The Alternate Bibliotherapy for Frankenstein’s Monster Essay Example for Free

The Alternate Bibliotherapy for Frankenstein’s Monster Essay The Alternate Bibliotherapy for Frankenstein’s Monster The technique of bibliotherapy is one that can be very beneficial to those struggling with personal identity and confidence issues. It has also been a proven way to aid depressed individuals back to mental stability. But in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the Creature ends up with a poor collection of â€Å"helpful† content. He stumbles upon three works: Goethe’s Sorrows of Werter, Plutarch’s Lives, and Milton’s Paradise Lost. Upon reading these books, the Creature forms a predisposition against his creator Victor and the rest of society who have rejected him. In The Sorrows of Werter, it tells of a man who strives to win the heart of a married friend but later ends up taking his own life in sorrow and loneliness. The happening that the monster got a hold of this work is just as detrimental to dropping a match into a container of gasoline. This very novel was infamous for driving hundreds of Europeans to ending their own lives after reading this. Which supports the reason why the Creature ends up taking his own life. A more reasonable choice for the Creature to read would be one of the self-help genre. Despite the time period of this story, this type of literature would be most beneficial to a depressed individual, especially when lacking any sense of direction or leading. Books such as Stop Worrying and Start Living or The End of Rejection would give the monster incite on how to overcome the feeling of rejection and abandonment. Although some see these works as hoaxes, it would be a far more constructive influence then Goethe’s. The purpose of Plutarch’s classic work Parallel Lives was to plant qualities within the reader’s mind. Many believe this is how the monster gains a conscience shown in the conclusion of the story. But Plutarch expounds on battles and bloodshed, which reflected a negative effect on the Creature’s mindset. If the monster were seeking to find ethics and morals, it should have read and studied God’s Word. His Scripture is a foundational and fundamental basis for all of human morality and a divine instruction that every person, or monster, must comprehend to understand the meaning of life and love. Reflecting on Milton’s Paradise Lost, one could conclude that the Creature has simply taken the wrong point of view. It associates itself with the character of Satan, obviously an unfavorable connection. If only the monster could view the story with the same outlook that Adam had in the end when faced with the revelation of Christ’s pardon as a future sacrifice. Notwithstanding the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, Adam still found hope in the redemption God’s Son would bring in the future to mankind. I would still recommend that the Creature read this work the understanding of Christ’s love and sacrifice in the end despite the unfolding of deception and transgressions. This may enable the Creature to grasp the concept of forgiveness and express it toward its negligent creator. With these various choices in literary works, both modern and classic, one would be able to alter the character of the Creature and even the entirety of the story. Thus going to show the fate of the monster finding the original three works ignited the initial fury and vengeance, which drove the Creature on a vendetta throughout the tragic story.

Attitudes Towards Gambling Behaviour Psychology Essay

Attitudes Towards Gambling Behaviour Psychology Essay Gambling has always tended to capture ambiguous views and opinions in society. This project discusses definitions of gambling, causes, models and treatments for those with gambling problems. The primary data is collected from an online questionnaire which was designed based on previous research, drawing particularly from the 2007 British gambling prevalence survey which was conducted in order to gain understanding about the social impact of gambling and the costs and benefits. Only 80 actual responses were recorded successfully. The participants age ranged from 17 52 making the mean age 24. The majority of participants were female with 37.5% being male and 62.5% being female. Due to the ethnic demographic of the area being predominantly White British, 81.2% of responses were from White backgrounds. A 14-item attitude scale was used for the main body of the questionnaire, including 7 positive statements and 7 negative statements. Each statement was given a score from 1 to 5, 1 being strongly agree and 5 being strongly disagree. In order to gather the correct data for analysis, the scores of the positive statements was swapped in reverse in order to indicate the more approving attitudes for each item. The 14 items are individually scored and added together to create one score. This score is known as the attitude score. As there were 14 items and each rating which was neither agree nor disagree was scored at 3, the mid-point attitude score is 42, anything below this suggests an overall negative response and anything above therefore suggests an overall positive response. Results show a strong correlation pointing towards a positive attitude towards gambling when the mid-point attitude score is 42, most scores show scores above 42 therefore showing a positive* response. There is only one item that received an overall negative response. Introduction The topic to be addressed in this research is about gambling, the different types and forms and how the public perceive gambling behaviour. The research will discuss various views and opinions of social and problem gambling and draw upon different theories as to why people gamble. Other research studies will be evaluated also. Orford (2009) conducted a survey based study using a 14 item attitude scaled which measures the general attitudes towards gambling. This scale was originally created to be used in a British gambling survey in 2007. This