The Illusion of Transparency in Negotiations Free Essays

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. We will write a custom essay sample on The Illusion of Transparency in Negotiations or any similar topic only for you Order Now 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: vanboven@Colorado. edu. Thomas Gilovich is a Professor of Psychology at Cornell University, Department of Psychology, Ithaca, N. Y. 15850. Email: tdg1@cornell. 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:vhm@kellogg. 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 generally have a g ood 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), an d 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 How to cite The Illusion of Transparency in Negotiations, Papers

MAtrix Essay Example For Students

MAtrix Essay The Matrix Interweaves much symbolism, mythology, philosophy, and psychology. On the surface, the movie challenges the dominance of technology in our culture and predicts an apocalyptic result from the use of artificial intelligence. Yet, behind the human struggle for survival is a mythical backdrop upon which are backlit some of C.G. Jungs basic ideas regarding the human psyche. These Jungian ideas include the ego-Self relationship and how it relates to the persona, the shadow, individuation, and the transcendent function. The earth has been decimated due to a battle for control of the earth between the AIs and humans; the Matrix camouflages this decimation. Humans are artificially created and sustained by the AI superstructure. Then they are plugged into a computer. A computer program generates a simulated reality called the Matrix. Humans live their lives in this computer-generated reality, but this reality is only in their minds. In fact, humans are kept in mechanical eggs filled with an amniotic-like fluid. The AI infrastructure keeps humans alive to tap the energy they produce. The strangers are a group of humans who have escaped the Matrix. Their leader is named Morpheus. Neo is believed by Morpheus to be the savior, The One (The Matrix). An oracle (also an escaped human) predicted long ago that a savior would come, a sort of second coming, and that he would be able to see through the Matrix and bring it down. The oracle told Morpheus that he would find The One. One question, which threads through the movie, is whether or not Neo is The One. Neo is asleep at his desk at home in one of the first scenes. A computer monitor next to him flashes repeatedly the simple text: Wake up Neo (The Matrix). The message is an instruction from the Self. The sleeping man is in ego mode, a symptom of an egocentric psyche. He is unaware of the possibility that there is something else besides the ego and he has not yet awoken to the possibility that there is another world o utside of the persona he lives behind. The theme of Neo as a Jesus Christ figure plays throughout the movie. In Edingers opinion, Christ was a figure who represented the individuating ego. The image of Christ, and the rich network of symbolism which has gathered around him, provide many parallels to the individuation process. When the Christian myth is examined carefully in the light of analytical psychology, the conclusion is inescapable that the underlying meaning of Christianity is the quest for individuation (131). The reference to Jesus Christ in this scene implies that Neo represents the human psyche beginning the individuation process. Neo meets a woman named Trinity at the party. Trinity tells Neo that she is aware of his desire to know what the Matrix is. Its the question that brought you here. What is the Matrix? (The Matrix). Trinity is the one who will lead him towards the underworld. Jung called the her a soul figure, one that occupies an area or boundary between the pe rsonal unconscious and the collective unconscious. Trinity is also associated with a persons calling or fate. Trinity, as a three figure, is incomplete. Jung writes, the number three is not a natural expression of wholeness, since four represents the minimum number of determinants in a whole judgment (Storr 275). Jung believed that the number four represented wholeness in the human psyche. If one were to re-arrange the name Neo slightly, it would be the word one The separateness of the numbers one and the three in the movie, of Neo and Trinity, represent an incompleteness in the human psyche. As we shall see, the joining of Neo and Trinity is what effects the change necessary for Neo to overcome his adversaries at the end of the film. Early resistance of the ego characters occurs after Neos initial recruitment by Morpheus group. Neo has a meeting with his manager after arriving late to work. His manager says, You have a problem with authority, Mr. Anderson (The Matrix). Neo is his alias as a computer hacker; his name in the real world is Thomas Anderson. The manager tells Mr. Anderson in no uncertain terms that he will lose his job if he is late again. The manager is an ego defense mechanism attempting to re-gain control over Neos distraction of the intrusion by the unconscious (Trinity). Ironically, during this scene, window washers are cleaning the windows on this high-rise building, which distracts Neo. I believe that the window-washing image implies that he is getting some clarity and that he sees things a bit more clearly. The stakes are raised higher as AI agents arrive (more ego defenses) to take in Mr. Anderson for questioning. Morpheus attempts to help; he calls Neo on a cell phone and attempts to direct him out of the building before the agents can get to him. This is a conflict between the unconscious figure represented by Morpheus and the ego defenses represented by the AI agents. The AI agents capture Neo. The