1. The Renaissance. Now, living in this world of freedom to think reasonably, creationally, and scientifically seems so natural for us, so that we wouldn't imagine the life without that freedom to think freely. But it was not usual to have a freedom to think freely in the period before 1450. There had been a period of trial of mankind to search for the freedom to be a human. It was called "Renaissance" which means rebirth. The renaissance was a truly rebirth of mankind to make it possible to have a freedom to think freely about our mankind instead of God. Before the Renaissance, people were thinking about God-centered world without thinking of themselves who had the infinite ability to think and actualize something about it. The Renaissance was like a sudden wake-up for the mankind.? Appearantly, it seemed not that easy to achieve the freedom to think as they do something about it. It was due to the dogma of decayed church that made it hard on people who tried to know more about what it is like to be a human. However, people who were considered as humanists didn't cease to chase the freedom to think of the new world, which characterizes the potential to make a positive difference in the world, the more personal religion in terms of their own relationship to God or their own experiences, the intense interest in the past, and Anti- Aristotelianism which breaks the vastatic authority of Aristotle's philosophy. It was the spirit of freedom that the Renaissance meant to the mankind.
2. The Reformation. The heirarchy of church was the origin of dogma that made unable to have the fredom to think freely. It just emphasized the crooked way to relate human to God with the forceful rituals for the purpose of keeping their authority. It hindered the liberal relationship between human and God, which could be the subject of intellectual freedom. People could't resist against the vastatic authority of church, because they were taught that they would be sinned if they break out of the dogma of church. At that time, the Reformation was kind of shocking statement because most of people thought that he would be sinned and punished. But Martin Luther was faithful enough about what he believed as the desirable relationship between people and God, so he didn't give up on what he believed. It was such a courageous and bold idea of him but caused punishment by the authority of church. Even though he had suffered from the consequence of his insisting on the Reformation, it was enough to revoke people to pay attention to the freedom of intellect in religion. After the Reformation, it was necessary to detour the direction that the christianity had been going, regardless of true meaning of religion whch could be attained only by the Reformation in the realm of religion. The realm of the Reformation began to spread out into all areas, including philosophy, science, and psychology.
3.The Emergence of Positivism by Empirical Attitude. The reformation happened in the realm of science was postualted by Francis Bacon against the authority of Aristotle. Bacon Ewas a radical empiricist who believed in the thought that the nature could only be understood by observing it directly and objectively. Dr.James emphasized the realm of nature by saying that what he meant by nature was only the external and physical world which is the subject of physical science. Dr.James' explanation of spiritual world and physical world made it clear to understand the realm of science that Bacon tried to deal in a rational thought. And he added that the spiritual world also should be examined in a rational way of thought, which was well understood to me. As I read the part, Baconian Science, I was so astonished by his Iingenuity. Bacon was strongly beliedved in the induction, which is like bottom-up, and opposed the deduction by Galileo. His scientific reasonning was only possible by induction of all the specific facts or particular events, which could be formulated in one general principle or idea. It was so natural for him to postulate positivism which is based on empirical observation as the basis of factual knowledge. The positivism was required to postulate some principles or ideas to have its effect in physical science. His ingenuity can be also seen in his famous "idols". In his idols of the cave, he again emphasized the importance of being scientific and rational. What he claimed was that the personal biases should be discarded in individual's perceiving and interpreting the physical world. Other idols are also about factors that interfere within the process of scientific investigation. In my thought, his theory on the idols was so influential, even, nowdays, it seems crucial for the attitude of anyone who needs to be scientific.
4. The Revealation of Truth. Dr.James has mentioned about the importance of Rene Descartes in the history of psychology. Since Descartes was a first philosopher with the attitude of a scientist, he would be called as a first psychologist. Even more, many of his ideas were deeply related to that of behaviorist who focuses on the explanation of human behavior in terms of science. For Descartes, the revealation of truth could be possible wihtin the endless cycle of doubting and rejecting everything. He even said that nothing in philosophy was beyond doubt. About this notion of Descartes, my reaction was quite certain understanding of his Iattitude that every truth can only be found with endless questions. His searching for other areas of human knowledge made him reach at his famous four rules for attaining certainty in any area. He first believed that one can be certain about what you like with given freedom to choose. And secondarily, he said that it is required to be sure about something when you analyze it into many parts as possible. The third rule for attaining certainty was to think the easiest and simplest first and gradually reach toward the more complex. And the last thing was the certainty attained by checking for any missing points. These rules are being taken for grant nowdays, but these didn't even exist before Descartes, according to Dr.James. Once again, I was marveled by the ingenuity of Descartes, and came to reconsider these rules with my own certainty that I have.
5. Being a Human. As I mentioned above, those ideas by Luther, Bacon, and Descartes were absolutely required for mankind to make it possible to think freely. In my thought, this freedom to think is the most important characteristics of human that can distinguish mankind from other organisms. In other words, we are characterized by our ability to think freely. During I was enrolled in this course, I came to think over nights about what it means by being a human with the trial to be scientific in various ways of thought. I think I'm postulating an abstract idea about my doubt. However, I know that it needs to be examined in a more scientific and also rational way. Most of all, I have learned this point of view in this class that I need to consider my purpose of study in a goodwill with keeping the pace of understanding of two worlds, the spiritual world and the physical world.
NATURE VS. NURTURE
PART A. 1. The Attributes of Our Innate Part.
