Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 9

Psychology - Essay Example Selye’s studies showed that the body responds in the same way to any stress, be it positive events (new job) or negative circumstances (failure, embarrassment, trouble at school, a stormy romance). ALARM STAGE: Alarm stage suggests that the body is in the generalized arousal state, wherein the body mobilizes its resources to cope with stressors. The pituitary gland signals the adrenal glands to produce and release stress hormones: adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol. As these stress hormones are dumped into the bloodstream, some bodily processes are rushed others are slowed, allowing bodily resources to be applied where they are needed. We should all be thankful that our bodies automatically respond to emergencies. However, brilliant as this emergency system is, it can also cause problems. In the first phase of the alarm reaction, people have such symptoms as headache, fever, fatigue, sore muscles, shortness of breath, diarrhea, upset stomach, loss of appetite, and lack of energy. Notice that these are also the symptoms of stressful travel, of high-altitude sickness, of anxiety, of pressure in the courtroom interrogation, or final exams week, and possibly of falling in love! RESISTANCE STAGE: During the resistance stage, the body continues to resist the stressors. As the body’s defenses come into balance, symptoms of the alarm reaction disappear. Outwardly, everything seems normal. However, this appearance of normality comes at a high cost. The body is better able to cope with the original stressor, example, animals placed in extreme cold become more resistant to the cold, but more susceptible to infection. It is during the stage of resistance that the first signs of psychosomatic disorders begin to appear. EXHAUSTION STAGE: Continued stress leads to the stage of exhaustion in which the body’s resources are drained and stress hormones are depleted. The body is susceptible to disease and even death in this stage. Unless you found a way of

King James I :: Papers

King James I born June 19, 1566, Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland died March 27, 1625, Theobalds, Hertfordshire, England King of Scotland (as James VI) from 1567 to 1625 and first Stuart king of England from 1603 to 1625, who styled himself â€Å"king of Great Britain.† James was a strong advocate of royal absolutism, and his conflicts with an increasingly self-assertive Parliament set the stage for the rebellion against his successor, Charles I. James was the only son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her second husband, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley. Eight months after James's birth his father died when his house was destroyed by an explosion. After her third marriage, to James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, Mary was defeated by rebel Scottish lords and abdicated the throne. James, one year old, became king of Scotland on July 24, 1567; Mary left the kingdom on May 16, 1568, and never saw her son again. During his minority James was surrounded by a small band of the great Scottish lords, from whom emerged the four successive regents, the earls of Moray, Lennox, Mar, and Morton. There did not exist in Scotland the great gulf between rulers and ruled that separated the Tudors and their subjects in England. For nine generations the Stuarts had in fact been merely the ruling family among many equals, and James all his life retained a feeling for those of the great Scottish lords who gained his confidence. The young king was kept fairly isolated but was given a good education until the age of 14. He studied Greek, French, and Latin and made good use of a library of classical and religious writings that his tutors, George Buchanan and Peter Young, assembled for him. James's education aroused in him literary ambitions rarely found in princes but which also tended to make him a pedant. Before James was 12 he had taken the government nominally into his own hands when the Earl of Morton was driven from the regency in 1578. For several years more, however, James remained the puppet of contending intriguers and faction leaders. After falling under the influence of the Duke of Lennox, a Roman Catholic who schemed to win back Scotland for the imprisoned Queen Mary, James was kidnapped by William Ruthven, 1st Earl of Gowrie, in 1582 and was forced to denounce Lennox. The following year James escaped from his Protestant captors and began to pursue his own policies as king.

