This assignment was completed on the influence of Maslow's hierarchy of needs in advertisements. The ads below are an example of the easier needs that advertisement companies can use in their own ways. PART 1 This is an advertisement for makeup, more specifically Covergirl. They have used a gorgeous model such as Zendaya to make you envious of their looks. It makes you think that if you use their makeup, you might end up looking like a model, or in this case Zendaya. This ad represents needs of belonging, self confidence, and fame or glory. You need to look like Zendaya and to do so you need to buy this product. These needs fall under the Esteem category because makeup is more or less an ego booster. The more makeup you wear, the more confident one might feel. This category is all about confidence, self-worth, and achieving the respect of others. People may think if I buy this brand I could look like Zendaya which will make people like me more. The model creates a slight sense of envy which can only be pushed away by buying this makeup which results in you feeling/looking like a model. This is an advertisement for McDonald’s beefiest burgers. It will make you hungry for one of those juicy burgers. The only people this ad wouldn’t satisfy are vegetarians or vegans, but if you threw some fries there everyone would be hooked. I’m drooling just writing about it. This ad satisfies needs of food, one of the key parts of survival. Without food you can die, so you need to go and get this juicy burger right now to satisfy your hunger. This falls on the lowest level in Maslow’s hierarchy. Physiological needs are the easiest to satisfy. Just show someone a picture of food, they will become hungry and satisfy that hunger by buying the product. I feel this ad to be the most effective. Where the makeup ad may be designed more towards females, burgers are for everyone. America is getting bigger and bigger with their eating habits (and people) and McDonald’s profits off of it. It’s the quickest place to go to satisfy your hunger and it is great for a carb load. By displaying this food in an advertisement it keeps the thought of McDonald’s in the back of your mind until you can find some food to eat. PART 2 Which needs are most powerful in motivation someone to buy a product? How do advertisers connect those needs to their products?
The most powerful needs in motivation would have to be physiological. They are the easiest and most likely the cheapest needs to satisfy. Instead of having to sign up for a new credit card to satisfy your financial safety, you can go out and buy some ice cream which does the same thing in a different category. Advertisers know what people like and want. If there’s a new joke about Steve Harvey messing up the Miss Universe crowning, companies will find a way to weave it into their advertisement. This satisfies not only whatever need the ad is for, but also our need of belonging. Everyone is in on the joke, so it makes you feel more like a part of a group. Why do some advertisers appeal to our needs? Do you think this is ethical? Advertisers appeal to our needs because it sells. If someone made an ad that didn’t satisfy any needs, very few people would buy that product. It isn’t very ethical, taking advantage of people’s needs for profit, but at this point it is necessary. Pushing products is more successful than saying “Hey, we worked hard on this and would like you to purchase it”. Advertisers have to be the bad guys so they can keep their jobs. So even though it is unethical, right now it seems like the only option.
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This essay is written on an episode of Black Mirror that deals with a new memory storage device. This device can help you relive any moment of your life and I wanted to demonstrate both the positive and negative effects it may have. Jasmin Skoupas
THE GRAIN: REVOLUTIONARY OR DESTRUCTIVE The Entire History of You is an episode of Black Mirror that pushes the idea that physical memory storage is a thing of the past and technology can now help you recall and capture memories (Armstrong, Welsh 2011). The implant that helps one do this is called the grain. The grain controls how your memories can be stored, but in this case it can also control your life. This is something that could become a reality in the near future, so grab some popcorn and prepare by watching this episode of Black Mirror and contemplating how necessary this implant is. With the grain it is easy to review every mistake made and every face seen, but is that always a good thing? In the future, every move you make or anything you see is stored in this new technology called the grain. The grain is more or less a camera that has been implanted into your brain that captures videos and recordings at any time and stores them as memories. In this world, one would never have to think hard about what had to be studied for on a test, or remember a face but not a name, as it’s easy to go back and relive those memories. It’s possible to get the grain removed if you’d like to live in the past and store memories on your own, but the grain is so advanced that some people believe it to be a necessity and the idea of removing it is laughable. The grain has become the main memory retention device in so many people’s daily lives, how could it go wrong? This episode of Black Mirror revolves around Liam slowly becoming obsessed over the friendliness of his wife Fi with an old friend Jonas (Sims 2013). Whether it be laughing a little too hard at his jokes, or acting more tense around her husband, it is easy to see that something is happening between the two and when viewing this episode, it is known that there will be some kind of falling out. This is mostly what the episode is based upon; Liam’s long journey using his grain footage to prove that there is in fact something between Fi and Jonas and it is painstaking to watch. Liam ends up being right, but this leads to him driving his wife and daughter out of his