The History of Pepsi Cola

The History of Pepsi Cola Pepsi Cola is one of the most recognizable products in the world today, almost as famous for its commercials as for its never-ending battle with rival soft drink Coca-Cola. From its humble origins more than 125 years ago in a North Carolina pharmacy, Pepsi has grown into a product available in multiple formulations. Find out how this simple soda became a player in the Cold War and became a pop stars best friend. Humble Origins The original formula for what would become Pepsi Cola was invented in 1893 by pharmacist Caleb Bradham of New Bern, N.C. Like many pharmacists at the time, he operated a soda fountain in his drugstore, where he served drinks that he created himself. His most popular beverage was something he called Brads drink, a mix of sugar, water, caramel, lemon oil, kola nuts, nutmeg, and other additives. As the beverage caught on, Bradham decided to give it a snappier name, eventually settling on Pepsi-Cola. By the summer of 1903, he had trademarked the name and was selling his soda syrup to pharmacies and other vendors throughout North Carolina. By the end of 1910, franchisers were selling Pepsi in 24 states.   At first, Pepsi had been marketed as a digestive aid, appealing to consumers with the slogan, Exhilarating, Invigorating, Aids Digestion. But as the brand flourished, the company switched tactics and decided instead to use the power of celebrity to sell Pepsi. In 1913, Pepsi hired Barney Oldfield, a famous racecar driver of the era, as a spokesman. He became famous for his slogan Drink  Pepsi-Cola.  It Will Satisfy You. The company would continue to use celebrities to appeal to buyers in the coming decades. Bankruptcy and Revival After years of success, Caleb Bradham lost Pepsi Cola. He had gambled on the fluctuations of sugar prices during World War I, believing that sugar prices would continue to rise - but they fell instead, leaving Caleb Bradham with an overpriced sugar inventory. Pepsi Cola went bankrupt in 1923. In 1931, after passing through the hands of several investors, Pepsi Cola was bought by the Loft Candy Co. Charles G. Guth, Lofts president, struggled to make a success of Pepsi during the depths of the Great Depression. At one point, Loft even offered to sell Pepsi to executives at Coke, who refused to offer a bid. Guth reformulated Pepsi and began selling the soda in 12-ounce bottles for just 5 cents, which was twice as much as what Coke offered in its 6-ounce bottles. Touting Pepsi as twice as much for a nickel, Pepsi scored an unexpected hit as its Nickel Nickel radio jingle became the first to be broadcast coast to coast. Eventually, it would be recorded in 55 languages and named one of the most effective ads of the 20th century by Advertising Age. Pepsi Postwar   Pepsi made sure it had a reliable supply of sugar during World War II, and the drink became a familiar sight to U.S. troops fighting all across the globe. In the years after the war, the brand would remain long after American GIs had gone home. Back in the States, Pepsi embraced the postwar years. Company president Al Steele married actress Joan Crawford, and she frequently touted Pepsi during corporate gatherings and visits to local bottlers throughout the 1950s. By the early 1960s, companies like Pepsi had set their sights on the Baby Boomers. The first ads appealing to young people called the Pepsi Generation arrived, followed in 1964 by the companys first diet soda, also targeted at young people.   The company was changing in different ways. Pepsi acquired the Mountain Dew brand in 1964 and a year later merged with snack-maker Frito-Lay. The Pepsi brand was growing up quickly. By the 1970s, this once failing brand was threatening to displace Coca-Cola as the top soda brand in the U.S.  Pepsi even made international headlines in 1974 when it became the first U.S. product to be produced and sold within the U.S.S.R. A New Generation Throughout the late 1970s and early 80s, Pepsi Generation ads continued to appeal to young drinkers while also targeting older consumers with a series of Pepsi Challenge commercials and in-store tastings. Pepsi broke new ground in 1984 when it hired Michael Jackson, who was in the midst of his Thriller success, to be its spokesman. The TV commercials, rivaling Jacksons elaborate music videos, were such a hit that Pepsi would hire a number of well-known musicians, celebrities, and others throughout the decade, including Tina Turner, Joe Montana, Michael J. Fox, and Geraldine Ferraro.   Pepsis efforts were successful enough that in 1985 Coke announced that it was changing its signature formula. New Coke was such a disaster that the company had to backtrack and reintroduce its classic formula, something Pepsi frequently took credit for. But in 1992, Pepsi would suffer a product failure of its own when the spin-off Crystal Pepsi failed to impress Generation X buyers. It soon was discontinued. Pepsi Today Like its rivals, the Pepsi brand has diversified far beyond what Caleb Bradham could ever have imagined. In addition to the classic Pepsi Cola, consumers can also find Diet Pepsi, plus varieties without caffeine, without corn syrup, flavored with cherry or vanilla, even an 1893 brand that celebrates its original heritage. The company has also branched out into the lucrative sports drink market with the Gatorade brand, as well as Aquafina bottled water, Amp energy drinks, and Starbucks coffee beverages. Sources Calderone, Anna. Crystal Pepsi Will Return to Shelves One Last Time This Summer. People.com. 19 July 2017.CBS News staff. Almanac: Pepsi Cola. CBSNews.com. 16 June 2013.Herrera, Monica. Michael Jackson, Pepsi Made Marketing History. Billboard.com. 7 March 2009.PepsiCo staff writers. The Pepsi Cola Story. Pepsi.com. 2005.

Neodymium essays

Neodymium essays My elements name is Neodymium. Neodymium was discovered in 1925 by C.F. Aver von Welsbach in Austria. This element got its name from the Greek words neos, which means new, and didymos, which means twin. Nd is the atomic symbol and it is in group IIIA, which is the rare earth elements or the Lanthanide Series. The price for Neodymium is about $1/g. Neodymium has a popularity of 16 out of 100. The atomic weight of Nd is 144.24 amu. It is white, yellow, or brown. It has a hexagonal shape. It has 60 Protons, 84 Neutrons, and 60 electrons. Neodymiums melting point is 1010.0 C, 1283. 15Â °K, and 1850.0F. Its boiling point is 3127.0C, 3400.15Â °K, and 5660.6F. Neodymium is a solid. The oxidation number is +3. Neodymium is never found in nature as a free element, it is found in ores monazite sand. It is mostly used for making magnets. Neodymium is used for to make many different things. It makes up about 18% of Misch metal, a material that is used to make flints for lighters. Neodymium is also a component of didymium glass, which is used to make certain types of welder's and glass blower's goggles. Neodymium is added to glass to remove the green color caused by iron contaminants. It can also be added to glass to create violet, red or gray colors. Some types of glass containing neodymium are used by astronomers to calibrate devices called spectrometers and other types are used to create artificial rubies for lasers. Neodymium salts are also used to color enamels and glazes in ceramics and for a special lens with praseodymium. Nd is also used to produce bright purple glass and special glass that filters infrared radiation. There is also a lot of Neodymium can be found in magnets and stained glass. Neodymium is present in misch metal to the extent of about 18%. The metal has a bright silvery metallic lustre. Neodymium is one of the more reactive rare-earth metals and ...

Account for plagiarism in English speaking countries Essay

Account for plagiarism in English speaking countries - Essay Example Make no mistake that the quotation encourages plagiarism. On the contrary, it promotes everyone to be original in their ideas. But could this in reality be practiced especially in academic writing? This may be ideal in fictional writing but academic writing profusely begs to differ. Being novel in every idea and thought without having been influenced by anyone else is something next to impossible particularly in this day and time when almost everything has been a derivative of another. The need to cite is an important part of academic writing. In order to provide a comprehensive and logical argument to support a thesis, the writer must be able to learn the value of researching pertinent materials from authoritative sources that offer information. These people have dedicated a great amount of time in their accumulated mastery base on derived facts. They serve a foundation or inspiration that catapults an idea into its shape which could either strengthen it or show its weaknesses. Thus , â€Å"A writer plagiarises when he or she presents another writer’s unique work as a product of his or her own knowledge and/or imagination† (Johns and Keller, 2005, p.1). This has become a prevalent problem especially in the four corners of educational institutions. Plagiarism has been on the rise due to societal pressures, poor time management and the internet. Societal pressures play a major role in enticing students to plagiarise. A great number of students feel justified in plagiarising because they feel the additional pressures imposed by teachers without much help makes completing assignments adequately impossible (Sterngold, 2004). Often, a student may be required to finish an assignment or something like a major requirement such as a term paper in more than one subject simultaneously. The need to finish by the set deadlines provokes them to make the wrong choices. These papers could make or break their grades and instead of failing to turn in an output, they would rather plagiarise in the hopes that they could get away with it. This is a habit that is shared by many students where they all know what each other is up to but there is a standing consensus to keep mum about it and go with the pack. Teachers, on their part, have different approaches to how they treat plagiarism. There are those who react indifferently especially in the lower level, giving the students a sense of impunity that they have become desensitized to knowing the difference. Then there are those who approach it with utter severity that they implement a strict regulation through verbatim analysis. This happens even without the teacher clearly setting forth the criteria and the measures on how to properly acknowledge a source. This generates hostility in students who demand justification (Hayes and Introna, 2005). Entering the university is an important goal for students who have been inculcated with the indispensability of tertiary education by their parents. Earning a bachelor’s degree, preferably in a refutable university, is the ultimate dream that parents have for their children. Among the reasons found by Devlin and Gray in their study why students plagiarise is ‘pressures,’ this they elaborate take many forms such as time, stress, family and societal such that one student remarks, â€Å"Parents nowadays expect their children to go to uni, whether they [i.e. the child] want to or not† (2007, n.p.). They are in turn pressured to fulfil their parent’s wishes and pressure themselves to avoid disappointing their family since parents see it a reflection of their parenting if their children fail to enter a university (ibid). Time management is an insistent problem that everyone has to face. In the urban jungle