Finance and Positivism

Introduction According to Little (2005), philosophy of social science is a scholarly discipline that attempts to analyse the logic, methodology, modes of explanation of the social sciences, in which its studies include psychology, sociology, anthropology, history and economics. Social science provides understanding of everyday interactions of individuals and interactions among human society in social institutions. Providing prediction and explanation for human behaviour and its consequences are some of the main aims of social science (Rosenberg, 1988).The purpose of this paper is to examine how philosophy of social science can help in explaining speculators’ behaviours. This paper is divided into five sections. It will begin by explaining the speculative behaviours of stock traders on lottery type of stocks, the probable data source and methodology. This will be followed by introducing the concept of positivism and identifying the reasons for selecting positivism. This paper w ill also provide some criticisms to positivism. Lastly, the paper ends with a summary.Speculative Behaviours of the Stock Traders in Lottery Type of Stocks My research will be mainly focus on the speculative behaviours of the stock traders, such as fund managers and retail speculators on lottery type of stocks. Speculation is different from investment, in which according to Peers (2003), On the one hand, speculation involves taking large amount of risks attempting to earn quick profit. Speculation is a game where expected return and risk are both indeterminate.As a result, speculators need to take relatively large amount of risk with respect to attempt to predict the future. A simple example of speculation is purchasing gold. Speculators might think that buying gold is a better use of money due to the inflation. Since gold depends more on inflationary rate and relies less on global economy, buy gold during period of financial crisis will help speculators to generate quick profit. Ho wever, gold prices are now extremely high, and there is no guarantee that prices will keep increasing in the future.Since there are huge fluctuations in gold prices, speculators are very likely need to bear large amount of risk when they purchased gold. On the other hand, according to Taylor Frigon Capital Management LLC (2007) investment involves analyzing the future earning and the preference of participating in those future earnings. The expected future value of investment is higher than the cost of the investment. Expected future value takes into account for all of the potential good or bad events multiply by the probability of those events.Investors usually search for definable expected future value, minimize risk and investors have nominal risk aversion, which means that investors will prefer a more guaranteed payout and the uncertain one, otherwise, investors will need a higher expected returns in order for them to undertake the risk. Using the gold example to differentiate i nvestor and speculator, investors purchase gold and hold it for decades, because after couple of decades, the returns from selling those amounts of gold will be higher than the initial cost of buying those amounts of gold, even after subtracting the returns from the transaction costs.Furthermore, gold will still be considered as one of the most precious metal after couple of decades. Investors do not need to worry that the value of gold will worth nothing, thus expected future value is more guaranteed and risk is minimized to some extent. Speculators purchase gold during the periods of financial crisis, and sell gold in order to buy stocks during periods of bubble. This strategy can help speculators to generate quick profit, however, it is extremely hard to predict when bubble or crisis will occur, and this uncertainty might cause speculators to experience huge amount of loss as well.Lottery Type of Stocks According to Kumar (2009), some stocks are classified as lottery type because they have prominent characteristics of lottery. Lottery type of stocks has low prices and relatively high potential payoff, just like jackpot in lottery. The expected returns of lottery type of stocks are negative but low, and they have risky payoffs. The price distribution of lottery type of stocks has very high variance, and most particularly, the probability of earning a huge profit is extremely small.Since lottery type of stocks has a very big probability of experiencing a loss and a very small probability to generate a huge gain, both risk and expected future value are indeterminate. By applying the definition of investors and speculators that we mentioned earlier, only speculators will have the preference of buying lottery type of stocks, due to their risk loving behavior, while investors do not, because risk-averse investors prefer to minimize risk even though there is a small change to earn huge profit.Positivism One of the main topics in philosophy of social science is pos itivism. According to the Merriam-Webber’s Dictionary, â€Å"positivism† is a view of scientific methods and a philosophy approach that defines positive knowledge is based on natural phenomena and their properties and relations as verified by the empirical sciences, and defines theology and metaphysic as earlier imperfect modes of knowledge.According to Perry, Riege and Brown (1999), some of the ontological assumptions of positivism are that the world exists externally, it is characterized by natural laws and it can be objectively observed by using a scientific way. In other words, positivism can be viewed as an appropriate methodology of social science, which emphasizes empirical observation. Positivism is also associated with empiricism, only the events, things or creatures that can be observed based on sense, experience and positive verification via the five senses can be considered as authentic knowledge.According to Creswell (2003), the underlying epistemological assumption of positivism is that there is an independent researcher of the research project, who is value and bias free, and has no influence on the result of research or data collected. Furthermore, Ticehurst and Veal (2000) states that the methodological approach for positivism is restricted in term of explanation and discovery of facts. Researcher uses developed theories and frameworks to describe behaviours based on the observations and facts collected.As a result, scientific, empiricist, experiental, deductive or quantitative approaches are involved in the research. In addition, Guba and Lincoln (1994) state that the paradigm stresses the value-free theory testing instead of theory building. Some of the key assumptions of the positivism paradigm, according to Phillips and Burbles (2000) include, first of all, researchers use null hypothesis because founded evidence in their research is usually fallible and imperfect. Secondly, majority of quantitative researches begin with the test of a theory.Researches can be considered as a practice of making claims, and subsequently either abandoning or refining them. Thirdly, knowledge is shaped by the data, evidence and rational considerations. Furthermore, research attempts to develop statements those are relevant and true, in which they are able to provide descriptions and explanations for the situation or