particular survey used a typical sample of 8880 partakers who were over 16 years old. It found that in most cases, attitudes towards gambling were negative, the only exception to these attitudes were from those who gambled the most. What is interesting about the results of this survey is that more people saw gambling to be a foolish and dangerous and to be harmful to families and communities, however, the majority of participants were against the prohibition of gambling. This survey has been the basis for the questionnaire in this study and therefore I will use the results of Orford survey to guide me towards the hypothesis for my own questionnaire. The main hypothesis is those who gamble regularly will have positive attitudes towards gambling. Another key hypothesis is those who have ever had a gambling problem will feel empathy and sympathy towards other problem gamblers. Gambling has always tended to capture ambiguous views and opinions in society while drawing in both massive public involvement and an increasing amount of criticism on moral, social and economic grounds (Cornish, 1978). There are many different types and forms of gambling. The main or most popular forms are gaming machines betting bingo casino lotteries and pools. Gaming machines allow the player to participate in a computerised game of chance in exchange for money and in some way the other forms of gambling are not dissimilar, due to either the exchange of money for a game of chance, like in betting and lotteries. Betting, pools and some casino games take some form of logic and or strategy, and therefore is less based on chance or luck, however, they are similar to gaming in regards to the exchange of money for chance (Gamble Aware, 2013). Game play therefore is a good way of describing what gambling is, for example, Herman (1976) articulates how gambling can be understood best through the example of game playing. He uses this instance because game playing is normal and inconspicuously integrated within the rest of gambling culture and society where it mostly occurs. Herman found that a common them e among previous research is that gambling is being studied as an activity that is singled out from the rest of the social society and that gambling as an activity is different to other routine activities. On the contrary, it can be argued that gambling relates to and links with other factors of society; that it is a product of this society and not separate. Therefore game play was a convenient topic for discussion in this instance. Gamblers anonymous (2012) see gambling as any form of wagering or bet placing, either for other people or themselves, whether it is for money or just for fun, where the result cannot be determined or relies on skill or chance. This definition includes any form of gambling no matter how small or insignificant because to a compulsive gambler, anything can be a trigger to resume their addiction. This definition opens up a new perspective on the term gambling. Routine activities that many of us participate in in everyday life may impact a compulsive gamblers life dramatically; this suggests that more should be done to sensitively create public awareness not just for ourselves but of those around us when gambling. A more in-depth definition and explanation of gambling is proposed by Perkins (1950), whom offered the idea that gambling could be segmented into 4 factors, the first being the swapping of money which takes place without any comparable value; the second is the possession of money regulated only by luck or chance; thirdly, the profit of the winners, made possible only by the loss of other people; and finally, the risk involved which is excessive. Using the belief that different forms of gambling all have clear fundamental features in common, people often, rationally, want to know about the connection between involvement in gambling irrespective of type and the descriptions of gamblers, such as age, sex, social class and income. The easiest measures are those whereby samples can be divided into gamblers and non-gamblers on the foundation of whether they take part in any number of gambling activities (Cornish, 1978). When talking about frequency of gambling, Downes et al (1976) found that there were considerable differences when it came to gender. Men seemed to gamble much more often than women and in particular younger men seemed to be more prone to gambling addiction, especially men from upper class and also, the poor. Downes also explains that younger men are more likely to participate in gambling activity. When it comes to explaining and discussing forms of problem gambling it is likely that biological, psychological and sociological processes are involved (Lesieur Rosenthal, Pathological gambling: A review of the literature, 1991). Each theory or model of problem gambling is more likely to only highlight one of these processes. There are numerous ways to define problem and compulsive gamblers. Clinically, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) uses the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), and categorizes problem and compulsive gambling as an impulse control disorder and uses ten conditions to conduct a diagnosis of this disorder. The ten conditions range from repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop gambling through to illegal acts such as forgery, fraud, theft or embezzlement to finance gambling (University of Chicago, 1999). These ten conditions represent three dimensions within problem gambling: loss of control, damage or disruption, and dependence. Research has advocated that people who become easily attached or addicted to activities generally mistrust others around them, this could have stemmed from incidents of social or personal trauma, and therefore, they stay away from seeking help and instead turn to a specific addictive behaviour as a way of distracting them from this trauma, it is a temporary way of relieving distress. From this viewpoint, addiction may have developed as a process of relieving