Motivating collegiate student-athletes Essay

Motivating athletes is one of the major problems a coach faces. Even the most talented athlete will not perform to his full potential if not properly motivated. Coaches have sought to define what motivates an athlete and what hampers it for years. Motivation directly influences an athlete’s performance. It sets his mood and outlook towards the game or competition. It determines his level of dedication to the sport. Motivation does not only affect the individual player but also his team. It is important that all the members of the team be motivated individually to ensure team motivation. Motivation can also shift. An athlete who was highly motivated at the start of the season may find that his drive to play is dwindling. It is these problems that coaches need to address. This paper tackles the problem of motivating collegiate student-athletes. The key areas of focus will be defining the best type of motivation for collegiate student-athletes and building a structure to incorporate motivation into the coach’s overall program by using the proper tools of goal setting and visualization. A. Intrinsic Motivation Motivation can take two forms: extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic motivation involves â€Å"engaging in an activity as a means to an end† (Higgins & Trope, 1986). This end referred to by Higgins & Trope (1986), take the form of rewards. Factors like popularity, trophies, jackets or jerseys identifying the wearer as part of a sports team, extrinsically motivate student-athletes. While extrinsic motivation is a good start, it does not ensure the consistent and long term drive coaches seek for (Schone, 2008). Intrinsic motivation, on the other hand, refers to the drive of a student to engage in an activity because he wants to (Taylor & Wilson, 2005). The satisfaction derived from playing the game itself is the motivating factor. As Burton and Raedeke (2008) put it, â€Å"intrinsically motivated athletes play for the love of the game. † It is this type of motivational environment that coaches should create for their athletes. How does a coach achieve such an environment? According to Martens (2004), sports psychologists have identified the two key needs of an athlete: having fun and feeling worthy. Having Fun Burton and Raedeke (2008) explained that having fun and developing skills were rated as the top reasons why athletes participate in a sport. On the other hand, Garret (2008) pointed out that one of the reasons why female student-athletes quit sports is because â€Å"the experience ceased being fun. † Having fun does not mean goofing around. Fun is striking a balance between skill and challenge (Burton & Raedeke, 2008). Without that balance, the result would either be boredom, where the skill outweighs the challenge, or anxiety, where the challenge outweighs the skill (United States Tennis Association, 2004). Therefore, it is the job of the coach to identify the level of skill of each player and develop a challenging training program that will develop the team’s skills but not overwhelm them. Following are some ways suggested by numerous writers (e. g. Burton & Raedeke, 2008; Garret, 2008; La Prath, 2008;) to keep training fun: ? Offer variety. Make practices stimulating by varying the exercises and drills given to the athletes. Do not make the training program a routine. Consistency is important however introducing changes will keep athletes sharp. It also helps to change the practice environment. Holding training sessions at the beach or in a park instead of the school gymnasium will be enjoyable for student-athletes. ? Keep all players busy. Make sure that everyone is doing something instead of waiting for long periods of time for his or her turn to practice. Breaks in between practice should be short as well. Giving athletes too much lag time increases boredom. To make sure everyone is participating break the team in to groups where each group is given a specific activity to do or made to compete against each other. Following the first tip, make the groupings diverse. Groupings can be done according to skill or even according to year level or favorite sports celebrity. ? Involve the team. Listening to the inputs or opinions of a student-athlete can help improve not only the performance of the team but also of the coach. It also gives the athlete a sense of investment in the team, ensuring the maintenance of his interest in the sport and in his team. Coaches can involve student-athletes by offering a practice day where the players themselves can devise their own training program. Giving the team an opportunity to formulate strategies to win the game is another way. Even simple things like letting them design their own jackets or jerseys will give them a sense of involvement in the decision making process. ? Give the team time to play. For every training session allot time for the team to play without receiving instruction or evaluation from the coach. Give the athletes a chance to engross themselves in the game. Hearing constant instruction hampers experience of flow. ? Train student-athletes to cope with stress. It is inevitable that an athlete will experience stress. Pressure to achieve in both sports and academics is high in a competitive college environment. The athlete must learn how to deal with this and manage the anxiety accompanied with it. Coping with stress can be done through affirmation, positive reinforcement, and teaching a student that down time is also vital to their health. An hour of rest can energize a student. Sleeping at the correct time and for the proper length of time, eating the right food and taking the appropriate vitamins are ways to minimize stress. ? Incorporate teambuilding activities. Important in team sports is getting the individual players in sync with each other. Without activities that foster friendships you would not have a team but a group of individuals playing together. Building camaraderie would not only enhance the performance of the team but the individual players as well.

American Childhood Essay

In the book An American Childhood, Annie Dillard tells many different stories throughout her life to support her main purpose. Dillard’s purpose in this book is to show us how we look at everything thing in an aw when we are young, but once we reach a certain age, life just hits us and we don’t see anything in an aw anymore once we reach adulthood. In part one, Dillard shows us her life through her eyes and how she sees everything in that aw. She tells us how amazing it is to find the dime in the dark alley that she believes is an awesome place. If Dillard was to walk through this same ally in part three of this book, she probably wouldn’t care about the alley because she doesn’t see anything in an aw anymore. As Dillard gets older, different things appeal to her eyes when she is wondering the streets. In part one, she was so interested in the dime from the dark alley, and then in part two, Dillard was curious about the strand man with beer in the back of his truck and the morse code. As the book goes on, Dillard develops a stronger meaning in life and has a wider vocabulary selection. When reading the three different parts in the book, you can see the change in age because her stories seem to not be as happy because she isn’t living in that aw life. Dillard celebrates just living life, the wonders of the world and what amazing things it has to offer. She shows us how we perceive those possibilities as we are young and when we become older, what nature the world can be as we explore it. In Part three Dillard because a whole new person, or so she thinks. She loses all the aw she had as a child and realized how she can make her own decisions in life, she doesn’t have to listen to anyone and she didn’t like that. Dillard states â€Å"I was growing and thinning, as if pulled. I was getting angry, as if pushed. I morally disapproved most things in North America, and blamed my innocent parents for them. My feelings deepened and lingered. The swift moods of early childhood-each formed by and suited to its occasion-vanished. Now feelings lasted so long they left stains† (Dillard 2220). Dillard didn’t feel the support to help her in decision making from her parents anymore and she disliked that. During this â⠂¬Å"chapter†, Dillard really takes the turn for the worst and starts to make some bad decisions. She tells us how â€Å" She couldn’t remember how to forget herself†( Dillard 224). This shows how life hit her like a brick wall and she isn’t seeing life in an aw now and she doesn’t like a single second of it.

Discuss the views of Socrates and Plato in regards to what the best Essay

Discuss the views of Socrates and Plato in regards to what the best political system should be - Essay Example Democracy can be defined through its features: privacy, equality, affirming freedom and diversity. According to Socrates democracy is not good enough for an ideal republic. Socrates describes democracy as whimsical and with no stable character. Through this, Socrates paints a democratic state as unstable state that is in the act of doing the good thing and bad things whenever they feel like. According to Socrates, democratic states are so subject to things that are not necessary (Jowett and Plato 68). According to Socrates, democracy is hostile to all forms of authority. This is from the fact that one of the pillars that define democracy is freedom. Therefore an authority of any form will automatically be viewed as an attempt to limit freedom (Mara 43). Socrates says that democrats will prefer to die than to submit to authority. Socrates gives the situation where students start to disobey their teachers since they don’t want any form of authority. Plato views a republic to be determined by â€Å"Good Life.† To Plato, â€Å"Good Life† is a kind of harmony that is reached through the application of pure reasoning and justice with the product being a more perfect good life possible. In explaining this, Plato compares the operation of a society and an individual being (Jowett and Plato 58). Plato supposed that human beings have the same features and performs the same functions as city-states. That is a human being is similar to trees, buildings and other physical materials that make a city. Thus each human being is a complex structure made of different parts that has distinct roles. In addition, Plato believed that the human soul has three parts: reason, desire and emotion. He uses this to elaborate that one can’t do things with a part of his soul or the whole soul. According to Plato, accepting and pursuing one thing is opposite to the rejection and avoidance of the same thing and since they are opposite forces they can’t belong to the same part of the

Switching behavior and cycling durability on TiO2 coated Mg4Ni thin Essay

Switching behavior and cycling durability on TiO2 coated Mg4Ni thin film mirror - Essay Example Transmittance of the mirrors that were coated with the TiO2 film in the transparent state is improved by interference of multiple layers. Switching responses of multilayer thin films (Pd/Ti/Mg4Ni) was not effected by the outermost coatings of the TiO2 films, that is, hydriding and dehydriding speeds almost the same compared to the uncoating mirrors. Magnesium [1-3] and magnesium-based thin films [4-9] with a cap layer of Pd that can be switched between transparent and mirror states by hydrogen gas loading have attracted attention for their potential applications as smart windows, optical switches, and hydrogen sensors. Among various switchable mirror materials, magnesium-nickel alloy thin films [5-7] are one of the most promising candidates for practical use of a switchable mirror from the point of view of material cost and optical switching performance. It shows, however, fast degradation like other switchable mirror materials; after about 150 switching cycles it can not be switched again [10]. This low stability is the most severe obstacle for their applications. The investigation of the degradation mechanism indicates that the formation of magnesium oxides at the outermost surface and failure of the Pd cap layer are the major causes of the degradation [10]. Magnesium in the thin film of Mg-Ni is easy diffusing towards the outermost surface during the hydrogenation and dehydrogenation processing due to the fact that the total energy is reduced by the segregation of the Mg to the surface [11]. The researchers have developed various devises to extend the lifetime of this mirror system for practical applications. For this purpose, the various polymer materials have been used as a protection layer by spin coating to surface of the mirror [12], and the hydrogen diffusion metals such as Ti, Nb and V as a protection layer inserted to the Pd top layer and the Mg-Ni thin layer period [13]. Polymer coatings can extend the switching

Channeling Students into Special Services Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Channeling Students into Special Services - Essay Example An appropriate individual intervention program be developed considering Jeffrey’s developmental needs and challenges, learning styles, the nature of services needed to support his education and the environment for social support. The support services can be formed and maintained through a collective effort of the parents, teachers, the society and the school community. Such services involve training the parents, giving special care, medical intervention, counseling and managing aggressive and self-injurious behaviors (Wayne, 2005).There are various approaches to plan for provision of Jeffrey’s special needs. An appropriate way to begin planning for Jeffrey is to consider his developmental levels which would guide in programming for social relationships and affective behaviors. This would involve the teacher to apply principles of applied behavior analysis which emphasizes on structured and sequential teaching strategies with systematic data based evaluation methods(Middlemiss,2002).The purpose of the analysis is to vary a specific behavior, either increasing or decreasing it depending on the objective. There are various strategies employed in the analysis without alteration of the curriculum. Prompting- Inducing the student to perform by utilizing, gestures, verbally, demonstration or by expectant waiting (Middlemiss, 2002).This would encourage the student to participate in the learning process. Chaining- A teaching approach in which the teacher links the content in a chain manner, by may be beginning with the backward and proceeding in reverse(Middlemiss,2002).This develops the child’s mind to follow through all the steps and be able to perform the same tasks alone. Another target point of planning in catering for Jeffrey’s condition in learning is considering the working environment. The learning surrounding should be

Review of leterature Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Review of leterature - Essay Example According to Thompson & Fox (2010), the challenges faced while screening for postpartum depression from mothers from diverse cultural background can be overcome by the employment of an appropriate screening tool which can be identified by an expert nurse. Scott (1992) observes that postpartum depression has substantially profound impacts on the social morbidity of the child. Besides social morbidity, postpartum depression affects the individual’s psychological wellbeing (Scott, 1992). Consequently when an individual has psychological as well as social challenges, through the ripple effect the larger society is affected. This indicates how profound the problem failure of early detection and intervention of postpartum detection has to the general population. A research conducted examining the resulting mother-child bonding at one year provides important findings related to this research. The mother-child bonding was examined from two factors which affects it in the first few weeks, postnatal depression and bonding (OHiggins, Roberts, Glover, & Taylor, 2013). According to OHiggins, Roberts, Glover, & Taylor (2013), utilizing the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression scale (EPDS) and the Mother Infant Bonding Questionnaire (MIBQ), the researchers were able to successfully detect postpartum depression and provide the intervention needed. From the findings of the research, there was the indication of postpartum depression contributing profoundly to the bonding problems (OHiggins, Roberts, Glover, & Taylor, 2013). Consequently, the bonding problem affected the child’s behaviors negatively to a significant extent (OHiggins, Roberts, Glover, & Taylor, 2013). Multiple screening tools used in the detection of postpartum depression improve the ef ficacy of its detection. According to OHiggins, Roberts, Glover, & Taylor (2013), an improved

Ethics Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Ethics - Case Study Example ethics of the professional standards which permits her to prevent bias, undue influence and conflict of interests of others to override business judgments or professionals. The stakeholders that will be affected by the unethical decision which may arise following the request made by Mr. Rashid, the managing director, includes the customers, the investors, the business partners and shareholders. The stakeholders deserve to be told the truth pertaining to the performance of the business (Amat & Gowthorpe, 2013). This can only be done if the correct, honest and accurate figures are recorded. Maryam Mohammed should refer the managing director to relevant regulations and laws that are against such an action. She should tell Mr. Rashid that the action is against the code of ethics in the accountant profession (Amat & Gowthorpe, 2013). She has a professional obligation of ensuring that honesty and accuracy is done and she should not be involved in actions that discredit her profession. Maryam should be able to report the unethical issue to the company’s audit and financial committee or her supervisor at the place of work. A professional accountant has an obligation of preventing undue influence, conflict of interest as well as bias of others to override business judgment or profession (Amat & Gowthorpe, 2013). She should do follow up to ensure that the Managing director is punished. Ethics can be defined as the discipline that deals with what is bad or good and with moral obligations and duty. Accounting is the process that involves describing the business processes in numbers. The bookkeeping numbers of a company’s accounting records should be accurate and honest in order to be considered ethical. Ethical dilemmas in accounting entail a supervisor directing a subordinate to interfere with the actual financial figures. Accuracy and honesty are the ethical issues in accountings. Accountants as well as bookkeepers have an obligation of ensuring information is

