ale3005 September 30th, 2007
This is a very interesting study in which Solomon E. Asch, a social psychologist, conducts a series of experiments with groups of people to show the influence of group pressure upon the individual. He writes about the extent to which individuals can surrender their own judgment to others, even though those others are not necessarily right and are clearly in the wrong. This study shows how normal is for people to fall victims of social pressure anywhere, including at school, work, home, etc. It is especially shocking to see how social influences can shape an individual’s values, practices, and judgments, and how easy this individual can yield to other’s opinions in order to merge with the majority. I think that people tend to underestimate how powerful can social pressure be and how frequently it can occur specially in today’s society.
ale3005 September 30th, 2007
The “Phillip Morris” advertisement on page 695 of the WRAC book shows a good looking couple in what seems to be a beach or some other romantic place, but what really is important in the ad is the fact that the women is holding a pack of cigarettes and looks like she is relaxed and enjoying the moment. Throughout the ad one can see the world “gentle” and “enjoyable” and it’s clear that the ad is using pathos or emotions to attract customers. The fallacy in this ad is the use of emotions excessively to distract readers from the fact that smoking is unhealthy and in some cases it can even cause lung cancer. The relevant theme in the ad is the association of the word “gentle” with smoking; by showing emotional images, in this case the perfect couple having a good time, the ad is persuading people to follow the same path everyone else is taking if you want to have a good time, this is called the “bandwagon appeal”.
ale3005 September 30th, 2007
The “Bacardi Rum” advertisement found on page 706 of the Writing and Reading Across the curriculum” book shows three beautiful women sitting at a table inside a bar, where a man dress in a suit, probably the bartender, is pouring different drinks to all of them. The main title reads: “Bacardi rum is so ‘mixable’… It’s a one-brand bar” and another one says “Bacardi rum is enjoyable always and all ways”. The advertising industry is misleading and is designed to appeal to the current values of society, showing the audience a “perfect” image of its products even though it can be far from reality. These industries try to persuade the audience through the use of emotions or pathos, like this ad that is associating a perfect atmosphere inside a bar with the perfect bartender to make its product look more desirable to consumers.
spassman September 30th, 2007
Walt Disney’s story of Cinderella is a classic. It’s a story everyone knows and loves. It has been retold by many different people but I think that Walt Disney’s version is the best one out there. Every author puts his/her own twist on the story and each one is a little different but still has the same idea. A girl is treated badly by her stepmother and sisters and in the end ends up marrying the handsome prince. I enjoy Walt Disney’s the most because it is the story I grew up hearing and whenever I hear a different version it is never as good as the original.
taylor29 September 30th, 2007
As an Advertising major I have grown to absolutely despise these types of advertisements. People all around the world have their own opinions about advertising in general, and a lot of those opinions happen to be ones of negativity. The question you have knocking at your door right now is, why do some people hate advertising? The answer to this question is found in this portfolio of advertisements. When advertisers say things like “Camel Cigarettes are Doctors favorite cigarettes,” it makes people think smoking is acceptable, when in reality we all know it is anything but acceptable. Everyone knows that Doctors do not support smoking cigarettes, but upon seeing this ad it makes you think, “well maybe it is O.K. to smoke cigarettes then?” This is wrong, misleading and most of all it is completely immoral! I hope to go out into the advertising field one day and destroy all agencies who think they can publish ads such as this one, making them single handedly responsible for many accounts of poor health of our worlds population.
spassman September 30th, 2007
I agree with Thompson, people have been telling folktales for thousands of years. We have grown up listening to them, learning from them. If you go all around the world you can see that no matter where you are the folktales told in each part of the world are all relatively similar. Long ago, folktales were useful in teaching people life lessons and learning new information, nowadays folktales are more for amusement and entertainment. No matter where of when a folktale is told there will always be an eager listener because everyone loves a good story.