So many different peoples are living around us. None of us seems to have same characteristics as others have. Why did this happen? Why is it happening? As one of the r eason, first, many ? biologists had proved that it is because of our genes which we are inherited from our parents. Different parent causes the diversity of gene pattern which makes possible to have different innate characteristics. Most of parts in ou r text book and almost every psychological references ever published after the 18th century were focused on our learned parts parts of characteristic. For me, it is because of that we can't change our innate characteristics but we can possibly develop th e learned part of ourselves by learning or nurturing. As to say, it is due to the characteristics of gene which can not be changed. However, in my thought, our innate part shouldn't be neglected from the realm of modern psychology for better understandi ng of the human. It's merely my personal opinion that some times, our innate part plays most crucial role in our daily life, since it seems like that we have a tendency to learn what we are apt to. As to say, it seems like that we learn what we are bo rn to learn by the aptitude of our innate part. In addition to this, our innate aptitude plays a important role, when we stand in the place of choosing what our experiences would be like. It was when I was in the high school, thinking that there ;are s ome experiences that we tend to go through or that we choose in accordance with our innate tendency. In Korea, it was like a hell, the situation me and my friends were going through. We were not just friends but also we were more like enemies for each o ther to get into college and to be a selected one. It was like the situation shown in the text, "the survival for the fittest." The competition was so serious that some of high school student did commit suicide. To pass the entrance exam was all we had to think about and to live for during the most important period of our life, the youth. It seems so meaningless and irony situation that our country have, when I recall at this point. Anyway, I had my own life that was not too far away from the reality . Still, I cherished the friendship with my friends and liked to talk about life and future together. I had experienced myself seeking and emphasizing more valuables in those days, which seems likely due to one of my innate tendencies. I wanted to know more about the truth of this world and my days, the youth. Something in my heart always reminded me that I should learn more from this world of youth, not only from the concepts of Calculus or Physics. I read many books as possible, and one day I've decided to figure out what I'm missing in my youth. That time, I found out that I have this innate tendency of finding or seeking for something unusual, which would mak e me sounded like a nuts. I did try to meet my friends as many as possible and to discuss about what we should learn from this world of youth. :As I talked with my friends, I had this habit of trial to understand their family background and to know more about them. It was out of my goodwill to have better understanding of them, so that I could be a little help for their problems. It was very interesting for me to meet and talk with my friends' parents and analyze their characteristics considering my f riends' characteristics. Since I was not the exception, it was a lot easier for me to understand most of their characteristics and of mine, too. My friends' characteristics might be due to how the parents nurtured them but it was little short for nurtur ing to explain many crucial factors of characteristics. In my thought, the innate part of them also helps them to lead their own life, and it seems like showing us the way to survive in this world as ourselves, being faithful to our unique innate tendenc y. I've got this tendency to consider people's innate attributes on their personality and intelligence for better understanding.
2. The Unchangeable Innate Part; The Spirit.
As a common sense, I learned about the roles of gene in biology class. The gene decides many characteristics of us to formulate our physical or bodily basis. And also, it was the role of genes shown in our text, deciding the non-physical or mental chara cteristecs that we are born with, such as personality or intelligence. In our textbook, it could be a example, related to intelligence, that a new born baby born with a concept about world grammar or which makes it possible that they don't have to learn to talk. It was merely my hypothesis, but I thought that these kind of our innate concepts that we are born with unique or different from others, might play most important role in picking some characteristics. No matter in terms of biology or psychology , as a person grow up this person's innate part might play a role to have a tendency of choosing what he or she likes to do in a certain way , which he or she was born with as a tendency to become a person with certain characteristics. This notion of me needs more explanation of aspects that I came to convince Aduring attending this course of Dr. James. I had a hypothesis of my own, the connection between spiritual world and the innate part of person. My hypothesis was that when a child is born, they a re born with their own tendency to become who they meant to be, which embrassed the conjecture that they have their own tendency to become what he or she was created to be like. They don't even know how he or she would be like and regard it as it was ju st happened to be their characteristics. This tendency seems to be destined to determine not only by their biological or psychological factors, such as gene, but also by spiritual factors. What I mean by a spiritual factor is some tendency we have as no n-physical parts, such as our unchangeable personality or talent. Whereas, we can comprehend our innate tendency and do something to change it, these are some of our characteristics that we can't comprehend and change only with the cocept of our innate p art, inherited from our parents. As to say, the spiritual factors are like our destiny, which God bestowed us, so that we can't do anything about it but accepting. It became clear that we are absolutely born with many characteristics that might be helpf ul for being a person, but also the crucial factors that we carry on all through our lives. As an example of spiritual factors of us, I would like to present my story. I was born in a happy family as a only son. It seemed that I am so blessed when >con sidering my parents' educational background and morality. They were both working in University as assistant professors. Both of them majored in Social Work and had their own philosophy about nurturin g a child and to let me experience many things as many as possible. This is a part of their nurturing a child with philosophy. However, as I grew up , I think I began to resemble my father, at the same time, I began to compete with him without my awaren ess. Gradually, I felt that I would be a person just like my father. The things I handle and the way of doing so was in accordance with my father's thought. It was so amazing that each time, I felt that he and I are linked with something like spiritual connection. He is calm but always very anxious about something. Of course, there are some differences between me and my father, but it seems like that I didn't like my father's characteristics and I developed the exact opposite characteristics. He is now a professor of a University in Korea and doing his project of the goodwill for every mankind in this world. It seems like my destiny that I would do what he has been doing and will do until his death. About this example of myself, I think that there 's some kind of soul or spiritual line between me and my father that had existed long before I came out to this world. And, I strongly believe that this doing and experiencing things as I choose is a part of my unchangeable innate tendency, or more lik ely my spiritual tendency.