Operation Desert Storm Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Operation Desert Storm - Research Paper Example Saddam Hussein gave orders to his army to invade the small country of Kuwait. During the invasion, Iraq was well equipped with the latest technology weapons they got from the United States. Initially, the United States had provided massive military aid to Iraq for their protection. It was a wrong move from the country as this saw Iraq uses the weapons to attack people of Kuwait. The US Military together with other countries’ military had to go stop the invasion, and it resulted in a big war (USHistory.Org., 2015). The US Military had a good preparation before going to the war of evicting Iraq soldiers from Kuwait. The problem is that the military was not well prepared for the aftermath of the invasion. The army did not know what to do in case their efforts failed. The Army also wanted to end Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship in Iraq and his support for terrorism (Dale, 2009). The approach of the United States is giving Saddam Hussein an ultimatum about leaving Kuwait was no t right. Saddam Hussein and his troops were to leave Kuwait on January 15, 1991. They did not follow the orders. Thus, US Military released its attack on the people. There was massive bombing of the Iraq’s military camps for a few weeks. There are arguments that suggest the US government was feeling threatened by Iraq as they had intelligence suggesting Iraq could have been making weapons of mass destruction. The objectives of the government attacking Iraq were wrong placed that is why the mission did not get good execution (Waldman, 2005). The other countries involved had opposition to Iraq, but did not attack with the same force as the US Army. There were other countries in the United Nations that did not find enough evidence to attack Iraq’s army thus did not participate. The military that invaded Kuwait to attack Iraq were well prepared for the invasion, but the problem is that they did not

Chipping Away at Intel Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Chipping Away at Intel - Case Study Example The reorganization of Architecture Group took place in the third year of Barrett’s tenure, in which a new unit consisting of networking operations and merger of communications was established. The intention behind these reorganizations was decentralization; and making decision making process stronger so that business operations would be carried out in a systematic way. In the tenure of Barrett, Intel had to face environmental pressures which disturbed company’s reputation and finances. The three most significant environmental pressures faced by Intel were competitor’s effect, economic turmoil & geopolitical factor and fall of corporate reputation. Intel went into the production of network servers and routers. This initiative was not applauded by Cisco and Dell, which were its biggest customers of chips. Intel had to eventually stop the production of network servers and routers. Advanced Micro Devices produced Athlon processor chip which was faster than Intel Pentium III chip. The political and economic situation of the region was also not promising as September, 2001 attacks brought U.S economy down. The threat of U.S troop’s invasion also into Iraq did not bring good results for the economic market of U.S. Its consequences were seen in the stock market where Intel share went down from $26 to $20 in October 2001. The 60% downfall of shares was a big concern for company’s prestige. A tremendous internal organizational pressure was recorded in the possession of CEO Craig Barrett due to his thrive for change and innovation. The objectives of Barrett were to achieve employee’s job satisfaction and better customer services, but this whole idea turned out differently. Job rotation of 80% of the Micro processing Unit staff created uncertainty in job roles and responsibilities. The idea of Barrett was that employees would know about company’s diverse operations by adapting

Because i could not stop for death&quot Essay Example for Free

Because i could not stop for deathquot Essay Emily Dickinson frequently explores death through her poetry, using her eponomous em dashes to communicate the confusion created by an intelligent and exploratory approach to the afterlife in a mind indoctrinated in Puritan dogma. Death is initially presented in this poem as a very different character from its usual personification as a malign, scythe wielding spirit. Here, as the poem begins, he takes the form of a charming suitor who kindly stops, and maintains his civility throughout their journey. As we progress through the poem, however, the reader becomes increasingly suspicious that the apparently benevolent Death has not, in fact, got Dickinsons best intrests at heart. The fourth stanza marks the change in tone that reveals this; the onset of ominous chill as the carriage passes into darkness highlights how unprepared Death has left her, providing no warning of what is to come. The nervous tone that the poem adopts in this stanza is created both by the breakdown of the previously iambic rythmn and the language of cold shivers that the poet uses; both of which emphasise the quivering nervousness of the unprepared. Dickinsons physical lack of preparation for the afterlife in the poem, her donning of gossamer and tulle for a journey into the night, reflects her lack of spiritual certainty in the real world; something reflected in several of her poems. Despite an upbringing filled with much gesture from the pulpit, doubt, not absolute faith, is the subject of much of her work. She remains steadfast only in her belief that This World is not Conclusion, as while she is confident in the existence of something more, the nature of the afterlife baffles her. This poem is also an exploration of an unusual view of death, as Dickinson inverts the normal metaphor of Death as the end of a journey into Death as a journeys beginning. Life, in this poem, is extrodinarily transient, compressed into the third stanza where childhood, the ripening Grain of middle age and the setting sun of old ages decline are ploughed through in four lines. The poet makes this already short liftime seem even less substantial by the anaphoric use of We passed, which increases the pace of the poem and gives the passage of time an inevitable feel. Where the poems journey of death concludes is unclear, but we do know that there is a pause, perhaps a terminal pause, at a house in the ground. Dickinsons use of imagery here is ingenious, as the readers initial confusion mimics the narrators, until we too surmise that this abode, this swelling in the ground is a grave, thought of only by the deceased as a house. The repetition and ryhme of ground at the end of two lines in this stanza gives it a pounding finality; suggesting perhaps that this, and not the expected Immortality, is to be Dickinsons final resting place. This unexpected turn causes the confusion that the image of the house parallels, and explains the last stanza, in which Dickinsons fear of perpetual existence in a grave has centuries feeling shorter than the day / I first surmised the Horses Heads / Were toward Eternity. The poem is, in fact, unclear, but I would suggest that the grave is to be Dickinsons final resting place; that the carriage paused not because it intended to go on but instead because the narrator has not yet realised her fate. The final dash of the poem, therefore, represents not continuing doubt as it does in This World is not Conclusion. but serves to remind the reader of the unending nature of Dickinsons internment. In light of this, the first stanzas Immortality may seem out of place, but its rhyme with me perhaps reveals its origins, as the narrator is consequently so strongly linked with its presence that we may imagine it is only Dickinson, and not Death, that welcomes immortality to the carriage, and that it is, in fact, only there as a result of her preconceptions. Because I could not stop for Death – is perhaps, as a result, quite a cynical poem, making no promises of salvation or a Christian heaven. It, in some senses, continues a trend set by This world is not Conlcusion. and Behind me – dips Eternity –; a trend of diminishing confidence: Dickinsons once absolute faith in a world beyond our own develops into a confused fear at the nature of the afterlife; it may be a Maelstrom in the sky, surrounded by Midnight, or perhaps just a house in the ground. All this confusion is the product of Dickinsons upbringing; the Tooth that nibbles at the soul is a doubt that was to Puritans damning, and once she admits to herself its existence her future is uncertain and heaven perhaps inachievable. Despite its bleak outlook however, the poem still stands a facinating exploration of the nature of the next world.

Replica System in Distributed File Sharing Environments

Replica System in Distributed File Sharing Environments AN EFFECTIVE FRAMEWORK FOR MANAGING REPLICA SYSTEM IN DISTRIBUTED FILE SHARING ENVIRONMENTS Tesmy K Jose,  Ã‚  Dr.V.Ulagamuthalvi Abstract-An Enhanced file system called Probabilistic File Share System is used to resolve all the distributed file update issues. There are three mechanisms designed in the probabilistic file share system such as Lazy Adaptive Synchronization Approach, Standard Replica System Replay Approach and Probabilistic method. The adaptive replica synchronization and Standard Replica System Replay approaches are implemented among the Storage Servers (SSs) and it makes the Meta Data Server (MDS) free from replica synchronization. Furthermore, a probabilistic control system is deployed into the proposed work in order to managing replicas replacement, overloading and their failures where the system can be measure the possibilities of every replicas replacement, overloading and failures level according their communication overhead and physical information. If the communication overhead or physical failure probability is high then the replica system replaced from replicas environment as well as se nds the notification message to its neighbor replicas with the failure system details. Keywords- Metadata Server, Lazy Adaptive Synchronization, Standard Replica System Replay, Probabilistic Control System. 1. Introduction As the volume of digital data grows, reliable, low-cost storage systems that do not compromise on access performance are increasingly important. A number of storage systems (e.g., libraries, tape and optical jukeboxes) provide high reliability coupled with low I/O throughput. However, as throughput requirements grow, using high-end components leads to increasingly costly systems. In general, the client contacts the metadata server (MDS), which handles all the properties of the whole file system, to get the authorization to work on the file and the information of the file’s layout. Then, the client accesses the corresponding storage servers (SSs), which handle the file data management on storage machines, to execute the actual file I/O operations after parsing the layout information obtained from the MDS. A number of existing distributed storage systems (e.g., cluster-based and peer-to-peer storage systems) attempt to offer cost-effective, reliable data stores on top of unrelia ble, commodity or even donated storage components. To tolerate failures of individual nodes, these systems use data redundancy through replication or erasure coding. This approach faces two problems. First, regardless of the redundancy level used, there is always a non-zero probability of a burst of correlated permanent failures up to the redundancy level used; hence the possibility of permanently losing data always exists. Second, data loss probability increases with the data volume stored when all other characteristics of the system are kept constant One of disadvantage of clusters is that programs must be grouped to run on multiple equipments, and it is difficult for these grouped programs to cooperate or distribute resources. Perhaps the most significant such resource is the file system. In the absence of a cluster file system, individual components of a grouped program must share cluster storage in an unplanned manner. This typically complicates programming, restricts performance, and compromises reliability. Also, the Meta Data Server is responsible for handling all the information about chunk replicas and generating replica synchronization when one of the storage servers has been updated. However, saving the recently written data to the disk becomes a blockage to the whole file system because all other threads need to remain until the synchronous flush-and sync procedure started by one of the SSs is completed. A Probabilistic File Share System is proposed to resolve the abovementioned issues. It is used to support lazy and adaptive replica synchronization with replica replacement management among the SSs and make the MDS free from replica synchronization and failure maintenance. 2. Literature Survey Different types of distributed file system supports chunk replication for reliability and produce high data bandwidth as same as similar replica synchronization mechanisms. A class of file system extends the traditional file server architecture to a storage area network (SAN) environment which allows the file server to access data directly from the disk through (SAN). Examples of SAN file system are IBM/Tivoli SANergy and Veritas SAN Point Direct [8,9]. GPFS allows chunk replication by partitioning space for multiple copies of each data chunk on the different Storage Servers and updates to all locations synchronously. Before the completion of write operation, GPFS used to follow the updates of chunk replicas which files had updated on the primary SSs and then updates other replicas[7].Ceph also had similar replica synchronization policy, i.e., the newly written data should be applied to all replicas stored on the different Storage Servers[5]. In the Hadoop file system, the replicated chunks are stored on the Storage Servers. Storage Server’s list will contains copies of any stripe produced and managed by Metadata Server. So, the Metadata Server handles the replicas synchronization and if new data written on any of the replicas,it will be triggered [4]. In GFS, the Metadata Server computes the location and data layout among the various chunk servers. Every chunk is replicated on multiple chunk servers and the replica synchronization is done by Metadata server (MDS) [6]. In Lustre file system, which is the parallel file system has a same chunk called replication mechanism [10]. The researchers are successively presented MinCopysets and Copysets replication techniques to enhance data durability (i.e., data loss) during retain the benefits of randomized load balancing by using derandomized replicas placement policy. However, researchers didn’t enclose the algorithm of replica synchronization and replica replacement [3,2]. 3. Proposed System 3.1 Probabilistic File Shared System Architecture The probabilistic file share system copy and give out the locations of all replicas belonging to the same file chunk to the Storage Servers (SSs) where the replicas are stored. Fig. 1 shows the architecture of probabilistic file share system. The probabilistic control system is organized to calculate the failure rate of every replica in the probabilistic file share system environment. To calculate the failure rate of replicas, our system examine each replicas for communication overhead and also obtains the CPU and memory utilization. By this our proposed system maintains better data consistency in the distributed file shared environment. Fig. 1 Probabilistic File Share System Architecture 3.2 Data Updating Fig. 2: Adaptive Synchronization Approach In the case of processing a write request, the probabilistic file share system use the mechanism of lazy replica synchronization. This probabilistic system firstly completes the write operation and each update process in probabilistic file share system storage is replicated using adaptive replica synchronization. Here adaptive replica synchronization approach is used to copy the each modification in a storage management of distributed file system where primary replica updates the result into replica n and passes the acknowledgement into primary replica. 3.3 System Crash Handling The probabilistic file share system adopts a deferred replica synchronization mechanism for reconstructing the lost file updates. i.e., it allows only the primary Storage Server to manage the latest data snapshot for reducing write latency and the synchronous process of replica to other SSs will be conducted along the timeline. The Meta Data Server buffers ascertain the latest write requests in the memory; when the number of cached requests is larger than a predefined threshold, the MDS is supposed to direct SSs to perform regular replica synchronization, so that the cached requests can be removed from the memory. 3.4 SS’s Failure and Replacement The proposed file sharing system arranged in a probabilistic control system that examine the system details and every replica communication. The probabilistic control system keeps a replacement list to store the system details such as CPU utilization, Memory Utilization and etc. By using the abovementioned information, the probabilistic control system measures the failure rate for each replica. If the communication overhead or physical failure probability is high then the replica system replaced from replicas environment as well as sends the notification message to its neighbor replicas with the failure system details. Figure 3: Illustrated of Probabilistic Control System The Figure 3 shows the illustrated replica replacement management process. The following function is used to measure the failure rate of replica: 5. Conclusion This research work proposed a new probabilistic file share system. The modified lazy adaptive synchronization approach successfully updates the data in the Storage Servers. This approach will take less I/O execution time, computation and storage compared to other approaches. The standard replica system replay approach can well handle the crashes of Storage Servers and can improve the lost data. At last, a probabilistic control system is positioned in the new probabilistic file share system. The replica failure calculation and their replacement management are extremely directed by the probabilistic control system.

