Prejudice Definition Essay Example for Free

Prejudice Definition Essay During the process of communication the vast majority of people judge cultural values in their own image and likeness. Their ethnic and cultural values serve as a criterion for judgment. Really, it is slightly confusing but the main reason for watching the foreign programming is to let the viewer ‘feel’ ethnocentrism. Some things or even an overwhelming majority of what you will see in the foreign film of program will feel a bit ‘off’ or even downright ‘wrong’ for an average American. This feeling occurs due to ethnocentrism. The paper examines how such an attitude can have influence on an individual’s behavior and response from another culture, how society wide ethnocentrism can affect relationships and understandings of other societies, and how it can have an adverse impact on business practices for multinational corporations. Japanese version of the foreign film â€Å"Shall We Dance† will be used as an illustration for some aspects of the paper. Ethnocentrism is a psychological reaction, which occurs when a representative of one culture perceives, sees, values and tries to understand other cultures and their behaviors through prism of his own culture. The person considers the elements of his own culture (standards, roles, values, etc) as natural and â€Å"right†, while the elements of other cultures and nations are considered to be unnatural and â€Å"wrong†. The customs and traditions of his own culture are considered to be â€Å"universal† and â€Å"right† as well. The film â€Å"Shall We Dance† by Masayuki Suo tells us the story of Shohei Sugiyama, who falls in love but not in other woman (being married), but in the art of dancing. When we watch the film, we feel the differences between Japanese and American cultures. Japanese culture seems to be very odd, alien and strange, as the world of dance socials and private lessons is considered ‘shameful’ and ‘improper’ for a Japanese person. The film gets insight into Japanese customs and traditions, explaining that in Japan married couples are more reserved in relation to each other and rarely express their emotions in public (e.g. never say ‘I love you’, or hold hands, etc.). The American nation, on contrary, is more emotional and more ‘open’, therefore we feel really odd while watching the movie. The ethnocentrism that occurs in result of watching the foreign programming evidently has an impact on our behavior. Probably, to a certain extent we are unable to understand the behavior of other cultures in a manner different from that one dictated by our own cultural environment. So, how such an attitude can have influence on a person’s behavior and response from another culture and how society wide ethnocentrism can affect relationships and understandings of other societies? As with any social-psychological phenomenon, ethnocentrism cannot be examined as entirely positive or entirely negative. Although ethnocentrism often put obstacles in the way of intergroup (intercultural) communication, it supports positive ethnical identity and keeps the integrity and specificity peculiar to a certain culture. At the same time, ethnocentrism is inevitable part of our live being a logical consequence of socialization and familiarization with another culture and understandings of other societies. The person’s response predominantly occurs in the form of comparison – a peaceful nonidentity. Yet, ethnocentrism can have an adverse impact on business practices for multinational corporations, because it often impedes effective intergroup (interethnic and international) communication (Allport 1954). Interethnic comparison can be expressed in the form of contraposition or setting off (e.g. the people deny intercultural differences; proclaim their culture to be superior; sometimes people perceive cultural differences as something that imposes a threat to their existence and try to withstand them, often resulting in conflicts between different cultures, etc) that, in its turn, implies at least preconception and prejudice in relation to other cultures and has an adverse impact on business practices for multinational corporations. References Allport, G. W. (1954). The Nature of Prejudice. Garden City, NY: Doubleday

Feminism in Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and When It Changed by

Feminism in Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and When It Changed by Joanna Russ During the long history of science fiction, one of the most common themes is the utopia. Many feminists used utopia to convey their ideas. Two of these stories, Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "When It Changed" by Joanna Russ portray feminist utopias in different ways. Herland shows a society lacking men, and makes this seem positive, while "When It Changed" shows an all-female society that mirrors a world with men. Through their respective stories, the authors are saying that women should be considered equal to men. Gilman points out that women should be accepted because they can survive on their own, while Russ suggests that women can be as strong as men if necessary. Herland is the story of three men that stumble upon a society populated entirely by women. This culture is superior in virtually all ways to the world of the men. The narrator is one of the visiting men, and he is constantly in awe of the perfection. The women of Herland know no poverty, hunger, or evil. This novel was written in a time when the women’s movement was in its earliest stages. This parallels the fact that Herland, and most utopias, are found in distant, isolated locations. Gilman’s portrayal of a utopian feminist society is perfect, without any outwardly apparent flaws. Although her view is exaggerated, she suggests that a society made up of all females would be superior to one with both sexes, and, in saying this, she makes a powerful statement for women’s equality. Bernice Hausman writes, "Gilman’s social Darwinism†¦ rested on the ‘assertion that women, as a collective entity, could, if they chose, be the moving force in the recog nition of society.’" (1... ...e topic; that women deserve to be accepted in society. Russ attempts to show this through the society on Whileaway, where the women survive without men by becoming like men themselves. In contrast, Gilman uses a society of females to show that women were confined by their roles of society, and were capable of much more. Sources used: Clemons, Tammy. "Feminism in Herland: A Utopian Vision of Charlotte Perkins Gilman." Published on www.womenwriters.net Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. Herland. Minola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1998. Hausman, Bernice L. "Sex before gender: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the evolutionary paradigm of utopia." Feminist Studies, Fall 1998 issue. Russ, Joanna. "When It Changed". The Prentice Hall Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Ed. Garyn G. Roberts. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2001. Pg. 946-951.

