavior: Aggression and Violence Aggression is a natural part of human behavior, and can even be adaptive in certain situations. However, when aggression manifests itself in violent behaviors, it becomes problematic. Patterns of aggression change throughout childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, and these changes usually differ between males and females (Loeber, 1997). Physical aggression is typically greatest early in life and decreases during adolescence, whereas more serious violence tends to increase with age, particularly during adolescence (Loeber, 1997). Despite the changes that occur in aggressive tendencies throughout childhood and adolescence, aggression is seen as a very stable trait, almost as stable as