Was British Industry Inefficient? :: essays research papers

By the 1870s, Britain’s economy was enviable by the rest of the world as they set the pace in industrialising. However, her pre-eminence (GPD per capita exceeded that of America by one-third) wavered in this period preceding World War I. To determine whether this change was due to inefficiencies in British industry requires recognition of the contrasts between Britain and America. Although America’s economy improved vis-à  -vis Britain’s, this was out of Britain’s control due to exogenous variables.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Neoclassical economic growth theory states that technology is a precursor to higher living standards and productivity gains. Britain and America were very different economies and as a result faced very different economic prospects in the late 1800s. For instance, the population in Britain grew by nearly two-fold between 1860 and 1910 whilst the America trebled. Britain’s domestic market was not only smaller, but consumer demands were much less homogenous than in America due primarily to cultural ties and wage inequality. Many sole proprietorships and partnerships developed in response to these tastes through niche markets, producing highly specialised goods. America had a national, homogenous market in which large corporations profited from economies of scale and mass production. Factor differences between the two nations resulted in Britain benefiting from her highly skilled labour, two-thirds of which were employed with companies of less than 250 people. America, with its abundance of land and raw materials, focused on using capital intensities in production rather than relying on the relatively more expensive skilled labour. One similarity of both nations was the decline of employment in agriculture by the late 19th century, which freed up labour to be utilised in other industries.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Growth opportunities in British industry were hampered in several ways. The tendency around the 1870s was for Britain to encourage small, specialised companies to compete primarily in staple industries such as cotton, coal, iron and steal, and shipbuilding. The high level of specialised products prevented technological transfers from overseas in developing markets and these companies did not benefit from economies of scale. British entrepreneurs were less likely than their American counterparts to discover innovative techniques, such as the assembly line used successful in car manufacturing by Henry Ford in the early 1900s. This lack of adaptability was not a blemish on British industry because it was not relevant to consumer demands at home. Also, the implementation of a free trade policy in Britain, despite its merits, made it exceedingly difficult for British industries to compete in the world market when nations such as America and Germany pursued protectioni sm to shield ‘infant industries’ from international competition via tariffs.

Woody Allen :: essays papers

Woody Allen "A plethora of people have written about Woody Allen", John Lahr said "and they either like him or dislike him. But no one has yet managed, I think, to interpret him." Woody Allen has been revered as one of the brilliant artists of the twentieth century and at the same time called a pervert. His works have been called jokes but also masterpieces. Many critics have tried to explain why Allen writes the things he writes but not one has had success. The drive and brilliance of Allen has not been understood yet. Seeing his movies gives us two opposing views. One is the screwball comedian who is obsessed with death and sex while the other is the serious artist commenting on and criticizing our society. The latter view is more difficult to grasp but is nonetheless there. Through different film techniques Allen mocks our society and film industry without us even realizing. His most widely used technique to do this is the film within a film. In movies such as The Purple Rose of Cairo, Play It Again Sam and Hannah and Her Sisters Allen uses this technique to show us his opinion on a particular subject, and also uses it as a driving force behind his movies.The most notable use of film within a film in Allen?s movies occurs in, The Purple Rose of Cairo. The time is The Depression and the scene a small town. Cecilia (Mia Farrow) is the central figure in the movie. She is married to an abusive gambler and heavy drinker. To cope and escape her problems, Cecilia constantly goes to a nearby movie theater called The Jewel. There she spends hours on end watching movies, sometimes the same one more than three times. When she gets fired one day from her job, she goes to The Jewel and watches a movie called The Purple Rose of Cairo "at least five times" (Blake 117). On her fifth time watching the movie, Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels) jumps out from the movie and enters the theater telling Cecilia that he has noted her faithful presence and is attracted to her. As they leave the theater together, the actors in the movie aimlessly wonder around bewildered by what had just transpired. Deeply concerned is the real life actor of Tom Baxter, Gil Shephard because this misfortune could "wreck his blossoming career"(Kauffmann 37). To add to the trouble, other cities have reported that the Baxter character has stepped out of The Purple Rose of Cairo in various theaters and has disappeared. Why would Woody Allen create such a unrealistic movie critics called "the most innovative

Our Town Critique :: essays research papers

Through December 5th through the 7th, I performed in Thornton Wilder’s play of Our Town. The only sets or props that the actors or actresses used where folding chairs for us to sit in, umbrellas to hide Emily (Julie Dumbler), and flats on both sides of the stage to hide the people behind them. The reason for the lack of set is so the audience can use there imagination of what the town of Grover’s Corner, New Hampshire looks like. All the rest of the props that the actors had to use were pan mimed and acted out to the fullest to make it look real. The only other experience with no set was with Miss Henery in Neodesha and it was a disaster so I didn’t know how well this was going to work out. But with the help of our director Peter Ellenstein and the rest of the cast, the pan miming was very successful. Our performance space was a modified thrust stage. The shape of the stage served us well for this play, but the back stage was horrible. All of the chairs that we had to use were folding chairs that made a lot of noise even if you hardly touched one. One neat thing about the play is that all of the sound affects were made by our backstage manager (Lisa Mitchell) or other members of the cast. In exception for the clock chiming at the end of the play. People who have seen the play tell me that it is a very heart moving play. I did not get that feeling because I was always backstage or onstage. Ether way I didn’t get to watch the play so I couldn’t see what was so moving about it. The only humor I got was from lines and the funniest person I heard was Professor Willard (Gary Mitchell). The audience is led through the entire play by the Stage Manager (Cory Venable). He literally talks to the audience between every scene explaining what is going on in the story. I thought Mr. Wilder did a good job in having a Stage Manager do this. The Stage Manager tells and shows us a story a young girl growing up and facing death, even after death . He show us how Emily Webb (Julie Dumbler) first gets to know her future husband George Gibbs (Eric Cole).

Self Reliance – a Key to Success

When you don’t have to rely on someone else, you are the master of your own destiny. That’s really the secret to everything in life. If you’re OK with yourself and you don’t need others approval for your happiness, then you are happy. Self reliance comes with self confidence. Self reliance helps a person to prepare for life challenges. Rest your mind and imagine a situation where you are confident and successful. Go over the details thoroughly in your mind. What did you do? What did you say? You can also try to remember a time in the past when you acted with a lack of confidence. Go over the situation in your mind, changing whatever details you would need to alter the outcome to a desired one. Visualize yourself strengthening your self-confidence and acting the way you wish you would have acted. Don't judge yourself – simply re-create the situation and envision yourself with strong self-confidence, and having the outcome be better. To build on self improvement one needs to love him/herself. Leaning to love yourself is fundamental in self improvement and building good self esteem. You need to improve yourself by first understanding yourself and accepting the way you are. Self improvement brings happiness and satisfaction to one’s life. Though the road to self improvement is not easy, it is compulsory for one to experience happiness in life. When you stop and deal with your issues and insecurities, you are on the road to a more well and vibrant you and hence achieving success will be easy. â€Å"Nothing at last is sacred but the integrity of your own mind. † – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The Escape” Analysis

Analysis of the story â€Å"The Escape† by Somerset Maugham. Sometimes men cannot say â€Å"No† to women, although they want it, and that’s why they have to make up some situations to make women say them â€Å"No†. The short story â€Å"The Escape† written by Somerset Maugham is exactly about this case, about the conflict between man and woman, and this escape is the main theme of the text. The idea of the story is that one should put on his thinking and act very carefully, as sometimes procrastination can give better results than haste.The message of the story is that a woman can be sly and scheming, but a man can make it his way also. This story makes the reader think about life and relationships and it is not surprising, because S. Maugham became known as a master of human soul, a wise man who not only knows how to depict, the hypocrisy and brutality of bourgeois society, but also has the ability to portray different characters in clear and natur al Manner. The text â€Å"The Escape† under consideration begins with a key sentence which contains the whole content of the story in the folded form.Maugham writes about the relationship between Roger Charing and Ruth Barlow. Roger’s friend describes everything, whose name we don’t know. Roger Charing is a young man, who has a lot of money. And he falls in love with Ruth Barlow – an unhappy woman, who was twice a widow. They were happy together and they decided to marry. Then suddenly Roger fell out of love with Ruth, and he found the way, how to make Ruth release him. He told her that they would marry, when they would find the perfect house for both of them.However time passed away and Roger rejected all the orders of the agents offering a new house. At last Ruth lost her patience and left Roger herself. The title of the text is one word that consist the definite article ‘the’ and the noun ‘escape’. The definite article ‘ the’ is here not accidentally – it claims that text is about exactly this escape and not any in the world. The story begins with the narrator’s introduction of the problem that if a woman wants to marry a man, it’s a man’s hazard and he has to find the way out of the situation.This is the exposition of the story. The exposition is written in the ironic tone. Such epithets as instant flight, inevitable loom, the narrator’s note â€Å"with a tooth brush for all his luggage, so conscious was he of his danger and the necessity for immediate action† make this effect. Then comes the inciting moment, in which both Roger Charing and Ruth Barlow are introduced. It is said that Ruth was twice a widow and it is said ironic, because the reader can think that Roger is the next victim, through the simile â€Å"He went down like a row of ninepins†.He also gives a direct description of Ruth’s eyes using the epithets â€Å"splendid†, â€Å"moving†, â€Å"big and lovely†, a detached epithet â€Å"poor dear† – all in the ironic way. The modal verb must, exclamatory sentence, parallel constructions â€Å"if she married a husband beat her, if she employed a broker he cheated her, if she engaged a cook she drank†, the allusion â€Å"She never had a little lamb but it was sure to die† make a humorous effect. We can recognize now completely that all the narrator’s words were ironic, because his epithets towards Ruth are like that, and also â€Å"stupid† and a simile â€Å"as hard as nails†.Then there comes an explanation of why he has such an attitude towards the poor widow. Going further, we come across an anticlimax. The tense is growing, but then Roger â€Å"on a sudden, fell out of love†. This is a bit unexpected. Ruth’s â€Å"pathetic (a repeated epithet) look ceased to wring Roger’s heart-strings† (a metaphor). But Roge r â€Å"swore a solemn oath† (a metaphor) not to jilt Ruth, moreover, she was able to â€Å"assess her wounded feelings at an immoderately high figure† (an extended metaphor). And here begins the real climax with its growing tense.The author uses repetitions â€Å"they†¦ they†, â€Å"sometimes†¦ sometimes†, â€Å"they looked, they inspected, they climbed†. After the main heroes’ reasoning in direct speech, their proceeded searching for a house looks like a repetition, too. Yet, the author uses an antonomasia here, calling Roger an angel, though we know he is not – an irony. Their further reasoning in the direct speech appears to be the climax: â€Å"do you want to marry me or do you not? † Roger kept standing on his position – epithets â€Å"assiduous and gallant†. Their letters are resolution of the text.

In Jonathan Kozol Essay

In Jonathan Kozol’s novel Amazing Grace, religion plays a dominant role throughout the book. As Kozol describes the people in poverty of Mott Haven and the myriad horrible circumstances that they face everyday, religion provides their one and only salvation and solace. It is much easier to ask what these children don’t face than what they do. They face people dying daily, prolonged sickness, crime, drugs, abuse, alcoholism, asthma, poverty, dirt, dilapidated housing. They see people die horrific deaths whether it is from AIDS or a little girl falling down an elevator shaft that nobody would fix. They are denied medical care or given substandard care, which means people don’t get better. They attend substandard schools where they receive less than adequate education. What they don’t face is a lot of compassion or empathy. At a time in America when neo-liberalists would like to get rid of government control of the economy, which results in cutting social programs that directly benefit the poor, religion is their only means of hope. Incidentally, neo-liberalists do not have any problem with government subsidies or benefits for businesses. With the rising sentiment of â€Å"I didn’t breed them†¦I don’t want to feed them† (128), this nation’s poor are shoved away and hidden more and more. They are blamed for the problems they face, and less is being done to help. As Reverend Overall says of the lack of mention of 97th Street, though 96th Street is featured in tourist guides,, â€Å"The papers ignore realities like the waste burner, but they do it in a way that tends to neutralize the dangers almost instantly† (187). 97th Street is poverty, and America turns its back on these people in the name of neo-liberalism. The American public believes as Kozol states, â€Å"If only enough children, we are told, would act the way heroes do, say no to drugs and sex and gold chains and TV and yes to homework, values, church and abstinence, and if only enough good parents, teachers, volunteers, and civic-minded business leaders would assist them in these efforts, we could turn this around† (240). This again is blaming the victim, not the society who created these conditions at all. As long as the poor are hidden away in places we run from, the inequalities will continue to exist. And when faced with such an extensive list of problems, what can these people do? They can turn to religion. Religion provides them hope. Churches provide them with food and clean needles and community organizers as well. Church becomes the focal point around which their lives revolve. As Father Glenwith Miller says, â€Å"Many here a great deal more devout then people you would meet in wealthy neighborhoods. Those who have everything they want for need have often the least feeling for religion. The rich are very busy storing everything they can accumulate: wealth, power, or prestige†¦Still I think it grieves to hear of God when human beings created in His image treat other human beings like filthy rags† (78). This quote says a great deal about why people of Mott haven are so religious with a comment about the social responsibility of humanity as well. People from Mott Haven come to church in order to escape bullets and crime for a brief respite. They use church to take away the harshness and darkness of their own lives. Church is someplace where they can hope and dream for something better than they have. Kozol wants the reader to truly understand the power religion has to buoy their spirits against the rising tide they must face everyday—the guns, the violence, the drugs, the sickness, the injustice. A nightly prayer for Mrs. Washington’s children is â€Å"God bless Mommy. God bless Nanny. Don’t punish me because I’m black† (69). Others express the sentiment that god provides a better place after death or are just thankful that God has allowed them to live. Kozol asks Shirley Flowers, a friend of Reverend Overall’s, â€Å"Do your children have the same belief in God that you do? † She replies â€Å"Yes†¦They do. This family talks to God† (169). And when a student of Gizelle Luke’s is asked â€Å"Who do you look up to? , he replies I look up to God, my mother, and myself† (33). These quotes are used to show just how important religion is as a force in their lives. Father Glenworth Miles discusses the importance of God in this community. We are not literal fundamentalists here†¦We see God as a liberating force who calls us to deliver people from oppression. The apparent consensus of the powerful is that the ghetto is to be preserved as a perpetual catch-basin for the poor. It is not about annihilating segregation or even about transformation of the ghetto, but setting up ‘programs’ to teach people to ‘adjust’ to it, to show a ‘functional’ adaptation to an evil institution†¦As a religious man, I see it as my obligation to speak out against this, not to bend the poor to be accommodated to injustice but to empower them to fight it and to try to tear it down† (81). He determines it to be

Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and Powerpoint in the Business Enviornment.