taylor29 September 30th, 2007
I agree with Bettelheim’s claim that Cinderella is the most well known fairy tale in the history of fairy tales. Cinderella gets in lots of little fights with her siblings that I can relate to because I have two sisters of my own. One is a year and a half younger then me and the other is eleven years younger. We always have plenty of little fights similar to those of Cinderella and her siblings. I feel that siblings fighting will never lead to good results, and almost always leads to the destruction of one of the children involved. I am the oldest of the children in my family so it is hard to imagine what it must be like to be the middle child, but it seems that the middle child always gets stuck with the worst luck. I feel that Cinderella experienced this not so generous “gift” of bad luck herself in the story. Despite all the fighting and rivalry in the story, the story of Cinderella is definitely one of the best fairy tales ever written, and that is why I completely agree with Bettelheim’s statement about it being the most famous fairy tale ever!
lwalk89 September 30th, 2007
In “Shopping for American Culture”, Farrell explains the complexity and development of malls in America. Malls are not just a place to shop, they are a learning center and economic experience that drives culture in our society. Ferrell takes the average understanding of the mall to another level. He describes our interaction and use of the malls in an intricate way by explaining how malls serve as many other functions other than just a place for economic consumption. I never really thought a mall was a subject of research, though Ferrell has shown me that these “cultural institutions” are places to be appreciated.
mshadows September 30th, 2007
The presence of pathos in politics has always been extremly important–military generals and political leaders arouse the emotions of their soldiers and subjects before a momentous event in the history of their nation, similar as to how Queen Elizabeth did before the pivotal battle between the English fleet and and Spanish Armada. However, what role does the pathos play today in our political system? A vital one, as illustrated by the 2004 elections and quite possibly by the upcoming 2008 elections. Our politicians appeal to our emotions and values that we hold essential to our existence. A prime example is the Republican campaign in 2004, which had an agenda heavily based upon appealing to the conservative, Christian faction in our country–issues like abortion and gay marriages played a pivotal role in the pathos of the Republican movement. Will these issues play a salient part in the upcoming election? Possibly, yes. Nevertheless, other important issues in which the pathos can be manipulated, although in a different way, will arise like immigration, the ideological clash between America and other civilizations, and a seemingly revival of the issue of race relations within the US.
marisan September 28th, 2007
The 1947 advertisement for Camel cigarettes is a shocking illustration of the deception employed by tobacco companies. In 1947 the harms of smoking were not as publicly well known as they are today. This 1947 Camel advertisement implies that smoking is desirable because dedicated and intelligent doctors choose to smoke Camel cigarettes. Advertisements are misleading and designed to appeal to the current values in society. This is especially obvious in the ads from the 1950’s which appealed to suburban homemakers. The earlier ads appeal to me the least because I do not share the same values they are advocating. Many of the implications of advertisements are ridiculous! The Smirnoff ad wants you to believe that consuming Smirnoff will make marriages happier!
alexh07 September 28th, 2007
The De Soto car advertisement found on pg. 714 of the WRAC consists of a big, shiny parked on the side of the road of a neighborhood, with its driver talking to his son through the window while his wife pulls him to go back into the house. One of the two titles reads: “Of all the De Soto cars ever built, 7 of 10 are still running.” The other reads, “8 of 10 owners say, ‘De Soto is the most satisfactory car I ever owned.’” Due to the fact that logos is the rhetorical analysis of reason and thought, one can assume that this is what the advertisement is using to catch the attention of its audience because it is using a statistic to convince them that De Soto is the most reliable brand of car and that we should buy one. Statistics in favor of a brand or company are always reliable to use in advertisements because people are more inlcined to believe something that appeals to a person’s logos when trying to decide what kind of car to buy. Pathos is catchy, but logos is probably the best choice to apply to this type of advertisement.
jlarkin September 27th, 2007
As a junior in high school I took an advanced placement Psychology class. In this class we learned about Zimbardo’s Standford Prison Experiment. One of these experiments was to get a large group of ordinary men together. These men were assigned as wardens and prisoners to an experimental prison facility used for this experiment. At first the wardens were good to the prisoners but as days went on they became crueler and crueler. Some of the pictures taken from the experiment were of the prisoners on leashes made to act like dogs, and others were far more horrendous. This experiment sticks out in my mind when reading this essay. It is insane how people’s view changes into a “group think” mentality.