Futures contract

A formal treatment of this issue is provided by Easily, O'Hara, and Carnivals (1998), who allow the participation of informed traders in the option market to be decided endogenously in an equilibrium framework. In their model, informed investors choose to a â€Å"pooling quill? Trade in both the option and the stock market? In barium†? When the leverage implicit in options is large, when the liquidity in the stock market is low, or when the overall fraction of informed traders is high. Our main empirical result directly tests whether the stock and option market are in he pooling equilibrium of Easily, O'Hara, and Carnivals (1998).Using option trades that are initiated by buyers to open new positions, we form put-call ratios to examine the predictability of option trading for future stock price movements. We find predictability that is strong in both magnitude and statistical significance. For our 1990 through 2001 sample period, stocks with positive option signals (I. E. , tho se with lowest quintile put-call ratios) outperform those with negative option signals (I. E. , those with highest quintile put-call ratios) by over 40 basis points per day and 1% per eek on a risk-adjusted basis.When the stock returns are tracked for several weeks, the level of predictability gradually dies out, indicating that the information contained in the option volume eventually gets incorporated into the underlying stock prices. Although our main empirical result clearly documents that there is informed trading in the option market, it does not necessarily imply that there is any market inefficiency, because the option volume used in not our main test? Which is initiated by buyers to open new positions? Is publicly observable. Indeed, information-based models [e. , Glisten and Milord (1985); Easily, O'Hara, and Carnivals (1998)] imply that prices adjust at once to the public information contained in the trading process but may adjust slowly to the private information possess ed by informed traders. As a result, the predictability captured in our main test may well correspond to the process of stock prices gradually adjusting to the private component of information in option trading. Motivated by the differing theoretical predictions about the speed at which prices adjust to public versus private information, we explore the predictability of publicly errors nonpublic observable option volume. For Journal that 25, example, July 2002,the Wholesaler reported theChicagoBoardOptions was â€Å"unusual activity† options shares Whet, pharmaceuticals investigating trading in Madison, which tactical based increase trading volume earlier NJ, giant superintendence's month. Option occurred before release a government bathe study peptic days American Medical Association documented a heightened abreast risk heart cancer, coronary of the who disease, strokes, bloodspots women had benefiting Whitey's hormone-replacement drug years. Preemptor many 872 innovation De limitation Following previous empirical studies in this area [e. . , Easily, O'Hara, and Carnivals (1998); Chain, Chunk, and Font (2002)], we use the Lee and Ready (1991) algorithm to back out buyer-initiated put and call option volume from publicly observable trade and quote records from the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CUBE). We find that the resulting publicly observable option signals are able to predict stock returns for only the next one or two trade days. Moreover, the stock prices subsequently reverse which raises the question of whether the predictability from the public signal is a manifestation of rice pressure rather than informed trading.In a abbreviate analysis which includes both the public and the nonpublic signals, the nonpublic signal has the same pattern of information-based predict? Ability as when it is used alone, but there is no predictability at all from the public signal. This set of findings underscores the important distinction between public and nonpub lic signals and their respective roles in price discovery. Further, the weak predictability exhibited by the public signal suggests that the economic source of our main result is valuable private information in the option volume rather than an inefficiency across the stock and option market.Central to all information-based models is the roles of informed and uninformed traders. In particular, the concentration of informed traders is a key variable in such models with important implications for the innovativeness of trading volume. Using the PIN variable proposed by Easily, Kefir, and O'Hara (1997) and Easily, Heavier, and O'Hara (2002) as a measure of the prevalence of informed traders, we investigate how the predictability from option volume varies across underlying stocks with efferent concentrations of informed traders.We find a higher level of predictability from the option signals of stocks with a higher prevalence of informed traders. 2 Although the theoretical models define i nformed and uninformed trap? Deer strictly in terms of information sets, we can speculate outside of the models about who the informed and uninformed traders might be. Our data set is unique in that in addition to recording whether the initiator of volume is a buyer or a seller opening or closing a position, it also identifies the investor class of the initiator. We find that option signals from investors who trade through full-service brokerage houses discount brokerage houses.Given that the option volume from felicities brokerages includes that from hedge funds, this result is hardly surprising. It is interesting, however, that the option signals from firm proprietary traders contain no information at all about future stock price † Given stocks PIN smaller could driven the that be stocks, result higher artistically by fact there higher from stocks. Show that is notches. Len this signals smaller predictability option PIN result remains size. Intact controlling after particula r, 73 studies n 3 2006 movements.In the framework of the information-based models, this result suggests market primarily for hedging purposes. Finally, a unique feature of the MultiMate stock and option setting is the availability of securities with differing leverage. Black (1975) asserted that leverage is the key variable which determines whether informed investors choose to trade in the option market, and Easily, O'Hara, and Carnivals (1998) demonstrated that under a natural set of assumptions this is indeed the case. Motivated by these considerations, we investigate how the predictability documented n our main test varies across option con? Races with differing degrees of leverage. We find that option signals constructed from deep out-of-the-money (TOM) options, which are highly leveraged contracts, exhibit the greatest level of predictability, whereas the signals from contracts with low leverage provide very little, if any, predictability. 3 The rest of the article is organized as follows. In Section 1, we synthesize the existing theory literature and empirical findings and develop empirical specifications. We detail the data in Section 2, present the results in Section 3, and conclude in Section . 1.Option Volume and Stock Prices 1. 1 Theory The theoretical motivation for our study is provided by the voluminous literature that addresses the issue of how information gets incorporated into asset prices. In this subsection, we review the theoretical literature with a focus on insights that are directly relevant for our empirical study. In particular, we concentrate on the linkage between information genre? Dated by the trading process and the information on the underlying asset value, the role of public versus private information, and the process of price adjustment. 4The issue of how information gets incorporated into asset prices is central to all information-based models. Although specific modeling approaches differ, information gets incorporated into se curity prices as a result of the trading behavior of informed and uninformed traders. In the sequential trade model of Glisten and Milord (1985),