distress; whereas those who have negative views about ideas of histories of trauma are more prone to seek their relief from other places, such as gambling. It was hypothesized by Hoefler Kooyman (1996) that social and personal trauma can be related to problem gambling, and that this association would be arbitrated by perceptions of a lack of social support. One well known model of problem gambling is the social learning model, originating from skinners first (1953) social learning theory. This model assesses gambling as an operant behaviour, meaning a behaviour that can be modified by different consequences and outcomes. Logically, one would assume that in the instance of gambling, money or a prize would be the positive reinforcement factor to initiate addiction; however, more recent research increasing shows the significance of physiological arousal and its properties of reinforcement (Petri Govern, 2003) which can be related to the social learning model. Intriguingly, skinners (1953) study revealed a contradictory argument that a persons behaviour to gamble is a reflection of their prior history reinforcement issues. Skinner posited the hypothesis that beginning with success or beginners luck as some would call it, leads to an increase in the probability that that person would continue to demonstrate gambling behaviours, even when th e reinforcement ratio of winning had declined. Unfortunately, at the time, skinner was only able to test and demonstrate this theory on pigeons and rats. Later research on skinners theory allowed Custer (1984) to test the theory of humans, results showed that the same pattern towards addiction reflected from skinners results on animals, Custers results highlighted the high significance of an early big win towards the progression of a pathological gambling disorder. Although these results demonstrate what this pattern for gambling addiction is, the explanation of why the pattern occurs, still remains, specifically, the question should be why it exists even when reinforcement has gone or is decreased massively, for example, when the gambler hasnt had a win for a long time but still continues to gamble. One explanation of this is what is known as the partial reinforcement extinction effect, this is when an absence of reinforcement creates more persistence of gambling behaviour because the gambler knows that if they continues, eventually they will experience a win, therefore the continuation to gamble even after a long losing streak is eventually reinforced and consequently strengthened by the most recent win (Griffiths, 1995). Another explanation is one that contemplates again the role and idea of arousal. According to Brown (1987) this explanation considers arousal as a key factor of problem gambling, while also relating to physiological views fr om the social learning model. According to browns research, each person has their own unique psychophysiological needs for arousal, for example, one individual may learn to regulate their arousal needs through gambling, therefore in this instance, the loss while gambling would be the main reinforcement of gambling behaviour. Browns (1987) research is not limited to the theory of arousal; he also offered the idea that there are as many as six processes which participate in the development of problem gambling. These six processes are listed according to (Upfold, 2013): Affective states, like anxiety or depression; Cognitive distortions about gambling; Behavioural reinforcement schedules; Social and institutional determinants, like the opportunity to gamble; Subcultural conditions, such as the prevailing attitude toward gambling, and the prevailing values of the individuals social context and reference groups, And; Internal fantasy relationships with personifications such as lady luck, and the gamblers parents. To give a brief explanation, a person first has to be presented to gambling to enable the trigger to be able to express gambling behaviour; this is usually due to social determinants or cultural conditions. To then continue and perhaps escalate the gambling behaviour, arousal and reinforcement is needed. At a point in a gamblers life where all affective and cognitive factors are present, sometimes along with internal fantasy relationships, gambling is the most important task and a priority to that individual (Brown R. , 1987). This explanation that brown offers is broad and in depth, it offers a more complex understanding of problem gambling than the simple model of social learning (Upfold, 2013). For the benefit of evaluation and comparison, the psychodynamic model offers some interesting theories centred on gambling behaviours. This model suggests that problem gambling exists in the psyche; it is proposed by Epstein (1994) that gambling is an unconscious attempt to resolve conflicts within the psyche. Conflicts that exist in the psyche are uncontrollable and it is suggested that gambling is a behaviour performed in order to try to relieve psychological pain and stress. Within this area of exploration, there are a few main psychodynamic oriented theories which can help explain behaviour such as gambling. In these theories there tends to be three key factors, as listed by Griffiths (1995) these are: Gambling is an unconscious substitute for pre-genital libidinal/aggressive outlets. Gambling involves an unconscious desire to lose a wish to be punished in reaction to guilt. Gambling is a medium for continued enactment (but not resolution) of psychological conflict Rosenthal (1994) proposes that most problem gamblers have narcissistic tendencies, along with regular feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy which then leads to their psyche constructing a fictional world where gambling can be perceived as a solution to their pain. This fictional world enables the gambler to learn feelings of power, independence and overall, feel in control and important while they gamble. Rosenthal (1994) also comments that the narcissistic tendencies are vulnerable to fluctuating