agents names are Smith, Brown, and Jones. I believe that these common names imply a collective face of society lacking in individuality. They are de fenses of the ego, there to keep Neo under control so he doesnt discover what is really happening. He is interrogated in a, bland room with yellowed fluorescent lighting. Agent Smith tells Neo that he has two personalities. One personality is a tax-paying citizen who goes to work everyday. The other personality is a computer hacker who has broken every hacker law imaginable (The Matrix). Hes told that one of his personalities has a future and the other does not. Its his choice. This split of Neo and Mr. Anderson also demonstrates Jungs concept of the persona. The persona is a complicated system of relations between individual consciousness and society, fittingly enough a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and, on the other, to conceal the true nature of the individual (Storr 94). The persona is a public sense a self, the self that an individual displays to the world. Everybody has a persona, but if one believes that the persona is all t hat ones personality is composed of, then the individual is too adjusted to the outer world and not enough to their inner world. In this case, Mr. Anderson is the persona, the mask worn by Neo in the outer world. Neo meets Morpheus face to face. He is a black man and represents a figure of the shadow, another Jungian concept. The shadow is a part of the personal unconscious that retains discarded parts of the personality. Oftentimes the shadow contains parts of the personality that have not been accepted by parental or authority figures during childhood. Thus, the shadow tends to contain aspects that are uncomfortable for persons to face or relate to. The shadow aspects may be considered immoral from the viewpoint of the ego, which tends to consider itself of the highest morals. The shadow is merely somewhat inferior, primitive, unadapted, and awkward, not wholly bad (Storr 90). Consider the reconciliation of opposites, the ego and the shadow, to be a difficult but significant task for individuals. The shadow binds up personal energy; becoming aware of the shadow and integrating its aspects allows the psyche to free up more psychic energy. This allows for changes and a broadening of the personality. The shadow characters name Morpheus implies change. When Neo meets Morpheus and chooses to find out what the Matrix is, he is choosing to face his shadow and to change. Morpheus goes on to describe what the Matrix is. He says, The Matrix is all around us. Its like projected psyche created by man. It has been pulled over your eyes to shield you from the truth (The Matrix). The Matrix is a psychic reality created by the AI creatures that control earth. The psychic reality is projected into the minds of the humans who actually live like fetuses inside these egg-like containers. Humans experience what they perceive to be reality, but in fact is only a reality created by a computer to keep humans satisfied. Thus, the agents of the ego (AI) are responsible for projecting a false world, a front, in order to control humans. The ultimate goal of the AI creatures is to reap the energy that humans naturally produce to keep the AI infrastructure operative. The Matrix is a description of psychic projection. In Jacobi, she defines projection as: the unconscious, automatic extrapolation of a psychic content into an object, as an attribute of which it then appears to us. He projects everything that is unconscious in man into an object situated outside his ego, so that the phenomenon of projection is a part of the natural life of the psyche, a part of human nature itself (48n). For example, shadow contents are often projected onto others. A Christian perceive that someone who does not accept Jesus Christ as their savior to be demonic or evil; these feelings of evil or demonism that a fundamentalist perceives as belonging to others are their own feelings or emotions of evil projected from their personal shadow. For years, during the rule of the Soviet Union an d the Cold War, citizens of the United States projected their collective shadow or collective feelings of evil onto citizens of the Soviet Union. During the colonization of Africa, Europeans projected their primitive shadows onto the black Africans they encountered, assuming the Africans to be uncivilized and animal-like. The ego is oftentimes unaware that projections are occurring. The humans that the AI creatures control are also unaware that the Matrix exists. The humans physically live in a womb-like, pre-birth status but in their minds perceive reality as the Matrix. This state of existence is like the pre-individuated ego, before the birth of awareness of the Self. In the film, Neo is released from his womb with the assistance of Morpheus and his comrades. The lid of the egg opens, he raises his head, covered in thick clear liquid, and he looks around. He finds himself in an enormous grid of countless eggs occupied by humans. A series of cords pop from his spine and a long met al tip is pulled from the back of his skull. He then slides down a tube and lands in a pool of water. He nearly drowns, but is pulled up, through a trap door, dripping wet, into the Nebuchadnezzar, the underwater ship that Morpheus and his group live in. This scene is filled with images of a painful separation and re-birth that leads to a path of individuation for Neo. Jung wrote, conscious and unconscious do not make a whole when one of them is suppressed and injured by the otherBoth are aspects of lifeThis means open conflict and collaboration at oneIt is the old game of hammer and anvil: between them, the patient iron is forged into an indestructible whole, an