Psychology Prediction Essay Example for Free

Psychology Prediction Essay According to one of my favorite philosophers, Yogi Berra, Its hard to predict, especially the future†. He’s right but it doesn’t stop many people from trying. In fact predicting the future is essential to many aspects of our lives – in business, and beyond. Many professionals have the need to accurately predict outcomes of the future to be successful in their jobs. And many have occupations where predicting the future actually is their job, one way or another. As an analyst at Gartner, I am of course a good example of this. Some of this is common sense. Some is controversial. Some goes completely against what most think and against what people are taught even at organizations who train people to do predictive type jobs. But it works for me. Here are my ten guiding principles for accurate prediction: 1.Care about being right. This sounds obvious but circumstances and other requirements often get in the way. Professionals whose job involves making predictions face pressures to have an opinion, no matter what, and to generate visibility. This can lead to quickly formed opinions and overstating and over hyping things. While these things may in fact need to be part of a strategy, they do not have to be the primary goal. Tempering such behavior by placing the goal of being right at a higher priority is one of the real keys to accurate prediction. You can’t be afraid to be wrong, but you can’t place being right at lower priority and expect to be good at predicting. 2.Be an â€Å"innumerate†. Be extremely skeptical of any numbers. Many believe that numbers don’t lie. They don’t of course, but people do. And they state the numbers that they want to state to make their case. And they get things confused. Numbers are more useful in looking back at history than in predicting (looking back at history is helpful and numbers can help). Be especially wary of survey data. Often the questions are poorly formed and the respondents not necessarily knowledgeable. There is no substitute for talking directly to people to make sure that you understand context and that they understand the question. And follow-up is possible. 3.Ask yourself â€Å"Why are they telling me this?† Understand the motivations of sources of information. Everyone you meet has some type of agenda. Sometimes it is truly to educate you, usually not. It is critical to understand what the source of information wants you to think to put the information into context. 4.Ask yourself â€Å"What would I do†? Put yourself in the shoes of the CEO or key decision maker of the entity if possible. This is a key tool to predicting how companies and organizations will behave. If the prediction is about that company, this is the major key. If it is more general, putting yourself in the shoes of multiples and playing out scenarios is helpful. 5.Recognize that most of the time, you will know less than your sources. The world is full of specialists. Depending on circumstance, you may know as much as your sources but there is almost always someone who is more of an expert than you. So you need to develop strategies for assessing the credibility and honesty of a source. A useful tactic is to lead a discussion towards an area in which you do know a lot and test the source’s honesty and credibility. This can help determine what weight to give the source 6.Don’t jump to conclusions. Whenever possible take your time. When pushed for an opinion, it is best to say â€Å"if I had to have an opinion I would lean towards x†, but not highlight these types of things as â€Å"predictions†. 7.Find â€Å"bubbles†, conventional thinking and poke at assumptions. Try to understand why most people have a certain belief and figure out what assumptions they have. Look for misunderstandings, confusion, motivations and social trends. 8.Get information you’re not supposed to have. Basic networking is essential to knowing your subject and to getting information you’re not supposed to have (Obviously those subject to â€Å"insider trading† types of issues need to tread carefully here). Listen for slip ups. Put the pieces together. Fill in the holes. Speculate. 9.â€Å"You’re only paranoid if you’re wrong†. Explore conspiracy theories. While they usually won’t be the prediction, the exercise of examining possible conspiracy theories often is fruitful. Remember At the very least there is bound to be some aspect of the theory that has some truth to it and may point the way towards a good prediction. However, it is far more likely that stupidity or laziness, rather than conspiracy, is the cause. 10.Constantly test, validate and refine. Every chance you get to talk to a person whose opinion you respect, test new theories. Every chance you talk to a source of information, test your theories and gauge their reactions. Be open to tweaks.