Textbooks should be replaced by electronic books Essay

Textbooks should be replaced by electronic books - Essay Example It will provide empirical evidence in support of this line of thinking. With the advent of technology, Americans consumers particularly the students can find relevant academic material at their fingertips. Electronic books allow people to access any book at any time and place. In addition, it is cheap to produce electronic compared to paper books. The reason is that it allows publishers to produce and distribute these books at a fractional cost compared to the latter. Many Americans would not have believed that gramophones would be replaced with tapes and payphones by portable cell phones to name a few. Today, most magazine publishers have moved away from print media and currently produce their magazine entirely as materials viewable in e-readers (Conway, 2010). Below is an analysis on the benefits of electronic books over textbooks. First, electronic books are cheaper relative to paper books. In the US, the average price of a textbook is about $8. However, one can still get that same material for $3 on a kindle. In additional, production of paper books involves the cutting down of trees and hence resulting to environmental degradation. Adoption of electronic books would ensure the conservation of the environment and reading will become easier. Secondly, electronic books are so accessible and as a result, they have become very popular in the recent years. Instead of waiting for the delivery of a book shopped online, one can purchase and download an e-book within no time (Polatron, 2009). Additionally, they are less cheap since the publishers do not have to add any production cost. For this reason, electronic books are a great alternative to textbooks. Thirdly, Proponent of electronic books argues that both students and teachers support them since they are lighter and hence convenient to use. Electronic books can hold the material of close to hundred or more

Pressure Sores Essay Example for Free

Pressure Sores Essay The basic philosophy of palliative care is to achieve the best quality of life for patients even when their illness cannot be cured. Palliative care is provided through comprehensive management of the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual needs of patients, while remaining sensitive to their personal, cultural, and religious values and beliefs. Hospital palliative care services are often provided through an interdisciplinary team of health care professionals including, but not limited to: Doctors, Nurses, Healthcare Assistants, Psychologists, Social Workers, and Priests. FATIGUE Fatigue is a common, distressing and debilitating symptom experienced by people with cancer. In those receiving palliative care it is probably the most frequently reported symptom and is experienced by more than 90 per cent of these patient. However, it represents the most commonly unrelieved cancer symptom. Cancer related fatigue can have a number of factors that can be difficult to establish, however despite these problems advancing research will help to promote the problem as a palliative care symptom that can be assessed and managed. In patients with advanced cancer, the prevalence rates of various symptoms are approximately as follows Pain 89% Fatigue 69% Weakness 66% Anorexia 66% Lack of energy 61% Nausea 60% Dry mouth 57% Constipation 52% Dyspnoea 50% Vomiting 30%. (Donnelly 1995) Defining Cancer-Related Fatigue Cancer-related fatigue is a complex phenomenon with physical, cognitive and affective methods of expression. A clear understanding of what it means is essential before it can be assessed and managed, or healthcare Assistants are able to discuss it with patients and colleagues. After exploring fatigue from the perspective of patients, Ream (1996) derived the following definition: a subjective, unpleasant symptom which incorporates feelings ranging from tiredness to exhaustion, creating an unrelenting overall condition which interferes with individual’s ability to function to their normal Causes and effects. The causes of cancer-related fatigue is still unknown, and lack of success in treating it at the end of life stage is in part due to this lack of knowledge. Quality of life is related to symptoms, functioning, and psychological and social well-being, while during end-of-life care, spirituality is a major issue, patients become too tired to participate fully in their roles an d activities that make life meaningful, fatigue therefore significantly affects their quality of life. Patients/Family Perceptions One of the barriers to treating fatigue at the end of life may be patients, families and Doctors perception of it as an unavoidable, untreatable symptom (Johnson, 2004).Many people experience fatigue, but studies have shown that fatigue experienced by patients with cancer is more rapid in onset, more energy-draining, more intense, longer-lasting, more severe and more unrelenting when compared with typical fatigue. Advance care planning and establishing goals of care are essential because they enhance the control patients have over their care and assure autonomy if the patient is unable to communicate their wishes or make decisions at later stages of illness. Patients want a voice in their healthcare, they want to know what to expect and how to plan for their treatment and their future. Establishing goals early on for current and future healthcare helps to avoid future unnecessary harm and inappropriate prolongation of dying. It is well recognized that interventions focused on curing dying patients result in increased suffering, with little or no benefit for the patient. This suffering may even extend beyond the patient. Nurses also struggle ethically and emotionally when care for dying patients is focused on technology rather than on comfort and quality of life. In addition, twenty-per cent of patients relatives develop a physical illness in response to the stress of coping with their loved on es poor health. Treating Underlying Causes Before a patients fatigue is simply attributed to the cancer it is important to identify and treat easily reversible underlying physiological and psychological causes of fatigue. For example, this may involve reducing non-essential medications, treating infections, correcting hypercalcaemia and electrolyte disorders or treating pain, depression, sleep disorders or anaemia .A link between fatigue, sleep and anxiety can be readily identified, and the approach to management is a general one. In palliative care, efforts are directed at alleviating symptoms, as well as toward preventing or treating the underlying cause when that is possible interventions should begin with the promotion of sensitive communication, giving patients the opportunity to discuss their fatigue in the context of living with a terminal illness and its impact on their lives , found that enabling patients to talk about their fatigue both facilitated professional assessment and helped them to explore the meaning of th e cancer and fatigue experience for themselves, and for their family and friends. This can help patients regain a sense of control and freedom to focus on other important aspects of their lives, so restoring their self-esteem .Patient and family education can be of great value in understanding cancer-related fatigue. Family members may interpret fatigue as a sign that the patient is giving up, when it is actually beyond her or his control. Complementary medicine embodies the principles of palliative care by helping to ease the physical, psychosocial, and spiritual effects of illness. It aims to control symptoms and to enhance quality of life for patients and their families. Relaxation, visualisation, massage and aromatherapy are currently being evaluated as part of a global intervention known as Beating Fatigue. There is already evidence of the beneficial effect of massage and aromatherapy on depression and other symptoms including fatigue. CONCLUSIONS/EVALUATIONS Whilst undertaking this assignment certain words keep coming to mind. Words like empathy, caring, stress, burnout, teamwork many more but I have learned to respect all patients, promote dignity, to be a better team player be confident in my abilities, but mostly I have realised that to further a career in any area of palliative care will require more training, more understanding of different patients conditions and there requirements on a daily basis and to be more conscience of the responsibilities of healthcare assistants when caring for all patients. As said previously I will seek further training in this area not only to be of greater benefit to the patients but also to seek training in some form of grief counselling to be of greater assistance to relatives and friends of patients, to empathise more and to just be able to listen when needed. Despite the high prevalence of cancer-related fatigue among patients in palliative care, its treatment is less successful than treatment for other symptoms at the end of life. The causes of fatigue in patients with advanced cancer are often unclear, multiple factors may be responsible and little is known about its causes. The specific goals of palliative care are to improve the quality of the last stages of patient’s lives, control symptoms, and provide support to family members and to pay attention to patient’s perceptions of purpose and meaning of life. The experience of cancer-related fatigue has a major impact on patient’s motivation as it means they are unable to undertake physical activities and that they lose interest in activities and life in general. Although it is difficult to conduct research on patients who are highly distressed, have severe symptoms or who are dying, there is the potential for such research to have a therapeutic benefit for those taking part. Providing patients with cancer an opportunity to discuss their feelings associated with symptoms such as fatigue provides information necessary to develop professional understanding and can also help patients to make sense or come to terms with their condition. Future research should focus on determining effective solutions including alternative and complementary therapies rather than on reassessing need. More focused fatigue assessment tools and targeted fatigue interventions for patients at the end of life are required, as is training in fatigue management so that healthcare assistants are more knowledgeable and skilled in assessing and managing fatigue. By understanding the physical, psychosocial and emotional needs of an individuals experience of advanced cancer, palliative care research demonstrates that health professionals can help patients to adapt to living with cancer-related fatigue. Such intervention can empower patients to maintain control over decisions relating to their care and can assist them to understand and find meaning in their fatigue. REFERENCES Donnelly S, Walsh D.(1995) The symptoms of advanced cancer. Semin Oncol 1995; 22(2 suppl 3):67–72. Johnson, C. (1992). Coping with compassion fatigue. Nursing, 22(4), 116, 118-120. Ream E. (2007) Fatigue in patients Nursing Stand.2007: 21(28)49-56