individual'(Storr 225). In Jungs words, it individuation is a process or course of development arising out of the conflict between the two fundamental psychic facts (Storr 225). The two psychic factors he referred to were the conscious and unconscious. It is also important to note that Jung considered individuation a lifelo ng process, not a task with a definite end. Neos path of individuation passes through a painful re-birth process. It leaves him feeling alienated from his former sense of reality. Whenever a man consciously encounters a divine agency which assists, commands, or directs, we can understand it as an encounter of the ego with the Self. The encounter generally occurs in the wilderness or in a fugitive state, i.e., alienation (Edinger 70). It takes time for Neo to recover from his shock of his new understanding of the world. His thought patterns are turned inside out. His muscles and mind have atrophied. Neo is cared for and nursed back to health by Morpheus group. Even his eyes are not working properly. Neo asks, Why are my eyes so sore? The answer: Because youve never used them before (The Matrix). Hes now developing an eye toward his inner world. Once Neo physically recovers, he is trained and taught many new skills by Morpheus gang. This gang represents figures from the personal uncon scious. But there is also a group of freed humans who live deep inside the earths core in a human community named Zion. Zion is only talked about and never seen in the film. The Zion of historical times is described as symbolic of heaven or Gods dwelling-place with his people (Columbia Encyclopedia 3042). Zion is symbolic of the Self. The Self is a central organizing principle and is the central archetype of the human psyche. Edinger described the Self as the self-ordering and unifying center of the total psyche (conscious and unconscious) (3). Also, the Self is the seat of objective identity. The Self is thus the supreme psychic authority and subordinates the ego to it (3). The Self is connected with themes such as wholeness, totality, the union of opposites, the central generative point, the world navel, the axis of the universe (4). In a religious sense, the Self is the god-image. . Neo, Morpheus group, Zion, and even the AI agents are parts of the Self since the Self is the tot ality of psychic existence. Yet the central archetype of the movie is Zion. Like an archetype, it is never directly experienced, but it is the ordering principal and force behind the renegade acts of the free humans. The near final scene in the movie features a one on one battle between Neo and an AI agent. The agent shoots Neo several times. Neo slumps to the floor and dies. He has no heartbeat. Trinity, his soul figure, reveals to Neo that he must be The One because the oracle told her that she would fall in love with The One. Since she loves him, he must be The One. She kisses him. He resurrects and comes back to life. Neo rejoins the battle and his mind is freed of believing that the reality projected by the Matrix is real. He sees through the projection, sees through the imagined power of the agents, and finally destroys the Agent who had killed him. I believe that this scene is interesting for two reasons. One, it joins Trinity and Neo together, forming a four, as well as join ing the feminine and masculine. The number four symbolizes wholeness in the human psyche. Two, the scene demonstrates Jungs transcendent function. Jung discusses how the knowledge of symbols is indispensable, for it is in them that the union of conscious and unconscious is consummated. Out of this union emerge new situations and new conscious attitudes. I have therefore called the union of opposites the transcendent function' (Storr 226). Neo has battled the AI agents before but they have outwitted him. He is limited by his previous projections of them as power figures. The kiss, symbolically a transcendent function, joins him with Trinity in a union of the opposites and forming a four, wholeness. He transcends his previous limitations and is able to see the AI agents for what they are. He withdraws his projections, restores the personal power previously projected onto the agents, and finally defeats the AI agents. The final scene of the film shows Neo in a telephone booth (superman figure?). This is his message to the AI infrastructure: I know youre out there. I can feel you now. I know that youre afraid. Youre afraid of us. Youre afraid of change. I dont know the future. I didnt come here to tell you how its going to end. I came here to tell you how its going to begin. Im going to hang up this phone and show people what you dont want them to see. Im going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from here is a choice I leave to you (The Matrix). Neo has become an individuated ego. He negotiated a series of challenging psychic experiences to grow out of his former egocentric attitude. His statement speaks of an awareness of the ego as well as a sense of Self. He even refers to the ego field as scared and seems to be compassionate of the egos fear. But he wants to live without the rules and control of the ego. Works Cited Chernow, Barbara and Vallasi, Ge orge, eds. The Columbia Encyclopedia. 5th Ed. Columbia UP, 1993. Edinger, Edward F. Ego and Archetype. Boston: Shambhala, 1992. Jacobi, Jolande. Complex/Archetype/Symbol in the Psychology of C.G. Jung. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1974. Jung, C.G. The Essential Jung. Ed. A. Storr. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1983. . Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York: Vintage, 1961. The Matrix. Dir. Larry and Andy Wachowski. Perf. Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne. Warner Brothers, 1999.

