Majority or Minority Influence :: Politics, Compliance, Conversion

This essay concerns social influence in general. Aspects of social influence as such as majority influence and minority influence will be discussed in terms of their underlying psychological processes and how they differ. Majority influence or conformity refers to the desire to belong or to fit in within a particular group which involves adopting certain attributes, behaviour and attitudes of a particular group. As a result individuals consequently experience group pressure (in Baron, Branscombe & Byrne 2008). Minority influence on the other hand, refers to the influence that the minority exert over the majority in that the majority come to accept the beliefs and behaviours of a minority (in Baron et al. 2008). A considerable body of research has been injected into the nature and impact of both majority and minority influences. Moscovici (1980 in Hogg and Vaughan 2007) claimed that both majorities and minorities exert influence in different ways. One psychological process underlying majority influence is through direct public compliance. The dual-process dependency model which was postulated by Deutsch and Gerard, (1955 in Hogg and Vaughan 2007) proposes two important motives for conformity: normative social influence and informational social influence. Normative social influence refers to the need to be accepted and approved by society. This involves individuals to modify their behaviours and to adopt new/current ones that are associated with the particular social group so that they are not rejected (in Hogg & Vaughan 2007). An example of this situation can be reflected in Asch’s (1956 in Baron et al. 2008) study of conformity in which participants conformed to the majority group but at the same time maintained their own private opinions and disagreed. This process is known as compliance (in Bailey, J.et al. 2008). The second motive that explains why people conform according to Deutsch and Gerard, (1955) is based on informational social influence. According to Festinger, (1950, 1954 in Hogg & Vaughan 2007) this type of influence is associated with uncertainty. Here individuals are uncertain and lack knowledge as to how to behave in certain situations. Festinger referred to this as social comparison in which individuals are not fully confident about their beliefs, attitudes and opinions and therefore yield to majority in order to be correct. This occurs particularly under ambiguous conditions and is clearly demonstrated in Asch’s (1956 in Hogg and Vaughan 2007) and Sherif’s (1936 in Hogg and Vaughan 2007) studies in which participants converged on similar answers particularly when the tasks became extremely difficult for them to be able to rely on their own judgments (in Bailey et al.

The Paradox of Rich-to-Poor Capital Flow Essay -- North-South Capital

According to the Solow Growth Model, all countries will eventually converge to their long run steady state. If we consider the usual assumptions, of countries producing the same goods with the same constant returns to scale production technology, using (homogenous) capital and labour as factors of production, differences in income per capita income will reflect differences in per capita capital. Therefore, essentially if capital is allowed to flow freely, new investments should occur only in the poorer economy. However this is certainly not the case in reality. Most of the net capital flow in the past four decades has been north-to-north (rich countries investing in other rich countries), rather than north-south (rich economies investing in poorer ones) as predicted by the Solow Growth Model. Lucas (1990) compares the USA and India using data from 1988 to show that capital does not flow from rich to poor countries as predicted by the neoclassical growth model, and in setting out his simple framework he illustrates the paradox that exists. Assuming a production function y = Ax^B, the relative marginal productivity of capital (MPK) will be given by- rIndia/ rUS= (yIndia / yUS)^(ÃŽ ² -1)/ ÃŽ ². Plugging the data from 1988 in, we find that the marginal product of India should be 58 times that of the USA, as a result of which all investment should flow from the US to India. This is where the paradox lies-in reality such flows are not observed. The law of diminishing returns implies that the marginal productivity of capital will be higher in poorer countries. If this model is correct, and the capital markets are free and complete, investment should take place in India and other poor countries, and not in the USA or other richer countres... ...11. 3. Michael A. Clemens. (2002). Do Rich Countries InvestLess in Poor Countries thanthe Poor Countries Themselves?†. Available: www.jstor.com. Last accessed 20th Jan 2011. 4. Jonathan Eaton Mark Gersovitz Joseph E. Stiglitz. (1986). THE PURE THOERY OF COUNTRY RISK. Available: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1894.pdf. Last accessed 20th Jan 2011. 5. Wei, Shang-Jin. (2000). Local Corruption and Global Capital FlowsComment and Discussion. Available: www.jstor.com. Last accessed 20th Jan 2011. 6. Ays ¸e Y. Evrensel. (2004). Lending to developing countries revisited: changing nature of lenders and payment problems. Available: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6W8Y-4DS906V-1-1&_cdi=6667&_user=128590&_pii=S0939362504000615&_origin=search&_coverDate=09/01/2004&_sk=999719996&view=c&wchp=dGLbVzW-zSkWA&md5. Last accessed 20th Jan 2011. 7. Lecture Notes