jlarkin September 27th, 2007
I’m so sorry that this post is late. I didn’t know where to find the essays until I mustered up the courage to ask someone… hence why I’m posting now. Anyhow, let’s get down to the matter. I read the Cinderella: A Story of Sibling Rivalry and Oedipal Conflicts. As a middle child I can closely relate to Bettelheim’s view that the story resonates a sibling rivalry theme. My older sister and I are 18 months apart. We’ve shared the same friends, teachers, car, among other things. We used to compete on a daily basis on who preformed the most house chores, who got the better scores, who the boys like more. As a young child my favorite Disney movie was always “The Little Mermaid,” second favorite was “Cinderella.” Taking Bettelheim’s interpretation of subtle unconscious meanings of Cinderella, I can apply them to the love I have for “The Little Mermaid.” You see, Ariel is the middle child, barely anyone pays attention to this fact because her sisters and brothers are not in the picture.
jorgitopm September 25th, 2007
In this study Mr. Asch argues that scientific experiments have shown that people tend to give in to the opinions of others, specially if they are confronted by a majority. This experiment shows that humans are influenced by other humans when the minority feels weak and is consequently intimidated by a more formidable majority. This is true in societies that are oppressed by totalitarian dictators and despots, where people will eventually give up their own judgements to the judgements of the dictator.
jorgitopm September 25th, 2007
This is a very interesting study in which the famous psychologist Stanley Milgram deals with the issue of obidience. The peculiar thing with this study is that the subject of the experiment was the experimenter himself. In the study, the experimenter was tricked to believe that we has going to conduct an experiment with a person who had to memorize some words. The experimenter had to electrocute the “subject” each tiem he or she failed to memorize the word. The real subject (the experimenter himself) though, was being tested to see if he/she would follow authoritarian instructions or rather he would stop shocking the victim when his conscience told him it was enough.
asadecky September 24th, 2007
This advertisement appeals to the readers emotions and therfore uses ethos to get its message across. The man is sitting on a manly motorcycle with the pretty woman in the background. Smoking Camel cigarretts really has nothing to do with motorcycles or women. The ad is appealing to the emotions of the reader by trying to make them think that if they smoke their cigarretts then they will be desired and tough like the man on the bike.
mshadows September 23rd, 2007
To many individuals of the religious faction in society, the media and its various practices have contributed significantly to the moral decay of our era. This sector of society cites the profuse amounts of drugs, violence, and sex portrayed in the media as direct violators of moral decency, which has ultimately contributed to a culture torn apart by such “social maladies.” It is often said, with a nostalgic air, that it was so much “cleaner in the good old days.” This is a fundamentally fallacious assertion. There is virtually no difference in what roles lust, intoxicants, and violence play in our culture compared to that of Medieval Europe. The essential difference is that now these concepts, which have been a type of decadent desire in our society, have evolved only in the ease of how they can be conveyed to the masses through mediums such as the television, internet, and other forms of technology. In the past, blood, fornication, and intoxicants were avenues of profit–not much has changed even to this day.
rivangel September 22nd, 2007
Bruno Bettelheim puts attention to Freud’s Oedipal conflicts that arise as children grow up. He relates them to “Cinderella” and to the hidden meaning behind why children like “Cinderella.” I agree with Bettelheim that children will often see a movie or read a story in which they relate to and pretend to be a character in real life. He demonstrates it well by giving some examples of kids in situations in which they believe their parents treat them worse than their other siblings and have made statements about being treated like Cinderella, yet I disagree that all children think that their siblings never have bad thoughts and that they will eventually feel guilty and deserving of their situation. I think it depends on how an individual is raised or the experiences they have faced. If they have a concept of right and wrong then they will feel guilty for having bad thoughts.