3. The Discovery of Spirit by Experiences.
As shown in part 2, I strongly believe that I was born with my own spirit. I 've shown some examples that I've discoverd during my years of experiencing this world. When I consider the fact that I was linked with my father spiritually, I can't skip mentiong of somebody who has helped me with opening the world of my spirit, my mo ther. She was the one who helped me most crucially with giving me chances to go through all those experiences. I have got all those memories with her, rather than my father. She was always there with me assisting me to think about myself with my own at titude. She is a smart woman who doesn't want to miss all the experiences that would be helpful for the discovery of my innate merits or spirits. She took her important roles as the one who always disciplined me with the desirable way of managing all th ose experiences that I was going through. Most of my present characteristics are due to her unconditional devotion of nurturing me, even though most of them were already with me as the innate parts of me at the same time of my birth. She spent most of h er time nurturing me with the unconditional love of mother when I was a infant. As I grew up, she began to help me with developing my ability to reason one by one about the things happened around me. Since she was a Christian, she emphasized me with the importance of love and showed examples of love with her doings. As the most important part of her nurturing me, she always helped me with letting me do everything i ndependently without telling me to do something forcefully. Both of my parents were strongly believed in me, so that they didn't really tell me forcefully to do something or not to do something. They gave me almost every choices to choose and think by m yself about my chosen experiences. They tried to help me with what I asked for help and to support me with the Ccondition that I would be responsible for what I do with love, and they really raised me to have my own independent ability to think about wha tever happened to me and to deal with all those experiences. When I recall, reminding me to be thankful to whatever happens was the most important teaching from my parents to me, and their own way of nurturing me was the greatest love that they have give n.
4. The Sensation of Spiritual World in Reality.
In my reality, I experience so many happenings around me. Somtimes, I get so puzzled by many experiences and just want to forget all those things and to be in condition of blank. When I think like that, I hate myself thinking of everything around me and wonder that I can't just foget all those things. Then, s uddenly I feel a fear that what if I can't sense anything and loose my ability to think; it would be like a death; I settle all my mind down and try to concentrate. In my thought, the innate part occupies the role to deal with my experiences; analyzing, understanding, and organizing; so that my experiences would be helpful for my future experiences. In addition to this, I wonder that what if we don't have this innate ability, and also there would not be the sensation of spiritual world in reality without it. In a sense that the experiences open, not cause, the innate part of us, the spirit would be a part of our innate attributes. In my thought, the belief that the experience doesn't open the spirit might be due to the fact that there can't be a leap between experience and spirit. As to say, it is not the experience which opens the spiritual world without the attributes of our innate parts. Anyway. it is obvious t hat there is a connection between experiences ad the spiritual world. In everyday life, I really try to experience many things what I really mean is not only the experience but also the sensation of my spiritual world which can be expressed as the though t after experiences. Through my experiences, I can sense the existence of my spiritual world. It is the time when I feel satisfied that I am humane. Because I think that humane means that I think and feel the existence of me, of my spiritual world. In my reality, the sensation of spiritual is the only way to know of my existence. I love to experience many things and a psychologist, who thinks in scientific ways about the humane and the universe, with the Esensation of my spiritual world for ever. And, if it is possible, I would perpetuate my love for whom I love and for the mankind.
PART B. 5. Heredity and Achievement.
In my thought, I was quite sure about what I wro te in part A, still I couldn't revise it clearly, so that it might satisfactory to me. In a chaos, I began my research in library. First, I began ;the word research with the words like, innate, nurture, or nativism. It was my great start that I found t his book. As I read the abstract part in computer, I have a feeling that it would be suitable for my topic. It was titled as" Heredity and Achievement" written by Daniel N. Robinson who is a psychologist and a professor of Amherst College. The call Anu mber, QH431 R742, indicated that it was on the third floor. I ran to the third floor and finally found to without any hardship. I Asat down on the ground and began to read the introduction part. For my great surprise, it treats the theory that I wrote in part A of my paper. It was written in a tone of scholar, so that it matches to the explanation of author about the nativism and the empiricism. I really liked the point that he dealt with both views about human nature objectively. In a glance, I noticed that he was a neobehaviorist, emphasizing theories of neobehaviorist, such as, Edward. C. Tolman. He demonstrated many aspects of our innate part and learned part, such as learning, personalit y, Eintelligence, and ability by editing some theories. The part that I was most interested in was the explanation of stickleback's learned behavior which is totally changed from the ascendant(p.103). My attraction for this part would be due to the fact that it was not in accordance with my hypothesis. My hypothesis in part was that important characteristics, in this case, the courtship, would be a innate characteristic. It was such a explanation that a behaviorist would have. I knew that I would lo ok forward some books, which contain the contrary ideas, but I didn't know that my first choice of book would be the one. Anyway, I was still believed in my idea about our innate tendency which would be inherited as a characteristic. It took me almost t wo days to read this book, and then, I became more convinced about the detail concept of nativism. The author emphasized the environment was regard as but a stage which all Bof man's innate tendencies are acted(p.376). As a opposite point of view, the a uthor also explained the view of empiricists that humans are nothing but a narrow which reflects the complicated outcomes of environmental influences(p.380). I felt that this book helped me to clarify my ambiguity of ideas on the innate )part and the learned part by experience.
