Tuesday, January 7, 2020

Evidence Base for Anxiety Disorders - 3270 Words

1. Introduction This paper provides a brief overview of evidence based psychological treatments for anxiety disorders. It addresses the following questions: †¢ How common are anxiety disorders? †¢ What psychological treatments have empirical support? †¢ What recovery rates can be achieved with these treatments? †¢ How enduring are their effects? †¢ Is there value in combining psychological treatments with medication? Psychological treatments can be delivered in a variety of formats. This paper restricts itself to the traditional, and most extensively researched, format of face-to-face contact with a fully qualified therapist. For most anxiety disorders the therapy sessions are once weekly for 60-90 minutes†¦show more content†¦No other psychological treatment was considered by NICE to be effective in anxiety disorders in general. However, Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (which some people argue is a form of CBT) was supported in posttraumatic stress disorder. NICE has not yet commissioned guidance for the two remaining anxiety disorders (social phobia and specific phobia) or for a closely linked condition that is common in primary care (hypochondriasis/severe health anxiety). However, the RCT findings for each of these disorders are very similar to those obtained in the four disorders that are currently covered by NICE guidance. In particular, for each disorder there are RCTs that show that CBT is: superior to no treatment5-9, superior to a similarly credible alternative psychosocial treatment5 7 10 11, and at least as effective as medication12-16. No other psychological treatment approach for these disorders has been supported in randomized controlled trials. Although non-CBT approaches have not yet received significant support in RCTs, a recent non-randomized comparison between CBT and two other therapies has been interpreted by some media commentators as evidence that non-CBT approaches are as effective as CBT. This interpretation is unwarranted. In the study17 NHS therapists working in primary and secondary care were invited to use a standardized symptom questionnaire (the CORE-OM) with their patients and to submit the questionnaires to a centralShow MoreRelatedMethodological Issues And Challenges To Improve The Study Of Effective Treatments For Psychological Disorders?879 Words   |  4 PagesThe methodological issues and challenges that are unique to a psychological research of effective treatments for psychological disorders are to reduce the burden of mental illness and behavioral disorders by improving the treatments. The importance of completing these goals is by developing and improving the use of treatments. According to our t ext, â€Å"single-subject designs allows true experimental control of the independent variables because its cause and effect conclusions can be fairly accurateRead MoreSymptoms And Symptoms Of Anxiety Disorders1665 Words   |  7 PagesAnxiety Disorders With having so many natural explanations for the potential development of a mood disorder, do anxiety disorders also have natural components? The study conducted by Balik, et al. (2014) didn’t only contain findings of PMS and mood disorders; they also found evidence relating PMS to anxiety disorders. They reported that â€Å"more than half of women with PMS have a history of anxiety† (p 373). Does this mean that PMS is indicative of an anxiety disorder or is it the other way aroundRead MoreEssay on Social Phobia Disorder1149 Words   |  5 Pagesphobia is a kind of disorder, which involves fear regarding societal situations and accomplishable destructive criticism. Social phobia is the greatest general psychiatric problem in epidemiological examination, with estimation of life time occurrence in western circle as more as 16%. Common phobia generally come out in adolescence and is associated with deep distress, destruction and comorbid problem. Females in clinical tria ls are higher possible than males to social anxiety disorder, with various neuroscienceRead MoreEssay about Anxiety Disorder1441 Words   |  6 Pagesmany psychological disorders, anxiety disorders are the most predominant in the United States. According to Antony (2011), anxiety disorders affect nearly 28.8 percent of the population. An extreme and unrealistic anxiety is the most common symptom that characterizes all the psychological conditions within the category of anxiety disorders. The category includes specific phobia, agoraphobia, social phobia, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and obsessive-compulsiveRead MoreWhat Constitutes Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?846 Words   |  4 Pagesmany ways to differentiate behavioral therapy, cognitive therapy, and therapy that is based on both behavioral and cognitive therapies. There is empirical evidence that shows that cognitive behavioral therapy is quite effective in treating several cond itions, including personality, anxiety, mood, eating, substance abuse, and psychotic disorders. Treatment is often manualized, as specific psychological orders are treated with specific technique-driven brief, direct, and time-limited treatments. CognitiveRead MoreMindfulness: Treatment for Mood Disorder in Teens1045 Words   |  5 PagesIntroduction This is an experimental study to test if teens with mood disorders have fewer symptoms when they practice P.E.A.C.E.? PEACE is an acronym for a mindfulness practice attending to the breath, body, thoughts, and emotions. P is for pause; E is for exhale; A is for acknowledged; C is for choice; E is for engage. Mindfulness has the potential to have a impact on teens with mood disorders by enhancing awareness, self-management, self-acceptance. Meditation is used in clinical practiceRead MoreAnxiety And Anxiety Of Anxiety1018 Words   |  5 PagesANXIETY Anxiety is an emotion distinguished by feelings of tension, uneasy thoughts and physical changes caused by anticipation of danger. Anxiety can also be defined as a critical developmental stage related to change, dispute, and perceived control of the environment (Potter and Perry, 2014). Encountering occasional anxiety is a normal lifestyle, as everyone feels anxious from stressful situations that might make him/her nervous or fearful. In fact, mild anxiety might help an individual be moreRead MoreGenetics And Genetics Essay797 Words   |  4 PagesEveryone with any mental health disorder always wonders if genetics can be linked to the disorder they have. It has been said that risk of genetics being a factor in anxiety disorders is less likely to be a switch more than a problematic mix of genetics that can put a person at risk. Researchers have said that anxiety disorders can be due to hostile childhood experiences. Efforts identifying the specific DNA mutations to the heritability of anxiety disorders establish any independent suspicious lociRead MoreEssay On Genetics And Anxiety Disorders882 Words   |  4 PagesGenetics and Anxiety Disorders Everyone with any mental health disorder always wonders if linkage of genetics is part of the disorder they have. People have said that risk of genetics being a factor in anxiety disorders is less likely to be a switch more than a problematic mix of genetics that can put a person at risk. Researchers have said that anxiety disorders can be due to hostile childhood experiences. Efforts to identify the specific DNA mutations to the heritability of anxiety disorders establishRead MoreAnetylysis Case Study797 Words   |  4 Pageswith any mental health disorder always wonders if genetics can be linked to the disorder they have. It has been said that risk of genetics being a factor in anxiety disorders is less likely to be a switch more than a problematic mix of genetics that can put a person at risk. Researchers have said that anxiety disorders can be due to hostile childhood experiences. Efforts identifying the specific DNA mutations to the heritability of anxiety disorders establish any independent suspicious loci, but

