Social and Developmental Essay Example for Free

Social and Developmental Essay Psychodynamic theories of personality have impacted greatly on the Developmental Psychology of today. They originated with the work of Sigmund Freud in the later part of the nineteenth and beginning of the 18th century. Freud, Jung, Erickson and Fromm all focussed on the unconscious mind and the effects of early childhood experiences on the development of personality. Freuds psychosexual model is based on 5 stages with the first five years of life being most crucial to development of personality. Erikson proposed an 8 stage psychosocial plan, which placed importance on the whole lifespan, arguing that development does not cease at a certain age. According to Hayes (2000) both Freud and Jung argued that personality was set by childhood experiences and was due partly to maturation and partly to the influences of close family. Fromm on the other hand recognised both factors as well as acknowledging society as a third factor in the formation of personality. A more current view based on both the psychoanalytical and biological approaches is that of Bowlby (1969) who studied attachment in children. His Affective perspective concentrates on emotional development and has had an impact how children are cared for whilst away from their central carer for example whilst in childcare or hospital. Genetic and Biological explanations propose that each individual is born with genetically determined characteristic patterns of personality. Studies of twins show that identical twins brought up apart share much more in common than fraternal twins. The Minnesota twin study, (Bouchard, 1984 as cited by Bee 2000 p266) not only demonstrated this point, but also uncovered striking similarities in aspects such as taste in clothes, hobbies and interests, posture, body language etc. in identical twins who had never met each other. The biological approach to personality is strongly supported by a large amount of empirical research and as such is difficult to dispute. As Bee (2000) explains there is simply no refuting the fact that built-in genetic and physiological patterns underlie what we think of as both temperament and personality. (Bee 2000 p269) Some studies show that as much as 60% of our personality is genetically determined. A further strength in the biological explanation is that it is interactionist, thereby acknowledging the role of the environment in addition to the biological factors. The biological approach has one main weakness in that it does not account for change as temperament is not necessarily permanent.

The Power of Internet Feedback :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

The Power of Internet Feedback Eight Sources I. Introduction Feedback is one of the most important elements to a businesses success. No matter what the business, all have to deal with two constants, customers and customer satisfaction. These two things lay the groundwork for a successful business. The customers come from various types of media strategies such as advertising, mail-order publications, public relations, retailing and merchandising, sales, market research, and prices of goods. In order for a business to be competitive in its market the business must know what the customer wants, what price the customer is willing to pay, why the customer would buy one brand over another and other feelings that customers need met that would make them buy your product or service. Great customer service is the difference that makes the difference, whether your customers deal repeatedly with one representative of your company or with a different person each time they call, whether you do business face-to-face or electronically. Internet feedback is the new wave as far as getting feedback from customers, "A company can't create advocates without a true understanding of customer preferences. Not surprisingly, much of the innovation and groundbreaking techniques for "listening" to customers is coming from the Web world (Griffin.)" This is why Internet feedback is one of the most useful and resourceful tools a business or institution can have at its fingertips today. II. Literature Review and Findings The literature I found to be most relevant to the type of information that I deemed most important covered a websites ability to satisfy a customer having specific feedback goals from the website. In an essay written by Jakob Nielsen and Marie Tahir called, Design Usability: Keep Your Users In Mind Incorporating Feedback at Several Stages into an Ongoing Design Process Will Help a Site to Thrive. In this article the authors describe how the Web, like nothing else, has taught people how easy it is to walk away from a poorly designed product. The truth with the person who could easily and swiftly go to your website they can leave just as fast. A person who has invested the time to drive to a mall might be willing to suffer through a long checkout process much more readily than a Web customer, who can just as easily click over to the competition.