Understanding the Holocaust through Art Spiegelmans Maus Essay

The experience of being in the Holocaust is hard to imagine. The physical pain and fear that a survivor of the Holocaust felt could never fully be understood by anyone other than a fellow survivor. The children of survivors may not feel the physical pain and agony as their parents did, but they do feel the psychological effects. For this reason Artie and his father could never connect. The Holocaust built a wall between them that was hard to climb. Artie makes an attempt to overcome the wall between him and his father by writing the comic Maus about his father’s life in hopes to grow closer to him and understand him better, yet he struggles in looking past his father’s picky habits and hypocritical attitude. Artie’s father, Valdek, as he knew him growing up was stingy. He was stingy with money, food, matches, and even toothpicks. All the food on his plate had to be eaten, or it would be served to him the next night and the night after that until it was gone. Valdek’s obsessive behavior about not wasting anything aggravated Artie to no end. "He grabs paper towels from restrooms so he won’t have to buy napkins or tissues," vented Artie to his stepmother. Once Artie used an extra match and Valdek yelled at him for his wastefulness. His life could never compare to how hard Valdek’s was, and this bothered Artie. At the very opening of the story, Artie cries because his friends leave him when he falls off his skates and his father tells him that, "If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week then you could see what it is, friends!" All things relate to the Holocaust for Valdek and this makes Artie feel guilty for not having such a hard life and fo r that feeling of guilt Artie becomes angry and distances himself fr... ...in his life still plagued him. As a result he wrote Maus. It not only allowed him to enter into his father’s world, but also gave him an objective view of his relationship with his father. He spent many afternoons with his father in his pursuit of understanding. He became aware of the events in his father’s past, but still could not comprehend why his father could not put it behind him. He could not understand why other survivors of the Holocaust could move on, but his father could not. Artie is overwhelmed by the events of his life. He is dealing with the death of his mother, and a father who can’t let go of the past. He longs to understand the world of his father and talk to him once without arguing, but the walls have been built up too high that even after his father’s death, although more enlightened, he is just as confused as to who his father was.

“Ozymandias” Themes Essay

The message or theme of the poem of â€Å"Ozymandias† is that man is insignificant and his efforts are vain when compared to the forces of time and nature. Shelly expertly uses diction in the poem to portray important ideas. By encompassing time and nature into a theme Shelley brings a divine sense to the poem. To consider the issue of the power of time and nature, the poet has the narrator reporting on a meeting with a traveler from ‘an antique land’ or Egypt, who told of seeing in the desert, the remains of a vast statue. Only the legs remained standing. The trunk was missing and the shattered face lay half buried in the sand, he told that the sculptor had skillfully captured the ‘frown, the wrinkled lip, and sneer’ on the ‘shattered visage’ through ‘passions well read.’ The importance of this traveler is that of symbolism. The traveler symbolizes the power that ‘Ozymandias’ has lost in his death. In health he was one of the most powerful people alive but now it takes a wandering traveler to spread a tale of the once great king. The power of nature is well represented by this part of the poem also. ‘Ozymandias’ told his subjects to ‘look on my works; ye Mighty, and despair!’ however, thanks to the power of nature there are barely and works left to look upon at all, let alone despair upon! It can be seen that nature has destroyed his works in the quotes, ‘shattered visage’ and ‘sand, half sunk.’ Thus the major theme of the poem is reavealed. The statue is described as a â€Å"colossal wreck boundless and bare† drawing a parallel for the reason in which it was built. The condition of the stones, descriptively worded by Shelley, only emphasizes the despair drawn into the stone by the sculptor’s hand. By using words such as â€Å"frown†, â€Å"sneer†, and â€Å"mocked†, the author provides us with a slight portrait of â€Å"Ozymandias.† It gives us a picture of a powerful king with no motivation or reason to smile. The phrase ‘cold command† portrays him as a militaristic leader that has seen more death and destruction than a whole army and has come to realize that even he is not able to compete with the Almighty. Shelley’s words â€Å"lifeless†, â€Å"decay†, and â€Å"wreck† apply not only to the statue the author is describing but also to the sculptor of the statue. These words encompass his entire being, and go far into bringing â€Å"Ozymandias alive in the reader. Shelley cunningly uses Nature and time to bring in the â€Å"Mighty† one. God is the only being that has been around since time and Nature began. He represents what â€Å"Ozymandias† could not achieve and that is immortality. â€Å"Ozymandias† did however leave a mark on the world but in time even that too will be overcome by the relentless forces of Nature and time that is God. In conclusion, the main themes of the poem are nicely summed up in mans insignificance to time and nature. Shelley also puts across the idea of despair superbly through delicate and subtle use of diction.