Sunday, December 22, 2019

In the Moment Essay - 600 Words

Time is an absurdity, an abstraction. The only thing that matters is the moment. (Nolan 12). If this is true, then in the story Memento Mori and the movie Memento, it is ironic how the main character, Leonard, who is suffering from severe memory loss, is constantly trying to figure out the past, even though he knows he will not remember it once he learns what has happened. His wife is dead, and he is searching through a system of notes and Polaroid pictures for her killer. Though the story is unclear at first, through narration, structure, and repetition, the plot of the story becomes clearer. The story is told in reverse order. Since the events in Memento are presented backwards, this allows the viewer to get into the mind frame of†¦show more content†¦Narration in a movie or story is what people rely on to know what is going on in the plot and what is true or false information. Without narration in a movie or story, it would make it difficult to find out who is right and who is wrong. In addition, narration is what sets the tone for a movie or story so the viewer never really questions what the narrator is saying because under normal circumstances wed believe it to be true. Narration is supposed to make things easier for the viewer to understand, in a way it simplifies and breaks down the plot into a persons thoughts which is much easier to catch on to than figuring out the story on ones own. In order to truly enjoy the film Memento and the story Memento Mori, it is necessary to understand the structure and order of the plot. To see how Leonard tracked down his wifes killer, the movie ends with what is, chronologically, the storys beginning. The structure of the film and story is quite unique since the facts are not presented in chronological order, or following the casual relationship. It is hard to provide a logical version of the story, since at the end of the film we realize the unreliability of the main characters recollections. From the beginning of the movie and story, we have to grasp the unusual structure of daily events and the structure ofShow MoreRelatedAha Moment1299 Words   |  6 PagesMaurice Mitchell Jr. November 19, 2012 ALED 340-902 Leadership AHA! Moment I have worked at my job for going on four years. The company has continuously hired and fired people since I have been there, as far as the management go, I call it â€Å"The District Circle of Life†. The staff in which I work and interact with the most with is the Community Assistants (CA). A Community Assistant job combines being a Leasing Agent and a Resident Assistant into one job. The staff consist of twelve studentRead MoreThe Man Of The Moment800 Words   |  4 PagesMan of the Moment Despite the academic squabbling that caused some articles to read as petty personal disagreements, Mungo Man remained a present and prominent figure in these texts of public discussion. This is undoubtedly due to his continued personification by both Jim Bowler and journalists. While the articles were primarily concerned with numbers, dates and the radiocarbon methods that achieved them, they did not make the mistake of displacing the narrative’s characters from public view. ThisRead MoreA Teachable Moment1195 Words   |  5 Pagesmaterial; I must admit this was the most difficult part, due to the fact that I gathered the material, all of them, now the most important question: HOW I’M GOING TO PRESENT MY MATERIAL TO THE CLASS? I was a lucky guy, because, I anticipated this moment and also one of the teachers told me that If you got stuck in this kind of problem just visualize your course goals, that advice saved my entire life! The next step was I organized my time in every single topic in my class and I tried to pick oneRead MoreMoments of Truth1535 Words   |  7 PagesMoments of Truth Mocha – Coffees and Conversations Submitted by – Group 5 â€Æ' Table of Contents About Moments of Truth 3 About Mocha 5 Moments of Truth 6 Decisions as a CEO 9 Moments of Truth Customer Moment of Truth (MOT) can be defined as â€Å"In customer service, instance of contact or interaction between a customer and a firm (through a product, sales force, or visit) that gives the customer an opportunity to formRead MoreMoment of Truth1897 Words   |  8 PagesMoment of truth The crowd was deafening. A few drunken chants, a boo here and there was all I could make out over my asthma-like pants. I didn’t blame them though. For two rounds I’ve been dodging, shifting, and shoving myself around the ring. I didn’t stand still, I couldn’t stand still. I wasn’t going to win this one. He was too big, too bulky, too mean looking. â€Å"There’s no way he’s 76 kg, there must have been some sort of mistake† I kept telling myself. I was a half expecting the referee toRead MoreControlling The Moment1022 Words   |  5 PagesControlling The Moment Have you ever watched a professional athlete make a game winning shot, or make an incredible play that you know couldn’t have been recreated? If so, you’ve just witnessed Kairos. This word, describes â€Å"the right or opportune moment† for something to take place (Fowler 201). In other words, it can be viewed as the perfect opportunity to make something happen whether we seize control of the moment or not. As a matter of fact, we witness Kairos every time we turn on the televisionRead MoreThe Caring Moment1868 Words   |  8 PagesThe Caring Moment Brittany Seawright NUR/403 June 18, 2012 Stephanie Merck The Caring Moment Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring was developed in 1979 (Cherner, 2007). Watson’s nursing theory was developed to bring meaning and focus to nursing as a diverse health profession (Cherner, 2007). Watson believed caring is what heals and help patients to live (Cherner, 2007). She believed patients should be treated as a whole to promote health. Watson’s theory has transformed the way nurses careRead More Caring Moments Essay1110 Words   |  5 Pages CARING MOMENTS The caring project our group chose involved taking a test. We felt test day was an unusually stressful event for everyone. We wanted to come up with a caring way that would help to alleviate some stress on our fellow students, the faculty, and ourselves. We decided to hand out peppermint candy on test day to help stimulate brain function. we felt this might help us all do well. We also talked to everyone and wished them well on the test which was a good way to help relieve stressRead MoreA Defining Moment Essay755 Words   |  4 Pagesand events my reading and writing development throughout my childhood from my mother, my elementary librarian, and Sesame Street, to getting my first pair of glasses. We all have defining moments in our lives where we can look back and say, â€Å"That moment changed my life.† This is the story of the defining moment that changed the way I read and write, and I learned it from a whale! It was the beginning of my seventh grade year. I was about twelve years old and, I guess you could say a nerd. I didRead MoreThe Precious Moments Of Solitude913 Words   |  4 Pagestears. She drifts into her seat, letting her lips hover over the rim of her glass, eyes dark and vacant. A lump forms in her throat and she sips at her wine in attempt to swallow it down, but instead nearly chokes on her own misery. The precious moments of solitude she once craved now turn into an endless stretch of excruciating silence, creating a vast, dismal abyss in its wake. Later, when she returns to an empty bed, she shivers from the chill that sets into her bones and leaves her weeping. She