Immune to Reality Essay

â€Å"Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to defend my beauty. † (William Shakespeare Troilus and Cressida) (Gilbert 133)This quote pertains to the mind protecting and or lying to you to not be harmed, which has been proved in test today. Immune To Reality written by Daniel Gilbert is a piece about how the mind can play tricks on us by covering up the truth with a believable lie, how we â€Å"cook facts† (134), and how our mind’s choices can affect our feelings. Throughout this essay I will be discussing a real life situation of my own, and the studies and the outcomes and whether they make sense or not. They say the mind protects us from ourselves, but we also â€Å"cook facts† (134) which happen to go hand in hand. Cooking facts are â€Å"†¦deliberate attempts to generate positive views†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (134) a few examples are failing miserably on the test but tell yourself there is always next time and you’ll study harder for the next one and example from the book being is that your fiance left you at the altar but saying â€Å"She was never really right for me†¦Ã¢â‚¬ (134). The mind tries to protect us from remembering bad things or bad experiences. I’ve seen some of my friends try and deny the fact that his father had died of cancer, he just didn’t believe it until the day of his funeral. But in the end they made it in their mind that he was in a better place and no longer suffering. In my own case, my family and I were coming back from a trip to Florida on a coach bus which ended up being hit by another car and flipped on its side on a four lane highway which ended up being hit by two more cars. I am thankful to say that I was buckled so I only came out of the crash with a concussion, but it still affects me every day. My vision has never been the same, yeah sure I can read really fast when I’m reading to myself but when it comes to reading out loud. It’s a completely different story. There’s no medical term for it but the best way they could put it is that I have an acute form of dyslexia. I just thank to this day that it actually isn’t worse than it could be and this being my cooked facts. To this day I cannot remember anything about the crash, this being the way my mind protects me from pain. Our minds and feelings are always going to have some sort of connection since it is our brain that tells our body us what we are feeling. Studies show that what we choose can really affect our moods for the time being or even throughout a week. On pages 135-136 a study shows a group of volunteers went through a job interview. â€Å"Some of the volunteers were told that their interview would be seen by a judge†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (135) â€Å"Other volunteers were told that their interview would be seen by a jury†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (315) the volunteers not knowing that everyone would be rejected the job. The Pre Rejection Prediction shows that the volunteers wouldn’t have really cared if they were rejected by the solo judge or the jury group, but what the results showed is that the group of volunteers that were rejected by the jury was much more upset than the ones rejected by the solo judge. I mean I’d be upset if 12 people told me I wasn’t capable to do a job, you automatically think that something is wrong with you. But with the judge your mind just makes up excuses to make you feel better, examples being he doesn’t know the real me or I don’t really need that job anyway. The mind is very deceiving, but it is sometimes for the best. When you need protection from yourself or whether it’s to give you a boost. We just need to be able to tell when and when not our mind is doing these things. References: * Gilbert, Daniel. â€Å"Immune to Reality. † The New Humanities Reader. By Richard E. Miller and Kurt Spellmeyer. 4th ed. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, n. d. 133-50. Print.

Media Culture: the Triumph of the Spectacle

Media Culture: the Triumph of the Spectacle â€Å"Media culture is a contested terrain across which key social groups and competing political ideologies struggle for dominance and . . . individuals live these struggles through the images, discourses, myths, and spectacle of media culture† -Douglas Kellner, Media Culture Table of Contents Introduction——————————————————————————————-3 History of Media————————————————————————————-4 Media Spectacle————————————————————————————–5 Douglas Kellner’s Contribution & Guy Debord’s Influential Analysis of Spectacle——-7 The Spectacle Form of Media Culture————————————— ———————8 The Spectacle in the World of Business———————————————————-9 The World of Celebrities————————————————————————–10 The Madonna Phenomenon———————————————————————–10 The World of Politics——————————————————————————11 Conclusion———————â₠¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€13 Bibliography—————————————————————————————-14 Introduction At the end of the twentieth century, society became more and more aware of the changes in communication technology. People began to see changes in ommunication between individuals, changes in how individuals and society communicated, and changes in communication between societies and cultures. This led to an understanding of human development. The ability to communicate with the help of symbols is one of the fundamental features that differentiate us from the rest of