6. Human Knowledge and Human Nature.
Last time, I forgot to print out what I saw in computer, so I confirmed myself to print out this time. I printed out some pages and skimed all entries with reading some titles. In my sight, the title, "Human Knowledge and Human nature" was picked. I really liked the title, so I underlined the call number, 13D161 C352 1992. When I first opened it, I didn' t expect that many informations from it. Unlikely what I thought it was full of psychological veiws on human's knowledge, including nativism and empiricism. It was published in1992 by Oxford University Press, and the author's name was Peter Carruthers. To my great surprise, the author went through almost every aspects of human's knowledge; Platonism, nativism, and empericist, but it seems that he was more like a empiricist. Most of his chapter were about the case of empiricism against the other. It w as really not in accordance with the empiricist on innate knowledge Dof us. After I finished reading some chapters, I thought this book was forcused only on the empiricism, which even rejects the existence of innate knowlekge. I guessed that the author would be a neobehaviorist, for his explanation of the process of collecting knowledges was in terms of behaviors. I was little puzzled, when I read the case of Locke who was strongly believed in empiricism. Locke's main argument against the existence of innat e knowledge in Book of the Essay was presented. Locke claimed his belief by adopting what might be called "the principle of mental transparency". He said that there cannot be anything in the mind that the subject is unaware of(p.49). I thought that this principle of Locke is absurd. Because I think the mental has a transparency, then there couldn't be a lost memory that we can't recall right away. Even though the author tried to persuade the readers to believe in empiricism, I was still more likely to be a nativist.
7. Equilibr ation and Cognition
A Review and Elaboratation of Piaget's Genetic Epistemology. I was little tried of reading the book, so I began my research in CD-ROM to find some journal articles, which would be treating the innate idea in a more scientific way. T herefore, this time, I put the words like, innate and genetic, and I found a title which mentions a well known contemporary psychologist, Jean Piaget. Before I go to the second floor, I looked up the textbook to check something about him. As I remembered, he was a great cognitive psychologist. With holding the page that I underlined the call number, BF 21 G286, I ran to find the journal name, "Genetic, Social, General Psychology Monographs", which C contains the article titled, "Equilibration and Cognition; A Reviw Cand Elaboration of Piaget's Genetic Epistemology", written by E.J. Parkins. As shown in the title, it was about little complicated theory. The tone of the writing was very scholar, and the point of view was properly objective, impartial,and especially because of its characteristic as a review. The author explained the value of reviewing Piaget as a genetic epistemologist with saying that the biological adaptive process of equilibration , which is a condition of conformity between cognitive structures and their external experiences, is a part of our innate cognitive subsystems(Pakins,1988). The article was mainly about our innate ability of equilibration which makes us possible to conti nue the autoregulation from the system of reflexes to the 8recombination of habits, in turn to Verbal or cognitive intelligence(Piaget,1936). To facilitate this eqilibration ability, there must be correspondence between cognitive structure and the enviro nment, and this requires eqilibration within cognitive development. Thus, eqilibration within cognition would be a subsystem of the ability of cognition as an extention of organic equilibration(Parkins,1988). At the end of this article, the author summarized the main points on equilibration within Piaget's theory as follows; the primary role of cognition is to extend our innate ability to keep equilibration(Piaget,1970). In addit ion to this, he emphasized that the cognitive structures are not simple fixed copies of the environment, and that it was the innate ability of cognitive equilibration supported by the environment(Piaget, 1958,1961,1975). After reading this article, I fig ured out that every ability, in this case cognition, is due to our innate attribute which seems so scientific and amazing.
8. The Human Conspiracy.
I found this book with interesting title, "Human Conspiracy", with my word search. It didn't take long time to figure out it is a psychological reference with many pictures and diagrams. It was written by Nigel Calder in 1976 and published by Viking Pres
s. The call number was BF698.9 C8 C28 which gave me hard time to find it, since the cover was damaged. It was like a collection of many stories which made me feel familiar with the author. It was consisted of four parts, and the third part was only rel
ated to my topic, which is titled
nature and nurture.
It was somewhat different approach of him to mention cultural attributes on the innate part of children. He was emphasizing the important point of nature part which can be accumulated by the ascendant, and it could be inherited as a former of culture(p.7
9). One of his proof was that elaborated study involving 3000 families of different ethnic origins in Hawaii(p.80). Some of his hypothesis were absolutely based on the importance with our innate tendency toward the formation of cultural realm, which was
in accordance with my idea, even though it shows some diversity of its object. I was attributed by his hypothesis about the difference of intelligence with considering some ethnic background, such as Euro-Americans and Japanese-Americans(p.83). Conspic
uous differences showed up as the result of his test. Such as, memory performance is a case in point, and here genetic differences seem to be relatively unimportant. Most of them didn't show remarkable difference between a certain ethnic's ability to ca
lculate and the date when they first began to use the currency(p.85). I didn't know the reason, but it seemed so unbelievable and absurd correlation. Although the test was ended in a funny coincident, in terms of contemporary psychology, many tendendies
that we were born with can be developed. Also, I came to think that the innate part of us can be used in the diversity of its aspect, and it can be
directed for the goodwill of mankind. Before I returned this book, I did my best to mend the damaged part of cover page. 10. Be Yourself.