feelings of depression and arousal. It is noted that by participating in gambling behaviour, these feelings are regulated. An alternative topic of interest in the psychodynamic theory is that of loss, this term includes any form of actual separation from the death of a loved companion to an emotional loss such as self-esteem (Upfold, 2013). To sum up the theory of loss, it is that a universal loss is a significant issue for a problem gambler, resulting in intolerance for losses in the future. Furthermore, the psychodynamic theory suggests that gambling is triggered by an emotional loss but additionally can be a way of avoiding further risks that could cause the emotional pain to increase. The theory suggests that, if a child loses its mother when their psychic development is not yet fully matured, they will then use gambling as a substitute to the love of their mother. An obvious theme throughout the explanation of psychodynamic theories is that it is largely based upon opinions and does not hold a strong factual or scientific content, this is probably due to the concepts of the unconscious and the psych e being untestable as they are not physical objects or places, they are entirely theoretical, most of Rosenthals so called evidence was based upon a few grouped or many individual case studies, therefore cannot be relied upon for accurate scientific research (Cox, Yu, Afifi, Ladouceur, 2005). Granting that the psychodynamic approach isnt reliable in actual research, it is however a good path to look down when thinking about contributions to society, for example, counsellors working with problem gamblers may be led further to understand that there may be unseen, internal processes coinciding with the actual gambling behaviour itself, also, and many gamblers are thought to benefit from counselling which explores their feelings of emotional loss, intimacy and their fantasy ideas about gambling and luck. Many psychodynamic theorists advocate that some gamblers may reunite with these feelings from their unconscious when they stop gambling, thus creating an uncomfortable urge to gamble again (Upfold, 2013). Before moving on to results and statistics about the publics perception of gambling, first it should be discussed as to why the publics perception is important to us and society. First of all, the stances of the public community possibly will influence the capability of local and national governments to apply new, or review existing legislation associated with the control of gambling and gambling activities (Mond, Davidson, McAllister, 2011). In many countries, controlling gambling activities legislation are already under review, for example, in Australia, high stake poker machines will require you to commit to a spending limit in order to play, this disables the player from betting any more money on that particular game that day (Parliamentary Joint Select Committee on Gambling Reform, 2011). Secondly, the more accurately public perception is studied, the higher the likelihood of new therapies and treatments becoming available for those with gambling problems and addictions. Additi onally, negative perceptions regarding people with gambling problems may composite negative emotional states such as vulnerability and thus make more people hesitancy to seek help (Mond, Davidson, McAllister, 2011). Treatments In numerous countries around the world, there is growing fascination in early intervention tactics to support people who are suffering from severe gambling-related problems. Key to these thoughts and considerations is whether we are able, as professionals, to recognize problem gambling behaviour and or risky behaviour in risky gambling situations before people officially seek help or treatment (Delfabbro, King, Griffiths, 2012). Literature shows that interventions and treatments for problem gambling and be rather similar to the methods involved in treating other disorders such as drug addiction. Much like drug addiction, a major challenge in treating gambling problems is being able to prevent a relapse. An example to support this is that not many people that discontinue using drugs due to treatment remain sober in the long-term future. Within drug addiction, slips are single episodes of drug use that subsequently lead to a major relapse (Marlatt Gordon, 1985). There are so many factors that can affect the risk of any individual trying to recover from any kind of addiction, from relapsing, these factors can be environmental however, and the majority are personal to each individual. In order to succeed in recovering from an addiction, the development of new skills is essential. These skills should encourage positive behaviour and be integrated into everyday life so that in the event of a relapse; these skills will become easier to perform (Brown, Schubert, Saykally, Evenson, 1986). Many of these skills will be something to substitute trigger activities from their drug addiction, many take up forms of exercise and others turn to spiritual or religious activities in order to sustain their abstinence. At this point it is unknown whether or not the same behaviour patterns will help in problem gamblers to help them quit. It may be important to understand the characteristics of those who want to gain treatment for their gambling. Reasons for this are so that it can help develop the correct effective treatment for those who actually want to stop gambling. It has already been noted that the majority of clinical research on the topic of problem gambling has been either case studies or small sample studies. Data collected from this type of research is not able to be generalised to the wider population. Due to this disadvantage, creating accurate demographic profiles of treatment seekers is problematic; however there has been research that gives a small insight into the most likely candidates. Research from Blackman (1986), Ciarrocchi Richardson (1989) and Volberg (1995)have found that in general, it tends to be white middle-aged men that most commonly seek treatment for