Building a Local Fashion Brand

Executive Summary This report is prepared on the basis of a survey on a local fashion brand (Dishes Doss), & it's a survey to building this brand as a strong brand. The concept of branding has been around for centuries as a meaner to distinguish the goods of one producer from those of another. In fact the word brand is derived from the Old Norse word brander, which meaner â€Å"to burn,† as brands were and still are the meaner. Brands identify the source or maker of a product and allow consumers to assign responsibility to a particular manufacturer or distributor. Most important, brands take on special meaning to consumers.Because of past experiences with the product and its marketing program over these years, consumers find out which brands satisfy their needs and which one do not. As a result, brands provide a shortened device or meaner of simplification for their product decisions. Building a brand is a step by step process. There are four steps or six blocks to build up a brand. Here we applied all the steps or blocks to find out the present brand situation of Dishes Doss. In order of these steps or blocks we made a questioner of 69 questions ; held a survey on 50 people.After the survey we convert the result onto percentage and put it into graph to show the situation. The topic has been selected to building some local fashion brands (dishes Doss). A major objective of the report is to make customer based equity for these brands. After studying the steps of a brand building, we surveyed the information of these brands, on the basis of brand building. 1. 1 . Introduction: To build up a brand two questions often arises: What makes a brand strong? And how do you build a strong brand? To help to find out we study about the CUBE model which has four steps or six blocks.Beside this marketer face two questions are: What o different brands mean to customer? And how does the brand knowledge of consumers affect their response to marketing activity? The challen ge for marketers in building a strong brand is ensuring that customers have the right type of experiences with products and services and their accompanying marketing programs so that the desired thoughts, feelings, images, beliefs, perceptions, opinions, and so on become linked to the brand. 1. 2. Origin of the report: Brand is a very sensitive issue to the marketing people and is a very important issue to the customer.Because a strong brand can create a very highly demand of a reduce of a particular brand. To build up a strong brand one should to know so many things, ; he/she have to go with a four step procedures. And in this report we tried to focus on building a brand as a strong brand for that we select a local fashion brand. 1. 3. Objectives of the study: We make a study to know the Brand identity, meaning, response, relationship with the customers. We tried to know that is the customers are satisfied, dissatisfied, confused about the brand, its service, products and the overa ll factors.The core or the main objective of the study is to building a local fashion brand. To find the robbers, and scope of a local fashion brand ; build it as a strong brand. 1. 4. Methodology: We make a survey on Dishes Doss, which is a local fashion brand with ten famous local fashion brands. We make a questioner consisting 69 questions, on the basis of brand building in categories. Then take a sample of 50 people of different age, gender, ; occupation who use these brands. After getting the answers, we measured the level of satisfaction, dissatisfaction, confusion on different level of brand building. . 5. Limitations of the study: We are in our formal education stage. So this is our first assignment which is n the basis of the practical experience in real life. So, our lack of experience greatly influenced in preparing this report. We faced some other limitations that are given bellow: * It is too much difficult to comment and suggest based on few days study. Assignment repo rt is important to fulfill the Brand Management course, but we do not have enough time for such a detailed process. * Lack of collecting essential data ; information. * The survey is not 100% accurate. The four steps of brand building: The four steps of brand building represent a set of questions that customers invariably ask about brands. The questions are as follows: 1. Who are you? (Brand identity) 2. What are you? (Brand meaning) 3. What about you? What do I think or feel about you? (Brand response) 4. What about you ; me? What kind of association and how much of a connection would I like to have with you? (Brand relationships) By establishing the answer of these questions marketer can build a strong brand in the market among the customers.When customers get a clear answer of their question from the marketer then it become easy to make a decision about the brand. When marketer able to establish he answer of the question then they are on the way of building a strong brand. 2. 1. 1 . Brand Identity/salience: Achieving the right brand identity meaner brand salience with the customers. Brand salience measure awareness of the brand, that indicate is the customer are aware of the brand or not? Or how often and how easily the brand is identified by the customer in order of various situations and circumstances?We have said that brand awareness refers to customer ability to recall and recognize the brand under different conditions and to link the brand name, logo, symbol, and so forth to certain association in memory. Here we will know about the depth and the breadth of awareness thus gives the product an identity by linking brand elements to a product category and associated purchase and consumption or usage situations. Brand depth measure that how likely or easily the brand element come to the mind of customers ; brand breadth measure the range of purchase ; usage situation in which the brand element come to the mind. . 1. 2. Brand Meaning/Performance ; Imagery: The brand performance describe how well the product or service meets customers' more functional needs. How well does the brand rate on objective assessments of laity? To what extent does the brand satisfy utilitarian, aesthetic, and economic customer needs and wants in the product or service category? Five types of attributes and benefits often underlie brand performance, as follows: 1. Primary ingredients and supplementary features. 2. Product reliability, durability, and serviceability. 3. Service effectiveness, efficiency, and empathy. 4.Style and design. 5. Price. 2. 1. 3. Brand Response/]judgment & feelings: Brand image indicate a brand picture in a customer mind. Brand imagery depends on the extrinsic properties of the producer or service, including the ways in which the rand attempts to meet customer psychological or social needs. In this way people think about a brand abstractly, rather then what they think the brand actually does. Thus imagery refers to more intangible aspe cts of the brand, and consumers can form imagery association directly from their own experience or indirectly through some other source of information.Many kinds of intangibles can be linked to a brand, but four main ones are: 1. User profiles. 2. Purchase and usage situations. 3. Personality and values. 4. History, heritage, and experiences. Brand Judgments are customers' personal opinions about and evaluations of the rand, which consumers form by putting together all the different brand performance and imagery associations. The four types of brand Judgments are important, they are: 1 . Judgment about brand quality, 2. Brand Credibility, 3. Brand Consideration, 4. Brand Superiority. 2. 1. 4.Brand Relationship/Resonance: Brand resonance describes the nature of the relationship and the extent to which customers feel that they are ‘in sync' with the brands. Resonance is characterized in terms of intensity, or the depth of psychological bonds that customers have with the brands, as well as the level of activity engendered by this loyalty.