life. Without the grain, Liam would still have his family and would not have driven himself to sheer madness over a little flirting. The final moments of this episode are Liam staring at himself in a mirror in his now empty house removing the thing that has caused him the most damage, the grain. The portrayal of the grain was done fantastically in this episode. We are not only shown how you can use it recreationally, but how it’s used in public, such as in an airport or after a job interview. This new memory implant is very easy to imagine and could easily become a real price of technology in our near future. It’s a surprise to find that other people believe this too. More specifically Tom Gruber of Apple, Regina Dugan of Facebook, and none other than Elon Musk (Kosoff 2017). They all have some belief that memories will be combined with technology in the future. There is a chance memory based technology will positively affect our lives, but nobody’s perfect and whatever embarrassing things one may do will remain in the memories of oneself and of passerby forever. While the grain is a good idea, it is also a harmful one and humanity is not ready for it yet. The Entire History of You had an amazing plot and beautifully illustrated this grain-filled world. This implant may better society in the future… the far future. After all, we already replay our mistakes in our own minds, why should someone else get to do the same thing? REFERENCES Armstrong, Jesse (Writer), & Welsh, Brian (Director). (2011). The entire history of you [Television series episode]. In Brooker, Charlie & Jones, Annabel (Producers), Black Mirror. United Kingdom: Endemol UK Kosoff, Maya (2017, April 25). Apple Predicts Black Mirror Memory Implants Could Soon Be a Reality. Retrieved from: https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/apple-exec-predicts-black-mirror-tech-could-soon-be-a-reality/amp Sims, David (2013, November 26). Black Mirror: “The Entire History Of You”. Retrieved from: https://www.google.ca/amp/s/tv.avclub.com/black-mirror-the-entire-history-of-you-1798178824/amp This project demonstrates the links between classical conditioning, operant conditioning, social learning, and self-regulated learning. I use examples, pictures, and descriptions to show what these types of learning are.
For this project, Tashi, Jackie and I set out to discover if two puppies would respond to positive reinforcement and learn how to sit when told. Our lab took a while to complete, but in the end we were (relatively) successful. Question
What we are investigating is how we can use positive reinforcement to teach animals, in this case puppies, to be obedient when asked and sit down on command. Background Information What we know about how to handle a teaching experiment with animals is how to boost their enthusiasm for learning and encourage them to listen to the commands to get something out of it. We also know the right methods to complete this experiment without harming the animals or the owners. Dogs respond fairly well to food as a reinforcement. Another form of encouragement that works on domesticated animals, is affectionate physical encouragement. It is condoned on using positive methods instead of punishments to train dogs. “Using training methods such as leash corrections or other forms of punishment is not effective for every dog. In fact, in some cases, punishment can serve to make a behavior problem worse.” (Bender, A., (Benefits of Positive Reinforcement in Dog Training) Hypothesis If the puppies are encouraged to listen, sit down and be obedient to the commander's voice, and they receive a treat/belly scratches in exchange, then the command will eventually pick up and they will complete the action to the point of no reinforcement needed. Materials
Method We continuously trained the puppies every day until they started getting used to the words we were saying to them. Each time we told the puppies to sit we would give them a treat. results The final result of our experiment was effective. The puppies picked up the commands by responding positively to the reinforcement methods. They were able to sit down when told to, and anxiously waited for the treat. Near the end of the experiment the puppies listened to our commands even when they were not rewarded with a treat. For our final result on the last day we asked the puppies to sit and they obeyed, we repeated this without rewardeding them with a treat until the end. Analysis Our methods of training were successful because we used patience to teach obedience. Instead of harming the puppies with punishments when they don’t understand a command. Punishments can be effective, but can create stress in an animal, something we weren’t striving for. Conclusion The hypothesis we created had satisfying results. They learned a new treat by positive reinforcement, and were able to complete the action even without the treat needed. Sources of Error We found that in the beginning each time we would tell the puppies to sit they would jump on us and then start fighting with each other. It was hard to get the puppies used to the commands we were giving them because, we couldn't do it that often because the treats could make them sick if we give them too many. As well as I had the mother of the puppies always around so it was hard to just get the puppies to listen to our commands without her doing them as well and trying to steal the puppies treats. Questions of Further Investigation “Whether or not if the puppies would still listen to our commands if we stopped giving them treats” “If we could use the method of giving them treats to teach them other things” “How it would affect the puppies obeying us if we only gave one puppy treats one day, and a different puppy treats the other day” “If the puppies would still obey us if when they sat we gave the mother the treats instead” |
Questions for further investigation:1. Will advertisements ever become less pushy and find a way to use our needs in a positive way rather than negatively? |