causal relationship. Lastly, one of the most important parts of a competent inquiry is to being objective. Data and MethodologyIn order for lottery type of stocks to match the main characteristics of lotteries, first of all, the data will mainly focus on the stock with low prices (under one pound per stock). Within the set of stocks with low prices, my PhD research will focus on stocks with higher stock specific skewness, because these are the stock with higher potential payoff and they appears to be more attractive to speculators. Lastly, among the set of stocks with higher stock specific skewness and prices be low one pound, my PhD research will focus on stocks with higher idiosyncratic volatility.It is because stocks with higher idiosyncratic volatility are more likely to be considered as lottery type of stocks, because speculators might believe that when volatility is high, there is larger probability to realize the extreme returns that occurred in the past (Kumar, 2009). The methodology will be similar to Kothari and Warner (2006), in which the return of any given security at any given time can be obtained by adding the expected return based on expected return models, like Fama-French three factors model, to the abnormal return. The abnormal return of a given time eriod can be obtained by averaging all the abnormal returns of the given period. Given the test statistics provided by Kothari and Warner (2006), the paper will test the null hypothesis, comparing the returns of lottery type of stocks and index returns. If the test statistics are significantly lower, then the evidence may sug gest that the returns of lottery type of stocks underperform index returns, or vice versa. Criticisms to Positivism Some of the criticisms to the positivism is that the ontological position of positivist vis-a-vis reality that social reality exists in an independent way to the researcher (Schutz 1954).It is not helpful for the exploratory research, because the research attempts to understand meaning of the speculating process and varying perception of speculators. Berg (2004) claimed that people, events, objects and situation do possess meaning themselves; these elements confer meaning due to human interaction. Furthermore, it is inappropriate to ask the positivistic position on the epistemological question of â€Å"In what way one can obtain knowledge from a particular reality? † due to the postulation that investigating in such a reality provides no change to that reality.Moreover, one of the main criticisms of the positivism paradigm, according to Hussey and Hussey (1997), is that it is impossible to consider to people as being separate from the social contexts and they cannot be understood without apprehending their views of their own activities. A rigorously structured research design will impose some constraints on the results, and it might ignore more relevant findings, because researchers might carry their own value and interest to the research. The researchers cannot be objective because they are also part of what they are trying to observe.Lastly, statistical variables could be misleading as it is trying to capture complex phenomena. Reasons for Selecting the Positivist Paradigm Positivism is chosen to fit my PhD project, because according to Phan (2006), first of all, ontologically, stock markets is a financial world in which investment decisions can be considered as an external world, objectively adjusting itself, and individual perceptions or desires cannot have any influence. Secondly, quantifiable results are mainly the concerns in the wo rld of financial markets; it is impossible to make any alteration to the reality or to make any different perception.Thirdly, epistemologically, the researchers should be independent of their research projects, in other words, they should be free of bias and personal value, and should have no influence on the collection of data or the results of researches. Moreover, one of the main objectives of the PhD projects is to test hypothesis regarding to the returns of indexes and returns of lottery type of stocks, not to construct new theory or to implement any reform. Lastly, objectivity is important in the financial world in order to provide explanation to phenomena and causal relationships.To summarise, the PhD projects will be mainly focus on making measurements in a statistical and systematic way in order to provide validity, generalization, reliability for the measurements, as well as its predictive cause and effect (Casell and Symon 2004). Summary To sum up, my PhD research will be mainly focus on the speculative behaviours of the stock traders, such as fund managers and retail speculators on lottery type of stocks. The paper will be carry out using quantitative method and positivism fits very well in my research, as positivism is a methods that define positive knowledge which can be verified by empirical sciences.There are some criticisms about the ontological and epistemological assumption of positivism, nevertheless, the benefits of applying positivism exceeds it costs as my PhD research will mainly focus on making measurements in a statistical and systematic way to predict the cause and effect of different research topics, as well as their validity, generalization and reliability of the measurements. Reference: Berg, B. L. (2004) Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. 5th Edition, Pearson Education, Inc. Boston.Casell, C and Symon, G (2004), Essential Guide to Qualitative Methods in Organisational Research, Sage Publications Ltd, London, UK Creswell, J (2003), Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approach, 2nd Edition, Sage: Thousand Oaks, CA. Guba, E and Lincoln, Y (1994), Competing paradigms in qualitative research, Handbook of Qualitative Research, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Hussey, J. and Hussey, R. (1997) â€Å"Business Research† Macmillan Press Ltd, Basingstoke Kumar, A. (2009) â€Å"Who Gambles in the Stock Market†, The Journal of Finance, Vol 64, No 4, 1889-1993Little, D. (2005) â€Å"Western Philosophy of Social Science† Peking University Lohpetch, D. andCorne, D. (2010) Outperforming Buy-and-Hold with Evolved Technical Trading Rules: Daily, Weekly and Monthly Trading, EvoApplications 2010, Springer LNCS Phan, A 2006, â€Å"Hedge funds and China’s stock market: a study on factors influencing investment decisions by fund managers†, DBA thesis, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW. Peers, M. (2003) â€Å"A Guide To: Gambling, Investment, and Speculati on† Available at: www. math. byu. edu, Accessed on January 15, 2012Perry, C, Riege, A & Brown, L 1999, â€Å"Realism's role among scientific paradigms inmarketing research†, Irish Marketing Review, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 16-23. Phillips, DC and Burbules, NC (2000), Postpositivism and educational research, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Rosenberg, A. (1988) â€Å"Why a Philosophy of Social Science? † In Philosophy of Social Science. Boulder, CO:Westview Press 1-21. Schutz, A (1954), Concept and Theory Formation in the Social Sciences, The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 51, No. 9, 257-273 Ticehurst, GW and Veal, AJ (2000), Business Research Methods: A Managerial Approach, Pearson Education: NSW Australia