Teen Alcoholism :: Teen Drinking

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"In 1991, a study by the United States Surgeon General’s office stated that 8 million out of the 20.7 million young people in grades 7 through 12 drank alcoholic beverages every week. It went on to say that 454,000 of those youngsters reported weekly binges (Claypool 21).† In the United States and all over the world underage teens are drinking, and it may be because they just don’t know about alcohol and its effects (Monroe 56). Underage or teen drinking is a major problem today that is increasing more and more, and something needs to be done to stop this increase and to control the number of underage drinkers. There are many statistics that show just how big this problem is amongst our youth. One frightening statistic that shows how much this problem has been increasing is that between 1948 and 1988 the percent of teen drinkers increased by 57 percent (Nielsen 47). Many parents may think that their child may not drink until they are much older, but the average age that teenagers try alcohol is between the ages twelve and sixteen (9). Also, a 1995 study taken by the University of Michigan stated that 35 out of 100 high school seniors drank 5 or more drinks at one time at least once during their two week survey period (Claypool 10). â€Å" A recent poll by the National Association of Student Councils found that alcohol was the leading school problem and 46 percent [of students] said it was the school’s most serious problem (Monroe 53).† This may be because alcohol is very dangerous because it is a poisonous drug that can be very addictive (Mitchell 6). In order to help solve this problem of underage drinking we must first try to understand why teens drink alcohol. There are many reasons why a young teen may choose to drink alcohol. A national survey, taken in 1995, showed that 87 percent of parents thought that teens drank because of peer pressure, but 79 percent of teenagers said it was just because they liked the feeling they got when they drank (27). The main reason and the biggest reason why teens drink would probably have to be peer pressure, but there are many other reasons other than peer pressure why a teen might drink. â€Å"In addition to peer influences, some experts believe that media depiction of alcohol use in print advertising, television and radio commercials, and fictional television programs such as sitcoms and dramatic series glamorizes alcohol to young people and can influence their decision to drink (Mitchell 28).