their gambling addiction; however, more recently, research is finding an increase in women wanting treatment or advice on gambling probl ems (Moore Volberg, 1998). Many treatment seekers are in their 30s and 40s and have an average or higher educational background. There are many methods to treat problem gambling, the methods derive from many approaches such as psychoanalytical/psychodynamic and behavioural approaches. This discussion of treatment approaches will both reiterate and contradict previous evaluation of the same approaches that have attempted to explain the causes of gambling problems. Psychodynamic professionals look for an understanding of gambling by reflecting upon the motivation influences that come from our unconscious processes; they refer to it as the science of the mind and consider how these processes may be able to oppose cognition and emotion and turn them into a behaviour (Lesieur Blume, 1987). Although psychodynamic therapies and treatments have not proven to gain effective results, they are the most regularly used forms of treatment for problem gambling behaviour at this time. The psychodynamic perspective proposes that problem gambling is an expression or a symptom of an underlying issue within the psyche. The best way of helping gamblers at the moment is by attempting to make them understand their underlying issue and confront it (Rosenthal Rugle, 1994). While many other academics have recorded the significance of psychodynamic treatments relating to addiction, there are no controlled studies or research that investigates the efficiency of this approach in terms of treating a gambling problem. Moving onto a behavioural approach, treatments within this approach are more active, especially looking towards classical and operant conditioning theories as a solution or treatment. One known treatment that is currently used is aversion therapy. This involves a negative stimulus being applied to the patient while they are thinking about or participating in gambling behaviour, the negative stimulus us quite often small electric shock. Obviously, this method has many ethical drawbacks and is used only in severe cases and if the patient is mentally stable to agree to it (Epstein, 1994). A second example of a behaviourist treatment is a simple procedure called imaginable desensitization. It uses two stages in the process. First of all the patient is taught how to relax, once they are in a relaxed state, the behaviourist professional will ask them to imagine some situations related to gambling that they find stimulating. From this, the patient will learn to relax then they find themselves in situations where they are able to gamble, the relaxation will be a substitute to giving in to their addiction (Brown R. , 1987). This approach links closely to some psychodynamic theories, but initially is seen as a cognitive treatment. Methods It was decided that an online questionnaire would be used to conduct this research because they are quick and easy to create and collect data from. Choosing to conduct this questionnaire online proved to be the right choice also as it did not take up lots of time for either the researcher or for the participants. Online questionnaires are effective for a number of reasons, the main one being that they are inexpensive and easy to gain fast responses from a large sample size (Deutskens, Ruyter, Wetzels, Oosterveld, 2004). I designed my questionnaire based on previous research, drawing particularly from the 2007 British gambling prevalence survey which was conducted in order to gain understanding about the social impact of gambling and the costs and benefits (Orford, 2009). General lifestyle and demographic questions are at the beginning of the questionnaire in order to gain data of who is participating in the research. The main body of the questionnaire is the 14-item attitude scale o riginally produced by Orford (2009) who believed that it was vital that his survey about attitudes towards gambling should contain a dependable and legitimate scale that can reliably measure general attitudes towards gambling. This scale uses a straight forward format containing a sequence of statements which express either a specific negative or positive attitude, the participant would rate how much they disagreed or agreed with each statement using a lickert scale. My questionnaire used all 14 items in its attitude scale, 7 positive statements and 7 negative statements. Each statement was given a score from 1 to 5, 1 being strongly agree and 5 being strongly disagree. In order to gather the correct data for analysis, the scores of the positive statements was swapped in reverse in order to indicate the more approving attitudes for each item. The 14 items are individually scored and added together to create one score. This score is known as the attitude score. As there were 14 items and each rating which was neither agree nor disagree was scored at 3, the mid-point attitude score is 42, anything below this suggests an overall negative response and anything above therefore suggests an overall positive response. The aim was to have a sample size of 100, only 80 actual responses were recorded successfully. The participants age ranged from 17 52 making the mean age 24. The majority of participants were female with 37.5% being male and 62.5% being female. Due to the ethnic demographic of the area being predominantly White British, 81.2% of responses were from White backgrounds. The sample was collected online via email, Facebook and twitter accounts along with a description of the study and its purposes. None of the participants are excluded as all relevant questions were answered in every response. To eliminate social desirability, whereby the participant might purposely give the answers the researcher is looking for, the questionnaire aims were distorted slightly by asking general exercise, drinking and diet questions along with gambling questions. The second part of the questionnaire will be the main part used for analysis; this section