the animal world. Without these practical communication skills and the intellectu al capacity needed to use these skills to transmit, preserve, and propagate thoughts, emotions, and values, it would not have been possible to create such unique religious, ideological, and philosophical systems. Furthermore, without communication, we would not have art. Art has had a strong relationship with the media throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. New inventions and technology created a very favorable atmosphere for the development of new methods and means of communication. These new communication methods both benefited and furthered events within society. At the end of the 20th century, advanced methods and technologies in the field of communication fully changed the face of the world. Due to this change, some say it is very hard to find the line between reality and the reality that has been created and filtered by media. Some contemporary communication theoreticians have said that we find ourselves in the era of the simulation of the world. History of Media Mass media, a term that arose in the United States in the early 20th century with the advent of far-reaching advertising campaigns and news networks, includes all those mediums through which information is distributed to the masses. This includes advertisements, newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the internet. According to some scientists, people started to speak of the media as far back as ancient Greece and Rome. These discussions of media focused mostly on the rhetoric surrounding the practice of persuasion. The Greek philosopher Aristotle said that rhetoric is â€Å"the faculty of discovering in any particular case all the methods of persuasion. † This kind of communication puts a heavy emphasis on meaning, and how the meaning is constructed and conveyed. Current mass media works in a similar way. One of the most important goals f today’s media is to construct a message that will convince the receiver to agree to do or believe something. The earliest surv iving copy of a paper book, a Kumarajiva translation of the Hindu text The Diamond Sutra, is dated 868 CE (AD). Due to the slow spread of literacy among the common people, and the relatively high cost of paper and production of written media, written materials did not exist as widespread media until Johannes Gutenberg’s 1450 CE invention of the printing press with movable type. Thanks to Gutenberg’s invention, printed materials suddenly became much less expensive, and the spread of information in the form of written material became much easier. However, much of the population still remained illiterate and the cost of publishing printed materials remained high enough to limit media from reaching a wide range of the population. Newspapers were first developed in 1605. The first English-language newspaper was published in Amsterdam in 1620. Soon after that, newspapers published in England, and, eventually, in America, began to reach mass audiences directly. Around this same time, America was being colonized, and printed and written materials played an important role. Revolutionary material such as Thomas Paine’s Common Sense was published and distributed to the colonists, allowing the spread of ideas that eventually resulted in the creation of the United States. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Mayflower Compact1 were all examples of early colonial and American documents that figured prominently in the development of America as a nation. In the 1940s, new technologies and advancements in the field of media began to emerge. Radio began to play a major role in mass communication, as America went to war. Radio could provide information much faster than newspapers. These new advents in technology allowed media to gain significance, new meaning, and wider function. Radio, film, advertising, and the press grew as industries and became the center of the culture of communication within the U. S. nd within other capitalist democracies. The culture of media became a dominant force within all aspects of life, including politics and social life. 2 It was the beginning of a new era. The media industry began to concentrate on the invention of new technologies. They both wanted to provide people with a wide range of different good s from which they could choose but also wanted to continue to develop ways in which to reach and influence people. The media could now easily affect the minds of the public, forcing the people to accept a particular set of beliefs, which occasionally diverted from actual reality. Societies started to be manipulated and people were indoctrinated. The main goal of media was and still is to be persuasive enough to attract the attention of a potential receiver, and one of the most convenient ways to accomplish this goal is through the multimedia spectacle. Media Spectacle ‘Media spectacle' is a term created by Douglas Kellner to describe the creation by modern media of a display of contemporary dreams, nightmares, fantasies and values. The phenomenon of media spectacle has evolved over centuries, starting in ancient Greece and moving forward through hundreds of years of wars and other major public events. Today, media spectacle continually strives to achieve sensation and attract attention. In the contemporary world, media spectacle exists in nearly all spheres of our lives. The role of the media is not only to