Saturday, December 14, 2019

BP Deep Water Horizontal Explosion Free Essays

string(109) " of interests and inadequate information, decisions made under such condition were inconsistent and unclear\." BP originated from a British petroleum company founded in 1909. After experiencing crises during the 1980s-1990s, the company started to have a cost cutting culture. During mid-1990s, with an aggressive growth strategy, BP started to grow and reposition. We will write a custom essay sample on BP Deep Water Horizontal Explosion or any similar topic only for you Order Now After BP merged with Amoco in 1998, John Browne started to serve as chief executive until May 2007. Browne repositioned BP as a â€Å"green† oil company after he took over and practiced the model of organizational decision-making strategy, known as â€Å"asset federation. Under this new strategy, onsite asset managers had the authority to make decisions, and employees’ compensation was directly tied to asset performance (Ingersoll et. al, 4). Many decisions made by John Browne were directly related to the Deepwater Horizon explosion. In 2007, Tony Hayward replaced John Browne and became the new chief executive. Tony Hayward slightly adjusted BP’s organizational structure and decided to pay more attention to BP’s safety issues and risk averse culture. However, the Deepwater Horizon explosion happened when Tony Hayward was in charge. The BP Deepwater Horizon oil explosion occurred in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, which is considered as the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill caused tremendous damages to the surrounding environment and enormous losses to shareholders. BP acquired the right of operating the Macondo Well Project from the U. S. Minerals Management Service in 2009, and then BP leased the Deepwater Horizon rig from Transocean who provides offshore drilling equipment and personnel operation. Both BP and Transocean operated the Deepwater Horizon when the disaster happened. The Deepwater Horizon explosion resulted in major damages and losses. When the explosion occurred, workers abandoned ship and jumped into the burning ocean. Among the 126 workers on board the Deepwater Horizon, 17 were injured and 11 died. Additionally, the rig burned down 700,000 gallons of oil within 36 hours, and the smoke trail spread over 30 miles (Ingersoll et. al, 2). BP’s stock price declined dramatically after the explosion. The disaster not only dragged BP into the major scandal but also destroyed many surrounding businesses and families. The consequences of the explosion affected not only organization, shareholders, and employees but also the environment, social issues, and public relations. The Deepwater Horizon disaster had many causes, direct and indirect; it mainly involved people-issues, managers and managing, organizational weaknesses, and external oversight and accountability. â€Å"CAUSES† OF THE EXPLOSION Firstly, individuals in an organization always have decision-making biases, and thus they would have a â€Å"huge capacity to rationalize their behavior† (Crews). Individuals usually make decisions subjectively based on their value set. The former CEO John Browne set up how BP would develop after mid 90’s; he also was the key person who affected the future of Tony Hayward. Browne relied on and promoted Hayward. A metaphor in Elkind’s article said that Hayward was favored prince of Browne, and Browne opened Hayward’s eyes to the world of business (Elkind et. al, 9). It was not clear why Browne relied on Hayward so much, but he made Hayward become the CEO of BP. On the other hand, Browne played an important role in BP’s management strategy. Browne decided to focus on cutting costs and had a desire to make BP become the largest oil producer. He created the big picture of BP’s development, which influenced the future CEO Hayward’s value set of decision-making and employees’ behaviors in BP. Not only managers had bias of decision-making, the engineers who constructed and maintained the rig also had bias. BP chose long string casing for the Macondo well because several individuals overvalued the cost. As a result, the well casing choice created the condition of the rig’s explosion (Ingersoll et. al, 19). Additionally, the drilling engineers decided not to run the â€Å"cement bond log† test, and that test could accurately diagnose a bond failure to improve process safety. Mark Hafle, one of BP’s drilling engineers even claimed the cement job was working fine at court (Ingersoll et. al, 16). The drilling engineers of the Macondo project were warned about potential risks, but they willfully ignored the warnings and insisted everything would work fine. Such bias and rationalized behavior of drilling engineers just added another warning sign to the explosion of Deepwater Horizon. Secondly, BP’s business relationships are complex, and the legitimate priorities often conflict (Crews). BP’s failure to prevent the explosion was due in part to complex partnership. BP held the rights to drill using the rig and operation services leased from Transocean. As a result, â€Å"of the 126 people aboard the Deepwater Horizon, 79 were from Transocean, seven were from BP, and the rest were from other firms† (Ingersoll et. al, 1). People serving on Deepwater Horizon came from different organizations. A decision making process involved many authorities, which decreased the efficiency and effectiveness of decision-making. Even though BP maintained main operational authority, only six percent of people aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig were from BP. As an important business partner of BP, Transocean provided the equipment and performed the majority of the work, and thereafter it had some authority over operations and maintenance. The complex business partnership caused serious operational consequence. Upon the day of explosion, the Deepwater Horizon rig had been operating 29 days more than it should had been, and the leasing fee owed to Transocean far exceeded the budget (Ingersoll et. al, 7). It was a problem that both companies had authority of decision making over operation. This led to legitimate conflict of priorities. For example, when closing a well, â€Å"11 companies played a role in the construction of the casing for the Macondo well, and all with different responsibilities for various aspects of setting the well† (Ingersoll et. al, 9). Different companies made decisions based on their own company’s interest of cost, time, and safety. As a result, any decision-making process would be very time-consuming, given that all companies kept competing and were not willing to compromise. Because of the conflict of interests and inadequate information, decisions made under such condition were inconsistent and unclear. You read "BP Deep Water Horizontal Explosion" in category "Papers" The inefficient and ineffective decision-making processes slowed the progress of drilling and over-drafted the budget. If the drilling on Deepwater Horizon rig would have been completed within 51 days as expected, BP may have stopped a disaster. Thirdly, the misalignment occurs when managers’ words and action conflict. To prevent corporate scandals, managers’ actions are more powerful than words in shaping employees’ behavior and presenting a positive image to society (Crews). BP faced safety issues in last few decades. Even though each time its CEOs made a commitment to the public about safety, disasters still happened continuously. For instance, â€Å"in 2000, after a string of fires and equipment failures, CEO John Browne announced plans to ‘review the commitment to safety. † In 2005, the explosion of BP’s Texas City refinery killed 15 people; ironically, Browne swore to fix safety problems again like previously. The Deepwater Horizon spill, the worst one in history, happened two years after CEO Tony Hayward took over, and he had promised to focus on safety issue â€Å"like a laser† (Elkind et. al, 4). Empty promises are just like checks without sufficient funds. The conflic t of managers’ words and action caused the corporation lose credibility to the public. BP’s CEO kept vowing to correct safety issues, and the sequential disasters revoked their promises time after time. The U. S. Chemical Safety Board investigated BP’s real safety operation after the Texas City refinery explosion, and they found that BP Group failed to review its refinery operation systematically. Even though the Group Chief Executive claimed, â€Å"BP would learn lessons from Grangemouth and other incidents† (National Commission Chapter 8, 6), BP’s actions were against its public commitment. BP had desires to change, but it never improved in respect to safety weaknesses. BP emphasized personal safety instead of process safety, which led to the serious consequence (Elkind et. l, 5). BP’s board of directors failed to enhance process safety, and this helped BP lose credibility with the public. They needed to create an environment of safety concern to train employees from every level of the organization. Fourthly, BP’s managers were more concerned with seeking profits than with ethics (Crews). Employees’ performance was evaluated by ability of cost cutting and profit generating. For example, in 2008, BP introduced an â€Å"every dollar counts† program that aimed to reduce the costs of their drilling operation (Smith, 1). Another example would be that leaders of BP’s drilling team considered the $2. 