The Illusion of Transparency in Negotiations

Research Reports The Illusion of Transparency in Negotiations Leaf Van Boven, Thomas Gilovich, and Victoria Husted Medvec The authors examined whether negotiators are prone to an â€Å"illusion of transparency,† or the belief that their private thoughts and feelings are more discernible to their negotiation partners than they actually are. In Study One, negotiators who were trying to conceal their preferences thought that their preferences had â€Å"leaked out† more than they actually did. In Study Two, experienced negotiators who were trying to convey information about some of their preferences overestimated their partners’ ability to discern them. The results of Study Three rule out the possibility that the findings are simply the result of the curse of knowledge, or the projection of one’s own knowledge onto others. Discussion explores how the illusion of transparency might impede negotiators’ success. I most cartoon depictions of negotiators in action (a tiny fraction of the cartoon universe, we admit), negotiators are shown with dialog bubbles depicting their overt comments and thought bubbles revealing their private thoughts. These conventions convey the different levels at which negotiators operate: Some of their wants, wishes, and worries are conveyed to the other side, but some are held back for strategic advantage. Because one task in negotiation is deciding how much information to hold back (Raiffa 1982), Leaf Van Boven is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Campus Box 345, Boulder, Colo. 80309. Email: [email  protected] edu. Thomas Gilovich is a Professor of Psychology at Cornell University, Department of Psychology, Ithaca, N. Y. 15850. Email: [email  protected] edu. Victoria Husted Medvec is the Adeline Barry Davee Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, 2001 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Ill. 60201. Email:[email  protected] orthwestern. edu. 0748-4526/03/0400-0117/0  © 2003 Plenum Publishing Corporation Negotiation Journal April 2003 117 it follows that part of the phenomenology of negotiation is monitoring how well one has conveyed what one wants to convey and concealed what one wants to conceal. Do negotiators know how well they have conveyed or concealed their preferences? Typically, negotiators know what they have and have not said, of course, so they may g enerally have a good idea what their partners know about their preferences. But how well calibrated are negotiators’ assessments of what they have conveyed and concealed? We explored one source of potential miscalibration, namely, whether negotiators experience an illusion of transparency, overestimating the extent to which their internal states â€Å"leak out† and are known by others (Gilovich, Savitsky, and Medvec 1998). Most research on the illusion of transparency shows that people overestimate their ability to conceal private information. But there is also evidence that people experience the illusion when trying to convey private information. Individuals who were asked to convey emotions with facial expressions alone overestimated observers’ ability to discern the expressed emotion (Savitsky 1997). Likewise, participants who were videotaped while exposed to humorous material thought they had been more expressive than observers subsequently rated them as being (Barr and Kleck 1995). These findings suggest that, when trying either to conceal or convey information, negotiators may experience an illusion of transparency, overestimating what their partners know about their preferences. Whether they do so is important, because previous research has shown that the likelihood of (optimal) settlement is often contingent on accurate perceptions of what others know about one’s own preferences (Bazerman and Neale 1992; Raiffa 1982; Thompson 1991). We conducted three different studies to examine whether negotiators experience an illusion of transparency in negotiations. Studies One and Three examined whether novice negotiators trying to conceal their preferences tend to overestimate the likelihood that their negotiation partners would be able to identify those preferences. Study Two investigated whether experienced negotiators attempting to communicate some of their preferences also succumb to an illusion of transparency. Study Three was also designed to distinguish the illusion of transparency from the â€Å"curse of knowledge,† or the tendency to project one’s knowledge onto others (Camerer, Loewenstein, and Weber 1989; Keysar and Bly 1995; Keysar, Ginzel, and Bazerman 1995). Specifically, we examined whether observers who are â€Å"cursed† with the same knowledge as the negotiators exhibit the same biases as the negotiators themselves. Study One Method Twenty-four previously unacquainted Cornell University undergraduates participated in pairs in exchange for course credit. Participants learned that 118 Van Boven, Gilovich, and Medvec The Illusion of Transparency in Negotiations they would complete a negotiation exercise in which they would each represent the provost at one of two campuses of a multi-campus university system. Because of budget constraints, all of the system’s eight social psychologists needed to be consolidated at the two provosts’ universities. The provosts were to negotiate the distribution of the social psychologists between the two campuses. Participants were informed that some social psychologists were more valuable than others, and that some were more valuable to one campus than the other. These differences were summarized in a report describing the strengths and weaknesses of each psychologist and assigning each a specific number of points. The eight psychologists were among the fifteen most frequently cited in social psychology textbooks (Gordon and Vicarii 1992). To familiarize participants with the psychologist and his or her expertise, each psychologist was depicted on a 2- by 4-inch laminated â€Å"trading card† that displayed a picture of the social psychologist, his or her name, and two of his or her better-known publications. Each negotiator’s most and least valuable psychologists were assigned +5 and –5 points, respectively, and the other psychologists were assigned intermediate values. The experimenter said that all psychologists must be employed at one of the two universities because all were tenured. The most and least valuable psychologists were not the same for the two negotiators; the correlation between how much each of the eight psychologists was worth to the two participants was . 79. Participants were told that they should conceal their report, which was somewhat different from the other participant’s report. Because pilot testing indicated that many participants were unsure how to negotiate, we showed them a five-minute videotape of a staged negotiation in which two confederates bartered over who would get (or be forced to acquire) each psychologist. Confederates were shown trading cards actively back and forth. Participants were given as much time as they needed to negotiate, usually about 30 minutes. They were told that several prizes would be awarded at the end of the academic term (e. g. , a $50 gift certificate to the Cornell book store, dinner for two at a local restaurant) and their chance of winning a prize corresponded to the number of points they earned in the negotiation. We asked participants both early in the negotiation (after approximately five minutes) and at the end to name their partner’s most valuable and least valuable psychologists. At both times, we also asked them to estimate the likelihood (expressed as a percentage) that their partner would correctly identify their most and least valuable psychologists. We pointed out that the probability of correct identification by chance alone was 12. 5 percent. Question order was counterbalanced, with no effect of order in any of our analyses. Negotiation Journal April 2003 119 Results and Discussion Our key analysis was a comparison of participants’ mean estimates to a null value derived from the overall accuracy rate. Participants can be said to exhibit an illusion of transparency if their estimates, on average, are higher than the actual accuracy rate. As predicted, negotiators overestimated their partners’ ability to detect their preferences, but only after the negotiation was complete (see Table One). Early in the negotiation, individuals slightly underestimated (by 2 percent) the likelihood that their partners would correctly identify their most valuable psychologist and slightly overestimated (by 8 percent) the likelihood that their partners would identify their least valuable psychologist. Neither of these differences was statistically reliable. 1 Following the negotiation, participants overestimated the probability that their partners would identify correctly their most and least valuable psychologists by 14 percent and 13 percent, respectively. Both of these differences were statistically reliable. That is, the probability that negotiators overestimated by pure chance how much their partners knew about their preferences is less than . 05 (the t statistics for these two comparisons are 3. 16 and 3. 30, respectively). Negotiators thus experienced an illusion of transparency at the end of the negotiation, overestimating their partners’ ability to discern their preferences. Table One Negotiators’ estimates of the likelihood that their partners would be able to identify their most and least valuable social psychologists, and the corresponding percentages actually able to do so. Estimated % Early negotiation Most valuable Least valuable Post negotiation Most valuable Least valuable 72%* 76%* 58% 63% 69% 58% 71% 50% Actual % Note: * indicates that the estimated percentage is reliably greater than the corresponding actual percentage, p < . 5 120 Van Boven, Gilovich, and Medvec The Illusion of Transparency in Negotiations These findings extend earlier research on the illusion of transparency, showing that negotiators believe their inner thoughts and preferences â€Å"leak out† and are more discernible than they really are. This result was obtained only during the second assessment, but we do not wish to make too much of this finding. First, it is hardly surprising because, at the time of the initial assessment, most groups had yet to engage in much discussion of specific candidates, and thus there was little opportunity for participants’ references to have leaked out. Furthermore, it was only participants’ estimates of the detectibility of their least valuable psychologists that rose predictably (from 58 to 76 percent) from early in the negotiation to the end — an increase that was highly statistically reliable (t = 3. 78). Their estimates of the detectibility of their most valuable psychologists stayed largely the same across the course of the negotiation (from 69 to 72 percent) and it was only a decrease in identification accuracy (from 71 to 58 percent) over time that led to the difference in the magnitude of the illusion of transparency. These subsidiary findings may result from the usual dynamics of the negotiation process: Negotiators typically focus initially on the most important issues, postponing a discussion of less important issues or of what they are willing to give up to obtain what they want until later in the negotiation. This would explain why negotiators felt that they had already leaked information about their most important psychologists early in the negotiation, but that a similar feeling of leakage regarding their least important psychologists took longer to develop. This tendency might also explain why it may have been relatively easy for the negotiators to discern one another’s â€Å"top choices† early in the discussion. It may have been harder to do so later on, after the negotiators discussed all of the psychologists and the various tradeoffs between them. Study Two In Study One, participants experienced an illusion of transparency when they were instructed to conceal their preferences from their partners. In many negotiations outside the laboratory, however, negotiators often attempt to communicate rather than conceal their preferences. In fact, negotiation instructors often advise MBAs and other would-be negotiators to communicate information about their preferences. Do negotiators experience an illusion of transparency when they attempt to communicate rather than conceal their preferences? Past research has shown that people experience an illusion of transparency when trying (nonverbally) to convey thoughts and feelings in settings outside negotiations (Barr and Kleck 1995; Savitsky 1997). We therefore examined whether negotiators attempting to communicate some of their preferences, whose efforts at communication are not limited to nonverbal channels, would likewise experience an illusion of transparency. Negotiation Journal April 2003 121 As part of a classroom exercise, MBA students in negotiation courses completed a complex six-party negotiation simulation (Harborco, a teaching tool