In most work environments, Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are being used on a daily basis. From being a Loan officer to a front desk cashier these three apps are very helpful in our work place. Microsoft Word is good with writing business letters and business cards, Excel is good with making spreadsheets or charts for your business, and lastly, PowerPoint is good with making presentation audio and visually. In the following paragraphs below I will explain why these three are most helpful and useful in the work place. For one, Microsoft Office Word is mostly used to writing business letters to their clients. From one paragraph or 4 pages it’s where they will have their letter written up and printed. There are also different tools like spell check and grammar, formatting tab, paragraph selection and etc. that also become useful. Business cards can also be used on Microsoft Word and then printed out which also is being used in the work place environment. (office Microsoft) Secondly, Microsoft Excel is mostly used because of its layout and widespread availability, it is often used as a tool to create and maintain a list. More users use it to store database records, create charts or graphs. A lot of organization uses excel to manage their budgets, business planning, customers records, business intelligence, analysis of sales data, customer data, performance dashboard, etc. (advanced excel) Lastly, Microsoft PowerPoint presentations utilize both audio and visual techniques, making for easier understanding. Normal teaching and training is interactive and more effective by using PowerPoint presentations instead of simple lectures. Many executives and managers use PowerPoint for this reason. Executives use this as a strategy to increase sales. Using PowerPoint in front of a potential client shows that you are up with the time. Plus, projecting charts that all can see also makes the presentation more interactive for the client. (powerpoints and apps) So all in all I hope you find Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint useful in the work place. Not only will it help you and your business be successful but also have that professionalism. ? Reference Microsoft office np November 1, 2011< http://www. baycongroup. com/powerpoint> Baptiste, Jason np November 1, 2011 < http://jasonlbaptiste. com/startups/microsoft-excel>

Human Resource Development Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Human Resource Development - Assignment Example nd instructions, which would enable these individuals to achieve high level of knowledge, competence and skills for carrying out their works in an effective manner. (Holton and Baldwin, 2003; Velada and Caetano, 2007). Training involves learning process. However, there lies a difference in training and learning process. The training program is a teacher focused program, whereas the learning process is learner focused. In case of learning, the ultimate goal remains production of a learning process. In case of training, the ultimate goal is training the staffs within an organization. In case of learning, the learner plays an active role, whereas in case of training, the learner plays a passive role. Training plays an important role within an organization. There are various types of training needs within an organization. The training helps in the analysis or assessment in a broader concept and plays a number of roles. Organizational needs- The organization needs training and development programs to educate and increase the knowledge of their employees, which in turn strengthen the organizational goals, strategies and objectives. The training program is sometimes suggested as the best solution of meeting the business problems. Personal needs- The potential participants would achieve experience, knowledge and learning. The training increases the knowledge, skills and ability of the individuals and enhances them in improving their individual performances thereby improving the performance of the overall organization. Performance needs- If the employees are not performing up to the desired or established standards then the training and development programs helps in improving their level of performances. This tries to reduce the performance gap of the employees in an... This paper stresses that the organization needs training and development programs to educate and increase the knowledge of their employees, which in turn strengthen the organizational goals, strategies and objectives. The training program is sometimes suggested as the best solution of meeting the business problems. Contemporary training initiatives aim at linking the employers of the organizations with the skill brokers where these skills brokers would be offering independent and impartial advice to the organizations and match the type of training needs with the best suitable training providers in order to provide the best training and development programs to the employees. This essay makes a conclusion that training is a systematic modification of attitude and behavior of any individual by means of implementation of various learning programs, instructions and events, which would be enabling these individuals to achieve increased level of knowledge, competence and skills for performing their functions in an effective manner. It is very important for an organization to implement an effective training and development program for training and increasing the skills, knowledge and ability of its employees. The impact of training and development programs on the reaction, learning, behavior and results reflect the success or failure of such programs. The UK government has played an important role in supporting the training and development programs in the organization.

Divine Law in Islam Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Divine Law in Islam - Research Paper Example Sunni is the largest Muslim sect in the world, accounting for approximately 70% of Muslims worldwide. Sunni has for major schools of Islamic law; Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali (Central Intelligence Agency, 2009), (Pew Research Centre, October 2009). Sunni Islamic law traces its roots back to the late Umayyad period in the second Islamic century. In addition to the role of the Quran and hadith, the geographical variations influenced different doctrines (Ziadeh, 2010). The most widespread school of Sunni law is the Hanafi School, founded by Abu Hanifah and located at Kufa in Iraq. The legal doctrines of Abu Hanifah are relatively more liberal and display a unique sense of respect for personal freedom. He was the first to formulate rules concerning contracts based on the principle of freedom of contract (Ziadeh, 2010). This fact is reflected in the contracts of Salam and Murabahah. The former allows the immediate payment of the price of goods for future delivery, although the contract of sale stipulates the immediate exchange of an object and its price.  The most widespread school of Sunni law is the Hanafi School, founded by Abu Hanifah and located at Kufa in Iraq. The legal doctrines of Abu Hanifah are relatively more liberal and display a unique sense of respect for personal freedom. He was the first to formulate rules concerning contracts based on the principle of freedom of contract (Ziadeh, 2010). This fact is reflected in the contracts of S alam and Murabahah. The former allows the immediate payment of the price of goods for future delivery, although the contract of sale stipulates the immediate exchange of an object and its price; the latter allows a merchant to sell what he had bought at the original price plus a stipulated profit if usury is not involved.  

Personal Health Assessment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Personal Health Assessment - Essay Example In addition to these physical activities, I have a great interest in music. I have an interest in piano and play on occasion. I also DJ when opportunities become available. I have a series of goals. I would like to first complete my Bachelor of Science Degree. I would then like to become an elementary school teacher, and ultimately ensure that I am physically, emotionally, and mentally healthy. My score for the self-care and safety category is an 82. This was not surprising as I make the best effort to avoid alcohol and am completely drug free. I also feel that self-care and safety are aspects that are integrated into one’s daily life choices, including physical activity, risk taking activities, and even hygiene. I ultimately realize that even as I pay considerable attention to this aspect of my life, there are some aspects of it that I could still improve, such as ensuring that I receive adequate sleep, exercise, and always maintain a proper diet. My environmental wellness score of 62 constitutes my lowest score out of the wellness categories. I recognize that I have much room for improvement in this category, and plan on making a more conscientious effort to improve my conduct in this category. I realize that I can improve by recycling more, and just making a better general effort to observe my interaction with my environmental surroundings. My social awareness score is 74. While I believe I have adequate social wellness, I recognize that there are areas of my life that I could improve upon in this category. In these regards I must make a more concerted effort to balance my social life with my work and educational responsibilities. I also need to work on developing better boundaries in my personal relationships. My emotional awareness and sexuality score is 92. I understand this as a high and healthy score and see this reflected in my

Major Historical Event in US History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Major Historical Event in US History - Essay Example Thus, the agenda of 'legal equality' and then 'social equality' will be the general themes that brings together or provides a cohesion for the woman's movement in US history from 1865 to the present. The period of 1865 to 1876 can be said to be pivotal to the woman's movement in U.S. history. The introduction of the fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the U.S. is largely thought to be a step backward. That is, as far as the goal of bringing the franchise to women and other groups not yet recognized to have a legal right to vote. In U.S. history, the right to vote for women was an agenda that went back as far as the early to mid seventeenth century, and historians trace the first legal challenge in the U.S. as occurring at that time in the state of Maryland. A one-time governor named Leonard Calvert, appointed a woman named Margaret Brent as his personal executor. Brent was an attorney which was exceptional in the seventeenth century, and found herself in 1648 petitioning the government of Maryland for the right to vote as well as the right to carry out her duties as executor. She was a property holder, and a successful attorney at the time. By 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment was introduced, there had already been a significant woman's suffrage movement, and indeed, legal challenges for the right to vote [Mays 58-9]. ... Unit one as associated with post 1865 is the beginning of the period known as reconstruction, and what follows in the aftermath of the Civil War (1860-1865) is a fairly reactionary political mandate. Arguably, the period following the Civil War can be characterized as a period where a great number of concessions were made to the interests of Southerners who had been defeated in the war that was centered around the issue of slavery. During the period in question or the era of Reconstruction after the Civil War, the notorious â€Å"Jim Crow† legislation throughout the South had introduced a pattern of which distinct traces can still be seen in the southern states. The new laws stated that no one could vote unless a poll tax had been paid and in some places, unless the voter could pass a literacy test, too. Blacks were not allowed to use the same railway cars, schools or residential areas as whites. These laws contradicted the Fourteenth Amendment but the Supreme Court seems to h ave turned a blind eye to what these state laws meant in relation to the laws of the central government. By this time, northerners seem to have allowed themselves to feel less responsible for post-War developments in the South. Blacks would feel abandoned by the north while facing southern hatred expressed both officially and violently. As Gillett explained, even white reformers seemed more concerned by what ought to be done with Blacks, as opposed to for Blacks and with many content to state that the slaves had been freed by the northern Civil War effort and that they now must work towards their own betterment [Gillett 368]. Segregation continued in a system which managed the Black population by keeping them separate from

Document Comentary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Document Comentary - Essay Example Though people with such thinking are in absolute minority, but the fact that they are carrying out the bomb blasts, the killings and the hate campaign in the name of Jihad, has brought a bad name to the Islamic community. While often citing Allah and the Holy Quran, these anti-social elements have put the entire Islamic community on defensive. Though there are Muslim leaders, who have often expressed their opinions against the campaigns carried out by such groups, but it failed to have much impact as there were some others, who have also been assisting the terror elements. The lack of unity amongst the Islamic nations has further aggravated the problem. Many countries in the Gulf nations are economically well off and are the key suppliers of oil to the world community in general. But the fact that these countries are dependent on Europe or America for needs like defence and other strategic requirements. This has compelled Crown Prince Abdullah to come out with a call for unity amongst the Islamic world. The leader with a modern and broad outlook has been trying to emphasise that the Islamic world must use afflictions and catastrophes as opportunities and challenges for making a self scrutiny. The key objective of the document is to seek unity amongst the Islamic nations, to review the happening that are taking place in the name of Islam to find out ways and means for repairing such errors. HRH Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz feels that such an introspection is a must for a broader unity amongst the Islamic nations in general and Gulf nations in particular. The audience includes members of GCC, opinion builders and the media persons attending the conference. While sending across a strong message of solidarity amongst the gulf nations, Prince Abdullah is candid enough to admit the weaker areas lapses being committed by some of the Islamic nation. This has provided covert or overt support to the anti-social elements. The

AT&T MOBILITY LLC v. CONCEPCION ET UX Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

AT&T MOBILITY LLC v. CONCEPCION ET UX - Essay Example The Ninth Court held a 5-4 decision that was written by Justice Scalia. The majority held that the provision was unconscionable under the provisions of California law as held by the Discover Bank. Laster v. AT&T Mobility LLC, 584 F.  3d 849, 855. This paper will analyze this case by explaining the issues involved, the majority opinion and also provide a stand on whether the minority dissent was better than the majority opinion. In the AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion et ux. case, the Supreme Court in U.S ruled against the use of a state judicial doctrine that made the enforceability of an arbitration agreement limited. This decision dealt a blow to consumers but proved a success to corporations and merchants. The Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) obstructs the application of a judicial doctrine (Discover Bank rule) used in California that gives courts the permission to hold unconscionable class action arbitration waivers in agreements with consumers concerned. The above doctrine applies in cases where the class proceedings involve an adhesion consumer contract, when disputes attract small amounts of damage and that the superior party in the contract has deliberately conned many consumers’ large sums of money. The Supreme Court ruled that the FAA obstructs the California rule, thereby eliminating strong basis for protecting consumers (Sergeant, 2012). This paper will discuss t he AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion et ux. case and the ethical issues in it. Vince and Liza Concepcion made a cell phone agreement contract with Cingular Wireless in February 2002. This contract had an arbitration clause that mandated all claims to be brought in the individual capacity of the party as opposed to a plaintiff or class member in ant representative proceeding or purported class. The agreement gave the service provider permission to make unilateral amendments willingly. AT&T Mobility LLC took over Cingular in 2005 with all its consumer

Global marketing strategy and product launch Essay

Global marketing strategy and product launch - Essay Example Besides providing an opportunity to the people to go beyond the ordinary, Dinner in the Sky’s mission is to provide a perfect environment to the customers with friendly services and utmost satisfaction (Mills et al, 2003). The restaurant marks its presence in more than 15 countries (Dinnerinthesky.com, 2012). The focus and the gist of this report would be to present the opportunity which the market of Pakistan presents Dinner in the Sky and to present a marketing plan and an audit of the market in order to successfully launch Dinner in the Sky in Pakistan. ... The idea of taking the diners literally in the sky and serving scrumptious food is being widely accepted throughout where the restaurant operates. The restaurant’s main aim is to provide a service and an experience which no one else in the market is providing. The big idea is to cater the client’s lavish needs of conducting their events such as important meetings, marriages etc in the sky but the primary purpose of the entity is to provide an ultimate dining experience to the customers. The restaurant’s vision is to mark its presence globally and promote the idea throughout the world (Dinnerinthesky.com, 2012). In line with the restaurant’s aim to promote the idea globally, Dinner in the Sky will launch its services in Karachi, which is the business hub of Pakistan. The market presents a good opportunity to the restaurant with a growing middle class. As the economic trend show a rise of investment and economic activity in the Asian countries, Dinner in the Sky must grab this business opportunity. Not only the economic side seems favorable but the marketing aspect of the market in accordance with Dinner in the Sky’s aims and objectives compliment the launching of the venture (Hotel, Restaurant & Tourism Directory of Pakistan, 2009; State Bank of Pakistan, 2011). 2 Environmental Analysis: 2.1 Political and Economic Analysis: Karachi, as mentioned above is the business hub of Pakistan. Apart from that, Karachi also is a home of people coming from many cultures and background. This becomes reason for some political disturbance in the city however, the higher end areas of the city, i.e. Clifton, Muhammad Ali Jinnah Society, Tariq Road, Defense Housing Authority remain calm (Hashmi, 1965). Apart from this, the economy of Pakistan is growing at a steady rate. Its