2 million of incremental cost benefit over safety when they handled installation problem of lockdown sleeve (Smith, 2). Likewise, many other decisions of construction of the Macondo well were made based on cost and profit instead of safety concerns. BP’s failure was highly related to managers blindly seeking profit and ignoring safety issues. BP used Long-string casing, which made production less costly and shortened the time of return on investment (Deepwater Horizon Study Group, 56). This was one of the main causes of the explosion. Oil drilling is a highly risky industry, and BP was supposed to emphasize safety; however, managers valued profit over ethics, and that hastened up the failure of BP. Fifthly, an organization’s culture, structure, strategy, and resource allocation strongly affect the behaviors of managers and employees (Crews). BP’s organizational culture is cost cutting and risk taking, which directly affected managers’ decision-making. Since 1995 when John Bowne took over, he â€Å"imposed a tough bottom-line mentality† to focus on cutting costs. He also chose to give more operating authority to his managers. Bowne targeted aggressive profit growth by making his managers sign an annual performance contract (Elkind et. al, 8). BP’s organizational culture pushed CEOs to set profit as the primary goal. An organization’s culture is its personality, which implies how managers would operate the organization. With the cost-cutting culture, managers and employees made decisions driven by the organizational culture. Additionally, BP’s unethical management structure and strategy caused the bad competition between employees. BP had a management strategy, â€Å"asset federation. † BP’s onsite asset managers had â€Å"decision-making authority and responsibility for meeting performance targets;† moreover, onsite employees’ compensation was valued by overall performance of the site (Ingersoll et. al, 4). As a result, BP exploration sites had an unethical competition and were less likely to share best practice on risk management; that was a big concern for an oil company whose process safety was a problem. On the other hand, BP also had a weakness of high bureaucracy operating costs. BP had â€Å"a starched, rigidly hierarchical management culture;† for example, headquarter employees and senior employees had preferential treatment in company, which shows BP’s unbalanced and unsound reward system (Elkind et. al, 7). In other words, BP was weak in human resource management. The company rewarded employees by position instead of ethical behavior and good performance. A lack of focus on safety issues directly led to the explosion. BP’s â€Å"creative† management strategy introduced by John Browne made exploration onsite managers keep their best practice to themselves and blindly chase profit. Such management contributed to Deepwater Horizon explosion. Finally, external auditing and regulatory weaknesses also indirectly contributed to the explosion (Crews). Offshore oil drilling is a risky industry. Therefore, in some region, the government essentially banned it due to environmental concerns. However, in the Gulf, the environmental protections and safety regulation were relaxed and ineffective because the oil drilling would bring billions of dollars to federal government (National Commission Chapter 3, 3). Driven by revenue, the government and regulators id not put forth too many restrictions for oil industry in the Gulf. With this important advantage, BP continually neglected safety issues and took risks, which eventually caused the disaster. According to the national commission report, revenue increases when moving drilling deeper into the water, but the corresponding safety risks also increases; however, such increased risks were not covered by additional regularly over sight (National Commission Chapter 3, 3). Investigators found that Deepwater Horizon extended drilling by 18360 feet below sea level. BP drilled aggressively by ignoring the risks and consequences. However, regulators might be more than happy to accept the huge revenue contributions instead of considering environmental concerns and set restrictions. More importantly, the regulation and auditing office had a culture of revenue maximization. BP acquired the right of exploration from MMS. The national commission report points out that the MMS office had culture of accepting gifts from oil companies. An employee of MMS even negotiated with the oil company when he conducted inspections on this company’s oil platforms (National Commission Chapter 3, 23). Oil companies and public regulation office benefitted each other, and that made improvement of safety issue in entire oil industry became obstructive. The government did not provide strict regulation to an industry that could bring it money because more regulation means less revenue. Along with a long list of safety issues, BP risked drilling down below the sea to seek more oil and profit without additional auditing and regulation; all the factors pushed and forced the disaster happened. First, The Deepwater horizon explosion killed 11 people, and 17 were injured. The ocean was flaming when the rig became a graveyard. To those dead employees, their family had to face the loss of family members. Second, The Deepwater Horizon explosion affected BP’s and Transocean’s financial market. The sharp drop of stock price wiped out $91 million in market value. BP’s working capital that founded by $10 billion in short-term paper was shut out (Elkind et. al, 20). The credit situations of both companies weakened. Moreover, BP and Transocean had to pay for the damages by billions of dollars. Even two years later in 2012, BP still had $8. 3 billion on damage payouts caused by the explosion (Helman, 3). Both companies were required to pay for environmental restoration, damage to surrounding businesses, and cleanup cost. On the other hand, the explosion also destroyed the reputation of BP and Transocean, and scandals were harmful to two companies’ public relationship. After Deepwater Horizon explosion, the financial market for BP securities had a dramatically change. BP’s investors faced a huge loss on investment. BP’s stock price dropped more than 50%, and the stock and option trading volume increased instantly by fifteen to twentyfold. Interest rate of BP bonds increased, and the company announced the suspension of cash dividends to shareholders (Fodor and Stowe, 1). BP’s disaster made shareholders face a tremendous loss. The value of stocks in hand became worthless and the dividend payments might endless delay. Furthermore, the explosion also affected business in the gulf and the coast tourism industry. The disaster dramatically affected the Alabama coast, which depended on tourism: compared to 2009, the number of visitors decreased by 1 million, real estate values dropped by more than 65%, retail sale declined by 50% (Keegen, 2). The most affected business was fishing industry in the gulf. Since the spilling oil, many fishes were killed and many families whose life depended on fishing and tourist service were bankrupt instantly. In addition, the explosion affected the gulf coast ecosystem. After the explosion, the rig burned for 36 hours. Deepwater Horizon rig exploded about 100 miles southwest of Orange Beach,† and â€Å"more than 200 million gallons of crude went into the gulf† before July 15, 2010 (Keegen, 2). As a result, spilling oil â€Å"fouled beaches and shorelines,† and it destroyed gulf coast ecosystem; creatures and species were killed. The Deepwater Horizon explosion â€Å"created one of worst environmental disaster in U. S. history (Keegen, 2). Ba sed on a research of Texas A M’s Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, the real loss of gulf coast ecosystem and fisheries were huge and need decades for recovery (Keegen, 5). PREVENTION One of the reasons for BP’s failure is that top managers did not have ethical concerns. The safety issue is the major problem of BP; however, CEOs and managers were concerned for profit over safety concern. Internally, the Board of Directors should create a clear plan that focuses on addressing particular ethical needs for different situations. Additionally, BP should increase the responsibility of the Board of Directors in overseeing the managing executives. An organization should had ethical oversight, and it should provide employees ethical training to advocate ethical behavior. Management fault also was the main reason contributed to the explosion. BP had problems with management structure and management strategy. Managers who focused on cost cutting and wilfully ignored safety problem made numerous poor decisions. Employees should be rewarded by performance overall instead of the ability to cut cost. Rig managers and engineering leader should regard the warning signs and conduct safety test regularly. The managers should pay attention to â€Å"near misses† and avoid the â€Å"favorable wind direction,† and then they might be able to predict and prevent the crises (Tinsley et. l, 1). Considering all of the factors that contributed to Deepwater Horizon explosion, the root cause was the cost-cutting organizational culture. An organizational culture is the characteristic of a corporation; it affects people’s perspectives and values. Employees use the organizational culture to guide and rationalize their behavior. Therefore, directors of bo ard, executives, and top managers should create and inform employees with a positive organizational culture and build conditions for employees’ learning and appreciating. BP’s explosion had internal and external reason. Internally, BP Deepwater Horizon explosion involved two CEOs’ main decisions; besides, BP had a complex organizational strategy, management structure, and partnership. Externally, the outside weakness of legality and regulation contribute to BP’s ethical scandals. Thereafter, besides corporation internal control, the regulators should provide more specific regulations and auditing that conduct oil industry operating with a safer procedure. How to cite BP Deep Water Horizontal Explosion, Papers