lwalk89 September 22nd, 2007
In “Opinions and Social Presure”, Asch describes psychological experiments performed on young male college students to test their level of conformity when put in various situations. They were tested with things such as being shown a card with a line on it and then another card with three lines on it, asking to identify the line that matched the first. The results showed that most of the participants conformed to the group opinion, which was an incorrect answer(even up to seven inches off), when the group was unanimous. This shows that without any support,our own opinions may sway when confronted. This is a scary thought when “conformity in our society is so strong”, making me question whether most of our social values and opinions are a result of the “engineering of consent”. The strength that conformity has on people’s opinions may make it easy to manipulate, like many leaders have in the past using propaganda and such. We all want to have independent thought, though it seems the need to conform is a greater influence in reality.
alexh07 September 21st, 2007
It sounds a bit like an oxymoron when those two words are put together – doctors and smoking. This advertisement was obviously meant for a much earlier time period and generation than the one we live in today, because it is most likely that no doctor in his right mind would smoke with the number of people they see die annually from lung disease because of it. This advertisement is purely based on logos, that is the audience’s reason and frame of mind, to persuade them to smoke Camels. Clearly, if doctor’s smoke Camel’s, then it is perfectly fine for the rest of us to, is what I can infer the advertisement is trying to get me to understand. It’s disturbing for me to try to comprehend that people actually published this and its viewers believed it.
missrini September 21st, 2007
In “Opinions an Social Pressures” Solomom E. Asch explores the power of social pressure as demonstrated in a series of related psychological experiments. In short, the experiment consisted of a subject who had the choice to either conform to a majority (who were told to say the wrong answers) or maintain independence in his/her decision on matching the size of a vertical line to a set of 3 vertical lines. The results of the experiment surprised psychologists, as many people succumbed to group pressure (36.8 per cent versus 1 per cent when alone), and answered contradictorily to their judgments. In an interview following the experiment, independent individuals maintained integrity because of a firm belief in their confidence. Conforming individuals were either uncomfortable with “spoiling the results” of the procedure or they completely traded their judgments for that of the majority. The tendency toward conformity has raised disturbing questions regarding our values. We need only look to history to see that the long arm of conformity, coupled with political and social factors, propagated Nazi ideology in post WW1 Germany. Nonetheless, this does not signify the death of independence. Following the experiment, the majority of participants agreed that it is better to be independent than to conform.
bj21 September 21st, 2007
Many people spend ridiculously amounts of money on cellphones today, wanting to have the latest technology. Wireless phone companies upgrade their phones every year with new features that people of all ages enjoy buying. So what do they do with their old phone after buying another? This is one concern that commercial and TV ads lack on explaining or offering any ideas. In this ad that I’ve read was rather different; it told the importance of recycling old cellphones. Just like we humans get a chance to retire, so does our used cellphones.
ptomaszewski September 18th, 2007
Society is slowly draining the title of PH.D of its worth. Instead of students obtaining the PH.D for reasons based on obtaining a mastery of their field, students are now mostly concerned with gaining the recognition that comes with the rank and feel they are entitled to a teaching position at a high ranked university. We need to bring back the true meaning of the PH.D and not focus on it as a status symbol but as a symbol of one’s desire to learn.
lds1027 September 18th, 2007
I love the fine print in all of these ads. Apparently since the 50’s they have stuck primarily with sex appeal. Camel- “Satisfaction, Camel Filters style” and More Menthol- “We’re More satisfied,” were more subtle than say the Phillip Morris- “Gently Does It” ad. Also, I’m not sure if anyone else has noticed, but on a pack of Camel’s you can see a naked man in the front leg of the camel. Talk about subliminal messages! Honestly though, the worst cigarette ad was the “Can you spot the Camel Filters smoker?” one. First of all, if you don’t read it it seems completely inane. Secondly, who on earth would actually bother to read this ridiculous advertisement? Effective.
theAnnie September 17th, 2007
In response to the advertisement in the Writing and Reading Across Curriculum, the statement that most doctors prefer camel brand is a bit of false statistics. Let’s say they interview one hundred doctors and twenty say they actually prefer camel cigarettes. The advertisement people would then take those twenty people and another five people as their pool of interview, thus being able to say that four out of five doctors prefew camel cigarettes over any other brand. Ethos + faulty statistics = a bunch of camel cigarette sales.