Angelou, Maya Essay Example For Students

Angelou, Maya Essay Sergejs Golubevs. Mrs.Dunton. Engl.82Maya Angelou. Maya Angelou, born April 4, 1928 as Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, was raised in segregated rural Arkansas. She is a poet, historian, author, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, and director. She has been working at Wake Forest University in north Carolina since 1981.She has published ten best selling books and numerous magazine articles earning her Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nomination. At the request of President Clinton, she wrote and delivered a poem at his 1993 presidential inauguration. Whole her life, Maya Angelou has been trying to make something special in the poetry, history and in the film industry of the Africa-American women. Dr, Angelou, who speaks French, Spanish, Italian and West African Fanti, began her career in drama and dance. In 1940 she and her brother moved to San Francisco to be with their mother, who had remarried. She gave birth to her son Clyde Johnson, just a few month after graduating a high school in 1945.At 22, she married Tosho Angelos, a former sailor of Greek descent, but she left her marriage two and half years later and set out to become a professional dancer. Maya Angelou spent her formative years shuttling between St. Louis, Arkansas and San Francisco. She worked as an editor for The Arab observer, an English-language weekly published Cairo. Maya Angelou lived in Accra, Ghana, where Sergejs Golubevs under the black nationalist regime of Karane Nkrumah she taught music, dance, and. studied cinematography in Sweden. In the 1960s, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ms Angelou became the northern coordinator for the southern Leadership Conference. She Commission on the Observance of International womens Year. Maya Angelou, poet, was among the first African -American woman to hit the bestseller lists with her I know Why the Caged bird Sings helds the Great Hall audience spellbound with stories of her own childhood. Maya Angelous second achievement was in 1971 when she produced Just Give Me a Cool Drink of water Fore I Die, in 1975Oh Pray My Wings Are Going to Fit Me Well, in 1979And I Still Rise, and in 1983 Shaker Why Dont You Sing. She ranged from story to poem to song and back again, and her theme was love and the universality of all lives. The honorary duty of a human being is to love, Angelou said. She spoke of her early love for William Shakespeares works, and offered her audience excerpts from the poems of several African-Americans, including James Weldon Johnson and Paul Lawrence Dunbar. But always, she came back to love -and humanity. I am human, Angelou said, quoting from her own work, and nothing human can be alien to me.In the sixties, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King , Jr., she became the Northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and in 1975, she received the Ladies Home Journal Woman of the Year award in communications. She received numerous honorary degrees and was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the Sergejs Golubevs National Commission on the Observance of International Womans Year and by President Ford to the American Revolutionary Bicentennial Advisory Council. She is one the board of the American Film Institute and is one of the few female members of the Directors Guild. In the film industry, through her work in script writing and directing, Maya Angelou has been a groundbreaker for black woman .in television; she has made hundreds of appearances. Her best-selling autobiographical account of her youth, I Know Why the Cage Bird sings, won critical acclaim in 1970and was a two-hour TV special on CBS. She has written and produced several prize winning documentaries, including Afro-Americans in the Arts, a PBS special for which she received the Golden eagle Award. She was also nominated for an Emmy Award for her acting in Roots, and her screenplay Georgia, Georgia was the first by a black woman to be filmed. In theatre, she produced, directed and starred in Cabaret for Freedom In collaboration with godfrey Cambridge at New Yorks Village Gate; starred in Genets The Blacks: | at St Marks Playhouse; and adapted Sophocles Ajax which premiered in Los Angeles in 1974. She wrote the original screenplay for Georgia, Georgia and wrote and produced a ten part TV s eries on African traditions in American life. Maya Angelou is currently Reynolds Professor at Wake Forest University, Winston -Salem, North Carolina. Whole her life Maya Angelou has been trying to make something special in the poetry, history, and in the film industry of the Africa-American women. Maya Angelou made a lot for American civilization, and each Americans really looks up on Maya Angelous life, and on all that things that she has done. .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6 , .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6 .postImageUrl , .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6 , .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6:hover , .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6:visited , .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6:active { border:0!important; } .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6 { display: block; transition: backgroun d-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6:active , .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative; } .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left: 18px; top: 0; } .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6 .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u473412b044e97292e5647012304971e6:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Growin Up In the Hood Essay