Thursday, December 5, 2019

The Six Day War free essay sample

The Six Day War as it became known was the third conflict between Israel and Arab nations. It was essentially a continuation of the first two conflicts as they were never really resolved. As it is the causes of the Six Day war were the same as earlier, Arab disdain for Israel’s existence. The Six Day war would be caused by this general rule and the fact as hostilities heightened, Egypt would cut off Israel’s shipping routes, cutting supply of oil from Iran. More specifically Egypt has expelled United Nations troops from the Sinai Peninsula and blockaded Israel’s port of Eliat, which by international law was an act of war. These events along with misguided Soviet information and calls from Arab leaders to destroy Israel would lead to the Six Day War. In the spring of 1967, tensions amongst the Arab nations and Israel were on high alert, as terrorist raids against Israel coming from Syria. We will write a custom essay sample on The Six Day War or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Israel grew tired of these raids, as they were aimed at its infrastructure, so in response to the raids by Syrian forces it placed armored tractors in the demilitarized zones, which as the plan goes would wait to be fired upon and hit, then they had cause to fire back. The Israeli plan would go into effect and as a result the hostilities would heighten as Israel would shoot down several Syrian planes, while the Palestinian fighters would plant mines along Israel’s border with Syria, Jordan and Lebanon (Oren 2002). As tensions mounted between Israel and the Arab nations, Soviet meddling would come into play. On May 15, Anwar Sadat, the Speaker of the National Assembly would visit Moscow, where he would be told by the Soviets that Israel had planned to invade Syria during the May 16 through May 22 time frame, all of this would prove to be false. Soviet intelligence cited the fact that Israeli troops parading in western Jerusalem, for Israel’s Independence Day, were doing so without heavy weapons, which they said were being amassed along the northern border with Syria. The reason as it turns out they were devoid of weaponry during their parades is to ease Arab tensions in the area. Sadat would pass this information along to Egypt and President Nasser, who would then parade Egypt’s forces through Cairo along its way to the Sinai Peninsula (Cleveland, 2009). On May 14, evidence that disputed Soviet information of an Israeli troop buildup along its Northern border with Syria would be ignored. Gen. Muhammed Fawzi, would tour the area reportedly rife with Israeli troops, only to find none, These findings would be confirmed by the head of Egyptian intelligence, the CIA and U. S. embassy in Cairo, but would be ignored by Nasser and his buildup of troops would continue (www. sixdaywar. org,2010). Israel would put its troops on alert, but sent its diplomats in to service, trying to avert war, or at least showing that they were not interested in a war. But to no avail as Egyptian and Palestinian forces would triple in the days between May 14 and 16th on the Sinai Peninsula (Oren, 2002). After the troop buildup, Egypt would evict UN Forces that been deployed to try and avert a war between Israel and Egypt. On May 16th presented the United Nations Emergency Force a demand to withdraw from key locations, so UN Secretary General U Thant decided to withdraw all UN forces. The final straw would come on May 22, as Egypt blocked the Strait of Tiran to Israeli shipping, which is an act of war under international law. This decision set of the Arab war, Lebanon, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia would all activate their armies. While the Arab nations were preparing for war, Israel was still trying to appeal for a diplomatic solution and for other nations to become involved (Cleveland, 2009). After the many attempts at diplomacy, most through back channel discussion with the U. S. , Israel voted on June 4, 1967, by a Cabinet vote of 12-2 to go to war, which would begin early the next morning, June, 1967. By its name the war only lasted six days, Israel launched a preemptive strike against the Egyptian army and crippled the Egyptian air force and routed the armies in Gaza and on the Sinai Peninsula. After three days of fierce fighting Israel would also defeat Jordanian forces and would deal a decisive blow to Syria on June 9, Syria had proposed a cease fire on that day but Israel would accept it the next day, as they didn’t want the Syrians remaining in the Golan Heights, where they had attacked Israel for so long and on June 10, 1967 a cease fire was observed by Israel, six days after the war began (Oren, 2002). The immediate aftermath of the war was one of diplomacy, or so Israel would have thought after their resounding defeat of the Arab nations. The rapid defeat of the Arab nations would damage the national pride of the Arab nations and increased the Palestinian refugee problems , as hundreds of thousands would flee the Israeli controlled West Bank area, and would heavily influence the policies of their now new nations. The new borders established by Israel after the war are the reason that the region is still in conflict today.