available from the Clearinghouse of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, www. pon. org). The course emphasized the importance of negotiators communicating some of their preferences to one another in negotiations. Prior to the Harborco negotiation, students had engaged in numerous other exercises in which their failure to convey information resulted in nonoptimal settlements. To verify that the Harborco negotiators were attempting to communicate information about their preferences, we asked 22 Cornell and Northwestern University MBA students (not included in following study) who had just completed the Harborco negotiation to indicate which strategy they engaged in more: an information-sharing strategy (attempting to communicate their preferences to others), or an information-hiding strategy (attempting to conceal their preferences from others). Everyone indicated that they used the information-sharing strategy more. We hypothesized that the same psychological processes that lead novice negotiators trying to conceal their preferences to experience an illusion of transparency would also lead experienced negotiators trying to communicate at least some of their preferences to experience a similar illusion. We thus predicted that participants would overestimate the number of other negotiators who could correctly identify their preferences. Method Two hundred and forty MBA students at Cornell and Northwestern completed the Harborco simulation, negotiating whether, and under what circumstances, a major new seaport would be built off the coast of a fictional city. There were six parties to the negotiation. The negotiator who represented Harborco (a consortium of investors) was most central. A second negotiator, representing the federal agency that oversees the development of such seaports, had to decide whether to subsidize a $3 billion loan Harborco had requested. The other negotiators represented the state governor, the labor unions from surrounding seaports, the owners of other ports that might be affected by a new seaport, and environmentalists concerned about the impact of a new seaport on the local ecology. The negotiation involved five issues, each with several options of varying importance to the six parties. For each negotiator, points were assigned to each option of each issue. Student performance was evaluated according to the number of points accumulated. For example, the most important issue to the Harborco representative was the approval of the subsidized loan (worth 35 points for approval of the full $3 billion, 29 points for approval of a $2 billion loan, etc. ); the second most important issue was the compensation to other ports for their expected losses due to the new seaport (worth 23 points for no compensation, 15 points for compensation of $150 million, 122 Van Boven, Gilovich, and Medvec The Illusion of Transparency in Negotiations etc. ). The Harborco negotiator’s preference order for the five issues was somewhat different from the preference order of the other five negotiators. Participants were given approximately one and a half hours to reach an agreement. They were required to vote on a settlement proposed by the Harborco negotiator at three points during the negotiation: after 20 minutes, after one hour, and at the end. A successful agreement required the approval of at least five negotiators. Any agreement that included the subsidized loan required the approval of the federal agency representative. The Harborco negotiator could veto any proposal. The dependent measures, collected after the first and final rounds of voting, concerned the Harborco negotiator’s estimates of the other negotiators’ identification of his or her preference order. The Harborco negotiators estimated how many of the other five negotiators would identify the rank ordering (to the Harborco negotiator) of each issue — for example, how many would identify the approval of the loan as their most important issue? We made clear that one negotiator would guess the exact importance of each issue by chance alone. Meanwhile, each of the other negotiators estimated the issue that was most important to Harborco, second most important, and so on. Figure One Number able to identify each issue 5 4 3 2 1 0 Predicted Number Actual Number ird co nd rth co nd Th ird th Fo ur h Fi rs Fi rs Fi ft Fi rs Th Se Fo u First Round ISSUE IMPORTANCE Predicted and actual number of negotiators able to identify correctly the importance of each issue to the Harborco negotiator after the first and final rounds of voting. Results and Discussion The dashed lines in Figure One indicate that, as predicted, the Harborco negotiators’ estimate of the number of other negotiators who could identify the rank of each issue was greater than the actual number of negotiators able Negotiation Journal April 2003 123 Se Second Round Fi ft h t t t to do so (as indicated by the solid lines). Following the first round of voting, the Harborco negotiators overestimated the number of their fellow negotiators able to identify the importance — to them — of all mid-range issues. All these differences were statistically reliable (all ts > 2. 0). Negotiators did not overestimate the number of negotiators able to identify their most and least important issues. Following the final round of voting, Harborco representatives overestimated the number of negotiators able to identify their four most important issues. This overestimation was statistically reliable for the four most important issues (all t > 2. 25), and was marginally reliable with a probability level of . 14 for the least important issue (t = 1. 5). These findings replicate and extend those of Study One and of previous research on the illusion of transparency. Experienced negotiators who were attempting to convey (rather than conceal) their preferences to other negotiators tended to overestimate the transparency of those preferences. Study Three We contend that negotiators’ overestimation of their partner’s ability to discern their preferences reflects an egocentric illusion whereby negotiators overestimate the transparency of their internal states. An alternative account is that negotiators experience a â€Å"curse of knowledge,† overestimating the knowability of whatever they themselves know (Camerer et al. 989; Keysar and Bly, 1995; Keysar et al. 1995). Negotiators may thus overestimate the discernibility of their preferences because they cannot undo the knowledge of their own preferences, not because they feel like their preferences â€Å"leaked out. † Studies One and Two provide some evidence against this alternative interpretation because participants did not significantly overestimate their partnersâ€⠄¢ ability to discern their preferences early in the negotiation — when they were â€Å"cursed† with the same knowledge, but had little opportunity for their preferences to leak out. To provide a more rigorous test of this alternative interpretation, Study Three employed a paradigm in which observers were yoked to each individual negotiator. The observers were informed of their counterpart’s preferences and thus were â€Å"cursed† with the same abstract knowledge, but not with the phenomenology of having — and possibly leaking — the negotiators’ preferences. After watching a videotaped negotiation between their yoked counterpart and another negotiator, observers estimated the likelihood that their counterpart’s negotiation partner would identify their counterpart’s preferences. We expected that observers’ estimates would be lower than actual negotiators’ estimates because observers would not have the experience of their preferences â€Å"leaking out. † 124 Van Boven, Gilovich, and Medvec The Illusion of Transparency in Negotiations Method Twenty-four previously unacquainted Northwestern University undergraduates participated in pairs in exchange for the opportunity to earn between $4 and $13, based on their performance in the negotiation. Negotiators were taken to separate rooms and given instructions for the negotiation. The negotiation was similar to that used in Study One, except that it involved a buyer-seller framework, with which we felt our participants would be familiar. Participants learned that they would act as a provost of one of two campuses of a large university system. Because of budget cuts, the larger of the two campuses (the â€Å"seller†) needed to eliminate fifteen of its 35 psychology department faculty. Because the fifteen faculty were tenured, they could not be fired, but they could be transferred to the smaller of the two campuses (the â€Å"buyer†), which was trying to acquire faculty. Participants were to negotiate over the fifteen psychologists â€Å"in play†; any faculty not acquired by the buyer would remain at the seller’s campus. Participants were given a report that described each psychologist and his or her associated point value. Some of the psychologists had a positive value to buyers and a negative value to sellers, others had a positive value to both, and still others had a negative value to both. Participants were told that they should not show their confidential reports to the other negotiator. Participants earned 25 cents for every positive point and had to pay 25 cents for every negative point they accumulated. To give buyers and sellers an equal chance to make the same amount of money, we endowed sellers with an initial stake of $10 and buyers with an initial stake of $4. If buyers obtained all nine of the beneficial faculty and none of the four costly faculty (two were worth 0 points) they earned an additional $8, for $12 total. Similarly, if the sellers eliminated all eight costly faculty and retained all five beneficial faculty (two were worth 0 points) they earned $2, for $12 total. If no agreement was reached, sellers retained all faculty, losing $6, and buyers acquired no psychologists, leaving both with $4. As in Study One, we gave participants laminated trading cards with a picture of each psychologist and two of that psychologist’s better-known works on the back. The fifteen faculty members, although in reality all social psychologists, were arbitrarily divided into the three subdisciplines of social, clinical, and human-experimental psychology. We designed the payoffs so that the sychologist within each discipline who the buyer most wanted to obtain was not the psychologist the seller most wanted to eliminate. To encourage participants to obtain or retain psychologists across the three disciplines, sellers were offered an additional two points if they eliminated at least one faculty member from each discipline, and an additional four points if they eliminated at least two from each discipline. Similarly, buyers were offered an additional two points if they acquired at least one faculty Negotiation Journal April 2003 125 member from each discipline, and an additional four points if they acquired at least two from each discipline. Thus, maximum earnings for buyers and sellers were $13 (the $12 earned by accumulating all possible positive points, no negative points, plus the $1 bonus). After negotiators understood their task, they were brought together and given as long as they needed to negotiate a division of the fifteen psychologists, usually about 20 minutes. Afterward, buyers estimated the likelihood (expressed as a percentage) that the seller would correctly identify the psychologists from each subdiscipline who were the most and least important for the buyer to obtain; sellers estimated the likelihood that the buyer would correctly identify the psychologists from each subdiscipline who were the most and least important for the seller to eliminate. Participants were told that the chance accuracy rate was 20% percent. Buyers were also asked to identify the psychologists from each subdiscipline who were the most and least important for the seller to eliminate, and sellers were asked to make analogous judgments about the buyers’ incentive structure. Control Condition. Twelve pairs of previously unacquainted Northwestern undergraduates were paid $6 and â€Å"yoked† to one of the 12 pairs from the negotiation condition — one student matched to the buyer and one to the seller. Participants read the instructions given to t heir yoked counterpart (either the buyer or seller) in the actual negotiation before viewing their counterpart’s videotaped negotiation. Participants then made the same estimates as their counterparts in the negotiation condition, identifying the psychologists from each subdiscipline who were most and least important for their counterpart’s negotiation partner to acquire (or eliminate), and estimating the likelihood that their counterpart’s negotiation partner would be able to guess the psychologists in each subdiscipline who were most and least important for their counterpart to obtain (or eliminate). Results Negotiators. As anticipated, negotiators exhibited an illusion of transparency. As can be see in the left and right columns of Table Two, buyers and sellers overestimated their partners’ ability to identify their most important psychologists by 20 percent — both statistically reliable differences (ts= 3. 