Is Ritalin The Answer To Ad (H) D Essays (547 words) -

Is Ritalin The Answer To Ad (H) D? Is Ritalin the Answer to AD (H) D? The tousled brown hair that weaves so mischievously around his head may hint at the way he feels inside. He is seven-years-old and has already had to repeat a grade. He has an imagination that puts others to shame, but nothing seems to hold his attention for more than five minutes. He was recently diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or what we call AD (H) D. This scene is all too familiar for individuals who discover that they, too, have this learning disorder as they progress from elementary school to college. In today's society we want a quick fix to remedy our problems. Therefore doctors are prescribing the drug, Ritalin, to control AD (H) D. Although Ritalin is a widely used drug to control AD (H) D, there are other safer alternatives to combat this worldwide disorder. Ritalin, like many other drugs, has several side effects-some of which are severe. Ritalin is in a class of drugs called Methylphetamines. These types of drugs (also called Central Nervous System or CNS stimulants) affect our central nervous system that controls everything from thought process to everyday breathing. Ritalin's major side effects influences the cardiovascular system (palpitation, tachycardia, and increased blood pressure), the central nervous system (psychosis, dizziness, headache, insomnia, tic syndromes, attacks of Gilles de la Tourette), gastrointestinal (anorexia, nausea), endocrine/metabolic system (weight loss, growth suppression). (What You Need To Know About Ritalin 1999) Also, Ritalin is a fairly new drug (introduced in the early eighties). It hasn't been around long enough to study the long-term effects. Since Ritalin is a Methylphetamine (closely related to the amphetamine family, such as cocaine), it has a high rate of abuse. In light of methylphenidate's abuse liability, it is important to note the tremendous increase in availability of this substance and the expanded population (adolescents and adults) receiving prescriptions for the treatment of AD (H) D. For example, the production quota for methylphenidate has increased from 1,361 kg in 1985 to 10,410 kg in 1995 with the primary increases occurring in the last five years. (Ritalin 1996) This drug is abused in two ways. One way is for recreational purposes. The abusers use the drug as a form of speed to pick themselves up. They feel that they need this in order to be alive and full of life. The other way this drug is abused is very different. Students are using Ritalin as a study aid. They take a pill (either orally, or by crushing it and snorting-much like cocaine, or they emulsify it in water and inject it like heroin) and cr am for an exam. College today has become more competitive. Students feel a need to have an edge over the others. They feel that Ritalin gives them this edge. Another danger is that since Ritalin is related to amphetamines, it has almost the same physiological effects. A users body will build a tolerance to the stimulant, therefore requiring more drugs to sustain the same level of abuse. This is very dangerous since the side effects on a normal dose are already dangerous; it has the potential for addiction and overdose. (Ritalin Nation 1997) Social Issues

Understanding the Visible Learning Theory

Understanding the Visible Learning Theory Educators struggle with a number of questions regarding teaching methods, including: What educational policies have the greatest impact on students?What influences students to achieve?What are best practices for teachers yield the best results? Roughly 78 billion is the estimated dollar amount invested in education by the United States according to market analysts (2014). So, understanding how well this enormous investment in education is working requires a new kind of calculation in order to answer these questions. Developing that new kind of calculation is where Australian educator and researcher John Hattie has focused his research. In his inaugural lecture at the University of Auckland as far back as 1999, Hattie  announced the three principles that would guide his research: We need to make relative statements about what impacts on student work;We need estimates of magnitude as well as statistical significance – it is not good enough to say that this works because lots of people use it etc., but that this works because of the magnitude of impact;We need to be building a model based on these relative magnitudes of effects. The model he proposed in that lecture has grown to become a ranking system of influencers and their effects in education using meta-analyses, or groups of studies, in education. The meta-analyses he used came from all over the globe, and his method in developing the ranking system was first explained with the publication of his book Visible Learning in 2009. Hattie noted that the title of his book was selected to help teachers become evaluators of their own teaching† with the objective of giving teachers a better understanding of the positive or negative effects on student learning: Visible Teaching and Learning occurs when teachers see learning through the eyes of students and help them become their own teachers. The Method Hattie used the data from multiple meta-analyses in order to get a pooled estimate or measure of an effect on student learning. For example, he used sets of meta-analyses on the effect of vocabulary programs on student learning as well as  sets of meta-analyses on the effect