Nature versus nurture Essay Example for Free

Nature versus nurture Essay â€Å"While each child is born with his or her own distinct genetic potential for physical, social, emotional and cognitive development, the possibilities for reaching that potential remain tied to early life experiences and the parent-child relationship within the family† (Weissbourd, 1996). When a baby is born, that child already posses something in common with every other person in the world, a genetic gene pool. Just like anything else in life, when something is given to a person, the way that person displays what they are given depends on a variety of things. One aspect of human development that has been long debated in the history of psychology is the concept of â€Å"nature vs. nurture. † This phrase, first initiated by Sir Francis Galton in 1874 (S. Wood, 2011; E. Wood, 2011; Boyd 2011, p. 223), refers to the elements of heredity (nature), and the effects of the environment (nurture). I will briefly discus the various arguments for the primacy of nature or nurture in personality development, intelligence, and creativity. Personality is, â€Å"a persons characteristic patterns of behaving, thinking and feeling† (psych book, 352). Heredity may in fact play an important role in the development of an individual’s personality. On the other hand, most psychological theories, including analytical theory, give more emphasis to interpersonal influences. In kindergarten, learning to share is just as important as learning to write. Learning core values at a young age may have more impact on a child’s individuality than any specific genetic code. When growing up, children always look up to someone older than themselves. A child’s mind is like a sponge, gathering up other people’s actions and words. That is how children learn to share, talk and work well with others. Depending on the stimulation a child gets from others will alter the way that child’s personality is in the future. If a child grows up with parents giving them a positive message (lots of attention, giving positive feedback, showing love and affection on a regular basis) they have a more likely chance of being friendly, outgoing, empathetic and curious. When a child grows up with parents, who do not demonstrate a positive message, the child is more likely to have limited social skills, poor self-esteem, and less curiosity. Along with parental influence, there is also the influence of one’s surroundings that can alter ones personality. A child, who is brought up in a desolate area, with little or no violence, is going to have a vastly different demeanor then a child who is brought up in a densely populated city, with a high crime rate. The probability that a male who is raised on a farm in Lancaster County will become a farmer is a lot more likely then a male raised in north Philadelphia. Children raised on farms learn the importance of a good work ethic and determination, because the child understands that if they don’t work hard in the fields, their family won’t survive. Children raised in north Philadelphia (also known as the bad lands) learn the importance of hard work, family, street smarts and grit. These children understand that because of where they live, they will need to learn these life lessons in order to only way of survive or and better themselves. Nurture isn’t the only thing that influences a person’s personality. Everyone has heard the sayings, He acts exactly like his father! or He behaves like that because this is how he was brought up! (Lupu, 2006, sec 1. 3). This is where the controversy comes into play. Psychologists have been debating the theory that heredity influences personality development. Psychologists at the University of Edinburgh carried out a study of more than 800 sets of twins found that genetics were more influential in shaping key traits than a persons home environment and surroundings (Archontaki, 2012; Lewis, 2012; Bates, 2012; sec 1. 2). The traits most commonly found between the twins were self-control, decision-making and sociability, but heredity only develops a person’s personality to a point. According to psychologists, the most reasonable answer of all is neither one, nor the other, but the interaction of the two the genetic and the environmental/educational/experience factor (Lupu, 2006, sect 1. 4). Therefore, heredity establishes the limits of ones personality traits that can be developed, while the environment represented by the cultural, social and situational factors influence the actual development within the limits (Lupu, 2006, sect 1.5). Another area of study that many psychologists have been debating on weather or not is the result of heredity or ones environment is intelligence. Psychologists like Sir Francis Galton and Thomas Bouchard have done studies to figure out weather or not intelligence is genetic or developmental. In 1874, Englishman Sir Francis Galton, studied a number of prominent females in England. Galton attempted to apply Darwins evolutionary theory to the study of human abilities. Galton concluded that intelligence was inherited from genetics. Another psychologist who studied this field was Roger J. Sternberg. In 1988, Sternberg argued that there are a number of ways to demonstrate intelligence or adaptive functioning (â€Å"Psychology 101, sect 4. 5). He suggested a model of intelligence referred to as the triarchic theory. According to this model there are three types of intelligence. The first type was analytical, or the ability to solve a problem by looking at its components. The second was creative, which is the ability to use new ways to solve problems. The third was practical, referring to common sense. While most IQ tests measure only analytical intelligence, they fail to include practical intelligence which is the most understandable to most of us (â€Å"Psychology 101†, sect 4. 5). This test did. Another study conducted was by the Minnesota Center for Twin and Adoption Research. Sense the 1980’s, this research center has been recruiting fraternal and identical twins to participate in research projects examining genetic and environmental influences on a variety of psychological variebles, including intellagents (S. Wood, 2011; E.Wood, 2011; Boyd 2011, p. 224). In 1997, the center’s director, Thomas Bouchard, summarized all of the studies of intelligence that had been done at the center up that point (S. Wood, 2011; E. Wood, 2011; Boyd 2011, p. 224). What the data showed was amazing. Bouchard reported that the identical twins that had been reared apart at birth were closer than identical twins reared together, and brother and sister reared together. Their research using the adoption study method helps to support the conclusion that genes strongly influence IQ scores.