The Vampire And Vampire Genre - 2094 Words

The vampire genre has been a dominating force in films and television shows for ages now. Earlier vampire films were known for being creepy and eerie, leading people to fear the vampire. While modern vampire films and television shows are known for making vampires more likable or even relatable. This modernization of the vampire seems to have come as a result of film and television makers combining the vampire genre with other genres. Having films and television shows about vampires in high school, in romantic relationships, and even vampires are heroes have become a common tend in pop culture. With hit films like the Twilight (Hardwicke, 2008), it no wonder that film and television creators are not jumping all over this popular trend. Two†¦show more content†¦It used to be that he vampire would be seen as these dark and creepy creatures that would stalk and feed off its prey, similar to the original folklore, but people just seem to not be as interesting in that anymore. Af ter seeing the same kind of story and villain over and over again audiences are going to get tired of it, which is why it makes since that film and television makers decided it was time to revamp the vampire genre. Combining the vampire genre with other genres, like romance, is a good way of keeping the vampire genre fresh. Film and television creators needed to figure out new ways to change the vampire genre up, and combining them with different genres was a clever way. By combining the vampire genre with other genres, film and television creators have endless possibilities of what they can do with the vampire genre. For the past few years the romantic and teen genre has been a dominating for the vampire genre, leading the vampires to change and adapt into the new modern vampires. Once place that we have seen this hybridity impact the vampire genre is in television shows. In the late ninety’s Joss Whedon created the cult classic vampire drama Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was one of the first shows to take the vampire and integrated it into a teen television show. Buffy is about a girl, Buffy Summers, that must â€Å"fulfill her destiny of fighting vampires and demons with the help of her friends all the while struggling to live aShow MoreRelatedBuffy the Vampire Slayer as Horror Genre Essay831 Words   |  4 PagesBuffy the Vampire Slayer as Horror Genre The horror genre has very set conventions and rules and horror films have stuck to these but in Buffy the vampire slayer a new set of rules are written. Joss Whedon has given the audience another dimension to horror by subverting the genre, in doing this the effectiveness of the program is increased. 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