will state that it is a control group questionnaire about gambling. The title of the questionnaire was explained to be assessing how the public perceive social behaviours, although the questionnaire aim was to measure how the public perceive only gambling behaviours. Ethical situations were taken into consideration in this instance and it was decided that slightly deceiving participants was needed in order to enable the study to gain more realistic results and validity. The next part of the questionnaire measured if each participant had a gambling problem, ever had a gambling problem or if theyre parents or guardians ever had a gambling problem, the results from this section are to be taken into consideration when analysing the final question. The final question is a vignette about a young males gambling problem and some trouble that gambling had got him into; participants were given a list of attitudes and feelings such as Anger sympathy empathy and were asked if they blamed the characters parents or himself. This section is relevant because those with positive attitudes towards gambling may relate to the character and therefore give a positive or sympathetic attitude towards the situation. A recent study about profiling problem gamblers shows that there is near enough a 50/50 weighting of female problem gamblers to female social gamblers. Also, there are a considerably higher amount of males at risk to problem gambling than when compared to women. When analysing demographic results, findings show that there was a significantly lower amount of problem gamblers in the 65 years and over age category. The second most at risk age group was found, in this case to be 35 49 year olds, leaving the most at risk category to be the 18 24 year olds (Department Of Justice, 2013). Demographic Analysis and Results The following results present demographic data collected from the primary survey conducted. The data contains the total number of responses returned for all questions and the representative percentage of responses for each modality available. If there were any non-responses to any questions, this will not be included in the charts and tables. If the value of representative responses is 0, this will not show in the charts, however will be shown in the tables. This chart shows the representative percentage age of all participants. Age ranges Frequencies % representative From 17 to 20 29 36.2% From 21 to 29 40 50.0% From 30 to 37 3 3.8% 38 and over 8 10.0% Total 80 100.0% This chart shows the representative percentage gender of all participants. Gender modality Frequencies % Representative Male 30 37.5% Female 50 62.5% Total 80 100.0% Etiological reports of problem gambling have commonly concentrated on men from Gamblers Anonymous (GA) men from the Veterans Administration hospital system (Lesieur Blume, 1987) Therefore, women are diagnostically underrepresented also. Numerous initial studies that did include women used small samples or case studies from Gamblers Anonymous (Lesieur Blume, 1991). These results show a much higher percentage of female respondents than men. Thus, it enables this type of research to be analysed for gender specific data if needed. This chart shows the representative percentage ethnicity of all participants. The table below shows all the modalities available for selection within the survey. Ethnicity modality Frequencies % Representative White 65 81.2% Mixed white and black Caribbean 7 8.8% Mixed white and black African 1 1.2% Mixed white and Asian 0 0.0% Any other mixed background 2 2.5% Asian indian 3 3.8% Asian Pakistani 0 0.0% Asian Bangladeshi 0 0.0% Any other Asian background 0 0.0% Black Caribbean 1 1.2% Black African 0 0.0% Any other black background 1 1.2% Chinese 0 0.0% Any other ethnic group 0 0.0% Total 80 100.0% Results frequency score and attitude score table The results shown in the table below indicates the response count to each modality and also to each option within that modality. The frequencies are shown to indicate how many responses were given, however any non-responses are not shown in the table. In place of a percentage score, an attitude score is present. An explanation of the attitude scores is presented below the table. Strongly agree agree neither agree nor disagree

Illegal Immigration into The United States of America :: Immigration Immigrants Persuasive Essays

Immigration, legal or otherwise, is a huge issue right now. Debates rage about how many immigrants should be allowed into the country and how zealously we should guard our border from illegal intruders. To a point, these people are correct, illegal immigration is something that should be stopped. People should not cross the border illegally or overstay on visits. The important question is, however, does illegal immigration deserve the massive amount of attention it receives? No, it does not. By looking at the respected immigrants of the past and thinking about the issues in a clear and objective way, it becomes apparent that illegal immigration (and legal immigration, for that matter) is not as vital an issue as many consider it to be. A key point in this discussion is that many of those who are vehemently opposed to illegal immigration are also opposed to large amounts of legal immigration as well. These thinly hidden agendas mean that often the debate on illegal immigration cannot be separated from the debate on legal immigration. According to Negative Population Growth (which is a suspect source), Americans are firmly believe in tough laws against illegal immigrants and that 70% of Americans want no more than 300,000 legal immigrants to enter the U.S. per year. In fact, N.P.G. says that 20% of Americans want immigration completely stopped. Taking these numbers as the truth, it is clear that America thinks that we have too many immigrants. Such a dislike of immigration is interesting considering the success of past immigration. Many people would say that today's immigrants are somehow different than those of the past. However, the truth is