Operation Wetback Mass Deportation of Mexicans

Operation Wetback was a U.S. immigration law enforcement program conducted during 1954 that resulted in the mass deportation to Mexico of as many as 1.3 million Mexicans who had entered the country illegally. Even though the deportation was originally requested by the government of Mexico to prevent much-needed Mexican farm laborers from working in the United States, Operation Wetback evolved into an issue that strained diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Mexico. At the time, Mexican laborers were permitted to legally enter the U.S. temporarily for seasonal farm work under the Bracero program, a World War II agreement between the U.S. and Mexico. Operation Wetback was launched partly in response to problems caused by abuses of the Bracero program and the American public’s anger over the inability of the U.S. Border Patrol to reduce the number of seasonal Mexican farm workers illegally living permanently in the United States. Key Takeaways: Operation Wetback Operation Wetback was a massive U.S. immigration law enforcement deportation program conducted during 1954.Operation Wetback resulted in the forced immediate return to Mexico of as many as 1.3 million Mexicans who had entered the United States illegally.The deportations were originally requested and assisted by the government of Mexico to prevent much-needed Mexican farm laborers from working in the United States.While it temporarily slowed illegal immigration from Mexico, Operation Wetback failed to achieve its larger goals. Wetback Definition Wetback is a derogatory term, often used as an ethnic slur, to refer to foreign citizens living in the United States as undocumented immigrants. The term was originally applied only to Mexican citizens who entered the U.S. illegally by swimming or wading across the Rio Grande River forming the border between Mexico and Texas and getting wet in the process. Background: Pre-World War II Mexican Immigration Mexico’s longstanding policy of discouraging its citizens from migrating to the United States turned around in the early 1900s when Mexican President Porfirio Dà ­az along with other Mexican government officials realized that the country’s abundant and cheap labor force was its greatest asset and the key to stimulating its struggling economy. Conveniently for Dà ­az, the United States and its booming agricultural industry created a ready and eager market for Mexican labor. During the 1920s, over 60,000 Mexican farm workers would temporarily enter the U.S. legally every year. Over the same period, however, more than 100,000 Mexican farm workers per-year entered the U.S. illegally, with many not returning to Mexico. As its own agribusiness started to suffer due to the growing shortage of field labor, Mexico began pressuring the United States to enforce its immigration laws and return its workers. At the same time, America’s large-scale farms and agribusinesses were recruiting ever-more illegal Mexican workers to meet their growing need for year-round labor. From the 1920s until the onset of World War II, the majority of field workers on American farms, especially in the Southwestern states, were Mexican nationals—most of whom had crossed the border illegally. The WWII Bracero Program As World War II began to drain America’s labor force, the governments of Mexico and the United States implemented the Bracero Program, an agreement allowing Mexican laborers to work temporarily in the U.S. in exchange for the return of illegal Mexican immigrant farm workers to Mexico. Rather than supporting the American military effort, Mexico agreed to provide the U.S. with its laborers. In return, the U.S. agreed to tighten its border security and fully enforce its restrictions against illegal immigrant labor. The first Mexican braceros (Spanish for â€Å"farm workers†) entered the United States under the Bracero Program agreement on September 27, 1942. While some two million Mexican nationals took part in the Bracero Program, disagreements and tensions over its effectiveness and enforcement would lead to the implementation of Operation Wetback in 1954. Bracero Program Problems Spawn Operation Wetback Despite the availability of legal migrant labor through the Bracero Program, many American growers found it cheaper and faster to continue hiring illegal laborers. On the other side of the border, the Mexican government was unable to process the number of Mexican citizens seeking work legally in the United States. Many who were unable to get into the Bracero Program entered the U.S. illegally instead. While Mexico’s laws allowed its citizens with valid labor contracts to cross the border freely, U.S. law allowed foreign labor contracts to be made only after the foreign laborer had legally entered the country. This web of red tape, combined with U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) entry fees, literacy tests, and costly naturalization process, prevented even more Mexican labors from crossing the border legally seeking better wages in the United States.   