58 and 3. 45, respectively). Buyers and sellers also overestimated the likelihood that their partner would be able to identify their least important psychologists by 4 percent and 25 percent, respectively, with only the latter result statistically reliable (t = 4. 34). Control participants. Control participants displayed a â€Å"curse of knowledge,† overestimating the likelihood that their counterpart’s negotiation partner would correctly identify their counterpart’s preferences (compare the center and right columns of Table Two). This was particularly true for 126 Van Boven, Gilovich, and Medvec The Illusion of Transparency in Negotiations those yoked to sellers: They reliably overestimated the likelihood that their yoked counterparts’ negotiation partners would identify their counterparts’ most and least important psychologists by 12 percent and 19 percent, respectively (ts = 2. 58 and 4. 9). Control participants who were yoked to buyers, in contrast, did not overestimate the likelihood that their yoked counterparts’ negotiation partners would overestimate their counterparts’ preferences. Table Two Participants’ estimates of the likelihood that their negotiators’ partners were able to identify the negotiat ors’ most and least important psychologists, and the corresponding percentages actually able to do so. Negotiators’ Estimates Control Estimates Actual Accuracy Most Important Buyers Sellers Least Important Buyers Sellers 62% 68%* 56% 63%* 58% 42% 70%* 59%* 53% 51%* 50% 39% Note: * indicates that the estimated percentage is reliably greater than the corresponding actual percentage, p < . 05 More important, in every case the control participants’ estimates (overall M = 56 percent) were lower than the actual negotiators’ estimates (overall M = 64 percent) — a statistically reliable difference (t = 2. 53). Thus, negotiators overestimated the transparency of their preferences more than yoked observers who were â€Å"cursed† with the same knowledge, but did not have the same subjective experience as negotiators themselves. Discussion The results of Study Three indicate that negotiators’ overestimation of their partners’ ability to discern their preferences stems from both a curse of knowledge and an illusion of transparency. Observers who were provided with the same abstract knowledge as the negotiators — those provided with Negotiation Journal April 2003 127 abstract information about sellers’ preferences at any rate — overestimated the likelihood that those preferences would be detected. However, this effect was not as strong as that found for actual negotiators’ estimates. Those participants, possessing more detailed knowledge about how it felt to want to obtain some psychologists and avoid others, apparently thought that some of those feelings had leaked out to their partners because they made significantly higher estimates of the likelihood of detection than the observers did. Negotiators experience an illusion of transparency over and above any curse of knowledge to which they are subject. What Does it All Mean? These three studies provide consistent support for an illusion of transparency in negotiations. Undergraduate students who were instructed to conceal their preferences thought that they had â€Å"tipped their hand† more than they actually had (Studies One and Three). Likewise, business students experienced in negotiation who were attempting to communicate information about some of their preferences overestimated how successfully they had done so (Study Three). These results are not due to an abstract â€Å"curse of knowledge† because observers who were cursed with the same knowledge as the negotiators did not overestimate the detectibility of the negotiators’ preferences to the same extent as the negotiators did (Study Three). The illusion of transparency is thus due to the sense that one’s specific actions and reactions that arise in the give-and-take of negotiation — a blush here, an averted gaze there — are more telling than they actually are. These results complement and extend findings by Vorauer and Claude (1998) who examined participants’ ability to estimate how well others could discern their general approach to a joint problem-solving exercise — i. e. , whether they were most interested in being assertive, being fair, being accommodating, and so on. They found that participants thought their goals would be more readily discerned than they actually were. Their findings, however, appear to reflect a curse of knowledge rather than an illusion of transparency because their participants’ estimates of the detectibility of their own goals were just the same as those made by observers who were simply informed of the participants’ goals. The Vorauer and Claude findings should not be surprising since their participants did not actually engage in face-to-face interaction. Instead, each participant exchanged notes with a â€Å"phantom† other, whose responses were crafted by the experimenters. Without interaction, it is difficult see how an illusory sense of transparency could emerge. Vorauer and Claude’s studies, along with the results of Study Three, suggest that the curse of knowledge can likewise lead to exaggerated estimates of how readily one’s negotiation partner can discern one’s own perspective on the negotiation (Keysar et al. 1995). 128 Van Boven, Gilovich, and Medvec The Illusion of Transparency in Negotiations It is important to note that both the illusion of transparency and the curse of knowledge reflect people’s difficulty in getting beyond their privileged information. In the curse of knowledge, this information is abstract knowledge of one’s beliefs, preferences, or goals; in the illusion of transparency, this information is more detailed, phenomenological knowledge of how one feels or how difficult it was to suppress a particular reaction. At one level, then, it may be fair to characterize the illusion of transparency as a special case of knowledge — more detailed and affect-laden — with which one is cursed. At another level, however, the differences between the two phenomena may be sufficiently pronounced that there is more to be gained by viewing them as distinct. Ultimately, a more complete understanding of the relationship between the curse of knowledge and illusion of transparency must await the outcome of further research. Future research might also further examine the underlying mechanism proposed for the illusion of transparency. Gilovich et al. (1998) attribute the phenomenon to a process much like Tversky and Kahneman’s (1974) anchoring and adjustment heuristic. When attempting to ascertain how apparent their internal states are to others, people are likely to begin the process of judgment from their own subjective experience. Because people know that others are not as privy to their internal states as they are themselves, they adjust from their own perspective to capture others’ perspective. Because such adjustments tend to be insufficient (Tversky and Kahneman 1974; Epley and Gilovich 2001), the net result is a residual effect of one’s own phenomenology, and the feeling that one is more transparent than is actually the case. This account suggests that the illusion of transparency should be particularly pronounced when the internal state being assessed is one that is strongly and clearly felt, such as when negotiating especially important issues. In addition, future research might examine the impact of the illusion of transparency on negotiation processes and outcomes. Thompson (1991) has shown that when negotiators have different priorities, negotiators who provide information about their priorities to their partners fare better than those who do not. The illusion of transparency may lead negotiators to hold back information about their priorities in the mistaken belief that one has conveyed too much information already. By leading negotiators to believe that their own preferences are more apparent than they really are, the illusion of transparency may give rise to the belief that the other side is being less open and cooperative than they are themselves — which may lead each negotiator to hold back even more. The process can thus spiral in the wrong direction toward greater secrecy. Negotiation Journal April 2003 129 It may be advantageous, then, for negotiators to be aware of the illusion of transparency. If negotiators know they tend to conceal less than they think they do, they may open up a bit more and increase their chances of reaching optimal agreements. In other words, knowing that one’s own â€Å"thought bubbles† are invisible to others can lead to more successful negotiations. NOTES This research was supported by Research Grant SBR9319558 from the National Science Foundation. We thank Tina Rackitt her help in collecting data and Dennis Regan for his comments on an earlier draft. 1. Because the data for each pair of negotiators are interdependent, all analyses in this and subsequent studies used the dyad (or group) as the unit of analysis. 2. A t statistic is a measure of how extreme a statistical estimate is. Specifically, a t is the ratio of the difference between a hypothesized value and an observed value, divided by the standard error of the sampled distribution. Consider negotiators’ estimates, following the negotiation, that their negotiation partner had a 72 percent chance of correctly identifying their most valuable psychologist. Because, in actuality, egotiators identified their partners’ most valuable psychologist only 58 percent of the time, the difference between the hypothesized value (58 percent) and the observed value (72 percent) is 14 percent. The standard error, in this case, is the standard deviation of the difference between a negotiators’ predicted likelihood and the actual likelihood (the average squared difference betw een these two scores), divided by the square root of the sample size. In general, t statistics more extreme than 1. 96 are statistically reliable — that is, the probability that the observed difference is due to chance alone is less than . 5. 3. We also asked negotiators to estimate which subdiscipline was most important to their partner, and to estimate the likelihood that their partner would discern correctly their own preference order vis-a-vis the three subdisciplines. During debriefing, however, participants said they found these questions confusing because they did not parse the 15 faculty according to their subdiscipline, but instead focused on the value of each individual faculty. These responses are therefore not discussed further. REFERENCES Barr, C. L. and R. E. Kleck. 1995. Self-other perception of the intensity of facial expressions of emotion: Do we know what we show? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 68: 608-618. Bazerman, M. H. and M. Neale. 1992. Negotiating rationality. New York: Free Press. Camerer, C. , G. Loewenstein, and M. Weber. 1989. The curse of knowledge in economic settings: An experimental analysis. Journal of Political Economy 97: 1232-1253. Epley, N. and T. Gilovich. 2001. Putting adjustment back in the anchoring and adjustment heuristic: An examination of self-generated and experimenter-provided anchors. Psychological Science 12: 391-396. Gilovich, T. D. , K. K. Savitsky, and V. H. Medvec. 1998. The illusion of transparency: Biased assessments of others’ ability to read our emotional states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75: 332-346. Gordon, R. A. and P. J. Vicarii. 1992. Eminence in social psychology: A comparison of textbook citation, social science citation index, and research productivity rankings. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 18: 26-38. Keysar, B. and B. Bly. 1995. Intuitions about the transparency of intention: Linguistic perspective taking in text. Cognitive Psychology 26: 165-208. Keysar, B. , L. E. Ginzel, and M. H. Bazerman. 1995. States of affairs and states of mind: The effect of knowledge on beliefs. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 64: 283293. Raiffa, H. 1982. The art and science of negotiation. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press. 130 Van Boven, Gilovich, and Medvec The Illusion of Transparency in Negotiations Savitsky, K. 1997. Perceived transparency of and the leakage of emotional states: Do we know how little we show? Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Cornell University. Thompson, L. 1990. An examination of naive and experienced negotiators. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 26: 528-544. ———. 1991. Information exchange in negotiation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 27: 161-179. Tversky, A. and D. Kahneman. 1974. Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science 185: 1124-1131. Vorauer, J. D. and S. Claude. 1998. Perceived versus actual transparency of goals in negotiation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24: 371-385. Negotiation Journal April 2003 131