inform, educate, teach, and persuade but also to entertain. The role of media today might suggest that the â€Å"fun factor† has become the leading motivation for our involvement in media and information. The main goal in media is now to attract the visual attention of potential consumers. Therefore, images have become more important than text. It is also very important for the creators and producers of media to keep up with ongoing changes in public interest and attitudes, so media companies face a continual need to be flexible and creative in order to reach consumers. This applies not only to advertisment but also to political and entertainment media in general. Media not only needs to be visual and relevant, but also attractive. Advertisers, public relations departments, and political campaigners need to create messages that are structured in an attractive way, so that it reaches viewers and corresponds to their high expectations of mass media. If this is not done, the consumer will likely not respond to the media. It frequently occurs that a person is faced with a constant influx of media. The information that he or she is presented with may come from a variety of sources, and is likely both true and false information. Over time, it may become difficult for the consumer to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong; to distinguish between reality and fiction. Modern life is shaped by media. It is a power that affects both conscious and subconscious decisions and shapes ideas. We are surrounded by media. Boorstin writes that â€Å"each society and its culture are impelled by fascination with the image and the stimulation and due to it lost its grounding in substance or reality†. 3 Douglas Kellner’s Contribution & Guy Debord’s Influential Analysis of Spectacle Widely recognized social scientist Douglas Kellner and sociologist Guy Debord focused heavily on the topic of the Media Spectacle and its impact on perceived reality. Kellner is the author of the article â€Å"Media Culture and the Triumph of the Spectacle. † The scope of his activity and achievement includes membership in the American Sociological Association. He was also a member of the editorial service board of many journals including Theory, Culture, and Society. It is this journal that for more than twenty years has published some of the most innovative works in social science. It has been in the forefront of the renewal of cultural sociology. It provides a forum for articles that theorize the relationship between culture and society. In his article Kellner refers to ideas put forward by Guy Deboard. He is known for his impact through the group known as Situationist International. This was a libertarian group that came to prominence during the May Events in France in 1968. This band of avant-garde artists and intellectuals was influenced by Dada, Surrealism and Letterism and concerned themselves with the infusion of poetry and music, and with the transformation of the urban landscape. At first, the group was principally concerned with the suppression of art, that is to say they wished, like the Dadaist and the Surrealists before them, to supercede the boundary between art and culture as separate activities and to transform them into part of everyday life. In their analysis, the Situationists argue that capitalism limited life as a spectacle. The spectacle is the main concept of their theory (in many ways they reworked Marx's view of alienation). They say that the worker is alienated from his product and from his fellow worker and finds himself living in an alien world; moreover, they argue that capitalism, in order to ensure its economic growth, has created â€Å"pseudo-needs† to increase the consumption. According to this theory, modern society, or consumer society, is now a society of spectacular commodity consumption. People within this spectacle are treated like objects, rather than like active subjects. In this theory, people are like marionettes whose strings are pulled by invisible power. The Situationists’ idea was, in spite of all kinds of separation, to make a world in which individuals could directly produce their own life; in other words, to engage people in an active, creative life. The solution, for them, was not to wait for a distant revolution but to take a different approach, a â€Å"step by step† process of the reinvention of everyday life, here and now. To transform peoples’ participation in the world was for them the same thing as changing the structure of society. In the place of the society of the spectacle the Situationists proposed a society without money, commodity production, private property, wage labour, class division, based generally on communist ideas. The most important tenet of the proposal was that the so-called pseudo-needs would be replaced by real desires. This utopial ideal seemed to some to be slightly out of touch with reality but aimed to move the focus of the world away from lies and distortion. The Situationists placed a large amount of focus on the concept that individuals should actively and consciously participate in the reconstruction of every moment of life. They called themselves Situationists because they believed that all individuals should construct the situations of their lives, release their own potential, and obtain their own pleasure. The Spectacle-Form of Media Culture As I wrote earlier, spectacle culture has expanded in every area of life â€Å"and is