Hamlet, The Prince of Denmark Essay Example for Free

Hamlet, The Prince of Denmark Essay Much of the dramatic irony and dramatic tension in Shakespeares Hamlet, The Prince of Denmark derives from the interplay between the characters public and private personas. The face that each of the characters shows to the public contrasts with, in most cases, the private persona of the same character. Similarly, the private face or motives of the characters usually stands in diametric opposition to their public persona. The most obvious examples of this dynamic is, are course, the characters of Claudius and Gertrude who must, by necessity, keep up a fraudulent set of public perceptions to cover their crimes of infidelity and murder. These obvious examples, however, are no more profound or integral to the plays thematic impact than the likewise hypocrisies which afflict nearly every other character of the play. The almost universal nature of social mendacity is represented in Hamlet as being,in fact, the source of what is rotten in Denmark. The brilliance of the play exists, in part, in Shakespeares ability to demonstrate the way in which hypocrisy and being two-faced can impact all levels of society and corrupt even friendship and love. In many ways, the cast of characters in Hamlet reflect a social microcosm, with Hamlet, the young Prince, and Ophelia, representing the youth of society and the ghost of Hamlets father, Gertrude, Claudius, and Polonius representing the social establishment and cultural traditions which have fostered ongoing mendacity. From the very opening scene of the play, Shakespeare, with a knack for amazing subtlety, writes the following exchange between Bernardo and Horatio: BERNARDO Say, What, is Horatio there? HORATIO A piece of him. (Hamlet, 1. 1 25-28) Horatios reply indicates, according to critics of the play, that he is referring to the cold night air which has reduced him to a shivering semblance of his former self. However, the line can also be read as a subtle extension of the theme of mendacity adn meant to indicate that even Horatio, who will be revealed throughout the course of the play as a true friend to Hamlet, has been impacted by the rottenness in Denmark, the social hypocrisy which holds all in its sway. Similarly, Polonius, who represents the religious and spiritual aspects of society in the social microcosm of the play, dispenses words of wisdom to Laertes, acting the part of the wise and compassionate patriarch, a man of morals and God. Among his words of wisdom in Act One, Scene Three are the following observations: Beware/ Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,/ Beart that the opposed may beware of thee. / Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;/ Take each mans censure, but reserve thy judgment (Hamlet 1. 3, 69-73). Obviously, Polonius fails to live by his own words. He openly intrigues against Hamlet, immersing himself into a quarrel which was not his own, and after doing so, fails to Beart that the opposed may beware of thee (Hamlet 1. 3, 71), but ends up being killed by Hamlet on accident. Key to all of the ironies which are associated with Shakespeares them of social mendacity is the character of Hamlet himself. If the reader or audience member who is experiencing Hamlet believes in the heart that Hamlet is, indeed, mad, then much of Hamlets behavior can be explained by madness. If, on the other hand, the reader or audience member believes that Hamlet is simply presenting yet another social face this one in order to disrupt the hypocrisy of society then Hamlets behavior becomes a method by which Shakespeare examines the heavy toll which is exacted on the individual in a hypocritical society. There is every reason to believe that the latter context is the one which Shakespeare hope to achieve in the play. One good bit of evidence for this supposition is in Act 2, Scene One, when Ophelia, stricken by the state which Hamlet has allowed himself to get into, she voices her concerns to her father, Polonius. Ophelia describes Hamlet with his doublet all unbraced (Shakespeare, 2. 1, 85) and No hat upon his head (Shakespeare 2. 1, 86). His appearance is taken to be an indication of his inner-state, propelling the sense of social facade as serving in place of truth in society. Ophelia concludes that Hamlet appeared as though he had been loosed out of hell/ To speak of horrors,he comes before me (Shakespeare 2. 1, 90-91). The implication is that Hamlets disheveled state must indicate that he is, in fact, mad. Obviously, while Hamlet appears mad to others, he is plotting with great, rational precision to expose what he fears is the crime committed by his mother and his uncle. The sub-text of this is that Hamlet should be mad given the reality of the dilemma he faces. The great irony is, in fact, that he is not mad, but sane which will not allow him to live in a world of lies and hypocrisy. When Claudius and Gertrude react with horror to the play within a play Hamlets response is What, frighted with false fire! (Shakespeare 3. 2, 262) indicating his very rational understanding of the situation and of the reality of social mendacity. At this point, it seems that merely knowing of the hypocrisy is enough for Hamlet because when Claudius responds Give me some light: away! (Shakespeare 3. 2, 265) it is an admission that he, the King, and by association the whole of Denmark exists in darkness which is the darkness of social hypocrisy. Although hypocrisy is never actually justified in Hamlet, there is an interesting reason which is given in Act 4 of the play as to why people may be so easily led into hypocrisy and self-deception and that reason is: human mortality. When Hamlet observes of the dead that Theres another: why may not that be the skull of a / lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets,/ his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? (Shakespeare, 4. 1, 94-98) the reader or audience member realizes that the human hypocrisy portrayed throughout the play represents not only the lies and deceit necessary to facilitate human ambition in a corrupted society, but the human tendency to reject cosmic issues such as life and death and human spirituality in favor of materialism and worldly power. Works Cited Shakespeare, William. The Works of William Shakespeare Gathered into One Volume. New York: Oxford University Press, 1938.

Nature vs Nurture Essay Example for Free

Nature vs Nurture Essay Abstract The discussion surrounding Stephen Pinkers book The Blank Slate: the Modern Denial of Human Nature has sparks some rather interesting arguments as to whether our being is a result of nature, genetics or is it learned through nurturing. The discussion revolved around Pinkers idea that there is no such thing as the Blank Slate theory, when it comes to human nature. He believes that the human mind, like the human body, has been designed by natural selection through the process of biological evolution (Bailey Gillespie, 2002, p. 2). The Blank Slate theory derived from John Locke, a great philosopher who lived in the 16th century. In John Lockes philosophy, tabula rasa was the theory that the (human) mind is at birth a blank slate void of all characters, without any ideas or rules for processing data, and that data is added and rules for processing it formed solely by our sensory experiences. As understood by Locke, tabula rasa meant that the mind of the individual was born blank, and it also emphasized the individuals freedom to author his or her own soul. Each individual was free to define the content of his or her character but his or her basic identity as a member of the human species cannot be so altered. Implicit in this theory is the belief that individuals are infinitely and arbitrarily malleable by society: by changing the individuals environment, and thus sensory experiences, one can shape the individual with few, if any, restrictions. Steven Pinker challenges the Blank Slate theory. He thinks, we are genetically coded to be whatever we are. The experiences we encounter only have a minuscule impact on how we grow. Pinker argues about the idea of which nurture plays a more important role than nature in the development of the human mind. He believes a child is born with a personality, and parents cannot cause their children to have a different personality to that which is given. Pinker states in an interview by Bailey and Gillespie that: Blank slates do not do anything they just sit there. Human beings do things. They make sense of their environment they acquire language they interact with one another. They use reasoning to bring about things that they want. Even if you acknowledge, as you have to acknowledge, that learning, socialization, and culture are indispensable aspects of human behavior you have to admit that you cant have culture unless you have some kind of innate circuitry that can invent and acquire culture to begin with. (p. 5) Pinker also has an interesting notion, that there is no such thing as intelligence as we know it. If everyone is born void of everything, how do we explain intellectual difference among humans? One of his ways to solve the difference, because it is given to us genetically is to have its checks and balance. We have to match social structure to genetics. Pinker stated that the Blank Slate theory made divisions among humans socially, intellectually, racially and by gender. Method Participants Research participants stemmed from his research with twins where Pinker with the help of Jennifer Ganger, PhD. They gathered data. On the development of words, sentences and past tense forms in a large sample of identical and fraternal twins. In the research he looked at there gradual development of their language, if it looked like the development appear in closer synchrony in identical twins (who share all their genes) than in fraternal twins (who share half their genes, among those that vary), it would suggest that language development is paced in part by a genetically influenced maturational timetable. (Pinker research 2002 p. 1) Pinker also conducted research studies on Neuroimaging of inflection where he used (functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural organization of language. He also used a set of projects that focused on inflections such as the past tense and plural to understand the psychology of language. I have studied how past tense forms develop in children. I studied this processed in real time during speech productions. How they vary and do not vary? and how their details, quirks and exceptions are explained by linguistic theory. (Pinker ? research, 2002 p. 1) My view of this topic is that I think to some extent we are born with some kind of personality but our experiences molds what we truly become. I do not believe that nature give us, by genetics all the things we need in life. I think we are born with some intellectual capacity and by nurturing that, we improve our knowledge. I saw an example of nurturing on an interesting episode of CBS 60 minutes. A little boy was born severely brain damaged and was blind. He could barely walk, talk or move his hands. At the age of two, his parents gave him a piano, he began playing it, and by age five, he was already playing classical music. The gene found in this child is found, is found in one in ten thousand people and it allows him to read music. He just needs to hear a sound once in its entirety and he can play it on piano minutes later. No everyone with this gene has this ability. His parents nurtured him and invoked the intellectual part of his brain that allows him to be an extraordinary musician. Our experience in life and the way we are nurture plays a vital roll in the individuals we become. In closing, I think we do learn a great deal from nurturing and we are born with a gene that gives us certain personalities. Therefore, a human being cannot be completely void. References Bailey, R Gillespie, N (2002). Reason: Biology vs. the blank Slate. http://reason. com/0210/fe. rb. biology. shtml Pinker, S (2005) http://pinker. wjh. harvard. edu Wikipedia. Org http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Tabula_rasa http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate.