Romanticism in Mary Shelleys Frankenstein Essay - 2052 Words

Mary Shelley, with her brilliant tale of mankinds obsession with two opposing forces: creation and science, continues to draw readers with Frankensteins many meanings and effect on society. Frankenstein has had a major influence across literature and pop culture and was one of the major contributors to a completely new genre of horror. Frankenstein is most famous for being arguably considered the first fully-realized science fiction novel. In Frankenstein, some of the main concepts behind the literary movement of Romanticism can be found. Mary Shelley was a colleague of many Romantic poets such as her husband Percy Shelley, and their friends William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge, even though the themes within Frankenstein are darker†¦show more content†¦Given that the Industrial Revolution had impacted all forms of society, including how people thought, felt, worked, and related to each other, it would not be totally crazy to think that such a change might have been the re ason why Romanticism was quickly adopted. Romanticism as a reaction to the hyper-active period of change might have been the only way to deal with the backlash of the Enlightenments scientific thoughts and concerns. Romanticism gave people spontaneity, the chance to dream again, to explore fantasy, whereas the Enlightenment made everything predictable, taking the fun out of life. First expressed by the English poets, these ideals of Romanticism spread to other artistic models, such as art and music, and on to other countries. Because of this, the value of the arts, emotions and the value of the individual was able to reestablish a place in the minds and practices of people and society. Before delving too deep into Shelleys novel, it is very important to label the ideologies and connections behind Romanticism as a literary period, and a literary movement. The poetry and prose of the Romantic movement meant to show a obvious connection to the imagination. Romanticism, at its most bas ic understanding, which was mainly active through the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, can be separated from the preceding Enlightenment by recognizing that in the Enlightenment, there was a â€Å"preoccupation with reason inShow MoreRelated Romanticism and Mary Shelleys Frankenstein Essay1531 Words   |  7 PagesRomanticism and Mary Shelleys Frankenstein Romanticism is a philosophy that has played an important role in the development of western culture. This philosophy also had a great effect on Marry Shellys famous novel, Frankenstein. Though it is easy to find its influence in the story, it is unclear whether or not Marry Shelly supported the movement.. Marry Shelly lived through the height of romantic belief. In 1797, when Shelly was born, there had already been several decades for theRead MoreAspects of Romanticism in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Essay1170 Words   |  5 Pagesthat we either envy and want or despise and fear, such as witches and vampires, superheroes and magic. Everything we feel as people, as individuals plays into what we want and how we act. All of these things are aspects of Romanticism, which we can see in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Nature has a soothing and healing affect. There is poison ivy which will irritate your skin, but growing near it in the surrounding area, is jewelweed, a natural cure for the itch. There is the desert and there is theRead MoreFrankenstein, by Mary Shelley1078 Words   |  5 PagesMary Shelley’s Frankenstein has undoubtedly withstood the test of time. Frankenstein’s direct association with fundamental Gothic literature is extremely renowned. However, the novel’s originality is derived from the foundational thematic values found within the relationship (or lack there of) between Victor Frankenstein and the monster he had created, in combination with a fascinatingly captivating plot. Understandably, Frankenstein can often be associated with a multitude of concepts; however,Read MoreEssay on Frankenstein: Development through Romanticism1614 