Legalizing Drugs: The Ultimate Alternative to Cease the Drug War

For years, the United States has constantly been in the midst of a war. As a matter of fact, it is a war that is extreme, costly, and very exposed. Not only is it fought within the U.S. boundaries, but also in foreign shores. This so-called war is the War on Drugs. No one can argue that drugs are like a plague in our society. However, as bad as the effect of drugs on our society is, the effect of prohibition is worse. Federal government has spent billions of dollars on the struggle to end this war. Even the state and local government have spent millions of dollars to cease this war. Local reformers also contribute to this war by generating their own versions of the war and by recruiting as many community groups and leaders as they can to further the effort, but it all seems useless because no favorable results have been obtained so far. The best way to cease this everlasting war is to legalize drugs. Legalizing drugs will help the community as a whole because it will save many lives, help reduce crimes rates, improve research for medicine, and increase the government’s income. By legalizing drugs, hundred of lives can be saved each year. Many of the deaths that are now categorized as â€Å"drug overdose† are, in fact, caused by drugs that are purer than the users’ accustomed dose. This will cause an overdose by merely taking the dose to which they are accustomed. Other deaths are caused by the drugs being â€Å"cut† or diluted with impure or dangerous substances. At present, drugs are cut with anything from relatively harmless things such as baking soda, powdered sugar, lactose and corn starch to poisons like strychnine and arsenic. Legal drugs would fall under the supervision and standards of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), thereby insuring cleaner and purer drugs at consistent dosages. In addition, intravenous and intramuscular drugs could be packaged in single use syringes that are designed to be destroyed by the act of using them once. Thus, preventing the reuse and sharing of needles. This will reduce the spread of AIDs, hepatitis, and many other types of infections. Hence, more lives saved, as well as the reduction of burden on many public resources since many drug abusers cannot afford to pay for medical treatment. The government would have control of all drugs. Once the government has control over the drugs, private industries would be in control of the sale of the drugs. Society learned from the, prohibition of alcohol during the 1920’s, â€Å"private industry is much easier to control compared to public industry or the black market† (Prohibition of Alcohol). Legalizing drugs with the appropriate regulation and control would severely limit the access of drugs to children. Just as minors cannot legally but alcohol, they would not be able to walk into a state regulated drug store and buy drugs. Under the present conditions, drug dealers do not care if he customer is 5 years old or 50 years old. These drug dealers are only concerned on the amount of money that goes into their pockets. New laws would be imposed to the people who can but drugs, how much a person can buy, and where the person can buy drugs. Therefore, this would create a safer and more organized society. Legalizing and regulating drug production and sale will eliminate a plethora of drug crimes, as well as crimes related to drugs. Crimes such smuggling, producing and selling drugs would cease to be profitable. It will also limit the availability of funds to finance other crimes such as illegal gambling, prostitution, extortion and terrorism. Former Nobel Prize Winner for Economics, Milton Friedman states, â€Å"The legalization of drugs would simultaneously reduce the number of crimes and improve the respect for the law. It is hard to imagine any other single provision which could make a more significant contribution to the promotion of law and order (Legalization of Drugs).† Being one of the world’s leading drug-related crime nation, the United States needs to diminish the crime rate. The best option is to obtain this is by legalizing drugs or else like former U.S. Secretary of State, George Schultz says â€Å"†¦ will never obtain any results as long as we are unable to separate crime from the drug business and the incitement to criminality this causes† (Legalization of Drugs). Drugs will likely be cheaper. The supply would be relatively consistent. Market forces such as â€Å"supply and demand† will be less of a determining price factor. Nor will the risk factor to dealers and smugglers affect price. The cost of producing most illegal drugs is minimal, particularly in an industrial setting. Therefore, legalization will reduce crimes such as burglary, mugging, and prostitution. Legalizing drugs would be useful in the medicinal world. It is probably one of the prime reasons why drugs should be legalized because it will be helpful for medical-related research. There are numerous ways in which drugs could be used in the medical field. For example, marijuana helps relieve pain caused by glaucoma. Glaucoma is a â€Å"group of eye diseases characterizes by an increase in intraocular pressure (Garcia, Matthews) † in the eyeball causing damage to the optic disc and impaired vision which sometimes develops into blindness for many people every year. Medical researchers found that as the dose of marijuana increases, the pressure within the eye decreases by up to a 30%, thus, lowering the risk of suffering from such a agonizing and dreadful disease (Garcia, Matthews). Cocaine is another drug which can be used because it was the first effective local anesthetic (Spillane, 2000). However, in the late 1880’s surgical procedures using local anesthetics was replaced by a general anesthesia solution. Several countries South America such as Peru and Bolivia still use coca as both a general stimulant and for more specific medical purposes (Spillane 2000). There are, however, some recent and so far uncertain signs of reviving interests in cocaine from the medical institutions and even coca itself for other medical purposes to be used in researches as well as in diagnosis and treatments. Another illegal drug useful for medical usages is heroin. Heroin was once and is still used as a powerful pain-killer which is used to control intense chronic pains caused by severe diseases such as cancer and tuberculosis (Schaffer). Researchers have found signs showing that heroin is significantly less harmful than most of the drugs which are given in its place. There are other ways drugs could be used for medical purposes, however, due to its illegal status there has not been many in-depth studies into the possible uses of illegal drugs as was initially hoped for. Not only will legalizing drugs help the medical community but it will take the medical world into a new horizon with these drugs. The federal government does not know how to control the great amount of money that they have spent on the war on drugs, which still continues. Yearly, â€Å"the federal government spends around $20 billion dollars (Mann, 2001)† on issues related to the war on drugs. Not only does legalizing drugs help needy organizations, but it also helps the community. The money that the government annually spends on the drug war could be used for building rehabilitation centers for handicapped citizens, building more schools to educate people on drugs, or go into funds for a medical or scientific research. According to former chief of the Planning Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health, Theodore R. Vallance, â€Å"the legalization of the now illegal drugs would result in a net saving of $37 billion annual savings for the federal government (Vallance).† The federal government will also benefit from the increase in income due to taxation and licensing of drugs. Just like cig arettes and alcohol, drugs would be taxed. The tax imposed on these drugs should vary on how the drug affects the individuals who take drugs. Marijuana’s side effects, which as â€Å"loud talking and bursts of laughter, lack of memory in conversations, and chronic redness of the eyes (Glantz),† should have a smaller tax rate because its side effects are less severe compared to cocaine and heroin’s side effects. By placing different tax rates on different drugs, according to their side effects, users would start using softer drugs and the usage of harder drugs would be less common because of its high cost. People would have to either start paying to obtain harder drugs or they would diminish their drug use. Drug sales are probably the largest untaxed markets in the United States and around the world, hence, if drugs were legalized, the money from taxing drugs would be used for more serious problems. In short, legalizing drugs will benefit the community at a larger extent. The overly fought, absurd Drug War has been, is, and will continue to be an absolute failure if the United States continues to struggle with it like it has done. Instead, actions needs to be taken and the ultimate alternative is to legalize all drugs. By doing so, a number of lives are saved in many ways. Legalization helps reduce crime, making the community a safer place to live in. Legalization also allows for the exploring or research in the field of medicine. Lastly, the government can save money, but its income will also increase. Works Cited Garcia, G., Matthews, L. â€Å"Laser and Eye Safety in the Laboratory.† New York: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (1995): 102 Glantz, Meyer D. â€Å"Correlates and Consequences of Marijuana Use.† Washington D.C.: METROTEC (1984):37 Mann, Judy. â€Å"Money Spent of Drug War Could Be Put To Better Use.† Washington Post (D.C.) 17 October 2001: C12 Nadelmann, Ethan A. â€Å"An Unwinnable   War on Drugs.† New York Times. 26 April 2001: A23 Spillane, Joseph. Cocaine: from medical marvel to modern menace in the United States. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press (2000): 58-61 Schaffer, Clifford A. â€Å"Basic Facts About the War on Drugs.† Drug Reform Coordination Network.   