becoming one of the organizing principles of the economy, polity, society†4. Guy Debord argues that â€Å"spectacle is†¦ social relation among people, mediated by images. The spectacle †¦ is a world vision, which has become objectified. . . in all its specific forms, as information or propaganda, as advertisement or direct entertainment consumption, the spectacle is the present model of socially dominant life†¦. â€Å"5. The spectacle phenomenon in this case refers to both high culture and to low cultural shows. The development of new media technologies made it easier for media to exercise influence over contemporary societies and cultures. In these societies media presented with images has the edge over plain texts. The visual spectacle, which combines all aspects of culture that communicate through visual means, made itself the ruler of the â€Å"outside world†. Factories and offices where people work are visually soaked environments. Films, television, video games, and the internet are also part of the influx of visual media that affects our thinking and behaviors. Moreover, we comunicate with the help of visualization. When we are trying to cross over cultural boundaries, our knowledge is often communicated visually, for example, we may use visual cues such as map boundaries and business graphs and data. The Spectacle in the World of Business The propagation of the spectacle is a major aspect of business, and plays a decisive role in whether any given corporation will succeed or not. Businesses, in order to survive, need to be present and visible for the potential customer. Entertainment and advertisement are the powers that support the business world through various of methods, one of which is creating a ‘pseudo event’. The idea of a ‘pseudo event’ was put forward by Daniel Boorstin, an American historian, who claimed that America and other countries find themselves in an age of illusion. The ‘pseudo event’ occurs where â€Å"an event is planned and staged entirely for the media, which accrues significance through the scale of its media coverage rather than through any more disinterested assessment of its importance†. 6 So to speak â€Å"pseudo event† exist for sole purpose of supporting media publicity and serves little to no other function in real life and is considered â€Å"real† only after viewing through news, advertisements, television, or other types of media. An extremely simple example is sitting for a family portrait. The event serves no other purpose than to be viewed through a photograph. Other examples include media spectacles, and many types of news. The World of Celebrities Media contributes to the creation of celebrities. â€Å"The celebrity†¦ is the human pseudo event, fabricated for the media and evaluated in terms of the scale and effectiveness of its media yisibility†. 7 A famous person provides dominant role models and icons of fashion, style, personality, and, at the same time, leads to the enrichment of the media industry. Media entrepreneurs want celebrities involved with their projects because they believe this will help them attract audiences. Film producers use stars as mean of attracting investment to their projects. Marketers use public celebrity statements as a means of profiling and branding their products. Sports promoters use celebrity athletes to attract media attention and increase the number of people who would come to that sport event. Celebrities also make money for the individual concerned. Their success depends on various handlers and image managers that help them to develop their public persona. Celebrities invade all kinds of sites today, ranging from contests in shopping malls to the management of major political campaigns. The importance of publicity, promotion and the exploitation of the media event are omnipresent. The Madonna Phenomenon Madonna became a master in her use of image with the help of mass media. Daniel Borstin is responsible for one of the most widely quoted aphorisms about celebrity: â€Å"the celebrity is a person who is well-known for his well-knownness. . . the celebrity develops its capacity for fame, not by achieving great things, but by differentiating its own personality from those of its competitors in the public arena. â€Å"8   Madonna has achieved just that. She has total control over her shows. She writes the songs, produces the music, and designs the stage sets. She controls all aspects of her show; not just her spectacle, but also all the things she does, including her films and public appearances. Madonna's entire life turns around the presentation of her image. Madonna is one of the greatest PR machines in history and she has hired top agents, publicists, and creative personnel to market her and produce her images. From the beginning her every move was surrounded by publicity and year after year Madonna references in media culture have proliferated. â₠¬Å"9   The circulation of an image plays a very important role as well. Madonna constantly changes her public image. Whoever she is at the moment; a good girl gone bad or a virgin in white, a glamour queen or a cosmic spirit or, finally, a doting mother, her ability to change images every couple of years has fascinated the world, and has been vital in her success. There is also other side of the coin, the pessimistic one, that assumes that Madonna is a victim of her own image, or that she finds herself in an artificially constructed reality. That problem is not