Thursday, November 28, 2019

Negative Music and the Effects on Human Behavior free essay sample

Schoenberg music caused listeners to feel uncomfortable and irritated. However, he became the pivotal composer of the early twentieth century and today he is considered one Of the greatest composers of that century. The music ushered in an era of negative music in Western classical music that lasted for over fifty years. His theory was eventually accepted by composers throughout the Western world and was taught in the finest music schools. The result of all this was the incorporation of negative music into TV programs and movies.Negative music is used to rate emotions of suspense, terror, anxiety, and fear. It is the music that accompanies crime programs and horror films. The same kind of music that concert audiences rejected because of the feelings that the music invoked became standard TV fare, and for the very same reasons (5). I never thought about the idea that scary and suspenseful music was a break from the norm. We will write a custom essay sample on Negative Music and the Effects on Human Behavior or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page It is obvious though that it changes behavior in people. Just watch a horror flick with a friend. You will both know when something horrible is going to happen.The learned behavior from the music stimulus ranges from sliding jack in your seat, to covering and closing your eyes. The music tells you something bad is coming and you know how to respond to it. Western classical music was the first style of music to incorporate negativity. The next step in the evolution of negative music was its introduction into rock music in the late sass. The first hard rock and heavy metal music was produced by the rock group called Blue Cheer somewhere around 1967. Their music was angry and had a noticeably heavy beat..At this time, the music of the Rolling Stones, too, became harder and angry, with a negative accent. Many other groups sprang up during this period. In truth, hard drugs, mixed with psychedelics were having an effect. The world was witnessing a new phenomenon: musical groups of young men opening doors to the psychic world through the use of drugs were using electrified instruments to bring in a new music that was harmful to the human psyche, destructive, and angry (2). The turning point for the new music came when the group Led Zeppelin was formed.As the book Hammer Of the Gods points out, the members Of this group were constantly high on every kind of drug imaginable. When they oared, they vandalized hotel rooms, throwing TV sets and furniture into the streets. Very young girls were tied up and customized, group members taking turns, and a photographer from Life magazine, assigned to photograph Led Zeppelin as they toured, was nearly raped by band members in a hotel room. Yet Led Zeppelin became the most popular group of its time. In fact, a whole generation was raised on its music.Throughout the 1 sass, the music of Led Zeppelin was the anthem of American high school kids. For many people raised during this period, demeaning the music of Led Zeppelin is a desecration oaf most sacred cow (3). The last three decades of the twentieth century saw negative rock music spread and popularized throughout the entire world. Heavy metal music became an accepted culture and is now almost an ancient music when it is compared with the newer forms of negative music that have since emerged.It is unfortunate and sad to say, but the children of the sass have been spoon-fed on the most negative and insolent music imaginable. Please consider what is taking place, and who is being affected. If you listen to the radio carefully and use your powers of discernment to gain a sense of the degree of negativity in the music that you ear On the radio and TV today, you will find a great deal of the music that is lacking in positive influence. Pop music has gone down hill so much since its heyday in 1954 that the difference is shocking. In 1954, the songs of the top forty were positive, reinforcing, and romantic. There are some great singers today, but there is also a lot of really inferior, mediocre singers and music that expresses little in the lyrics, and nothing emotionally except perhaps for anger and hatred. And so many people have gotten used to mediocrity and ugliness in music that it isnt even noticed anymore (2). Hard rock, heavy metal, trash metal, hardcore, death metal, gangs rap, and the like have repeatedly been proven in experiments to have a detrimental effect.David Hearer, a 16 year old at Nanosecond River High School, conducted an experiment that sharpened his theory that hard rock taints the brain. Using 72 male lab mice, he separated the mice into 3 groups of 24: a control, classical, and a hard rock group. After weeks of putting them through the same maze at an original average time of 10 minutes, the control group shaved 5 minutes from the beginning time, the classical group knocked 8 minutes off, but the hard rock averaged 30-minute completion time, a considerable difference. The fact that 72 mice were tested makes his results more valid because of the larger sample size.Most noticeably, the hard rock mice did not sniff the air to find the trails of others that came before them. Herself first experiment failed because the mice were not put in separate containers, and the hard rock mice killed each other (4). Lyrically violent and musically negative songs increase aggression related thoughts and emotions. In a series of five experiments involving over 500 college students, searchers from Iowa State University and the Texas Department Of Human Services examined the effects of seven violent songs by seven artists and eight nonviolent songs by seven artists.The students listened to the songs and were given various psychological tasks to measure aggressive thoughts and feelings. One such task involved participants classifying words that can have both aggressive and nonaggression meanings, such as rock and stick. The study also included songs with humorous lyrics to see how humor interacted with violent song lyrics and aggressive thoughts (1). Results of the vive experiments show that violent songs led to more aggressive interpretations of ambiguously aggressive words, increased the relative speed with which people read aggressive vs.. Nonaggression words, and increased the proportion of word fragments (such as h_t) that were filled in to make aggressive words (such as hit). The violent songs increased feelings of hostility without provocation or threat, according to the authors, and this effect was not the result of differences in musical style, specific performing artist or arousal properties of the songs. Even the humorous violent songs increased aggressive thoughts (1). The violent-song increases in aggressive thoughts and feelings have implications for real world violence, according to lead researcher Craig A. Anderson, Ph. D. Of Iowa State University. Aggressive thoughts can influence perceptions of ongoing social interactions, coloring them with an aggressive tint. Such aggression-biased interpretations can, in turn, instigate a more aggressive response -verbal or physical than would have been emitted in a nonbiased state, thus provoking an aggressive escalators spiral of antisocial exchanges, said Dry. Anderson (1 The study investigated precursors to aggression rather than aggressive behavior itself.