Teenage Purchasing Decisions for Cosmetics

Teenage Purchasing Decisions for Cosmetics Chapter 1: Introduction This introductory chapter is divided into five subsections. Firstly, a brief background of the research will be presented. Thereafter, the problem discussion will be provided, which in turn will lead to the purpose and objectives of the research. Finally, the delimitations and summary of the dissertation will be set. 1.1 Research Background According to Kotler (2008), consumer behavior is the study of how people buy, what they buy, when they buy and why they buy. It is a subcategory of marketing that blends elements from psychology, sociology, socio psychology, anthropology and economics. It attempts to understand the buyer decision-making process, both individually and in groups. It studies characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics, psychographics, and behavioral variables in an attempt to understand people needs. He also stated that it also tries to assess influences on the consumer from group such as family friends, reference groups, and society in general for example while consumers purchase the shoe, then they go for family decision, comfort, satisfaction, price and quality (Kotler, 2008). According to Baker (2002), consumers are not aware of the products and usage but constantly they are choosing among the various products. They are intentionally procuring the various new brands without any knowledge about the new products. Additionally if new company enters into the market, for every consumer it is very complicated to understand the features of the news products and this makes confusion among the consumers to obtain the information. For example: If one local company enters into the market then to increase the knowledge about the features of the new product, it will take long time for the consumers to recognise. Baker (2004) stated that the consumer will respond according to the product quality and reliability, the fundamental understanding of products is necessary to understand the product features, products reliability and product benefits. The consumer is the end user for the product; consumers buy the products in market; in order to execute flourishing sales operations in the market an efficient distribution channel and networks are required for the organisations. He also stated that advertisement, distribution channels and networks play an important role in the consumer goods industry. Manufacturing companies, retailer and suppliers do not have an idea about the consumer behaviour in the local market. Thomas (2004) suggested that direct marketing activities should be left to the local market leaders, because the local market leaders have best idea of local market and local consumer behaviour. In the current literature, there are two major approaches to studying consumer decision-making involving screening and choice. One approach is to extend the single-stage choice models by adding an explicit choice set from which the final choice is made (Swait Adamowicz, 2001). Another approach studies the process of screening prior to choice (Teder, 2000). Understanding consumer decision-making is important. From a practical perspective, marketing managers are increasingly concerned that their products/brands may not be considered or chosen over those of their competitors. From a research perspective, a more representative model of the staged decision process may significantly improve our ability to predict consumer choices (Roberts Lattin, 1991). Recently, the growth of cosmetic industry in the global beauty market represents a slight slowdown due to a weakened economic state in the most developed markets and declining penetration of emerging markets. However, among the gloomy picture of the worlds cosmetic industry, the Asian market emerges as the brightest star as according to the Euromonitors report (2009), the Asia Pacific markets value is up to more than US$70 billion which is the second highest after the Western European market. Among the European markets, UK is the fastest growing market with the compound growth rate of fourteen percent over the period of 2000 to 2005. The economic growth of more than seven percent a year since 1990 could be the reason why the UKs cosmetic market has attracted a lot of the worlds cosmetic leaders like Unilever, LOreal, Johnson Johnson and PG. These cosmetic companies activities in UK help creating an exciting and competitive cosmetic market (Euromonitor, 2009). Consumers unique shopping patterns are developed and affected by socialization agents, which include family, peers, and the media. According to Lachance et. al (2003), these socialisation agents may often impact whether or not the adolescents will buy certain products or brands.. However Miller et.al (2003) claims that celebrity endorsements do not influence consumers purchasing behaviour. In contrast Boyd and Shank (2004) maintain that consumers, particularly teenagers, are likely to select products or brands that are endorsed by celebrities. Moreover, peers are likely to exert normative and informative influence. Lachance et. al, 2003 identified that they may influence the teenagers brand and product choices. Additionally, an individual is likely to conform to a group if he or she shares beliefs and norms with the group (Arnould et.al, 2004). Also, a group is likely to effectively exert influence on an individual if the individual is highly committed to the group (Hawkins et al, 2004). 1.2 Reason Behind Choose the Topic The main reason behind chosen this topic is previous studies have not precisely conducted a focused investigation into the influence of peers and celebrities on fifteen to eighteen year-old females purchasing behaviour in cosmetic products. Most researches on peer influence were conducted on general consumers with general products (Elliott and Leonard, 2004). Moreover, As for researcher, she always felt that â€Å"Consumer Buying Behaviour† is one of the most interesting subjects for her and as a female she thought to do a dissertation on the influence of celebrities endorsement on female teenagers would suitable for her to work on. Researcher did previous semester in LSC and she took a course on Research and Methodology (RM) which helped her to know the format of the research paper. Moreover her supervisor Dr.Fahads motivation and encouragement had helped researcher to select this topic. Researcher have studied out many articles of Consumer Buying Behaviour and annual reports of different cosmetic company and tried to sort out a topic, which is going to be suitable for her dissertation according to supervisors suggestion. This dissertation will help cosmetics firms and retail stores develop a precise marketing strategy to appeal to teenage consumers and to understand their purchasing behaviour. 1.3 Research Problem According to the website of BHB (2009), beauty and cosmetics are not innovations of the 20th century. It is known from reports of old Egypt and the Roman Empire that people have ever since attached importance to a cultivated appearance. Numerous up to date studies prove that today more than 60 per cent of women really care much about beauty, cosmetics, skin and body care. Even men show an increasing interest and demand in products such as skin care cosmetics, creams or anti aging lotions. To place and keep a cosmetic product successfully in the market, it is vital for companies active in manufacturing and selling cosmetics to have extensive scientific pharmaceutical and market research done. It is crucial for manufacturers of natural cosmetics or make up to know about consumer behaviour, trends and demands in the sector. Consumers might decide for a product because of its characteristics, its care factor, its sensitivity or its branding and attractive packaging. Cosmetics companies use the desires, senses and images consumers have or want to experience. More and more often, companies let celebrities and super models act as testimonials for fragrances, organic cosmetics or anti aging make up cosmetics. Colourful and exciting advertisements on TV, the internet or in print media tremendously influence consumer purchasing behaviour and desires. Packaging and the design of, for example, perfume bottles, let a cosmetics product appear even more desirable and trendy. This di ssertation will focus on beauty products in order to help cosmetics industry and retail stores develop a precise marketing strategy to appeal to female teenagers and to understand their purchasing behaviour. Previous studies have not precisely conducted a focused investigation into the influence of peers and endorsers on fifteen to eighteen year-old males purchasing behaviour in cosmetic products. Most researches on peer influence were conducted on general consumers with general products (Cited in Escalas and Bettman, 2003). However, some research has investigated this influence among children (Piacentini and Mailer, 2004). According to Klein (2001), teenagers are mostly influenced by friends and may not necessarily be influenced by celebrities. Additionally, no research has been conducted on symbolic consumption in relation to beauty products among the above-mentioned age groups. The researches were conducted on general consumers with general products (Piacentini and Mailer, 2004). 1.4 Research Aim and Objectives The purpose of this study is to investigate internal and external influences on teenagers purchasing decisions on cosmetic products in London. This research also investigates that how celebrities influence the brand choice of teenagers buying behaviour towards cosmetics in London market. The key objectives of this study are outlined as follows: To investigate how consumer buying behaviour factors influence female teenagers when purchasing cosmetic products. To explore the role of peers and celebrities and their influence on female teenagers purchasing decisions of cosmetic product. To analyse how celebrities influence the brand choice of youth females buying behaviour towards cosmetic products in London market. To give recommendation and conclusion. 1.5 Research Limitations The delimitations of a research study indicate its parameters; that is what the study will include and not include (Creswell, 2003). The scope of the study was limited to female consumers aged fifteen to eighteen living in the UK, specifically London city. This was due to time and budget constraints. In addition, the study only examines beauty products as opposed to general products. Further, the focus of the research was on symbolic consumption, peer groups and aspiration groups including beauty products endorsements rather than all internal and external influences. 1.6 Structure of the Dissertation Chapter 1: In this chapter mainly it talks about introduction of this dissertation, which also includes brief introduction of the topic, research background, rationale behind choose the topic, problem statement, aim and objectives and limitations of this research. Chapter 2: The second chapter is the literature review of this dissertation concerned about, the works of various authors and scholars who have highlighted and discussed about the theories of consumer behaviour and celebrities endorsement from different dimension. Chapter 3: This chapter will analyse the overall market overview of cosmetics products in UK Chapter 4: This third chapter will discuss the research method used in this research paper. Research method allows the researcher to plan and design the whole research in a proper way and shows the right direction to achieve an outcome. So the chapter explains the reasons behind the use of selected research method and the advantages by using the specified research approach. Chapter 5: This chapter discusses and analyses the market information and survey for the sake of the research. It also shows the data those have been gathered through interviews of customers, sales representative, and analyse the data to provide a fruitful meaning of the research finding. Chapter 6: This chapter has been discussed the research recommendations, limitations, further research on this topic and also describe how managers can get benefit or managerial implications of this paper. Chapter 2: Literature Review This chapter is the theoretical foundations that underpin this research study. In this chapter the theoretical framework relevant to dissertation purpose and questions will be presented. The chapter starts with a presentation of the brief discussion on consumer buying behavior, followed by purchase decision process and teenagers learning process and thereafter theories regarding factors influencing the purchase decision will be discussed. The following chapter presents the theoretical foundation of this research. The framework of the literature review is outlined. 2.1 Consumer behavior Consumer behavior is the study of consumers as they exchange something of value for a product or service that satisfies their needs (Well Prensky, 2003, p.5). The study of consumer behavior focuses on how individuals make decisions to spend their available resources (time, money, effort) on consumption related items (Schiffman Kanuk, 2004, p.5). In short, the company should study and create the marketing campaign for their target group. But in the product life cycle, due to the consumer behavior the image, target audience or function of this product can be in change. This group of consumers have a diversity of needs, such as a need for belonging, independence, approval, and responsibility, as well as having the need for experimentation (Solomon et al. 2004). Teenagers are increasingly given the task of buying products for the family. They not only have more spare time but also enjoy shopping more than their parents do. For this reason, marketers are targeting their ads mainly at te enagers. To gain teenagers attention more effectively, advertising campaigns must be honest, have clear messages, and used with humour. Moreover, teenagers tend to be inconsistent and are likely to switch brand preference quicker than any other age group, as they have a high need to be accepted by their friends (Blackwell et al. 2001). Finally, teenagers are â€Å"easier targets, because they have grown up in a culture of pure consumerism. Because of this, they are way more tuned into media because there is so much more media to be tuned into† (Bush et al. 2004, p. 109). Teenagers enjoy advertisements; a McCann survey shows that 75% of a sample of mixed 15-25 year olds felt that advertising was entertaining and 68% said that they found it a useful source of ideas about what to buy (Piper, 1998). When youths needs and desires are understood, marketers can show young consumers how products improve their lives. Harris Interactive, a Rochester, New York-based market research firm, estimates that teens spend on average $94.7 billion yearly ($3,309 per capita), while young adults between ages 20 and 21 spend $61.3 billion yearly ($7,389 per capita) (Schadelbauer, 2006). He also stated that interestingly, 69% of the U.S. youth respondents of one survey said that their parents pay their bills and they have little or no idea of who provides their telecommunications services or how much they cost. In the databases mentioned above, there are studies about ethical aspects of marketing to youth, whether regarding clothing, soft-drinks, cosmetics, technology, movi es, records, food, and tapes exchange. Some companies use â€Å"cool† appeal in their advertisements. The young people distinguish themselves among social classes to the detriment of their â€Å"natural† behavior by purchasing â€Å"cool† products. Misleading advertisements change the behavior of young people and can affect them when they grow up. In the 1980s, Nike and Calvin Klein brands began to focus on brand capital rather than on products themselves. Now, the brand names become the objective of the purchase in itself (Bergadaa, 2007). In particular, cigarette and alcohol producers are criticized by those who say that they are marketing to immature consumers (Schadelbauer, 2006). According to the Keynote UK marketing report (2008), respondents were asked if they had used any so-called ‘celebrity fragrances, as industry comment has been made on the popularity of such brands. Those who used fragrances endorsed by celebrities, who tended to be in the you ngest age group, were most likely to have chosen Britney Spearss fragrance; others of popularity included the Beckhambranded fragrances, and the Jennifer Lopez and Kylie Minogue fragrances The report also stated that the retail chain The Perfume Shop names Stunning by Katie Price (the glamour model formerly known as Jordan) as its most popular female fragrance of 2007, with Shh by Jade Goody in second position and Coleen by Coleen McLoughlin (the celebrity girlfriend of Manchester United football superstar Wayne Rooney) in fourth place. The Fragrance Shop, meanwhile, lists Coleen, Curious (Britney Spears) and Kate (Kate Moss) among its ten bestselling womens brands in 2007. 2.2 Consumer Decision making theories Acoording to Shao (2006), the decision literature can be classified into three broad categories: 1) normative 2) behavioural, and 3) naturalistic. In this section the differences between the three different approaches to studying consumer decision behaviour is identified. 2.2.1 Normative decision theory Normative Decision Theory originated in the economic discipline. According to Shao (2006), earliest researchers viewed decision-making as gambles and decision makers as â€Å"economic† men striving to maximise payoffs. The word ‘normative describes how decision makers should behave in order to obtain maximum payoffs. Examples of Normative Decision Theory include Expected Utility Theory adapted by Neumann Morgenstern (1947) and Subjective Expected Utility Theory adapted by Savage (1954) (Cited in Shao, 2006). An important addition of the Expected Utility Theory is the Subjective Expected Utility Theory proposed by Savage (1954). The main difference between the two is that the former uses objective probabilities, while the final uses subjective probabilities. By substituting subjective probabilities for objective probabilities, Subjective Expected Utility Theory proposes that the decision maker may be uncertain about whether the various outcomes (payoffs) will actually occur if the option is chosen (Beach, 1997). On the other hand according to Schoemaker (1982), Normative Decision Theory is actually a family of theories and at their core is a rational decision maker. The implied decision process is a single-stage process of consistent calculations of the options utilities. He also stated that consumer decision-making is a complex process. However, the normative assumptions are imposing an order on the complexity of decision-making (Beach, 1997). Over time, there has been growing discontent with the normative approach to studying consumer decision-making because the observed decision behaviour often violate the underlying assumptions of Normative Decision Theory. 2.2.2 Behavioural decision theory Behavioural Decision Theory emerged when decision researchers observed that decision makers seldom make explicit tradeoffs, let alone explicit use of probability and their preferences are constructed, not invariant (Bettman et al., 1998). The rational decision maker depicted by Normative Decision Theory was challenged by Simon (1955) who argued that decision makers have only bounded rationality and is seeking to satisfy. He also argued that Normative Decision Theory put â€Å"severe demands upon the choosing organism and those consumers do not necessarily search for all available alternatives, but choose the first feasible alternative that exceeds a given amount of payoffs. However he also proposed classic Satisfying strategy that was employed on decision makers in complex choice situations† (Cited in Shao, 2006) 2.2.3 Naturalistic decision theory Naturalistic Decision Theory originated from the discipline of organisational behaviour. According to Shao (2006), many researchers have developed various naturalistic decision models based on their observations of how decisions are made by individuals in natural environments. For example, a decision maker such as a fire ground commander will first recognize the fire situation, generate a few potential plans of actions, use cognitive imagination to assess the appropriateness of each plan to controlling the fire, and then act on the plan that he believes is the most appropriate (Cited in Orasanu Connolly, 2009). 2.3 The Buying Decision Process The consumer decision making process consists of mainly five steps according to most researchers within the field (Peter and Olson 2005, p.169). They also stated that the steps included in the model are; need or problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase and the post-purchase process. However, not all purchased require every step. Consumer can skip the evaluation of alternatives when considering low involvement products (Peter Olson 2005, p.168). According to Hawkins et al. (2001, pp.26-27) there are more aspects than only decision making process that affect consumer behavior which are external and internal influences. 