Food shortages and massive unemployment, combined with population growth, drove ever more Mexican citizens to enter the United States, legally and illegally. In the United States, growing concerns about the social, economic, and security issues surrounding illegal immigration pressured the INS to step up its apprehension and removal efforts. At the same time, Mexico’s agriculture-driven economy was failing due to a lack of field workers. In 1943, in response to an agreement between the governments of Mexico and the United States, the INS greatly increased the number of Border Control Officers patrolling the Mexican border. However, illegal immigration continued. While more Mexicans were being deported, they soon reentered the United States, thus largely negating the Border Patrol’s efforts. In response, the two governments implemented a strategy in 1945 of relocating deported Mexicans deeper into Mexico, making it harder for them to re-cross the border. The strategy, however, had little if any impact. When ongoing U.S.-Mexican negotiations on the Bracero Program fell apart in early 1954, Mexico sent 5,000 armed military troops to the border. U.S President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded by appointing Gen. Joseph M. Swing as INS Commissioner and ordering him to resolve the border control issue. Gen. Swing’s plan for doing so became Operation Wetback. Implementation of Operation Wetback In early May 1954, Operation Wetback was publicly announced as a coordinated, joint effort to be conducted by the U.S. Border Patrol working alongside the Mexican government to control illegal immigration. On May 17, 1954, a total of 750 Border Patrol Officers and investigators, began finding and immediately—without a court-issued order of deportation or due process of law—deporting Mexicans who had entered the U.S. illegally. Once transported back across the border on a fleet of buses, boats and planes, deportees were handed off to Mexican officials who took them to unfamiliar towns in central Mexico where job opportunities were to have been created for them by the Mexican government. While the main focus of Operation Wetback was in the border-sharing regions of Texas, Arizona, and California, similar operations were also conducted in the cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago. During these immigration enforcement â€Å"sweeps,† many Mexican Americans—often based solely on their physical appearance—were detained by INS agents and forced to prove their American citizenship. INS agents would only accept birth certificates, which few people carry with them, as proof of citizenship. Over the course of Operation Wetback, an undetermined number of Mexican Americas who were unable to produce birth certificates quickly enough were wrongly deported. Disputed Results and Failure In the first year of Operation Wetback, the INS claimed to have completed 1.1 million â€Å"returns† defined at the time as â€Å"confirmed movement of an inadmissible or deportable alien out of the United States not based on an order of removal.† However, this number included thousands of illegal immigrants who voluntarily returned to Mexico fearing arrest. The estimated number of removals fell to fewer than 250,000 in 1955. Though the INS would claim that in total 1.3 million people were deported over the course of the operation, that number is widely disputed. Historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez contends the effective number is closer to 300,000. Due to the numbers of immigrants who were apprehended and deported multiple times, and the number of Mexican Americans wrongly deported, it is difficult to estimate accurately the total number of people deported.  Ã‚   Even during the height of the operation, American growers continued to recruit illegal Mexican workers due to the lower labor cost and their desire to avoid the government red tape involved with the Bracero program. It was the continued hiring of these immigrants that ultimately doomed Operation Wetback. Consequences and Legacy The INS called the program a success of international cooperation and declared the border had â€Å"been secured.† However, newspapers and newsreels in the United States depicted the undeniably harsh side of Operation Wetback, showing images of detained men herded into crudely-erected holding pens in city parks before being loaded on buses and trains and sent back to Mexico. In her book Impossible Subjects, historian Mae Ngai described the deportation of many Mexicans from Port Isabel, Texas packed on ships under conditions described in a congressional investigation as being similar to those on an â€Å"eighteenth-century slave ship.† In some cases, Mexican immigration agents dumped returning detainees in the middle of the Mexican desert with no food, water—or promised jobs—in sight. Ngai wrote: Some 88 braceros died of sun stroke as a result of a round-up that had taken place in 112-degree heat, and [an American labor official] argued that more would have died had Red Cross not intervened.† While it might have temporarily slowed illegal immigration, Operation Wetback did nothing to curb the need for cheap Mexican labor in the United States or reduce unemployment in Mexico as its planners had promised. Today, illegal immigration from Mexico and other countries, and the possible â€Å"solution† of mass deportations remain controversial, often heated topics of U.S. political and public debate.   Sources On the Issues (August 18, 2015). Dwight Eisenhower on Immigration.Dillin, John (July 6, 2006). .How Eisenhower solved illegal border crossings from Mexico The Christian Science Monitor.Ngai, Mae M., Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton University Press.Hernà ¡ndez, Kelly Lytle (2006). .The Crimes and Consequences of Illegal Immigration: A Cross-Border Examination of Operation Wetback, 1943 to 1954 The Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 4.