Words   |  7 Pages Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein is a Gothic and Romantic novel written in the early 1800s. The novel opens with Captain Robert Walton as he is sailing on his ship on the search for new and undiscovered territory. During his exploration, Robert’s ship becomes trapped in ice, and he encounters Victor Frankenstein, who looks miserable. When Robert begins to talk to Victor, Victor starts to explain his life story, which ends up being a complete tragedy. Victor tells Robert of his desire to discover theRead MoreMary Shelley ´s Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus, an Analysis of the Subtitle1219 Words   |  5 Pages(Shelley 37). Ab initio Victor Frankenstein, the main protagonist, is being put on a level with Prometheus through the subtitle. An indication that Mary Shelley did indeed have the myth in mind as she wrote the novel, is not only her subtitle, but moreover the parallels between the Prometheus myth and Frankenstein, which are undeniable. The title itself gives a lot away of the story which follows. It links the modern world with the ancient Greek myth. Victor Frankenstein â€Å"steals† the secret of lifeRead MoreRomanticism In Frankenstein Essay740 Words   |  3 Pages Mariah McCoy Dr.Bardot His-102 16 June 2017 Historical Relevance Within Frankenstein Imagine a world without Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution,and Romanticism. Mary Shelley uses these topics in her novel to expose the effects that each of these had on society. Frankenstein is a novel that was published in the early 1800’s and tells a story about a man by the name of Victor Frankenstein. Technology and critical thinking skills plays a huge role in the novel and real life.By analyzingRead MoreAnalysis Of Mary Shelley s Frankenstein 1601 Words   |  7 Pagessubstance itself.†(Mary Shelley) An author’s personal story and background has an immense impact on literature and culture. It affects the style of the writing and ultimately the topics and themes they write about. The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is an exceptional example of how a person’s experiences influence literature and culture. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor, his monstrous creation, and the consequences both he and the monster had to live through. Mary Shelley’s traumatic earlyRead MoreMary Shelley1066 Words   |  5 PagesMary Shelley was born on August 30, 1797, becoming a distinguished, though often neglected, literary figure during the Romanticism Era. Mary was the only child of Mary Wollstonecraft, a famous feminist, but after her birth, Wollstonecraft passed away (Harris). Similar to Mary’s book Frankenstein, both her and Victor’s mothers die when they are at a very young age. Mary’s father was William Godwin, an English philosopher who also wrot e novels that would inspire Mary in the late years of her life (Holmes)Read MoreMary Shelley and Flannery OConnor: Gothic Isolationists1724 Words   |  7 Pages Gothic fiction is a genre of literature that combines fiction, horror and Romanticism with a particular focus on the mysterious and supernatural aspects. Gothic fiction originated in England during the latter half of the 18th century. This distinctive genre of literature soon developed into a 19th century phenomenon. The success of this dominant genre in England is frequently attributed to Mary Shelley. Despite its success during this time period, gothic fiction ceased to be a dominant genre byRead MoreMany Of The Main Ideas Behind The Literary Movement Of1603 Words   |  7 Pagesmovement of Romanticism can be seen in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Although the dark motifs of her most remembered work, Frankenstein may not seem to conform to the brighter tones and subjects of the poems of her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, and their contemporaries and friends, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary Shelley was a contemporary of the romantic poets. Despite this apparent difference, Mary Shelley was deeply influenced by the romantics, and the reader of Frankenstein can certainly