of preterm birth weight on student learning. Hatties system of gathering data from multiple educational studies and reducing that data into pooled estimates allowed him to rate the different influences on student learning according to their effects in the same manner, whether they show negative  effects or positive effects. For example, Hattie ranked studies that showed the effects of classroom discussions, problem-solving, and acceleration as well as studies that showed the impact of retention, television, and summer vacation on student learning. In order to categorize these effects  by  groups, Hattie organized the influences into six areas: The studentThe homeThe schoolThe curriculaThe teacherTeaching and learning approaches Aggregating the data that was generated from these meta-analyses, Hattie determined the size of the effect each influence had on student learning. The size effect could be numerically converted for purposes of comparison, for example, an influencer’s effect size of 0 shows that the influence has no effect on student achievement. The greater the size of the effect, the greater the influence. In the 2009 edition of Visible Learning,  Hattie suggested that an effect size of 0,2 could be relatively small, while an effect size of 0,6 could be large. It was the effect size of 0,4, a numerical conversion that Hattie termed as his â€Å"hinge point,† that became the effect size average. In the 2015  Ã‚  Visible Learning,  Hattie rated influence effects by increasing the number of meta-analyses from 800 to 1200. He repeated the method of ranking influencers using the â€Å"hinge point† measurement which allowed him to rank the effects of 195 influences on a scale. T he Visible Learning website has several interactive graphics to illustrate these influences. Top Influencers The number one influencer at the top of the 2015 study is an effect labeled â€Å"teacher estimates of achievement. This category, new to the ranking list, has been given a ranking value of 1,62, calculated at four times the effect of the average influencer. This rating reflects the accuracy of an individual teachers knowledge of students in his or her classes and how that knowledge determines the kinds of classroom activities and materials as well as the difficulty of the tasks assigned. A teacher’s estimates of achievement can also influence  the questioning strategies and the student groupings used in class as well as the teaching strategies selected. It is, however, the number two influencer, collective teacher efficacy, that holds an even greater promise for improving student achievement.  This influencer means harnessing the power of the group to bring out the full potential of students and educators in schools.   It should be noted that Hattie is not the first to point out the importance of collective teacher efficacy. He is the one who rated it as having an effect ranking of 1.57, almost four times the average influence. Back in 2000, educational researchers Goddard, Hoy, and Hoy advanced this idea, stating that â€Å"collective teacher efficacy shapes the normative environment of schools† and that the â€Å"perceptions of teachers in a school that the efforts of the faculty as a whole will have a positive effect on students.† In short, they found that â€Å"teachers in[ this] school can get through to the most difficult students.† Rather than rely on the individual teacher, collective teacher efficacy is a factor that can be manipulated at a whole school level. Researcher Michael Fullen and Andy Hargreaves in their article Leaning Forward: Bringing the Profession Back In  note several factors that must be present including: Teacher autonomy to take on the specific leadership roles with opportunities to participate in making decisions on school-wide issuesTeachers are allowed to collaboratively develop and communicate mutual goals that are clear and specificTeachers are committed to the goalsTeachers work as a team transparently without judgmentTeachers work as a team to collect specific evidence to determine growthLeadership acts responsively to all stakeholders and show concern and respect for their staff. When these factors are present, one of the outcomes is that collective teacher efficacy helps all teachers understand their significant impact on student results. There is also the benefit of stopping teachers from using other factors (e.g. home life, socio-economic status, motivation) as an excuse for low achievement. Way at the other end of the Hattie ranking spectrum, the bottom, the influencer of depression is given an effect score of -,42. Sharing space at the bottom of the  Visible Learning  Ladder are the influencers mobility (-,34) home corporal punishment (-,33), television (-,18), and retention (-,17). Summer vacation, a much-beloved institution, is also negatively ranked at -,02. Conclusion In concluding his inaugural address almost twenty years ago, Hattie pledged to use the best statistical modeling, as well as to conduct meta-analyses to achieve integration, perspective, and magnitude of effects. For teachers, he pledged to provide evidence that determined the differences between experienced and expert teachers as well as to assess the teaching methods that increase the probability of impact on student learning. Two editions of Visible Learning are the product of the pledges Hattie made in determining what works in education. His research can help teachers see better how their students learn best. His work is also a guide for how to best invest in education; a review of 195 influencers that can be better targeted by  statistical significance  for billions in investment...78 billion to start.