Bereavement: Emotion and Loss Essay

Bereaved children need support within school to deal with the loss of a loved one. This may be by being given opportunity to talk about their feelings or through practical activities. Naturally, each individual deals with bereavement in a different way, some may feel sad or angry, some may feel guilty about the death and others may withdraw and show signs of depression. The age of the child as well as their previous experiences, or lack of, can affect what they understand about death therefore it must be dealt with and prepared for accordingly. For instance, for those who have not dealt with loss before, starting with other kinds of loss is a good way in. With very young children this could be done effectively in circle time, using story, discussion and activities. You can talk about loss such as of toys or personal belongings and later develop this into a discussion about pets which may get lost or die, before finally talking about losing people who move on, move out or die. As a teacher we are more than likely able to empathise with children who are experiencing bereavement as this is probably something we, as adults, have experience. Consequently, it could be difficult to separate our own feelings and thoughts from the situation we are dealing with in order to console a child and reassure them that things will get better. It is important then to consider your own emotional response to the death and loss and reflect upon you feelings and how you deal with these situations in order to stop this from inhibiting your ability to help children in this situation. The parent/carer’s view and what they would like their child to understand about death is also important to consider as a teacher and it is important to make sure that you act on their wishes so that the message that you deliver reflects these views. However, whilst this is important, I also feel it is part of a teacher’s duty to help families understand the importance of children being appropriately involved in what is happening rather than being excluded and sheltered and how this can affect them in a negative way later in life also. Furthermore, this raises the importance of working and communicating effectively with parent/carer’s throughout these situations to find out behaviours the child is exhibiting when dealing with the loss and then develop a plan to help the child through this period. Most importantly, as a teacher, it is vital that a secure and closed environment which allows everyone to talk about the kinds of feelings that loss and bereavement bring is developed within the classroom and an appropriate level of confidentiality and trust is maintained.

A Situation Analysis of a primary school of UK Essay

A Situation Analysis of a primary school of UK - Essay Example The ecological notion of ‘limiting factors’ is a useful concept with much relevance to the interaction of factors so as to facilitate or discourage good-quality learning. A situation analysis carried and represented here deals with the identification of learning difficulties in a primary school in UK which involves consideration of how factors like the curriculum, teaching strategies and school routines and relationships all of which affect children in different ways over a period of time. The aim would be to understand and respond to the educationally relevant individual differences which can create persistent obstacles to children’s learning in different contexts. A key aspect of this process is to give due weight to the interpretation and intentions of the people involved i.e. how does the professional interacts in the class. The tool which was used to derive efficient results was SWOT analysis. It was devised to identify the extent to which the current strateg y of an organization and its more specific strengths and weaknesses are relevant to and capable of dealing with changes in the wider environment. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The professional should identify the Opportunities and Threats provided by an external environment and Strengths and Weaknesses of the school as an institution.