Monday, November 25, 2019

Le Bon and Freud Essays

Le Bon and Freud Essays Le Bon and Freud Essay Le Bon and Freud Essay Essay Topic: Sociology Le Bon was of the opinion that when people joined large, relatively unstructured social groups, they sometimes engaged in spontaneous and atypical collective behaviour. Le Bon suggests that crowds are ruled by a collective mind, and that contagion causes crowd members to experience similar thoughts and emotions. Freud, on the other hand, argues that individuals, by joining crowds, can satisfy some basic needs for membership, hostility, and so on. Both of these theories are still popular today but lacking empirical evidence we strive to find more tangible theories that can be tested. Several theories have been developed since these accounts such as de-individuation, emergent norm theory and social identity theory and this essay will look at these theories and try to assess whether or not they are better than Le Bon and Freuds theories which lack any scientific basis. Le Bon, the author of The Crowd was writing during a time of incipient social progress when the masses were wreaking havoc across France. Being a member of the bourgeoisie this situation worried Le Bon and he wanted to cure the disorders brought about by the masses. He found the answer in psychology and the discovery of a crowd soul. Le Bon, in his work, rejected all three of the popular views of the time that the crowd was mad, criminal or antisocial and mainly inhabited by the people at the lower end of the social spectrum for the idea that a man, irrelevant of his social standing, once in a group would lose his personal characteristics and the personalities in the group would fuse together. The characteristics of the crowd are savagery, primitive and uncivilised because the individual is no longer acting consciously but unconsciously as the people are a collective mass. He described the collective state as being similar to that of a hypnotic state, an idea later harnessed by Freud. To merge into the collective state Le Bon cites the physical presence of the crowd as crucial and has developed from this his Law of the mental unity of crowds. The physical presence of others delivers anonymity giving the individual invincible power and takes away the persons sense of responsibility. His second idea is that, like a virus or bacteria, ideas, feelings and emotions spread rapidly throughout a crowd and individuals are quickly infected with the disease, this is the theory of contagion. Thirdly, theres the concept of suggestibility and happens when the crowd is in the collective state. This is open to exploitation when the person has lost his conscious personality and is open to all the suggestion that the crowd suggests. These three phenomenon release our animal nature and free us from social and moral constraints, what Le Bon calls latent processes. This perceived loss of self has developed into what later thinkers have called de-individuation. Le Bon sees the collective behaviour as primitive and devoid of reason or culture and links it to acting at the level of racial unconscious. Other psychologists have on the other hand proposed the idea that the collective mind is not necessarily as negative as Le Bon portrays believing the crowd to be capable of great acts of altruism and unselfishness. Many of the earlier social psychologists have coined similar ideas to Le Bon. Tarde for example sees physical closeness as crucial as social life of individual is based on imitation, similar to Le Bons anonymity idea. The close proximity of the crowd is therefore the most extreme example of this imitation behaviour. Mc Dougal takes the view that similarity between group members, predominantly constitutional and racial will determine how fast ideas spread through crowds, a theory of contagion. Trotter believed that humans behaved similarly to animals in that they were very open to the opinion of the leader. Freud, whose theory on crowds initiated from Le Bons places great emphasis on the role of the leader. Also writing during a time of political and social turbulence, Freud was hoping to understand the causes of the very real problems of the day namely anti-Semitic feeling and a tendency to follow demagogues who, to Freud, were obviously untrustworthy. Freud felt that suggestibility was still crucial and that it is an irreducible, primitive phenomenon. Freud, similarly to Le Bon, believed that psychic factors are crucial. The unconscious becomes unlocked and members of the crowd become bound by their love for the leader. The leader is usually a charismatic individual who may be perceived as a father figure. The Freudian model of the psyche, the id, ego and superego (sub-conscious, conscious and super-conscious) are all at play in the crowd situation. The superego, which represents moral and civilised aspects of the psyche, is renounced to the leader. This leaves the Id to dominate the mind resulting in primitive and uncivilised behaviour. The leader will provide a group ideal and the crowd will inevitably follow. Freud likens this leadership control to that of a hypnotist. The adoption of the new ideals causes the self to change dramatically and it shifts from individual self to a group self where all members can identify with each other. It would seem, having looked at the theories of Le Bon and Freud that they are very comprehensive nevertheless there are many criticisms that have been made of both of their theories. The most important criticism of both Freud and Le Bon is that they lack empirical evidence to support their proposals. Due to the nature of the theories we are unable to verify them, as access to the unconscious is impossible. Both men also describe the behaviour of the crowd as primitive but neither considers the often-unselfish nature of the crowd, a definite positive aspect. Le Bon has been criticised for cementing together ideas of other theories such as contagion and can be vague and of mediocre quality. A further criticism would be his biased interpretation of crowds. Le Bon sees the crowd as a force for social evil and incorporates his fascist ideology into his work. It is also evident that the social context in which he is writing also affects his objectivity and he talks of the revolution in a crude way. There are many aspects of Freuds work that are also vague. For instance, Freud sees the leader as fundamental to the changing of the individuals psyche to that of the group self but this theory is problematic insofar as not all crowds have leaders. Another loophole is that many people demonstrate the characteristics that Freud describes for being susceptible to crowds but do not, in practice, succumb to the crowd. From the basis of both Freud and Le Bon there have been many psychologists who have attempted to rectify the problems cited above and in doing so have developed theories of their own. The most obvious of these is the theory of de-individuation which has developed from Le Bon blueprint of anonymity. De-individuation means the loss of personal identity and many studies have been carried which support the theory. De-individuation differs from Le Bons theory in the way that the indiviaual isnt seen as losing the mind to the collective but that the loss of individuality leads to a total loss of control. This loss of control culminates in the release of the individual from internal moral restraints and generates behaviour that is impulsive, irrational, emotional, regressive and intense. Research by Festinger, Pepitone andNewcomb (1952) made small groups of subjects discusses their feelings towards their parents. They found that the less individual subjects viewed themselves and each other the more rash and daring were their contributions to the conversation. Singer, Brush and Lublin (1965) conducted a study where subjects had to talk about erotic literature. They found that those wearing lab coats and thus seen as non-identifiable used more obscene language than the more identifiable subjects. Both of these studies demonstrate that people, when de-individuated will behave differently and Singer attributed theses finding to reduced feelings of self-consciousness and distinctiveness. Le Bon (1985) went on to say that people would behave in more extreme ways in crowds because they lose their sense of identity. Zimbardo believes that the crowd provides a cloak of anonymity and diffuses personal responsibility for the consequences of an individuals actions. He details two types of behaviour, individuated, when behaviour is rational, controlled and consistent with personal norms and de-individuated behaviour, which acts on primitive impulses, is anti social, unrestrained. He