only a problem for her, but also for our culture as a whole. Image is dominating more and more of our lives. The World of Politics â€Å"The brutal reality of the modern age is that all famous people are treated like celebrities by mass media, whether they be a great political figure, a worthy campaigner, an artist touched by genius, a serial killer. The newspapers and television programs responsible for their publicity do not draw any meaningful distinction between how they are publicised. â€Å"10 The most significant thing is to make a spectacle of oneself in order to be recognizable. If you want to gain the state of being popular you have to make yourself highly desirable, and the most important thing is to be visible through the media. No special achievements are needed to be popular; only the attraction of public attention is required. In the world of politics, if one wants to be good politician, one has to be spectacular. The management of the media' reporting of politics has become increasingly important to contemporary political campaigns. Public relations consultants, media advisers, and press officers have become standard components of the contemporary world of politics. Media spectacle is also an inseparable part of politics. It can often be seen that most well-known people engage in politics. This can be interpreted as political manipulation. It is possible that it is useful because spectators find it easier to identify with a celebrity that they know from TV than with a person that they are seeing for the first time. Conclusion In the contemporary world, mass media, and as a part of mass media, media spectacle, play very important roles. So many people live their lives or parts of their lives vicariously through the image world of the media- through TV, through soap operas, through any media outlet. Everything is just a matter of subjective perspective; everything is relative, depending on where you stand. Everything turns around the world we choose or create for ourselves. There is no reality, there are only images, different images. We can only see the world from where we stand, from that context, that language, that constructed reality. In other words, the things that you say and do are all coming from the outside-from the world of media. The real you is lost. Life becomes virtual, and we are living in the image. Bibliography: 1. Reader â€Å"Literary and Cultural Representation of American Society: Visual Media†, Prof. Dr. R. Isensee, â€Å"Super Media, A Cultural Studies Approach†, Michael R. Real, pp. 26 2. â€Å"Media Culture, Cultural studies, identity and politics between the modern and the postmodern. †, Douglas Kellner, pp. 16. 3. â€Å"Understanding celebrity†, Graeme Turner, Introduction, pp. 5. 4. Reader â€Å"Literary and Cultural Representation of American Society: Visual Media†, Prof. Dr. R. Isensee, â€Å"Media Culture and the Triumph of the Spectacle†, Douglas Kellner, pp. 1. 5. Debord Guy, â€Å"Separation Perfected†, in Evans and Hall(eds. ), â€Å"Visual Culture†,the Reader. Sage Publication, pp. 95-96 6. â€Å"Understanding celebrity†, Graeme Turner, Introduction, pp. 5. 7. â€Å"Understanding celebrity†, Graeme Turner, Introduction, pp. 5. 8. â€Å"Understanding celebrity†, Graeme Turner, Introduction, pp. 5. 9. â€Å"Media Culture, Cultural studies, identity and politics between the modern and the postmodern. †, Douglas Kellner, pp. 268 10. â€Å"Understanding celebrity†, Graeme Turner, Introduction, pp. 7. 11. â€Å"Visual Persuation- The Role of Images in Advertising†, Paul Messaris 12 â€Å"Mass Media and Society†(second edition), editied by James Curran and Michael Gurevitch.

The Crime Film,Compares scarface and Bonnie and Clyde

The Crime Film,Compares scarface and Bonnie and Clyde Compares scarface and Bonnie and Clyde -When looking at the crime film it is important to understand the nature of the films genre. The genre is a way for the audience to distinguish types of films. These are categorised together because of standard protocols developed for a particular types or styles of film. These films usually follow similar guidelines in order to produce a predictable style for the audience. The development of genre films is not entirely the prerogative of Hollywood. It is more the desire of the public viewing audience to have an idea of the type of film they are about to see. The western, musical or the gangster film are examples of genre films. These categories of films all have similarities in the ways in which they are made: musicals end happily; the westerns will all have the final shoot out; and the gangsters will all be overcome by justice or meet their own demise.Cropped screenshot from the trailer for the 1932 f...The reason for the consistency in the fi lms is the publics desire to make an informed choice not and not to go in blind.By using the genre qualification, the industry is able to target societal groups and try to produce and market what they want to see. The public attends a film because they think they might enjoy some aspect of it. The film genre follows a set of abstract rules that allows the public to informally categorize films. These rules must be viewed from an flexible point of view in order to legitimize their future existence. By using this method of categorizing films the public is able to decide which films they wish to see and those they do not. Some people love musicals and if they were to go to one and find there was no music or...