Finally, I've found this book on the second floor, since the callnumber was HF5500.2 B74. I've decided to use this book, "Be Yourself", written by Margaret E. Broadly, for my last reference. As a whole, the tone of the writ
ing was popular, and it was like a storytelling. It was the book for analyzing people's innate aptitude, so that it might be helpful to people with decideing a career. The author demonstrated many cases that might be necessary to understand for the bett
er objective and impartial view considering the contents of this book. I think it would be in the realm of contemporary psychology, the theories shown in this book because of its explanation on applied aspect of psychology. I liked the whole story, not
only because it deals with the theme that I wrote in part A, but also it would be really useful in a good way. The author's theories were mostly based on nativism. The part that I liked most was the ending part focused on the Bphilosophy of life which w
ould be really effective, only with the fullest understanding of one's innate part. As a example, the author said that the psychological study performed in a productive way would like to be able to measure and analyze such traits of human, as intelligenc
e or ability of memorization. But just as a chemical analysis does not make a new chemical, neither does analysis of some mental traits of human make us possible to have a better life(p.182). As to say, the analysis of
some mental traits without good purpose doesn't mean any progress. Unlikely a chemical, man is more complexed and wants to have emotional and spiritual needs which should be fullfilled to live a better life. The understanding of our innate spiritual nee
ds would be the start of the better life with the philosophy which is compatible with the innate tendency. I really want to recommend , since it has dealt with the need for understanding our innate tendency in a realistic way.
Conclusion It was a quite experience to do my research. During the period that I've struggled to find the source and to write as I analyze, it felt like time flying. Now that I've finished my research and write the conclusion part, and
I feel the vanity about what I've accomplished so poorly. No matter how I've tried, it seems obvious that my paper isn't worthy in terms of scholar's view. Anyway, I did my best to prove my belief to myself and to have more knowledges about my vague hyp
othesis on our innate tendency. I think my idea in terms of origin, revealed in the form of literature. It cames out to be a literature of mine. And, it became clear that I was short for express my idea in terms of Cculture. So to speak, I only could
conceptualize my hypothesis in terms of my personal experiences, basically, which is the most important origin of my every single idea, the goodness. If I call Athis as my innate tendency to exercise through my entire life, I would recommend this to oth
ers. It is absolutely valuable, because I think it is the beginning of our innate tendency for searching the spirit, the truth in terms of individual. I guess I have not changed at all, even after I've been all
through the theories that seemed to be contrary to my idea. But I've learned that I need to read many books as possible to formulate my theory on strong empirical base. Also, I figure out I need to broaden the so
Using the Theory of Explicit Modeling
as a Advertising Tool
Yoon.W Cho
Psy 311 Research Design
University of Hawaii
This study examines the change in consumer's intention of
purchasing the product after being exposed to the television
advertisement featuring some popular figures who stimulate consumer's
tendency to buy, based on the theory of explicit modeling. ANOVA is
performed to determine of whether the sex of both represent and presenter
or the popularity of the presenter plays a role as determinant in
purchasing behavior. It is clear the experiment generates "positive"
results.
In its approximately 40 years as a part of American television
culture, television advertisement has become an important factor of most
of our purchasing behavior. Despite the wide range of opinions about the
importance of television advertisement, everyone agrees that it occupies
a great deal of the consumers' behavior with giving great influences on
their psychological mechanism which consists of behavior and cognition.
Then, is the psychological impact of television advertisement strong
enough to make people buy the products?
With the assumption of psychological impact of television
advertisement, the hypothetical cornerstone for the study is that the
explicit modeling, which works within our psychological mechanism in a
way of induction (Eisenberg, 1992), might have a correlation with
commercials that reinforce our consuming behavior. Just like other
modeling hypotheses, explicit modeling also has the evidence indicating
that the more people are exposed to a certain way the more they are
likely to be imitating in their behaviors. Only difference is that other
modeling process usually happens unintentionally as simple imitation
(Bandura, 1977), but explicit modeling is involved with induction which
is an intention to induce people in a certain way of behavior (Feger,
1989). In other words, to induce a certain behavior, people behave in
ways they desire others to imitate, in which they give messages that
appeal to other's desire to be similar.
It seems like that many commercials featuring popular figures are
relating to this theory. Then, does the popularity of advertising
presenter, which seems to initiate the explicit modeling, affect the
consumers' intention to purchase? For example, a food product company
used a very popular basketball player and reported their slogan, "Be like
Michale", to attract the possible consumers with a subliminal message
like "if you eat it, you can be like him". His popularity actually
induce modeling process in a way of affecting the purchasing behavior.
Since the sport product is one of the most competitive marketing items
with a great number of commercial, the shoes commercial will be examined.
Method
After getting the consent of financial support from a sport
product company, whose brand is comparatively new and unfamiliar to
people, the background research begins with focus group survey. The
reason of using unfamiliar product is that it minimize the chance of
becoming subject of routine purchase behavior. The subjects of focus
group survey should be aged from 12 to 35 years because they are most
likely to be active and to be the target of sport product companies.
Through several surveys, the most popular male athlete and the most
popular female athlete will be chosen. Because of possible interaction
effects, the sex of the presenter and the sex of respondent were included
as independent variables. Each of them makes commercial as a presenter,
simply saying "Wear them, you can play like me". Under exactly the same
circumstance, one male and one female, who are just ordinary people, make
commercial as presenters saying exactly identical contents. The
presenters are to test for respondent's variations in willingness to
comply with the same messages delivered by individuals with different
levels of popularity.