Book Report for On My Honor Essay example -- Book Reports Marion Dane

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Marion Bauer certainly followed in the tradition of great novels. On My Honor is set in the hot summer of a small city. It explores the stress we put on ourselves to express blame and feel guilt when blamed. The biggest heartache is when you blame yourself for things that could not be prevented, or were not your fault. That is what Joel did. The setting was the Vermillion. Tony called it Old Man River, which is a nickname for the Mississippi. Bauer described the river as â€Å" the reddish brown water slithering far beneath the bridge.† Bauer also described it as full of sinkholes, current, and whirlpools. It was polluted with chemicals and sewage that were invisible.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The main characters were Joel and Tony. They were born three weeks apart and had been neighbors and friends all th...

Linking benefit and pay and to competitive advantage

For companies to be able to give their best and produce high quality goods and services they require to have a work force which is of high productive, their productivity is mostly based on some few aspect such a pay and benefit and competitive advantages. As companies/firm face still competition to control the market some management of these companies are coming up with ideas to please their employee and accommodate them in their firm. All firms require these three things. Some have attractive benefits others are reassessing their offers some package are fund education, elderly care , health care for employee family, offer transport for their employee, rewarding the most productive employee and providing houses for their employees. Fund education Some companies encourage their employee to further their studies and climb up the ladder in the company. This is done in order to increase employee experience in what he/she handle in the company. It’s also done in order to increase the productiveness of a employee. Elderly care As most companies face stiff competition service and good, some firms are starting a package to cater for their employee who have since retired and are in their late ages. This is done in order for an employee to be bale to concentrate on his duties and give their best in that company. Company which offer these services tends mostly to out d other s who do not have such kind of services in their operation. Health care for their immediate family Where an employee is required to leave his place of work and go to take his immediate member of family to a hospital, some companies are cutting this wastage of time by introducing health care services to their employee not only saves time the service will also save the employee money as he/she does not need to spend anything in the hospital as his company will settle the bills. Offer transport for their employee Firm will buy buses which are used to ferry their employee from their residence to their place of work this is done in order to be bale to save to time which they could have used to go and look for other means of transport and thus reporting to work late or already exhausted and thus been unable to produce more for the company. In some firm every employee is dropped at his/her door and thus save companies and also employee time. Rewarding the most productive employee In most firms an employee who produces more in the firm is mostly rewarded by the management this is done in such away that the productiveness of employee is perused, where by a firm provide a questioner where every employee fills the questioner with the guidance of the management. Providing houses to employee In area where the employee comes from a far distance the firm provide houses for their employee where the employer do not want their employee to waste time they are provided with a house where they resides together with their family. It’s also done in order for a company to be able to know that their employees are safe. Results Companies which have the above described services to their employee tend to have high production and do better than other who does not have any benefit /competitive advantage. Messer. M (2006) Benefits: Gian a competitive edge with offerings employers want strategic finance 88.no5, 8, and 10 Competition for experienced accounting and finance professional increase organization are looking for ways to give themselves an edge way top help, a worker achieve a better work life balance this is by making the worker comfortableness in his work and also in his life among the benefits is over time work and companies that offer facilities such as health care or similar effort demonstrate commitment to personal to their employees. They use various ways such as sharpening the skills of the employee, Sharpening of skill This is done by the company sending employee to school to increase their skill in the company. This effect is felt by the company in their production. Incase where an employee is kept comfortable by the company he tends to produce more in turn of return. A company input can determine the employee out put this is determined oh how committed is the company to its employees. Company and employee vary widely. In order for a company to perform effectively its must know who to hire, retain nature and develop its employees. The trouble is the employee effective studies show that the best and the academically brightest are more likely to leave a firm. This is the best are mostly not comfortable either by the working condition or the workers pay and benefits and thus they are poached by other companies which have better conditio0n and benefits. A company may use the benefits to increase its employee morale and retaining and attracting employees it can also use benefits to keep employee attitude and increase their performance. Such benefit includes career growth or a mentor in a firm. Career growth This is whereby the company can take its employee to school in order for them to acquire new skill for the company. This makes the employee to feel that the company owns them and thus give all the best to the company. What is important in any company is the employee and their status a important factor any company to keep its clients and its business knowing its attached into it .its capability to recruit, retain and develop its employees. In most countries in the third world many workforces will join many companies with a view of giving their best into the company will be determined by company interest in strengthening and restructuring the employee profession. Those different employees will look different in most companies, some will be challenged by the rumination given by the company and advance their career with the aim of crimping the ladder and also for a better pay. Some will not work with the referenced company for long due to been unable to adapt to the company, other will go to better paying companies, provide better working condition have good package. Many employee do not take a company as a place to work for over five years they gauge their stray on some aspect its understood that many employee in the country are more likely to leave seeking better working condition and other rumination. In some companies they have developed ways of tapping the promising employee by promoting him over the ladder, they also encourage them to go to school and advance their career in order for them to climb the ladder of promotion and get better pay thus encouraging them to work with the said company. Companies should at least look into employees policies under which they work. Schwartz B,R,Wurtzel J, Olson L ; attracting and retaining teachers organization for a economic cooperation and development. The OECD Observer no261.27-28 In each and every company all workers rigorous requires some readiness. In order for them to be able to produce for the company this means they have to asses the work of the company what is expected of them and their aims/goals. Introduction For example some company creates a week in the company calendar for rigorous training and also introduction. This enables the employee to be able to produce what is expected of him. It also expects to minimize time loss in the company. To develop a company to be able to produce more and have effective employees a company is supposed to match the productiveness of an employee. In some company they provide a questioner which every new and old employee fills, it offer each week this is aimed at direct correspondence between the directors and employee. In order one to known the weakness and strong ness of an employee. Its coordinated in such a way that the directors reads the questionnaire and when they note there is laxness in one employee a special team is there to assist him. Some firm share workshop with other firm this is to ensure that an employee can learn from the other employee of another firm other organization organize for departmental workshop this sharpens an employee and also he /she get to understand what he does not understand . This is aimed at putting them with the high performing employee and low performing employee to effective knowledge. One common thing is that good employee is an advantage to the company in which a company can be able to produce more and employee can learn from one another. Supporting and retaining employee’s makes them feel that they are part of that company thus they work with all their strength knowing that they will be in that company for a long period. In each and every form when making a policies one should address pay and potential for company /sector growth. In many countries most in third world country worker5 policies are becoming a bit tough to the worker and many people are resulting for self- employment a company should come up with way to reward the employee i.e. by paying more for one who produce more. This is linking pay and benefit to competitive advantage. T. H Koen,Wang C,J.2005 Benefits   offer an advantage a firm productivity ?an empirical examination personnel review 34:no4.,393,512 Summary This is explaining or suggesting that employee benefits have a moderate effect on firm productivity, irrespective of industry or firm size.                                    