The British Royal Family Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The British Royal Family - Essay Example The Queen Elizabeth II alone is the patron of 600 charity organizations. Many members of the Royal Family are engaged in official relations with Force Units. The Queen promotes national unity and support overseas economic and diplomatic ties. Introduction: The grandeur of the British Royal Family continues to fascinate people around the world. Regardless of the fact that the Royal Family is a burden on the national treasury, as British citizens have to pay an exorbitant cost for their maintenance, no one in England has the power to abolish the British Crown. Such is the power and the influence of the Royal Family. One of the primary reasons why no one has the authority to overthrow the monarchy is the fact that the British system has evolved in such a way that its sovereign authority flows through the Royal Family. The members of the British Royal Family are close relatives of the United Kingdom’s monarch. The Queen and the other members of the British Royal Family conduct the ir activities in strict accordance with the British Law. In overseas British territories, Governors, Commissioners and Administrators, represent the Queen and the other members of the British Royal family. The Queen is the Head of the association of 53 independent countries known as the Commonwealth. Moreover, 15 Commonwealth Realms have the Queen as the Head of State. (PERKIN, L.1992). Role and Effectiveness of the Royal Family: The picture perfect Royal Family displays an immaculate attitude which is vital for earning respect from the Britain citizens and this is the very reason why The Queen and her family members exhibit a royalty behavior. It is absolutely essential to behave aristocratically in an effort to earn national and international respect. The effectiveness of the Royal Family is mirrored by the fact that if the Royal members bring shame to themselves, then inevitably the respect for Britain and its citizens would diminish worldwide. Through out the British history, th e monarch has been represented by the Royal Family members in many ways including as viceroys. In modern England, the British Royal Family performs ceremonial and social duties both inside and outside England. (RABLEY, S.1990). Apart from these duties, the Royal Family has no substantial role in the constitutional matters of England. The primary objective of the Royal Family members is to support The Queen in carrying out numerous duties for the State and attending important charitable and public services. Over the years, the impeccable and influential attitude of The Queen has played an important role in strengthening national unity. Moreover, The Queen together with the members of her family performs essential roles for national stability of Britain. The Queen’s children and their spouses are responsible to undertake official duties. On the other hand, the younger members of The Queen’s family are not burdened with the responsibilities of performing official duties b ut are trained to represent the Royal Family on official events, State events and important commemorations. (Macmillan 1991). According to the official list in the Court Circular, the Monarch and other Commonwealth Realms conduct more than 2000 official events each year, both in the UK and around the world. The Queen is regarded as the Head of the State and her presence is vital in Royal events and ceremonies both on national and international levels. Occasions such as the State Opening of Parliament and Garter

Competition in the Movie Rental Industry Research Paper

Competition in the Movie Rental Industry - Research Paper Example Suppliers adopt strategies such as patents in order to acquire supremacy within the industry. Companies provide attractive movie prices and services in order to control the buying power of their customers. Buyers have several companies to choose from, and these companies must strive to keep their customers. Competition is high in the movie rental industry due to easy entry by new companies. There are several companies with similar products at reduced prices, which increase competition. Some of the new entrants provide substitute products such as cable services. Customers subscribe to cable providers, and they gain access to several movies at a reduced monthly price. Competitive rivalry between companies creates the need for new strategies and businesses enjoy a competitive advantage only for a short time. One of the five forces of competition is supplier power. Companies in the rental business acquire their content from studios and movie distributors. The movie industry has several s tudios such as Walt Disney, Pixar, and Warner Bros and other distributors from which rental companies can choose from. The number of suppliers and the uniqueness of their products determine the supply prices. Blockbuster purchased Movielink which is a leading movie downlink service and reduced the need for DVD’s and plastic cases (Blockbuster Corporate, 2009). Suppliers and distributors who deal with DVD movies will experience reduced purchase power. Blockbuster customers can purchase and download movies from Movielink which reduces the need for DVDs. Netflix acquires its content by buying DVDs from studios and distributors, paying on a fee-per-DVD basis (Thompson, Strickland, & Gamble, 2009). Some suppliers offer unique products, which reduces the chances of substitution. Movie studios and distributors generate revenue by selling movies to rental companies and a large number of viewers. This creates a symbiotic relationship between suppliers and rental companies, which contr ols supply prices. Buyer power in the movie rental business is usually high due to the wide range of movies present in the market. There is no legal substitute for movies in the market, which makes rental companies dictate the market prices. The industry has few operators who have similar product prices and deal in almost similar products. This enables the companies maintain high prices affordable by several buyers since they do not buy large volumes of movies. Netflix has over 8.4 million subscribers who prefer online browsing and mailbox delivery of movies. There is no cost of cancelling subscriptions and switching to other companies; therefore, there is little migration of customers. Blockbuster utilizes total access sealed envelopes that can be traded for movies at no extra cost. Buyers can utilize these envelopes to purchase movies of their choice from the local stores without incurring any shipping charges. Movie rental companies offer downloadable movies to increase the buyin g power of their customers. Competitors may offer different prices to attract more buyers. Redbox offers its customers reduced prices in order to have a competitive advantage over Netflix and Blockbuster. The high demand for entertainment across the world provides rental companies with large numbers of customers. The presence of substitute products in the market creates competition between different businesses in the industry. Customers have a wide range of entertainment products to choose