The independent variable in this study is the presenters'
different level of popularity. The dependent variable for the study is
the customer's willingness to buy the product. To approach external
validity, natural setting of a community sport complex center's
refreshing lounge becomes the site of survey. After the announcement of
recruiting voluntary survey participants, two videotapes by two ordinary
people are played. After playing, participants get questionnaire which
contains question like the followings. "Assuming you need a new shoes,
would you be inclined to buy this product?", "Who's presentation appealed
better for you?", "What is your gender". "Assuming you need a new shoes,
would you be inclined to buy this product?" would tell us about the
respondent's intention to purchase and become the source of dependent
variable. The question like "Who's presentation appealed better for
you?", "What is your gender?" would indicate the possible interaction
effects of gender between the presenter and respondent. The question
like "Do you like him or her because of popularity?" would confirm if the
presenter is favored by the respondent because of one's popularity.
After collecting the questionnaires, the rest of two videotaped
television advertisements with popular athletes as presenters are
played. After presentation, exactly the same questionnaires are
distributed and collected. If there had been a change in the there had
been a charge in the respondent's answer about the intention to purchase
the shoes, it must have been influenced by the respondent's recognition
of either the male or female athlete in favor. In other words, the
increase in intention to purchase the shoes has a correlation with the
increase in the level of popularity of the presenter. A 2x2x2 factorial
is employed. Analysis of variance is used to determine whether the sex
of the presenter, the sex of the respondent, on the popularity of
presenter significantly affected respondents' willingness to buy the
product. Four version of the commercial is necessary to cover each
combination of the factor levels associated with the presenter's sex
(male, female) and popularity (yes , no). Even though the increase in
the intention to purchase doesn't mean the increase in the purchasing
behavior, still, the increase in the intention, which is a part of our
cognition, would influence us a better tendency to purchase the product
which is a part of our behavior.
References
Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Eaglewood Cliff,
NJ, Prentice-Hall.
Ersenberg, N. (1992). The use of cognitive modeling to
modify behavior. Cambridge, MA. Harvard university Press.
Feger, H. (1989). New developments in psychological
modeling. Amsterdam, Elsevier Science Publisher.
Homer, P. M. (1992). Message framing and the
interrelationships among ad-based feelings,
after , and cognition. Journal of Advertising, 21, 19-32
Walker, M. M. 91992). The use of role modeling in
targeting advertising to grand parents.
Journal of Advertising Research, 32, 37-44
Culture and Advertising
Throughout the whole semester, we have studied various cultural
influences on our behavior. Among many facets of the cultural influence
on behavior, understanding the relationship between different cultures
and consumer behavior is one of the most important aspects of the
cross-cultural psychology today. It is because the success in world
marketing means the growth of the national power and it is closely
related to the understanding of different cultures. In other words, to
survive in this world of the marketing, culture-based approach of
advertisement seems inevitable.
Actually, it is not hard to find examples of failure by foreign companies
who made mistakes wiht perceiving cultural differences. They usually
fall into the dilemma of cultural prejudice or selective perception and
project what they perceive in other cultures onto their own cultural
background (Lull, 1990). However, the successful advertisement in
foreign market shoul be based on the analysis of the cultural concepts
that characterize different cultures and influence many aspects of
advertisement.
Ther are many cultural concepts which affect consumer behavior and they
usually operate at the same time to concrete cultural differences and
consumer behavior. Effective advertisement should be based on
understanding of every concepts. Most of all, first and most outstanding
concept would be context. Because context is what people pay attention
to or ignore. Context makes possible a kind of screening process giving
protection from information overload (Lucas, 1950).
In general, high-context cultures are more predictable than low-context
culture, but only if one is familiar with the system (Mattlelart, 1991).
For advertiser from other culture, unknown and unfamiliar high-context
culture can be completely mystifying. It is of great importance for
advertiser to be aware of the differences between high-context and
low-context culture. These intangible differences between high-context
and low-context cultures should help advertisers understand the consumer
behavior patterns of people from different cultures. Such differences may
also explain differences in message content in the advertisements of
different cultures and help understand why certain advertising messages
work in some cultures and not in others.
Within low-context cultures, there are relatively clear communicational
codes. These cultures value individual orientaton and have a various
patterns of standards and rare cultural requirements or limit. In the
other hand, high-context cultures value group identity, have relatively
vague communication codes, and maintain a standard pattern with many
requirements and restrictons.
Germany and The United States are good examples of low-context culture
countries. China, Japan, Korea and France are also good examples of
high-context culture countries. High-context cultures are collective
societies, while low-context societies are more individualistic (Lull,
1990). Ther are some examples that are related to collectivism and
individualism.
In the study examined the content of the humorous television advertising
from four cultures like Korea, Germany, Thailand, and the United States,
the result showed that the specific contents of humorous advertiseing is
likely to be variable across cultures along major dimensions, such as
collectivism and individualism (Alden, 1993, p70).
As another example, for Japanese, the non-verbal is often seen as having
greater importance than the verbal. It seems like in the low-context
system, that which is unsaid often more important that what is said. On
the other hand, in low-context systems, words seems to represent truth
and power.
Actually, Japanese advertisements are less informative than American
advertisements and they offer more facts and comparisons to demonstrate
the superiority of product, while Japanese advertisements reveal an
ondulgende with sensitive crafting of product image and appearance (Lin,
1993, p.46).