that the similarities between the immigrants of today and those of the past are numerous. Their reasons for coming to this country are often similar. Many of the immigrants of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were compelled to leave their homes by the rapidly changing nature of their countries. In the Europe of the 19th century, this meant quickly growing population and a rapidly industrializing economy. In nations like Mexico and Vietnam, the same thing is happening today, they "are undergoing the same convulsive demographic and economic disruptions that made migrants out of so many nineteenth century Europeans" (Kennedy p.64). Those who are against the immigration of the 1990's also say that the European immigrants of the past were culturally similar to Americans, and that they were more willing to assimilate and become "American." Neither of these things are true. Old immigrant groups like the Italians and may be seen as generically "white" and "American" now, but when they first began moving to the

daily language :: essays research papers

The way we talk and the language that we use is heavily influenced by the people we are around all the time. Due to our diverse culture, our population consists of many people who act and do things differently. This affects the way we talk to each other whether it be with friends or family. A person who grows up around a group of people who are very proper and speak eloquently tends to incorporate that into the way he or she talks. If a person grows up around people who curse constantly, obviously that person is going to grow up to use vulgar language. This is true in the case of Weaver, a M.F.A. candidate at George Mason University, who refers to his use of profanity in terms of self-identity, proclaiming, â€Å"So I grew up into who I am† (182). Scott Weaver grew up around his dad’s baseball team who constantly swore at every chance they got. Because he was around them all the time, the vulgarity that he heard everyday was incorporated into his language. Scott Weaver said, â€Å"I speak English adequately, Spanish horribly, and Profanity fluently. I thrive on it. I live through it. I’m only comfortable in class if the professor lets some curse words slip. Vulgar language is my home† (182). In a way I sort of grew up with the same kind of peers that Scott Weaver had. I went to school at La Salle Academy which is predominantly comprised of African Americans who have no problem saying the â€Å"N-word† to each other in practically every sentence. It is also happens to be an all boys school so with no girls for anyone to impress, the amount of cursing is out of control. Since I went to that school for four years, I have gotten used to all the cursing and have used it in my vocabulary as well. Although everyone around me would say the â€Å"N-word† it has never caught on with me. Since the word was so popular, Hispanic people would say it as well as white people who would try to â€Å"act black†. But no one would have a problem with it particularly because it is â€Å"cool to be black.† I don’t live or thrive on curse words myself like Scott Weaver but I use them a fair amount. Some even say that my cursing is multilingual. I speak English and slang fluently because most of my peers speak a lot of slang, as well as all the television and music that I am exposed to everyday.

David Lachapelle Essay -- Biography Biographies Bio

The work of David LaChapelle can be seen everywhere you turn, be it on a magazine rack, album cover, advertisement, or even a music video. Dubbed the "New Surrealist", LaChapelle's vivid, colorful, bizarre, and humorous images have been admired by millions and have made him one of the most famous photographers alive today. Since the start of his professional career, LaChapelle's work has attracted the attention of many other artists, celebrities, journalists, and regular people. I first noticed his work on advertisements in magazines several years ago. I immediately felt drawn to his images- they are photographs I could stare at for hours, playing out in my head the story each photograph is telling and what it says about the character of the individual he is portraying. I am amazed at how he is able to pick up certain quirks in his subject's personality and build entire scenes around the unusual parts of their character. Each piece of work he creates is anything but mundane- even his simpler images tell a story. Born in Connecticut in 1969, David LaChapelle learned to love the art of photography at an early age. He grew up observing his mother, a non-professional photographer with a flair for appropriating a fantasy life onto film, whose influence can still be seen in his work today. He began taking photographs in High School, where he stated his original inspiration was "white-trash culture". Upon graduation, he moved to North Carolina to attend the North Carolina School of Arts, where he trained as a fine artist. A short time later at age nineteen, David LaChapelle made the decision to move to New York's Lower East Side and enrolled in both the Arts Student League and the School of Visual Arts. Although he was receiv... ...how in Las Vegas. The show has received many four-star reviews, including one from Rolling Stone magazine, which states "David LaChapelle fashioned a dizzying sexy, emotional spectacle that both parodied expectations about Vegas glitz and put new life and meaning into fifteen of John's strongest songs". With all of these achievements, it's easy to see why David LaChapelle has captured the attention of millions, including his own favorite photographer, Helmut Newton. He has essentially started a new genre of photography, and his work has become an inspiration for many up and coming photographers, including Michael Anthony, Frizzy Cube, and more. It's hard to believe that David LaChapelle could get any more amazing. The world can only expect more amazing things from this talented artist in years to come, and I think it's an honor to do my paper on this living-legend.