The Runs Test for Random Sequences

Given a sequence of data, one question that we may wonder is if the sequence occurred by chance phenomena, or if the data is not random. Randomness is hard to identify, as it is very difficult to simply look at data and determine whether or not it was produced by chance alone. One method that can be used to help determine if a sequence truly occurred by chance is called the runs test. The runs test is a test of significance or hypothesis test. The procedure for this test is based upon a run, or a sequence, of data that have a particular trait. To understand how the runs test works, we must first examine the concept of a run. Sequences of Data We will begin by looking at an example of runs. Consider the following sequence of random digits: 6 2 7 0 0 1 7 3 0 5 0 8 4 6 8 7 0 6 5 5 One way to classify these digits is to split them into two categories, either even (including the digits 0, 2, 4, 6 and 8) or odd (including the digits 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9). We will look at the sequence of random digits and denote the even numbers as E and odd numbers as O: E E O E E O O E O E E E E E O E E O O The runs are easier to see if we rewrite this so that all of the Os are together and all of the Es are together: EE O EE OO E O EEEEE O EE OO We count the number of blocks of even or odd numbers and see that there are a total of ten runs for the data. Four runs have length one, five have length two and one has length five Conditions With any test of significance, it is important to know what conditions are necessary to conduct the test. For the runs test, we will be able to classify each data value from the sample into one of two categories. We will count the total number of runs relative to the number of the number of data values that fall into each category. The test will be a two-sided test. The reason for this is that too few runs mean that there is likely not enough variation and the number of runs that would occur from a random process. Too many runs will result when a process alternates between the categories too frequently to be described by chance. Hypotheses and P-Values Every test of significance has a null and an alternative hypothesis. For the runs test, the null hypothesis is that the sequence is a random sequence. The alternative hypothesis is that the sequence of sample data is not random. Statistical software can calculate the p-value that corresponds to a particular test statistic. There are also tables that give critical numbers at a certain level of significance for the total number of runs. Runs Test Example We will work through the following example to see how the runs test works. Suppose that for an assignment a student is asked to flip a coin 16 times and note the order of heads and tails that showed up. If we end up with this data set: H T H H H T T H T T H T H T H H We may ask if the student actually did his homework, or did he cheat and write down a series of H and T that look random? The runs test can help us. The assumptions are met for the runs test as the data can be classified into two groups, as either a head or a tail. We keep going by counting the number of runs. Regrouping, we see the following: H T HHH TT H TT H T H T HH There are ten runs for our data with seven tails are nine heads. The null hypothesis is that the data is random. The alternative is that it is not random. For a level of significance of alpha equal to 0.05, we see by consulting the proper table that we reject the null hypothesis when the number of runs is either less than 4 or greater than 16. Since there are ten runs in our data, we fail to reject the null hypothesis H0. Normal Approximation The runs test is a useful tool to determine if a sequence is likely to be random or not. For a large data set, it is sometimes possible to use a normal approximation. This normal approximation requires us to use the number of elements in each category and then calculating the mean and standard deviation of the appropriate normal distribution.