The second cultural concept I want to take into consideration is
conflict. In different cultures, conflict situations are treated
differently to handle. There are two kinds of coflict: instrumental and
expreesive. An instument conflict is characterized by conflicting
objectives, while an expressive conflct involves hostile feelings. It is
natural that high-context cultural individuals look at conflicts in a
more sensitive and expressive way (Skovmand, 1992).
Meanwhile, Germany for example, is a low-context culture country.
However, Germans do not fight and scream over a conflict and remain good
friends afterwards. For Germans, it may sound absurd to consider
professional conflict as becoming personal conflict. So called
"negotiating process" differs strongly according to culture and it
impacts advertising, too.
In the United States, negotiating is seen as a competitive process of
offers and counter-offers and, maybe, this is why American advertisement
use so many comparisons of products.
The third cultural concept that many books emphasize is about
decision-making. Most of assumptions in Western version of
decision-making theory tells us that a decision does not happen by
itself, somebody makes it. In East, on the other hand, let necessary
action arise as a result of events, instead of controlling them by making
decisions.
Again, in the United States, decisions are individual process (Britt,
1978). This is related to the idea that one can implicitly control one's
own fate, using facts and information. As the Western seek for control
in decision-making, the advertisers need to satisfy the need of consumer,
giving them many informative cues with choices in decision-making in
advertisement. This is completely opposite in case of the Eastern.
Group decision is more often taken in the East than in the West and it is
very important for them. For example, in Korea it is easy to find
advertisements, using the concept of group decision. They usually
feature a bunch of people simply saying, " we decided to use this
product".
The forth cultural concept influencing advertisement is
uncertainty-avoidance. As covered in the class, the Americans can easily
live with uncertainty and the Japanese keep away from insecuruty.
Comparative research in forty different countries show that the Japanese
have a strong need to avoid uncertainty than any other (Britt, 1978).
They are more accostomed to rely on rules, precedents and patterns.
Regarding this fact, the extreme tendency of the Japanese to follow the
vogue is somewhat understandable.
Concerning the thinking patterns of people as fifth cultural concept, the
country where dichotomy of thinking pattern (yes-no) is most evident is
the United States. In the United States, the digital, structural or
analytical thinking pattern is more valued, while analogical, holistic
pattern recognition approach of thinking pattern is more dominant in
Japan (Biswas, 1992, p.76).
For the Japanese and the French, feeling and emotion has to be right and
logic is regarded as cold and less valuable. On the other hand, the
Americans seem to depend more on empirical reasoning.
As an example of different thinking pattern affecting advertisement, a
comparison of print advertisement from the United States and France would
be perfect. The author studied cross-cultural advertising by comparing
print advertisements from the United States and France in terms of
emotional appeal, empirical and logical content, and use of humor and
sex. The result of study revealed that French advertisements make
greater use of emotional appeal, humor, and sex appeal. Advertisements
from he United States were more appealing to the reasoning (Biswas,1992,
p.78).
Different culture have different concepts of time. The Americans seem to
have a time concept with clear structures, such as beginning, turning
poit, climax and end. According to the theory of different concept of
time, there are two ways of handling time; monochronic and polychronic
(Gill, 1954).
Peoplefrom monochronic cultures tend to do one thing at a time. They are
organized and their works are structured to allow them to complete one
task after another. Polychronic people, on the other hand, tend to do
many things simultaneously. For them, time is vast and never-ending
concept. Maybe, people from a monochronic culture tend to become annoyed
in meeting with polychronic people and they feel that nothingis being
accomplished.
In my case, the difference in the concept of time from the American
culture gave me hardest time. The Koreans prefer personal control of time
in human relationship rather than impersonal management via deadline or
something like due date for submission of paper.
I found this article about the length of television advertisement.
American advertisers were more likely to use 30- sec commercial, as
opposed to the 15- sec advertisements favored by Japanese advertisers
(Hasegawa,1992). I guess it takes more time for American advertisements
to complete a commercial with clear structure, like beginning , turning
point, climax and end. Contrarily, it takes less time for Japanese
advertisements to make a commercial with symbolic and mystical
presentation.
In class, we had lecture about the values that influence behavior in the
workplace. Those five values were astonishing for me because they were
whole new concepts that I never knew. However, those values are
integrating in a sense that they influence other cultural concepts
affecting advertisement as I covered above. The values are last cultural
concept that decides how the strategy for inducing consumer behavior.
Another reason that values are integrating is that they provide analysis
of underlying motives which structure attitude and behavior which are
essential for consumer behavior. Thus, advertisers have used values as a
means of understanding consumer's motivation.
For example, having a exciting life may be an important value for one
person, while having a comfortable life is an important value for
another. A person's ranking of values represents his or her personal
value system. Just like that, ranking of values differ from culture to
culture.
The value system that has been investigated by Geert Hofstede, the one
that I learned from the class, identified five dimensions by which
cultures may be ranked. Power distance, uncertainty avoidance,
individualism and collectivism, masculinity and feminity, and confician
dynamism play an important role in the decision made by advertisers who
try to understand the motivation of consumer behavior.
I could find most articles about using of value in advertisement. For
example, a comparative content analysis of television commercials from
the United States, France, and Taiwan indicated that American commercials
generally address specific consumer needs and problems, use celebrities,
credible sources, and product users, provide data-based arguments and
explicit conclusions. The ways of advertisement that perfectly match
with the value of American were enough to motivate consumer behavior.