believes that this behaviour is caused by being a member of a crowd or when wearing a uniform as loss of individual identity and a reduced concern for social evaluation. Zimbardo (1969) has carried out several experiments on de-individuation and anonymity. One experiment showed that de-individuated people (in this case they were dressed in lab coats and hoods) had a stronger tendency towards aggressive behaviour (e. . total duration of shocking was twice as much for the de-individuated group compared to the identifiable condition). Another experiment that Diener (1976) made in the same area was on a group of Belgian soldiers. However, the result was the reverse- the soldiers had a shorter shocking time than the normal people did. It has been said that this is due to the fact that the soldiers were already de-individuated before the test as they are already members of a group, the army. When they put on a lab coat and a hood (and away from their fellow soldiers) they suddenly became more self-aware than they were before. Diener believed that dressing up in these silly costumes might have made them more self-conscious rather then less. He sees the key to de-individuation as losing self-awareness. Further research observed more than a thousand children on Halloween. They found that those whod given their names to the householder or who wore costumes that didnt allow anonymity were less likely to steal sweets from the bowl when briefly left alone. Diener was concerned with how de-individuation came about. Anonymity doesnt directly lead to it because, as Hogg demonstrates, a bank robber is anonymous but yet very conspicuous. This conspicuousness is found more often in small groups or when there are many observers. Instead, Diener focused, as mentioned above, on self-awareness whereas previously focus of studies was on anonymity in the group and this was seen as the most important factor to de-individuation. Self-awareness means a person is the object of ones own attention particularly private self awareness which is reduced awareness of ones private thoughts and feelings. This attention on the self, to things such as ones attitudes and norms, increases the capability for self-regulation. Nonetheless Classical and contemporary views agree on the main thrust of the de-individuation hypothesis being that he psychological state of de-individuation brings about anti-normative and dis-inhibited behaviour. As with most theories de-individuation is also open to criticism. Despite considerable research and development of ideas, it is too simplistic. Many of the studies, which it uses to prop itself-up are lab-based. More naturalistic studies are needed to increase the ecological validity of the theory. The theory can also be criticised for ignoring coherence of crowd behaviour as crowds frequently behave in the same manner. At football matches, for example, component people are not the same yet the behaviour demonstrated is always very similar. Another theory that has developed, In contrast to Le Bons contagion theory, is the convergence theory. As demonstrated, Le Bon thought that crowds were run by a collective mind and the individual thoughts changed radically. According to the convergence theory, the people who join a group often have similar needs and personal characteristics as the group. Instead of changing the self into the group collective the individual is, essentially, already what the group is. A further modern, contradictory theory to that of Le Bons s Tuner and Killians (1972) emergent norm theory. Contrary to Le Bon, who believes an individual loses himself in the crowd, becoming mindless, in emergent norm theory the crowd is another type of a group and the behaviour demonstrated by the crowd is a type of group behaviour, just more extreme. The idea is that group processes creates order and purpose amongst the crowd and norms spread quickly and are adopted by all crowd members but, contrary to contagion theory, the differences are illustrated between individual and group behaviour by looking at the different norms. New norms emerge in collective situations through the observation of the distinctive action of group leaders. Behaviour of the crowd comes from the social norms of a crowd. People are motivated by a desire for social reinforcement and approval, and are scared of being rejected or as being perceived as an outsider. The norm must be specific to the situation to some degree-hence emergent norm. (Turner) A major criticism of this theory is presented by Deiner (1980) is that a crowd that acts normally would have to be self aware but being in a group, as his personal research demonstrates, reduces self awareness, rendering the whole theory void. The theory, as Reicher points out, also fails, similar to de-individu ation theory, there is no account as to why crowd action is unified and doesnt dissolve into sub-groups. Reicher developed his own theory, social identity theory; whereby individuals take on the social identity of the crowd and conform to the normative behaviour of that crowd via referent informational influence. This theory does not remove responsibility of an individuals behaviour in a crowd situation, rather shows that the control of the crowd lies with the individual as they have identified with the crowd norms and taken them on as their own, and consequently their consent in their social identity as a crowd member. There are three key ideas that are central to the theory, categorisation, identification and comparison. Categorisation is the tendency by humans to categorise things, including people, as a means to understanding the world. These categories can be things such as religion, race, occupation and by doing this we can identify with who we are like and find things out about ourselves. What behaviour is appropriate is then defined by reference to the groups we belong to. If someone belongs to a group that we dont belong then we will never identify with them. The second idea of identification has two meanings. Firstly that we identify ourselves as being in an individual or as being a group member and which way we classify our self depends on the situation that we are in. When we consider our self to be a group member we call this social identity. When thinking of our self as a unique individual this is referred to as personal identity. Group membership is not something foreign, which is tacked onto the person; it is a real and vital part of the person. The groups that you identify with are in-groups and those you dont identify with are out groups. The other meaning implied by the concept of identity is the idea that we are the same or identical to the other people. This doesnt mean literally but for identification purposes those who are members of the same groups as us are the same/similar E. g. during a war the enemy are all the same and treated the same way and deemed deserving of death. The third idea in social identity theory is the idea of comparison. This is when we evaluate ourselves in relation to others. By looking to others groups we can higher our self-esteem, which in turn leads to a positive image of the self, which is essential to healthy functioning. By identifying ourselves as being in a group we then learn the norms of that group and can find out what the limits of the group are. In order to test his theory, Reicher conducted some experiments to test how attitudes change when social identity is prevalent. One of his investigations found that social science students were more antivivisection and science students more pro-vivisection when they were divided in their respective subject groups than when they were mixed together. He found that personal identity is replaced in a group situation by social identity. Reicher also analysed data from the St. Pauls riots which occurred in Bristol and found that people identified with one another and because of this they adhered to the norms of the group because they were adopted as their own. In conclusion, it seems that older theories such as Le Bon and Freud are relevant today as they provide a strong theoretical basis from which we can develop our own theories of the crowd. However, the very theoretical nature of them is what makes the more recent theories much viable and realistic as both Freud and Le Bon use concepts that we will never be able to verify such as the unconscious mind. In contrast, more recent studies are supported with empirical evidence that can lead to only one conclusion, they are better theories. The nature of crowds however, means that future research will be difficult to undertake, as studies cannot be recreated in the lab due to the sheer volume of people needed.