2.3.1 Problem recognition The consumer decision making process generally begins when the consumer identifies a consumption problem that needs to be solved (Hoyer MacInnis, 2007, p. 195). Problem recognition is the perceived difference between an ideal and actual state. Ideal state is the way consumers would like a situation to be or the way they want to feel or be at the present time. An actual state is the way individuals perceive their feelings and situation to be at the present time (Hawkins et al., 2001, p.508). It can be said that consumer encounter the dissatisfaction or inconvenience situation and they would like to move to other preferable ones, problem is therefore recognized (Hawkins et al., 2001, p.508). 2.3.2 Information search Once the problem is recognized, relevant information from the past experience or long term memory is used to determine if a satisfactory solution is known, this is called internal search (Hawkins et al., 2001, p.528) and if the solution cannot be found in internal search then the external information relevant to the problem will be sought. Normally after problem recognition has been stimulated, the consumer will usually begin the decision process to solve the problem, typically from internal search because each consumer has store in memory a variety of information, feelings and past experiences that can be recalled when making a decision (Hoyer MacInnis, 2007, p.195). However, the stored memory can be decayed overtime, then they will be uncertain about their recalled information they will be engaged in external search, acquiring information from outside sources. According to Hoyer and MacInnis (2007, p.205), consumers can acquire information from five major categories of external so urces such as from retailers, media, other people and independent sources, and by experiencing the product. After searching for appropriate evaluation criteria, the consumers would probable seek appropriate alternatives-in this case brands, or possibly stores. They also identified that brands are affected in internal search and external search. In the internal search, consumers recall the sets of brands from their memory wherever the problem recognition occurred. Normally two to eight brands are tended to recall at a time and if they cannot recall brands from memory, the set of external factors such as availability on the shelf or suggestion from salesperson will then affected consumers purchasing. Additionally, well-known brands are more easily recalled during internal search than unfamiliar brands because the memory links associated with these brands tend to be stronger (Hoyer MacInnis, 2007, pp. 203-204). 2.3.3 Evaluation of alternatives The next step in the process is an evaluation of the alternatives which consumer compares the available options and information that has been gather through the searching process (McCall et. al., 2002) and seem most likely to solve the problem. There are two methods that consumers use when evaluating alternatives, which are attribute-based choice, this choice requires the knowledge of the consumers to compare the attribute of each available alternative and tends to exploit more effort and time, thus to be rational in the evaluation. And the other method applied is attitude-based choice, this method occur when consumers use their emotion, such as attitude and impression, in their evaluation (Hawkins et al., 2001, pp.560-562). 2.3.4 Purchase decision Consumers evaluate the stores image such as merchandise, service, physical facilities, convenience, promotion, store atmosphere, institution and post-transaction factors and make a selection to purchase at that specific outlet. On the other aspect, amount of the purchase, it is common that the consumers enter to one outlet with an intention to buy a particular brand but leave the store with a different brand or additional items. This shows the influences operating in the store effect consumers purchasing decision (Hawkins et al., 2001, pp.609-618). 2.3.5 Post purchase behavior After purchase, the customers evaluate their level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the product. Buyer satisfaction is determined by how close the products performance came to meet the buyers product expectations (Hoyer MacInnis, 2007). They also stated that consumers can experience dissonance (anxiety over whether the correct decision was made) or regret after a purchase (pp.272-273). One way of reducing dissonance is to search for additional information from sources such as experts and magazines. With searching for information to support and make the chosen alternative more attractive and the reject ones less attractive, thereby reducing dissonance (Hoyer MacInnis, 2007, p.272). Additionally, information that supports the consumers choice acts to bolster confidence in the correctness of the purchase decision (Hawkins et al., 2001, p.628). 2.4 Consumer Learning Process Learning is a progression by which consumers systematize their knowledge and it evolved over time. Consumers attitude and their future purchasing activities can be influenced by the learning process constantly. For gathering information from the stimuli in their environment consumers use their perceptual processes. According to Ganassali et.al (2009), consumer behaviour is approached by researchers adopting a variety of interpretative models and with a wide array of multidisciplinary frames, from economy to sociology, psychology and anthropology. According to East (1997), a shared perspective the different approaches to the understanding of consumer purchase decisions can be grouped. 2.4.1 Cognitive approach According to Ganassali et.al, (2009), this one is deeply rooted in the economic science and assumes a sensible behaviour of the decision maker, based on the price of the goods and on its attitude to respond to functional needs. The critical variable under this approach is the availability of sufficient information about purchase alternatives (price, product functionalities) to support the decisional process. So, from this approach, a main block of determinants concerning product characteristics drives the buying process. 2.4.2 External conditioning approach According to Foxall, 1990 cited in Ganassali et.al, (2009), this approach, the purchase decision is a response to external stimuli .The significant variable under this approach is which kind of external stimuli can influence purchase decision. From this second approach, a group of external determinants can influence the buying process, for example parents opinions or ads exposure. 2.4.3 Experience social interaction approach According to this approach, the present consumer decision aims at the construction of personal identity (Ganassali et.al, 2009). Following this idea, two main streams have been developed. One focuses on individual consumption decisions based on â€Å"emotional† explanation of consumer behaviour (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982). Ganassali et.al, (2009) also stated that the other stream concentrates on consumption as a means of social interaction, building on the pioneer sociological contribution of Veblen (1899 cited in Ganassali et.al, 2009). From both streams, the idea is that each prospective consumer has an individual internal value schema (based on internal emotions and external social interaction) that manipulates what he/she buys. 2.5 Teenage Learning Process for Shopping According to Solomon et al. (2004), teenagers are group of consumers that has a variety of needs. Such as, need for belonging, independence, approval, and responsibility, as well as having the need for experimentation. He also states that teenagers are increasingly given the task of buying products for the family. Since they not only have more spare time but also enjoy shopping more than their parents do. Therefore, marketers are targeting their ads primarily at teenagers. In order to gain teenagers attention more effectively, advertising campaigns must be honest, have clear messages, and humorous. Moreover, teenagers tend to be fickle and are likely to switch brand preference quicker than any other age group, as they have a high need to be received by their friends (Blackwell et al. 2001). According to Moschis and Moore (2001), as people grow up from childhood to adulthood, they obtain the skills, knowledge and attitude relevant to form purchase behaviour. The conceptual model of consumer socialisation presented in figure 2.5 demonstrates this. It claims that an individual learns from a socialisation agent through interaction and that changes his or her cognitive organisation with age. The socialisation agent (Churchill and Moschis, 1979), can be a family member, peers, teachers, the media, and media personalities like athletes, movies stars, and rock stars (Mowen and Minor, 1998). They can exert strong influences on the individual due to frequent interactions, superiority or control over rewards and punishments. The individual is influenced by the agent during the process of learning. However, this depends on the individuals cognitive development or life stage and structural variables, like status, sex, age, social class and religious background. Additionally, the ind ividual will develop cognitions and behaviour, learning properties, which will form his or her consumer behaviour (Moschis and Moore, 2001). In Moschis and Moore study on teenagers decision-making (2001), it was found that for low involvement products young people depend largely on the mass media for information. The results of the study imply that socialisation agents may affect the consumers decision-making cognitions. The study also found that low-involvement products are bought with peers rather than parents (Moschis and Moore, 2001). Furthermore, teenagers are more likely to stand on their evaluation on the brand name and the sale price in their buying decisions. Males are more motivated by social consumption and characterised by materialistic attitudes than females. This may be because status, power and respect are important among the peers (Churchill and Moschis, 1979). 2.6 Influencing Factors of Purchase Decision 2.6.1 Advertisement Advertising informs consumers about the existence and benefits of products and services, and tries to persuade consumers to buy them (MacKenzie, 2004). Moreover, Kotler et al. (2005), claim that advertising aims at attaining target consumers to either think or respond to the product or brand. As a method of achieving advertisement goals, advertisements as well as their contents play an essential role in the process of commercial Teenage Purchasing Decisions for Cosmetics Teenage Purchasing Decisions for Cosmetics Chapter 1: Introduction This introductory chapter is divided into five subsections. Firstly, a brief background of the research will be presented. Thereafter, the problem discussion will be provided, which in turn will lead to the purpose and objectives of the research. Finally, the delimitations and summary of the dissertation will be set. 1.1 Research Background According to Kotler (2008), consumer behavior is the study of how people buy, what they buy, when they buy and why they buy. It is a subcategory of marketing that blends elements from psychology, sociology, socio psychology, anthropology and economics. It attempts to understand the buyer decision-making process, both individually and in groups. It studies characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics, psychographics, and behavioral variables in an attempt to understand people needs. He also stated that it also tries to assess influences on the consumer from group such as family friends, reference groups, and society in general for example while consumers purchase the shoe, then they go for family decision, comfort, satisfaction, price and quality (Kotler, 2008). According to Baker (2002), consumers are not aware of the products and usage but constantly they are choosing among the various products. They are intentionally procuring the various new brands without any knowledge about the new products. Additionally if new company enters into the market, for every consumer it is very complicated to understand the features of the news products and this makes confusion among the consumers to obtain the information. For example: If one local company enters into the market then to increase the knowledge about the features of the new product, it will take long time for the consumers to recognise. Baker (2004) stated that the consumer will respond according to the product quality and reliability, the fundamental understanding of products is necessary to understand the product features, products reliability and product benefits. The consumer is the end user for the product; consumers buy the products in market; in order to execute flourishing sales operations in the market an efficient distribution channel and networks are required for the organisations. He also stated that advertisement, distribution channels and networks play an important role in the consumer goods industry. Manufacturing companies, retailer and suppliers do not have an idea about the consumer behaviour in the local market. Thomas (2004) suggested that direct marketing activities should be left to the local market leaders, because the local market leaders have best idea of local market and local consumer behaviour. In the current literature, there are two major approaches to studying consumer decision-making involving screening and choice. One approach is to extend the single-stage choice models by adding an explicit choice set from which the final choice is made (Swait Adamowicz, 2001). Another approach studies the process of screening prior to choice (Teder, 2000). Understanding consumer decision-making is important. From a practical perspective, marketing managers are increasingly concerned that their products/brands may not be considered or chosen over those of their competitors. From a research perspective, a more representative model of the staged decision process may significantly improve our ability to predict consumer choices (Roberts Lattin, 1991). Recently, the growth of cosmetic industry in the global beauty market represents a slight slowdown due to a weakened economic state in the most developed markets and declining penetration of emerging markets. However, among the gloomy picture of the worlds cosmetic industry, the Asian market emerges as the brightest star as according to the Euromonitors report (2009), the Asia Pacific markets value is up to more than US$70 billion which is the second highest after the Western European market. Among the European markets, UK is the fastest growing market with the compound growth rate of fourteen percent over the period of 2000 to 2005. The economic growth of more than seven percent a year since 1990 could be the reason why the UKs cosmetic market has attracted a lot of the worlds cosmetic leaders like Unilever, LOreal, Johnson Johnson and PG. These cosmetic companies activities in UK help creating an exciting and competitive cosmetic market (Euromonitor, 2009). Consumers unique shopping patterns are developed and affected by socialization agents, which include family, peers, and the media. According to Lachance et. al (2003), these socialisation agents may often impact whether or not the adolescents will buy certain products or brands.. However Miller et.al (2003) claims that celebrity endorsements do not influence consumers purchasing behaviour. In contrast Boyd and Shank (2004) maintain that consumers, particularly teenagers, are likely to select products or brands that are endorsed by celebrities. Moreover, peers are likely to exert normative and informative influence. Lachance et. al, 2003 identified that they may influence the teenagers brand and product choices. Additionally, an individual is likely to conform to a group if he or she shares beliefs and norms with the group (Arnould et.al, 2004). Also, a group is likely to effectively exert influence on an individual if the individual is highly committed to the group (Hawkins et al, 2004). 1.2 Reason Behind Choose the Topic The main reason behind chosen this topic is previous studies have not precisely conducted a focused investigation into the influence of peers and celebrities on fifteen to eighteen year-old females purchasing behaviour in cosmetic products. Most researches on peer influence were conducted on general consumers with general products (Elliott and Leonard, 2004). Moreover, As for researcher, she always felt that â€Å"Consumer Buying Behaviour† is one of the most interesting subjects for her and as a female she thought to do a dissertation on the influence of celebrities endorsement on female teenagers would suitable for her to work on. Researcher did previous semester in LSC and she took a course on Research and Methodology (RM) which helped her to know the format of the research paper. Moreover her supervisor Dr.Fahads motivation and encouragement had helped researcher to select this topic. Researcher have studied out many articles of Consumer Buying Behaviour and annual reports of different cosmetic company and tried to sort out a topic, which is going to be suitable for her dissertation according to supervisors suggestion. This dissertation will help cosmetics firms and retail stores develop a precise marketing strategy to appeal to teenage consumers and to understand their purchasing behaviour. 1.3 Research Problem According to the website of BHB (2009), beauty and cosmetics are not innovations of the 20th century. It is known from reports of old Egypt and the Roman Empire that people have ever since attached importance to a cultivated appearance. Numerous up to date studies prove that today more than 60 per cent of women really care much about beauty, cosmetics, skin and body care. Even men show an increasing interest and demand in products such as skin care cosmetics, creams or anti aging lotions. To place and keep a cosmetic product successfully in the market, it is vital for companies active in manufacturing and selling cosmetics to have extensive scientific pharmaceutical and market research done. It is crucial for manufacturers of natural cosmetics or make up to know about consumer behaviour, trends and demands in the sector. Consumers might decide for a product because of its characteristics, its care factor, its sensitivity or its branding and attractive packaging. Cosmetics companies use the desires, senses and images consumers have or want to experience. More and more often, companies let celebrities and super models act as testimonials for fragrances, organic cosmetics or anti aging make up cosmetics. Colourful and exciting advertisements on TV, the internet or in print media tremendously influence consumer purchasing behaviour and desires. Packaging and the design of, for example, perfume bottles, let a cosmetics product appear even more desirable and trendy. This di ssertation will focus on beauty products in order to help cosmetics industry and retail stores develop a precise marketing strategy to appeal to female teenagers and to understand their purchasing behaviour. Previous studies have not precisely conducted a focused investigation into the influence of peers and endorsers on fifteen to eighteen year-old males purchasing behaviour in cosmetic products. Most researches on peer influence were conducted on general consumers with general products (Cited in Escalas and Bettman, 2003). However, some research has investigated this influence among children (Piacentini and Mailer, 2004). According to Klein (2001), teenagers are mostly influenced by friends and may not necessarily be influenced by celebrities. Additionally, no research has been conducted on symbolic consumption in relation to beauty products among the above-mentioned age groups. The researches were conducted on general consumers with general products (Piacentini and Mailer, 2004). 1.4 Research Aim and Objectives The purpose of this study is to investigate internal and external influences on teenagers purchasing decisions on cosmetic products in London. This research also investigates that how celebrities influence the brand choice of teenagers buying behaviour towards cosmetics in London market. The key objectives of this study are outlined as follows: To investigate how consumer buying behaviour factors influence female teenagers when purchasing cosmetic products. To explore the role of peers and celebrities and their influence on female teenagers purchasing decisions of cosmetic product. To analyse how celebrities influence the brand choice of youth females buying behaviour towards cosmetic products in London market. To give recommendation and conclusion. 1.5 Research Limitations The delimitations of a research study indicate its parameters; that is what the study will include and not include (Creswell, 2003). The scope of the study was limited to female consumers aged fifteen to eighteen living in the UK, specifically London city. This was due to time and budget constraints. In addition, the study only examines beauty products as opposed to general products. Further, the focus of the research was on symbolic consumption, peer groups and aspiration groups including beauty products endorsements rather than all internal and external influences. 