French commercials entertain through symbolism, humor, and drama and
avoid reason and argument. Those are likely to match with French value
(Chang,1992, p.30).
As another example, there had been a trend to westernize Japanese
consumers. But the result of study shows that Japanese advertising is
still far from being westernized. The typically Japanese soft-sell
approach is becoming more common. The western appeal of product merit,
found in almost half of the advertisements studied from 1978, decreased
to 40% 10 years later. The western hard-sell appeal, proposed to be a
growing trend, makes only a rare appearance in Japanese advertising. I
guess it is just another example of Japanese being stubborn to keep their
values.
Another interesing example of cultural difference anddifferent value was
shown in the study done in the United States. A value-based approach
study among black and white people in the United States was another
example of the commercial with preferred value. Black subjects displayed
a more positive affect toward a commercial message featuring black actors
than whiteactors. Also, black subjects were more likely to perceive the
underlying value messages contained in the advertisements.
So far, I have covered the major cultural concepts that influence
advertising. They were all crucial for the reason that different culture
finally can be characterized by them. As the culture varies along with
its major concepts, so does the advertising. Major reason for the study
and understanding of cultural study of advertisers is mainly to reduce
the difference between the audience and the advertisers. As the culture
becomes similar, the consumers forget about the fact that the product is
from other culture.
A study dealing with a minor concept of culture, the visual components
sounds interesting. The study compared the visual components of a broad
cross section of magazine advertisements from the US, the UK, and
France. The advertisements from the US and the UK had many common
features but the US and French advertisements were very dissimilar. The
visual tended to be physically larger in France than others. French
advertisements favored illustrations other than photographs (Cutler,
1992, p.78).
Still, there are other minor concepts that constitute culture. Among
them, I felt during the research that there should be other minor
concepts, except the concept about visual components. The reason I come
to think about this is because we are living in a part of visual
component that is little similar to the concept of time in terms of its
intangibility. The time and space is where we are. We are living in
different part of the world and it is natural to have different concept
about space and vision. As the time flows, the concepts become culture
one by one. And we become obligated to the thoughts that we discovered
or made up. This would be same in case of the relationship between
cultural concept and advertising which are all the ways to survive in a
world we operationally define. This is how we have been evolving and
probabily will evolve like that. Considering all these, it is natural
to think about present and future and also the issue of trend should be
mentioned in conclusion part.
To conclude a series of long research and some thought about the nature
of culture that I think what it is like, I would like to make some
comments about trend in the realm of cross-cultural psychology and
advertising. Some advertisers think that the growing similarity in
consumer behavior resulting from the increasing number of global brands
implies that national cultures will become more similar (Mattelart,
1991). On a superficial level this may be true, but fundamentally it is not.
Culture undoubtedly affects consumer behavior, so as advertisement. The
advertisers from differnt cultural background definitely need to
understand various cultural concepts and utilize them in their strategy
to survive in the world of marketing and advertising.
Benefits of Conflict
Everybody has probably experienced conflict in many areas during life
time. It happens all the time and everywhere we are. Conflict can be
usually distinguished as a bad thing in our life, but it is only a part
of it we assume. I learned in this class that there are many reasons of
conflicts in many contexts, especially in cross-cultural contexts.
Conflict occurs between two or more people. Yet, it can be happened in
our mind named as feelings, such as anger, frustration, or
disappointment. These happens inside of one person. Like these feelings
are necessary for human, Conflicts between people are also required for
us in our life. Conflict is a kind of disagreement. It can be a good
thing unlike we think about it commonly. There are several good reasons
of conflict we can understand. First of all, it helps people to promote
to get better answer in group. More people would decide better response
than one person. Also, it can be a way to open their mind from the
bottom of their heart. Then, it develops people's thinking to discover
something else. Therefore, it can not be just a fear anymore. Primarily
because conflict can have benefits, it is not something to afraid. When
people think about conflict, they only think about one side of it, and
they who are afraid of fear suffer from the fear of conflict.
There are three different types of conflicts in many situation. At
first, content conflict is a disagreement over existence on the meaning.
It is having a doubt on their life, so it happens over interpretation.
Secondly, it occurs over basic values. Value conflicts usually involved
a question of some fundamental principle like individual rights, civil
fairness, and the importance of one's spiritual life. But, conflict over
basic value can be handled interpersonally although it can not be
resolved. Thirdly, people have conflict over "personal trait". The
importance of this type of conflict is often obviously in the
communication between two persons who have known each other well for a
long time. And, they easily clash over perceptions of who is informed,
who has the authority, who has the
power. If we have conflicts like I mentioned above, we must try to defuse the conflict to cope more effectively between people. I found out some skills to solve the problem. Listening shall be the basic skill. People are frequently supposed to think that the most important thing they can do is to say the right thing. They overlook the fact that how we listen is at least as important, probably more so. But, listening should be the first rather than saying. And, that is something you can do something about.
Second, we should not assume what keeps people together, what keeps
arguing instead of just terminating the relationship. Sometimes we
emphasize that something between us is only for the same motivation, so
we work together. For a example, investing money together.
Finally, if there do not help, we need a quiet time. However, waiting
too long doesn't effective because the issue can be ignored.
After I learned about conflict, I could see the both sides of conflict.
And, it was not the one I am only afraid of. Consequently, I learned
that we have to use conflict more effectively to get the best response
interpersonally.