3 Major Ways Slaves Showed Resistance to Slavery

3 Major Ways Slaves Showed Resistance to Slavery Slaves in the United States used a number of measures to show resistance to slavery. These methods arose after the first slaves arrived in North America in 1619. Slavery created an economic system that persisted until 1865 when the Thirteenth Amendment abolished the practice. But before slavery was abolished, slaves had three available methods to resist slavery: they could rebel against slaveholders, they could run away, or they could perform small, daily acts of resistance, such as slowing down work. Rebellions The Stono Rebellion in 1739, Gabriel Prossers conspiracy in 1800, Denmark Veseys plot in 1822, and Nat Turners Rebellion in 1831 are the most prominent slave revolts in American history. But only the Stono Rebellion and Nat Turners Rebellion achieved any success. White Southerners managed to derail the other planned rebellions before any attack could take place. Many slave owners in the United States became anxious in the wake of the successful slave revolt in Saint-Domingue (now known as Haiti), which  brought independence  to the  colony  in 1804 after years of conflict with French, Spanish, and British military expeditions.  Slaves in the American colonies (later the United States), knew that mounting a rebellion was extremely difficult. Whites greatly outnumbered slaves. And even in states like South Carolina, where whites made up only 47 percent of the  population by 1810, slaves could not take on whites armed with guns.   Importing Africans to the United States to be sold into slavery ended in 1808. Slave owners had to rely on a natural increase in the slave population to increase their labor force. This meant breeding slaves, and many slaves feared that their children, siblings, and other relatives would suffer the consequences if they rebelled.   Runaway Slaves Running away was another form of resistance. Slaves who ran away most often did so for a short period of time. These runaway slaves might hide in a nearby forest or visit a relative or spouse on another plantation. They did so to escape a harsh punishment that had been threatened, to obtain relief from a heavy workload, or just to escape the drudgery of everyday life under slavery. Others were able to run away and escape slavery permanently. Some escaped and hid, forming Maroon communities in nearby forests and swamps. When northern states began to abolish slavery after the Revolutionary War, the north came to symbolize freedom for many slaves, who spread the word that following the North Star could lead to freedom. Sometimes, these instructions were even spread musically, hidden in the words of spirituals. For instance, the spiritual Follow the Drinking Gourd made reference to the Big Dipper and the North Star and was likely used to guide slaves north to Canada. The Risks of Fleeing Running away was difficult. Slaves had to leave family members behind and risk harsh punishment or even death if caught. Many of the successful runaways only triumphed after multiple attempts. More slaves escaped from the upper south than from the lower south, as they were nearer to the north and thus nearer to freedom. Young men had the easiest time of running away because they were more likely to be sold away from their families, including their children. Young men were also sometimes hired out to other plantations or sent on errands, so they could more easily come up with a cover story for being on their own. A network of sympathetic individuals who helped slaves escape to the north emerged by the 19th century. This network earned the name the Underground Railroad in the 1830s. Harriet Tubman is the best known conductor of the Underground Railroad, helping over 200 other slaves escape after she herself reached freedom in 1849. But most runaway slaves were on their own, especially while they were still in the south. Runaway slaves would often choose holidays or days off to give them extra lead time before being missed in the fields or at work. Many fled on foot, coming up with ways to throw off dogs in pursuit, such as using pepper to disguise their scents. Some stole horses or even stowed away on ships to escape slavery. Historians are unsure of how many slaves permanently escaped. An estimated 100,000 fled to freedom over the course of the 19th century, according to James A. Banks in March Toward Freedom: A History of Black Americans. Slaves Retaliate With Ordinary Acts of Resistance The most common form of slave resistance was day-to-day resistance or small acts of rebellion. This form of resistance included sabotage, such as breaking tools or setting fire