1.6 Structure of the Dissertation Chapter 1: In this chapter mainly it talks about introduction of this dissertation, which also includes brief introduction of the topic, research background, rationale behind choose the topic, problem statement, aim and objectives and limitations of this research. Chapter 2: The second chapter is the literature review of this dissertation concerned about, the works of various authors and scholars who have highlighted and discussed about the theories of consumer behaviour and celebrities endorsement from different dimension. Chapter 3: This chapter will analyse the overall market overview of cosmetics products in UK Chapter 4: This third chapter will discuss the research method used in this research paper. Research method allows the researcher to plan and design the whole research in a proper way and shows the right direction to achieve an outcome. So the chapter explains the reasons behind the use of selected research method and the advantages by using the specified research approach. Chapter 5: This chapter discusses and analyses the market information and survey for the sake of the research. It also shows the data those have been gathered through interviews of customers, sales representative, and analyse the data to provide a fruitful meaning of the research finding. Chapter 6: This chapter has been discussed the research recommendations, limitations, further research on this topic and also describe how managers can get benefit or managerial implications of this paper. Chapter 2: Literature Review This chapter is the theoretical foundations that underpin this research study. In this chapter the theoretical framework relevant to dissertation purpose and questions will be presented. The chapter starts with a presentation of the brief discussion on consumer buying behavior, followed by purchase decision process and teenagers learning process and thereafter theories regarding factors influencing the purchase decision will be discussed. The following chapter presents the theoretical foundation of this research. The framework of the literature review is outlined. 2.1 Consumer behavior Consumer behavior is the study of consumers as they exchange something of value for a product or service that satisfies their needs (Well Prensky, 2003, p.5). The study of consumer behavior focuses on how individuals make decisions to spend their available resources (time, money, effort) on consumption related items (Schiffman Kanuk, 2004, p.5). In short, the company should study and create the marketing campaign for their target group. But in the product life cycle, due to the consumer behavior the image, target audience or function of this product can be in change. This group of consumers have a diversity of needs, such as a need for belonging, independence, approval, and responsibility, as well as having the need for experimentation (Solomon et al. 2004). Teenagers are increasingly given the task of buying products for the family. They not only have more spare time but also enjoy shopping more than their parents do. For this reason, marketers are targeting their ads mainly at te enagers. To gain teenagers attention more effectively, advertising campaigns must be honest, have clear messages, and used with humour. Moreover, teenagers tend to be inconsistent and are likely to switch brand preference quicker than any other age group, as they have a high need to be accepted by their friends (Blackwell et al. 2001). Finally, teenagers are â€Å"easier targets, because they have grown up in a culture of pure consumerism. Because of this, they are way more tuned into media because there is so much more media to be tuned into† (Bush et al. 2004, p. 109). Teenagers enjoy advertisements; a McCann survey shows that 75% of a sample of mixed 15-25 year olds felt that advertising was entertaining and 68% said that they found it a useful source of ideas about what to buy (Piper, 1998). When youths needs and desires are understood, marketers can show young consumers how products improve their lives. Harris Interactive, a Rochester, New York-based market research firm, estimates that teens spend on average $94.7 billion yearly ($3,309 per capita), while young adults between ages 20 and 21 spend $61.3 billion yearly ($7,389 per capita) (Schadelbauer, 2006). He also stated that interestingly, 69% of the U.S. youth respondents of one survey said that their parents pay their bills and they have little or no idea of who provides their telecommunications services or how much they cost. In the databases mentioned above, there are studies about ethical aspects of marketing to youth, whether regarding clothing, soft-drinks, cosmetics, technology, movi es, records, food, and tapes exchange. Some companies use â€Å"cool† appeal in their advertisements. The young people distinguish themselves among social classes to the detriment of their â€Å"natural† behavior by purchasing â€Å"cool† products. Misleading advertisements change the behavior of young people and can affect them when they grow up. In the 1980s, Nike and Calvin Klein brands began to focus on brand capital rather than on products themselves. Now, the brand names become the objective of the purchase in itself (Bergadaa, 2007). In particular, cigarette and alcohol producers are criticized by those who say that they are marketing to immature consumers (Schadelbauer, 2006). According to the Keynote UK marketing report (2008), respondents were asked if they had used any so-called ‘celebrity fragrances, as industry comment has been made on the popularity of such brands. Those who used fragrances endorsed by celebrities, who tended to be in the you ngest age group, were most likely to have chosen Britney Spearss fragrance; others of popularity included the Beckhambranded fragrances, and the Jennifer Lopez and Kylie Minogue fragrances The report also stated that the retail chain The Perfume Shop names Stunning by Katie Price (the glamour model formerly known as Jordan) as its most popular female fragrance of 2007, with Shh by Jade Goody in second position and Coleen by Coleen McLoughlin (the celebrity girlfriend of Manchester United football superstar Wayne Rooney) in fourth place. The Fragrance Shop, meanwhile, lists Coleen, Curious (Britney Spears) and Kate (Kate Moss) among its ten bestselling womens brands in 2007. 2.2 Consumer Decision making theories Acoording to Shao (2006), the decision literature can be classified into three broad categories: 1) normative 2) behavioural, and 3) naturalistic. In this section the differences between the three different approaches to studying consumer decision behaviour is identified. 2.2.1 Normative decision theory Normative Decision Theory originated in the economic discipline. According to Shao (2006), earliest researchers viewed decision-making as gambles and decision makers as â€Å"economic† men striving to maximise payoffs. The word ‘normative describes how decision makers should behave in order to obtain maximum payoffs. Examples of Normative Decision Theory include Expected Utility Theory adapted by Neumann Morgenstern (1947) and Subjective Expected Utility Theory adapted by Savage (1954) (Cited in Shao, 2006). An important addition of the Expected Utility Theory is the Subjective Expected Utility Theory proposed by Savage (1954). The main difference between the two is that the former uses objective probabilities, while the final uses subjective probabilities. By substituting subjective probabilities for objective probabilities, Subjective Expected Utility Theory proposes that the decision maker may be uncertain about whether the various outcomes (payoffs) will actually occur if the option is chosen (Beach, 1997). On the other hand according to Schoemaker (1982), Normative Decision Theory is actually a family of theories and at their core is a rational decision maker. The implied decision process is a single-stage process of consistent calculations of the options utilities. He also stated that consumer decision-making is a complex process. However, the normative assumptions are imposing an order on the complexity of decision-making (Beach, 1997). Over time, there has been growing discontent with the normative approach to studying consumer decision-making because the observed decision behaviour often violate the underlying assumptions of Normative Decision Theory. 2.2.2 Behavioural decision theory Behavioural Decision Theory emerged when decision researchers observed that decision makers seldom make explicit tradeoffs, let alone explicit use of probability and their preferences are constructed, not invariant (Bettman et al., 1998). The rational decision maker depicted by Normative Decision Theory was challenged by Simon (1955) who argued that decision makers have only bounded rationality and is seeking to satisfy. He also argued that Normative Decision Theory put â€Å"severe demands upon the choosing organism and those consumers do not necessarily search for all available alternatives, but choose the first feasible alternative that exceeds a given amount of payoffs. However he also proposed classic Satisfying strategy that was employed on decision makers in complex choice situations† (Cited in Shao, 2006) 2.2.3 Naturalistic decision theory Naturalistic Decision Theory originated from the discipline of organisational behaviour. According to Shao (2006), many researchers have developed various naturalistic decision models based on their observations of how decisions are made by individuals in natural environments. For example, a decision maker such as a fire ground commander will first recognize the fire situation, generate a few potential plans of actions, use cognitive imagination to assess the appropriateness of each plan to controlling the fire, and then act on the plan that he believes is the most appropriate (Cited in Orasanu Connolly, 2009). 2.3 The Buying Decision Process The consumer decision making process consists of mainly five steps according to most researchers within the field (Peter and Olson 2005, p.169). They also stated that the steps included in the model are; need or problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase and the post-purchase process. However, not all purchased require every step. Consumer can skip the evaluation of alternatives when considering low involvement products (Peter Olson 2005, p.168). According to Hawkins et al. (2001, pp.26-27) there are more aspects than only decision making process that affect consumer behavior which are external and internal influences. 2.3.1 Problem recognition The consumer decision making process generally begins when the consumer identifies a consumption problem that needs to be solved (Hoyer MacInnis, 2007, p. 195). Problem recognition is the perceived difference between an ideal and actual state. Ideal state is the way consumers would like a situation to be or the way they want to feel or be at the present time. An actual state is the way individuals perceive their feelings and situation to be at the present time (Hawkins et al., 2001, p.508). It can be said that consumer encounter the dissatisfaction or inconvenience situation and they would like to move to other preferable ones, problem is therefore recognized (Hawkins et al., 2001, p.508). 2.3.2 Information search Once the problem is recognized, relevant information from the past experience or long term memory is used to determine if a satisfactory solution is known, this is called internal search (Hawkins et al., 2001, p.528) and if the solution cannot be found in internal search then the external information relevant to the problem will be sought. Normally after problem recognition has been stimulated, the consumer will usually begin the decision process to solve the problem, typically from internal search because each consumer has store in memory a variety of information, feelings and past experiences that can be recalled when making a decision (Hoyer MacInnis, 2007, p.195). However, the stored memory can be decayed overtime, then they will be uncertain about their recalled information they will be engaged in external search, acquiring information from outside sources. According to Hoyer and MacInnis (2007, p.205), consumers can acquire information from five major categories of external so urces such as from retailers, media, other people and independent sources, and by experiencing the product. After searching for appropriate evaluation criteria, the consumers would probable seek appropriate alternatives-in this case brands, or possibly stores. They also identified that brands are affected in internal search and external search. In the internal search, consumers recall the sets of brands from their memory wherever the problem recognition occurred. Normally two to eight brands are tended to recall at a time and if they cannot recall brands from memory, the set of external factors such as availability on the shelf or suggestion from salesperson will then affected consumers purchasing. Additionally, well-known brands are more easily recalled during internal search than unfamiliar brands because the memory links associated with these brands tend to be stronger (Hoyer MacInnis, 2007, pp. 203-204). 2.3.3 Evaluation of alternatives The next step in the process is an evaluation of the alternatives which consumer compares the available options and information that has been gather through the searching process (McCall et. al., 2002) and seem most likely to solve the problem. There are two methods that consumers use when evaluating alternatives, which are attribute-based choice, this choice requires the knowledge of the consumers to compare the attribute of each available alternative and tends to exploit more effort and time, thus to be rational in the evaluation. And the other method applied is attitude-based choice, this method occur when consumers use their emotion, such as attitude and impression, in their evaluation (Hawkins et al., 2001, pp.560-562). 2.3.4 Purchase decision Consumers evaluate the stores image such as merchandise, service, physical facilities, convenience, promotion, store atmosphere, institution and post-transaction factors and make a selection to purchase at that specific outlet. On the other aspect, amount of the purchase, it is common that the consumers enter to one outlet with an intention to buy a particular brand but leave the store with a different brand or additional items. This shows the influences operating in the store effect consumers purchasing decision (Hawkins et al., 2001, pp.609-618). 2.3.5 Post purchase behavior After purchase, the customers evaluate their level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the product. Buyer satisfaction is determined by how close the products performance came to meet the buyers product expectations (Hoyer MacInnis, 2007). They also stated that consumers can experience dissonance (anxiety over whether the correct decision was made) or regret after a purchase (pp.272-273). One way of reducing dissonance is to search for additional information from sources such as experts and magazines. With searching for information to support and make the chosen alternative more attractive and the reject ones less attractive, thereby reducing dissonance (Hoyer MacInnis, 2007, p.272). Additionally, information that supports the consumers choice acts to bolster confidence in the correctness of the purchase decision (Hawkins et al., 2001, p.628). 2.4 Consumer Learning Process Learning is a progression by which consumers systematize their knowledge and it evolved over time. Consumers attitude and their future purchasing activities can be influenced by the learning process constantly. For gathering information from the stimuli in their environment consumers use their perceptual processes. According to Ganassali et.al (2009), consumer behaviour is approached by researchers adopting a variety of interpretative models and with a wide array of multidisciplinary frames, from economy to sociology, psychology and anthropology. According to East (1997), a shared perspective the different approaches to the understanding of consumer purchase decisions can be grouped. 2.4.1 Cognitive approach According to Ganassali et.al, (2009), this one is deeply rooted in the economic science and assumes a sensible behaviour of the decision maker, based on the price of the goods and on its attitude to respond to functional needs. The critical variable under this approach is the availability of sufficient information about purchase alternatives (price, product functionalities) to support the decisional process. So, from this approach, a main block of determinants concerning product characteristics drives the buying process. 2.4.2 External conditioning approach According to Foxall, 1990 cited in Ganassali et.al, (2009), this approach, the purchase decision is a response to external stimuli .The significant variable under this approach is which kind of external stimuli can influence purchase decision. From this second approach, a group of external determinants can influence the buying process, for example parents opinions or ads exposure. 2.4.3 Experience social interaction approach According to this approach, the present consumer decision aims at the construction of personal identity (Ganassali et.al, 2009). Following this idea, two main streams have been developed. One focuses on individual consumption decisions based on â€Å"emotional† explanation of consumer behaviour (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982). Ganassali et.al, (2009) also stated that the other stream concentrates on consumption as a means of social interaction, building on the pioneer sociological contribution of Veblen (1899 cited in Ganassali et.al, 2009). From both streams, the idea is that each prospective consumer has an individual internal value schema (based on internal emotions and external social interaction) that manipulates what he/she buys. 2.5 Teenage Learning Process for Shopping According to Solomon et al. (2004), teenagers are group of consumers that has a variety of needs. Such as, need for belonging, independence, approval, and responsibility, as well as having the need for experimentation. He also states that teenagers are increasingly given the task of buying products for the family. Since they not only have more spare time but also enjoy shopping more than their parents do. Therefore, marketers are targeting their ads primarily at teenagers. In order to gain teenagers attention more effectively, advertising campaigns must be honest, have clear messages, and humorous. Moreover, teenagers tend to be fickle and are likely to switch brand preference quicker than any other age group, as they have a high need to be received by their friends (Blackwell et al. 2001). According to Moschis and Moore (2001), as people grow up from childhood to adulthood, they obtain the skills, knowledge and attitude relevant to form purchase behaviour. The conceptual model of consumer socialisation presented in figure 2.5 demonstrates this. It claims that an individual learns from a socialisation agent through interaction and that changes his or her cognitive organisation with age. The socialisation agent (Churchill and Moschis, 1979), can be a family member, peers, teachers, the media, and media personalities like athletes, movies stars, and rock stars (Mowen and Minor, 1998). They can exert strong influences on the individual due to frequent interactions, superiority or control over rewards and punishments. The individual is influenced by the agent during the process of learning. However, this depends on the individuals cognitive development or life stage and structural variables, like status, sex, age, social class and religious background. Additionally, the ind ividual will develop cognitions and behaviour, learning properties, which will form his or her consumer behaviour (Moschis and Moore, 2001). In Moschis and Moore study on teenagers decision-making (2001), it was found that for low involvement products young people depend largely on the mass media for information. The results of the study imply that socialisation agents may affect the consumers decision-making cognitions. The study also found that low-involvement products are bought with peers rather than parents (Moschis and Moore, 2001). Furthermore, teenagers are more likely to stand on their evaluation on the brand name and the sale price in their buying decisions. Males are more motivated by social consumption and characterised by materialistic attitudes than females. This may be because status, power and respect are important among the peers (Churchill and Moschis, 1979). 2.6 Influencing Factors of Purchase Decision 2.6.1 Advertisement Advertising informs consumers about the existence and benefits of products and services, and tries to persuade consumers to buy them (MacKenzie, 2004). Moreover, Kotler et al. (2005), claim that advertising aims at attaining target consumers to either think or respond to the product or brand. As a method of achieving advertisement goals, advertisements as well as their contents play an essential role in the process of commercial