Paper on Population Control

In early years human population and population growth has not been an issue. This is because of the variety of different environmental factors. Sickness and disease has played a large role in keeping human population under control since the beginning of time. It seemed that when a population would get over crowded an epidemic such as, the influenza or small pox would break out. This would drastically decrease the population enough that it would be under control again. Famine is another great controller of population. When a famine strikes an area only the few with enough food will be able to reproduce or even survive. An examination of world population control would not be complete with out including war. War also performs wonders at controlling population by murdering most men of child rearing age. In today†s day and age, with our current technology increases disease outbreak and famine (except in some 3rd world countries) is not much of a factor any more. War is not considered a valid population control method due to today†s â€Å"new† wars. Without the three largest population controllers much of a factor anymore population is free to run out of control. This provides us with an ever-increasing controversy; this is whether government or society should dictate family size. I believe that society can infringe indirect controls over family size, but these are considered more community norms as opposed to hard fast rules such as governments can set. Two examples will follow. First, we will look at our society. Yes, the USA†s turn to no child and one child families. This was caused by society. Society pushes Americans to have successful careers both male and female. There has been a switch from families to careers. This not providing Americans with the time or means for multiple children, but cutting the number down to one or none. Another example of society's control, is the push in some Asian/Middle Eastern countries for a family†s first child to be male. Even when there is no government regulation many cultures push for your first child to be male. This forces families to abort females and even murder them once they have been born. Once again this is a society/cultural push not a mandated rule. These instances are what different societies have created for themselves, when included in one of these societies it is hard to say whether it is right or wrong. I will first address the aspect that government should not control family size. First of all, it is a natural and religious right to produce offspring. Breed, multiply and populate has been the belief since the beginning of time. The idea is to grow population so that our beliefs and way of life may be spread and passed on. Who is government to take these right away? Governmental control over family size goes against everything that the USA stands for. This would be an age-old idea called freedom. When a government starts dictating the kind and size of family a person can have. Almost all freedom is lost. Another topic briefly addressed above is the aborting and murdering of babies that aren†t male. A first hand example of this is China. China regulates or gives incentives to families that only produce one child. This is where the problem begins because most families want this child to be male. Male children are providers and will go out and join the working world. They will be â€Å"successful†. Many female babies are aborted once sex is determined. If sex is not determined before birth, once born many female babies are abandoned or destroyed. This showing the cruelty that government controlled family size will push people to. Government should control family size because in most instances the general population can not handle this for themselves. A prime example of this is our already over crowded inner cities. People with chemical addictions and no financial means are cranking out babies right and left. They have no means of providing for all of these children. Government currently provides for these under privileged children, that as cruel as it sounds, should not have been born. I have had a first hand example of this problem. A family friend in another state has adopted three crack babies from the same mother; this mother is also on welfare. This certain mother is by no means an exception. China is another example of why government needs to control population. Look at the current problems that they are faced with because in previous years they have done nothing. Left uncontrolled, population will snowball out of control. Government needs to be aware of the ever -increasing population growth problem. I believe that rather that mandating how many children a family can have. They should educate its population on different means of birth control and possibly start providing for free. Especially in this country a harsher penalties needs to be imposed for chemical dependent mothers that become baby factories. An education/management plan can be imposed allowing individuals the freedom to determine the number of children they desire to have.

Personal Accountability

PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY Being accountable for yourself is important due to the fact that if you do not know where you are supposed to be, you won’t be able to perform your job and perform it well. In the military you are only required to do three things; be at the right place, be there at the right time, and be in the right uniform. But as a military Police officer, you are also required one more thing to do, which is, check the DA Form 6 every day for changes.If you don’t check the DA Form 6, you won’t just be in the wrong place, you will also letting those around you down while you are late and having them wait on you. Also being accountable for yourself and letting others know where you are is important because if no body knows where you are and you get hurt or lost then it falls on your leadership that they aren’t doing their job. And you will be considered AWOL (absent with out leave) under article 86 in the UCMJ. Making changes on the DA Form 6 are n ot made on the lower level, but the higher chain of command can approve it.You will be in the wrong if you jump the chain of command, so that is when you let your team leader know so they can push it up. If you are unsure if your team leader pushed it up, or if the change had ever gotten approved, check multiple times until you are satisfied that the top is tracking the change. When the chain of command is unaware of the changes, it falls on the soldiers that wanted to make the change. And if no one is tracking it, and you conduct the change, then that is a direct violation of a direct order and can have UCMJ consequences.If one issue is that you cannot do it yourself, you can always ask your peers for help. There is no shame in accepting help from others who are willing to help. When you constantly show up late and are not at the appointed place of duty, you build yourself a negative legacy. People will eventually start seeing you as incompetent and that you won’t be able to perform any tasks you are given. In turn it could lower your moral and lower the moral of your peers.The trust of you being able to conduct your job is vital in the military and for the unity of the unit. Ways on helping with being accountable for youself are; checking and rechecking, showing up on time, not bein too afraid to ask for help. Writing down your schedule is another way to help. But the military isn’t for some people and its not easy to adapt with the lifestyle and the way of living that comes with the burden of being a soldier. So take this as my way of letting you know that you can go ahead and process the chapter paperwork.