to buildings. Striking out at a slave owners property was a way to strike at the man himself, albeit indirectly. Other methods of day-to-day resistance were feigning illness, playing dumb, or slowing down work. Both men and women faked being ill to gain relief from their harsh working conditions. Women may have been able to feign illness more easily, as they were expected to provide their owners with children. At least some owners would have wanted to protect the childbearing capacity of their female slaves. Some slaves could also play on their masters and mistresses prejudices by appearing to not understand instructions. When possible, slaves could also decrease their pace of work. Women more often worked in the household and could sometimes use their position to undermine their masters. Historian Deborah Gray White tells of the case of a slave woman who was executed in 1755 in Charleston, S.C., for poisoning her master. White also argues that women may have resisted against a special burden under slavery, that of providing slaveholders with more slaves by bearing children. She speculates that women may have used birth control or abortion to keep their children out of slavery. While this cannot be known for certain, White points out that many slave owners were convinced that female slaves had ways of preventing pregnancy. Throughout the history of American slavery, Africans and African-Americans resisted whenever possible. The odds against slaves succeeding in a rebellion or in escaping permanently were so overwhelming that most slaves resisted the only way they could - through individual actions. But slaves also resisted the system of slavery through the formation of a distinctive culture and through their religious beliefs, which kept hope alive in the face of such severe persecution. Sources Banks, James A. March Toward Freedom: A History of Black Americans. Paperback, 2nd edition, Fearon Publishers,1974. Ford, Lacy K. Deliver Us From Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South. 1st Edition, Oxford University Press, August 15, 2009. Franklin, John Hope. Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation. Loren Schweninger, Oxford University Press, July 20, 2000. Raboteau, Albert J. Slave Religion: The Invisible Institution in the Antebellum South. Paperback, Updated edition, Oxford University Press, October 7, 2004. White, Deborah Gray. â€Å"Let My People Go: 1804-1860† The Young Oxford History of African Americans, Hardcover, 1 edition, Oxford University Press, September 12, 1996.

Differences Between the Disease Model and the Harm Reduction Model Research Paper

Differences Between the Disease Model and the Harm Reduction Model - Research Paper Example Sheff) and his father’s perspective. Both books (Beautiful Boy by David Sheff and Tweak, by Nick Sheff) avail a fascinating perspective on addiction, and how it is a family disease affecting afflicted member, as well as all who interact with the person. The disease model of addiction stipulates that individuals addicted to alcohol and other drugs possess a chronic disease that can never be cured, although it can be contained. The model holds that the ideal outcome for individuals with addiction is total abstinence, since anyone who still uses any quantity of drugs continues to activate the strong cravings for drugs of choice. The disease model defines alcoholism and any other drug addiction as a biogenetic disease in need of treatment. Disease model is less stigmatizing compared to moral model and, thus, represents an advantage. Nevertheless, both models perceive the user as powerless over consumption and emphasize abstinence as the only feasible means of recovery. According to the disease model, chemical dependency represents a psychosocial phenomenon (Wormer, 1999). The disease model comes out as scientifically and morally correct and effective with motivated clients. Disease model perceives alcoholism or any other drug use as irreversible and the drug user as a person having an abnormal condition. Disease model holds that addiction is a biologically-based syndrome embracing psychological and social components that influence its expression. The model holds that predisposition to addiction is invisible and can be inherited. Other assumptions of the model include the premise that addiction remains dormant (in remission) unless reactivated by alcohol/drug use. The model stipulates that if left unattended, the disease becomes progressively worse, leading to disability and death. Disease model holds that disease is generic to all psychoactive substances regardless of the distinct substances that the individual may happen to choose (Marlatt &