Discussion week 9-2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Discussion week 9-2 - Essay Example In view of the assignment given prior to the lesson (essay outlining the role of different people in society), the instructor will then evaluate the students understanding before the lesson and after the discussion (mentioned below). On the other hand, informal presentation will come in handy while carrying out some activities during this same lesson. I mentioned in the lesson plan that the lesson is predominantly a discussion; therefore, judicious review is a major strategy. This aspect ensures that information delivery is clear and concise while providing for students’ active involvement in information gathering and rehearsal. The power point presentation as a visual aid will further accentuate this method. Structured discovery will also work well in this same lesson. This is because the lesson is safe in view of environment and potential discoveries and failure is not imminent. The instructor first outlines a few of the objectives (occupations in society); the students are already consciously aware that people need to make a living by having an occupation. After this, it is up to the student to create a connection to other objectives, for instance, differences in occupations, benefits of different types of occupations and gender disparity in different types of

Fashion Trend in 2009 Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Fashion Trend in 2009 - Case Study Example The study "Fashion Trend in 2009" concerns the 2009's trend. The target market segment for the new designed products is middle market. The availability of cotton products in the middle class are only nominal due to the high production cost relating to the organic cotton products. Through direct purchasing and synthesizing of raw material the production cost can be signicantly reduced. This will help to focus on the middle market through appropriate pricing policies. â€Å"The purpose for segmenting a market is to allow your marketing/sales program to focus on the subset of prospects that are "most likely" to purchase your offering. If done properly this will help to insure the highest return for your marketing/sales expenditures.† The in-store presentation of the product will be in a sophisticated manner by using attractive presentation and display tactics. There should be separate section for the Y’s Passion series in the shop. The section will be made attractive by us ing glass tubes and light presentation. The product range should be of T -shirts clothing which is suitable for both men and women category. It will be available in 5 elegant colors. Comfortably fitting and skin friendly material renders a cool effect by easily absorbing the sweat. Products with unique and attractive modern designs which are affordable even to the middle class consumers, are the main feature of ‘Y’s passion’. Overall image of the product should be differentiated by its color and trendy designs and the fact that it is made from cotton. 100% pure organic cotton. The product must carry a new brand name followed by the company name. The brand name for the product range is "Y's Passion" which is a catchy one that will evolve interest and immediate attention. Following are the images of Y's Passion range products: Product features: "100% organic cotton, Color: Jersey Crewneck, 4 plus color fastness, shrinkage is less than 4 %." (Packing Bags: Organic Cotton T-Shirts). Product features: "Avocado Green", "Size: 5.8-oz. standard weight, double-needle stitching, cover-stitched hems, durability." (Visualize World Peas Women's Organic T Shirt Avocado Green). Product feature: Made from 100 % pure organic cotton, yellow haze, size: XL (100% Organic Cotton - (eco dad) T Shirt Yellow Haze XL (Extra Large)). 5. Dominant trends: The color of the products is its main interesting factor and attractive stylish rare color combinations are used for the product design. The environment friendly, high quality, perfect fit, highly stylish, comfortable, very insignificant percentage of shrinkage, fine fabric strength, textures and color fastness are other attractive features of the product. Moreover, the increasing popularity of cotton garments is an added advantage to the product, "Sales of organic cotton are set to triple to $2.6 billion at the end of 2008 from its current $900 million level as retailers and brands make significant new commitments to sustainable textile and apparel production." (Mowbray). 6. Country of manufacture: The manufacturing country for the product is India because of the availability of organic