Environmental and Consumer Influence Essays

Environmental and Consumer Influence Essays Environmental and Consumer Influence Paper Environmental and Consumer Influence Paper External factors such as political, legal, social, ecological, cultural, technological and business ethics will be discussed. MAC Cosmetics slogan reads, Professional makeup artist quality cosmetics (MAC Cosmetics). This slogan allows the consumer to know that MAC makeup is so good makeup artist use it. It allows the consumer to connect the dots between makeup artists to celebrities to the consumer and the consumer using celebrity worthy products. With so many other makeup brands MAC Cosmetics is known for being bold and colorful; from their reduces to the celebrities they use to advertise and market their products. For example, Nick Minas, a well-known music rapper known not only for her controversial lyrics but her unique form of dress. She is the flashy and different exactly what MAC Cosmetics attempts to portray their products to be. Before Nick Minas there was Lady Gaga, another example Of an over-the top music artist. When describing the psychological and social factors involved in consumer purchase of this product; MAC Cosmetics much like every product marketer eave researched and studied these factors under a microscope, figuratively speaking. It is important to understand every aspect of a consumers behavior factor to receive a clearer picture on how to market the product. When speaking of consumer psychological and social factors we are speaking of the consumers motives, perception, and attitudes. When analyzing a consumers motives, a motive is defined as a reason for doing something (Merriam-Webster). When comparing one consumer to another the motives may not be all the same. Motives can range from simply deeding a makeup refill to wanting to use a highly advertised product. Wanting to use a popular product such as MAC can then be a psychological factor. When speaking of a psychological factor we then have to take into consideration the needs of this particular consumer. Perhaps this product is used by everyone he or she knows and they merely would like to fit in. But this example is most likely take place in a younger consumer, maybe a high school or college student. Another motive that can be introduced is the consumer may feel good wearing this product. Not only because this product goes what it advertises but because the consul mere likes how they look wearing it. As discussed above, how the consumer feels when wearing the product may allow them to give the perception of flawless skin. The perception goal given by the models and celebrities used to market the MAC Cosmetics products, they want consumers to feel like they can look just like them. To be realistic everyone has some flaw they would like to cover or camouflage and when told by a celebrity who is admired and continuously looks flawless, that will affect the decision of the consumers perception of that particular product. It may also play an important role in which influences the consumer to purchase this product. The perception given by the advertisement then becomes a motive for the consumer to purchase a product they may have had no intention in purchasing. Attitude also plays an important role in purchasing a product like MAC Cosmetics. Attitude is defined as a feeling or emotion toward a fact or state (Merriam-Webster). A consumers attitude may have several factors. A consumers personality, family, and simply a dislike of someone or something may influence a consumers attitude. The perception MAC marketers attempt o portray in MAC Cosmetics is that their product is used by celebrities and models. And for example, Nick Minas, as previously stated above she is a music rapper who seems to have a strong opinion about everything and everyone. Using her as the spokesperson could be safe to say that her attitude describes MAC Cosmetics. Consumers then may translate that and assume that by using this product they too can feel strong and outspoken. Social class also has a lot to do with the purchase of MAC Cosmetics. Unlike some well-known makeup brands, for example Cover Girl or Amiability, MAC s not found in grocery stores or drug stores. MAC Cosmetics is found in higher end department stores such as Nordstrom and Macys and some cities have the MAC Cosmetic stores. The price of the cosmetics is a bit higher than the examples listed above. Which means someone on a budget may not be willing to fork up the extra cash to purchase MAC products. Not saying that you will have to mortgage off your home to purchase MAC Cosmetics but it is definitely a social class factor. Consumers who are or consider themselves in this social class will purchase MAC Cosmetics because like previously issued, it is not utterly available and is more expensive than others. The psychological and social factors all play and important influential role in a consumer. The factors of motives, perception, attitudes, personality, family, social class, and reference group all play important roles and each tie into each other in one or many forms. Marketers are fully aware of these factors and ensure their products are able to trigger a consumers sensation in order to have them purchase the product. But along with psychological and social factors there are also external factors to consider. For example there are political, legal, social, ecological, technological, and business ethic external factors that affect a consumers behavior. Some external factors that may influence consumers to purchase the MAC Cosmetic products are social, ecological, and business ethical. As previously discussed a social factor can be influenced by simply allowing the purchaser to seem as if they are a part of an unspoken club. MAC Cosmetics allows their consumers to feel that they are receiving only the best money can buy. By MAC only selling their products at high end departments tortes it allows the consumer of only those stores to have access to the product. For example because MAC Cosmetics is not found just any where consumers who shop at Wall-Mart would not have access to MAC Cosmetics. This allows consumers in this social bracket to purchase MAC products. Another external factor that may influence MAC Cosmetics purchases is the ecological factor. These days, many beauty companies are setting an CEO- friendly example and MAC Cosmetics is one of them. MAC Cosmetics is offering refillable packaging and compacts, with refills often sold for slightly sees money (Pollack Borer). MAC Cosmetics also rewards for being environmentally thrifty by handing out free lipsticks to customers who return five or six empty product containers (Pollack Borer). Consumers may be incline to support and purchase products from MAC Cosmetics because they are supporting the environment through earth-sustaining and earth-friendly practices. Another external factor that may influence a consumer behavior to purchase MAC Cosmetics is business ethics. For MAC Cosmetics business ethics and ecological factors play hand-in-hand. Along with their ecological raciest MAC Cosmetics contribute to the fair trade and community. Fair trade means paying a fair price for outsourced labor, while community trade creates long-term economic initiatives to ensure sustainability within the communities in which ingredients are extracted (Pollack Borer). MAC Cosmetics and other companies are not only transforming their own products, but also supporting others who are helping the environment (Pollack Borer). As discussed above the analysis of consumers behaviors have many different factors and each consumer situation is different. MAC Cosmetics ay not be for everyone but they try hard to be for everyone.

Track Your Time and Boost Your Bottom Line

Track Your Time and Boost Your Bottom Line Do you keep track of how long it takes you to finish each writing project? Doing so will not only show you how much you earn per hour but will provide other great side benefits as well. For most of my freelancing career, Ive resisted tracking my writing time. I worried that it would affect the quality of my writing and, perhaps more importantly, that Id find out I would be better off flipping burgers. Thankfully, I discovered otherwise. Being aware that the clock is ticking, forces me to jump straight into the story instead of trying to find the perfect opening. Its also helping me stay focused on the writing, which means that I get more writing done in a shorter period of time. Im also motivated to stay on track so I can stay within a certain income range. When I start slowing down, I know its time to stop for a break. Theres no point in forcing myself to keep going because thats when the quality takes a dramatic nosedive. What surprised me the most was that this process has led me to look at time differently. Since I have two other careers, my writing sessions are often limited. In the past Id look at the clock and think, Whats the point. I only have half an hour. I felt it was barely long enough to get warmed up. Now I see those same thirty minutes and ask myself a critical question: What part of my story can I work on? In this way, Im able to fix a weak beginning, or an awkward ending, and oftentimes both. Additionally, Im better at not letting interruptions stop me, especially when Im in the flow. A favorite response of mine now is: Can it wait? I just need a few more minutes. Tracking your writing time will also help you determine how long you might need to finish a project requested Keeping track of your writing time is as simple as using a timer or jotting down the time when you start and end each writing session. Then transfer your total into a four-column spreadsheet with headings for: Title, Writing Time, Date, and Notes (optional). Once your story is completed, add your daily totals and voil! When you sell your story, youll know exactly how much you made per hour. And how much did I make with this article? I wrote in short bursts totaling about two hours, thus netting me $25 per hour. Not bad for someone whos never mastered the fine art of burger flipping! Although these numbers might not make me rich overnight, theyre a great starting point for helping me set goals that will increase my bottom line down the road while improving my efficiency and productivity.

Histories of Reconstruction Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Histories of Reconstruction - Essay Example DuBois 1910 essay Reconstruction and Its Benefits. The juxtaposition of these two stories demonstrates the extreme chasm that existed between the perception of whites and the realities of life for the blacks. By the 1890s, many white believed the only way to control the alleged savagery of blacks was through savagery itself. On the contrary, and as this study will demonstrate, whites used extremely brutal forms of violence against African Americans. The whites did not only control the alleged African Americans bestiality but also created a climate of fear so as to subjugate the blacks. Although not all white participated directly in violence against blacks, records from these stories point to that locals hardly made efforts to prevent the crimes. The film birth of a nation, convincingly conveyed the idea that Reconstruction failed because blacks were not the equals of white and were not civilized enough to participate in the democratic process. The narration of, Birth of a nation, is focused on the Klan families. It follows from the beginning of slavery through Reconstruction and how it affected the Klan. In the film, the Blacks take over the town in its politics and wreak havoc on the Klan, whites of the town. The characters are used to portray certain themes symbolically and stir up feelings related to this period in American history. The white men in the film are the heroes that exude the virtues of the old south. They also demonstrate the pro-Klan characters that are trying to establish order again. The Black Americans in the film are depicted as the villains in the Reconstruction South who is out to corrupt and control the White characters. However, Du Bois presented an entirely different view of Reconstruction. Unlike Griffith, Du Bois found the black American to the constitutional convention of 1867 to be very capable. These blacks were active in discussions at the convention and used their

Component Based Software Engineering Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Component Based Software Engineering - Assignment Example This is because these applications are already deployed originally for an environment or naturally embed assumptions based applications. In addition, the documentation procedure is nil, in these types of assumptions therefore if the component is reclaimed again then it is impossible to carry out test to check whether the assumptions are still valid or not. The implanted environmental assumptions are not invalid if they are reused in a different environment. However, this is possible only if the components are utilized in an operational system (Sommerville 1989). Component Composition The process regarding the Component Composition includes the integration of components with each other and particularly if written â€Å"glue code† in order to generate a system or another component. There are different ways to compose components. The methods include sequential composition, hierarchical composition and additive composition (Sommerville 1989). Sequential Composition Suppose a scena rio in which you are composing two components for instance A and B. Now in order to generate a new component such as Sequential components you generate this by combining the 2 existing components. In other words the sequential component is formed by calling the existing components in sequence (Sommerville 1989). This composition can be addressed as a composition of the â€Å"provides interfaces†.... Therefore, these compositions are used along with the components that include program elements or components that provide services. Hierarchical Composition The hierarchical composition occurs if the one component is called directly on the services offered by another component. These services are actually needed by the calling components. Thus, the â€Å"provide interface† that are offered by the called components must need a compatible â€Å"required interface† of the calling component. Here the component A calls directly the component. If the calling procedure is matched by their provided interfaces than no need of extra code is required for these components (Sommerville 1989). On the other hand, if the â€Å"required interface† between the two components such as A and B occurs than some conversion code is needed to overcome the situation. Moreover, the services do not need any â€Å"required interface† therefore, this type of composition is not utilized during the implementation as a web services. Additive Composition The additive composition happens when two or more components are added together in order to generate a new component that combines with each other functionally. The combination of the parallel interfaces includes the â€Å"provide interface† and the â€Å"required interface†. These interfaces are present in components A and B. However, these components are called separately with the help of their external interface of the composed component. In addition, the components A and B neither depend on each other nor they call each other. (Sommerville 1989) This kind of composition is actually utilized along with the other components that are program units or service components. In fact, all