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Summary of Anthropology and the Abnormal by Ruth Benedict

Student’s name

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The text opines that today modern social anthropology is becoming more about studying common elements and varieties of the cultural environment in relation to the consequences they have on human behavior. The main thesis coming from the text has to do with the fact that modern civilization is not a necessary pillar of achievement in human beings; instead, it is a single entry found among many possible adjustments. The argument presented in the text is that these adjustments, whether presented in major human drives such as sex or mannerisms of joy, anger, brief within a given society, always emerge far more variable than any one culture would imply. In situations of formal marriage arrangements or religion, they are widely known; hence, they can be fairly described while in others, giving a generalized account is not possible.

From the study of cultures, one of the most striking facts is how each of our abnormalities functions in other cultures. Worth noting, the kind of abnormality does not matter, whether it is those which indicate extreme instability or those with characters of persecution, delusions, or sadism, they are well-described cultures whereby the abnormals function at ease (Benedict, 2017). Notably, the abnormals function with a lot of ease and without any difficulty and danger towards society. In our cultures, even a very mild mystic is aberrant. However, most people have regarded extreme psychic manifestations as desirable and normal and characteristic of highly gifted or valued individuals. It is hard for people who have been brought up in a culture that makes no use of the experience to know the importance of its role and how many individuals are capable of it once it is granted an honorable place in society.

References

Benedict, R. (2017). An anthropologist at work. Routledge.

Literature

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The text that contains the commonly held dark side, the Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans: Witch-hunts, elitism, intolerance and narrow-minded zealotry is that of Cotton Mather: From the Wonders of the Invisible World. Cotton had various beliefs, and he saw the witches as tools of the devil. According to Cotton, the witches were not possessed by the spirits, but they were the agents of the devil and that they were sent as divine judgment to the sinful people to punish them for their sins. Cotton was of the belief also that sin and witches were to be destroyed before the Puritans could fulfill their destiny as the people of god and help clean the sins out of the people. It was also believed that once the Puritans had got rid of the witches and sins, god would bless them with eternal happiness.

Cotton describes the original Puritan settlers of the New England as pious that they were free of sins. He further states that the settlers were willing to give up civilization for them to live a pure land that was free from all sins. Mather in contrast also noted that the youth were morally corrupt and were prone to evil. Among the quotes by Mather is that of “The New Englanders are people of god settled in those, which were once the devil’s territories.” From the quote, we can see how the Puritans discriminated against the indigenous people.

The issue of ethnocentrism is much evident in that Cotton considered his culture and belief to be more superior and looked down on the indigenous cultures and religion terming it to be evil. In another quote, Mather discussed the plans by the devil to overturn the plantation and the churches with the aid of the witches,”…An army of devils is broke in upon the place which is the center, and after a sort, the first-born of our English settlements…” It is too unfortunate that the Puritan values and ways of lives have been carried over into our generation in that people still believe that witchcraft is associated with evil. Besides, ethnocentrism is more evident in today’s generation with most of the people looking down upon the cultures and religion of others while they consider theirs as superior.

Reference

Mather, C. (1862). The wonders of the invisible world: Being an account of the tryals of several witches lately executed in New-England. Smith.

Research Design

In this proposed study, a triangulation or ‘mixed’ research method will be used as a methodological framework for quantitatively studying prevalence and early detection of adolescent suicide and self-harm. Ideally, the study will be a quantitative research study that intends to use both primary and secondary research methods (triangulation) to accomplish its purpose. As noted by Hawton, Saunders and O’Connor (2012), self-harm and suicide are significant sources of public health problems in our nation’s adolescents with self-harm statistics being high among teenagers and suicide rates being noted as the third most prevalent cause of death among American teenagers (NIH, 2008). The triangulation research design will help us in exploring self-harm and suicide and evaluate how nurses and other professionals can recognize signs of self-harm and interrupt a cycle that might lead to suicide; which is the purpose of this study. Hussein (2009) noted that triangulation is a concept that is defined as the application of several qualitative and quantitative techniques in studying a common phenomenon for the sole purpose of increasing the credibility and validity of the study. The primary research will be conducted by means of an online self-administered survey.

The appropriateness of triangulation research approach for this study

Researchers have always argued that a good research practice often involves the utilization of multiple methods in order to enhance both the validity and reliability the research findings as indicated in the work of (Mathison, 1988).The choice of triangulation as the appropriate research design is inspired by the fact that helps in achieving improved clarity, research completeness and validity as noted by Fielding and Fielding (1986). According to Knafle and Gallo (1995), triangulation technique contributes to the overall quality of a research ‘only to the extent that it facilitates the achievement of some clearly articulated purpose’ (cited in Adami and Kiger, 2005). The convenience of triangulation in nursing research for confirmatory purposes is noted by Adami and Kiger (2005) to be heavily dependent on the principle that research should be a rigorous search for absolute and objective truth. Validity and completeness of findings on how nurses and other professionals can recognize signs of self-harm and interrupt a cycle that might lead to suicide are therefore our motivation for choosing triangulation technique for this study. The overarching objective of this study is to find ways of minimizing mortality and injury due to teenage self-harm and suicide among the American youths. This must be done with the highest level of clarity, validity and completeness that can only be achieved by means of triangulation.

Purpose of research proposal

Teenage mortality is an important public health issue because the majority of these deaths are preventable. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among adolescents and it is believed that 14 to 24 percent of teenagers have engaged in self-harm (NIH, 2008). Every two hours in the United States someone under the age of twenty four successfully commits suicide leaving behind a family and a community that is left to wonder why this has happened and also if there were measures that might have been able to prevent the death from happening (ASS, 2013). The purpose of this study is to explore how nurses and other professionals can recognize signs of self-harm and interrupt a cycle that might lead to suicide. Research into how nurses and professionals are coping with this pandemic will be explored. An important question will be how assessment tools can identify at risk youths. Nurses from many fields work with adolescents; these include those who work in clinics, in hospitals, in schools and in psychiatric units. This proposal intends to provide an outlook on how this pandemic can be mitigated through the involvement of nurses and others who work with adolescents.

Design of the survey instrument

The survey in this study will involve the design and use of online questionnaires. The design of the survey will begin by the development of a collection or bank of question items that will be suitable for answering the required research questions. The design as well as development of the survey instrument will involve six distinct steps or stages. The initial step will involve the examination of any existing models for suicide and self-harm evaluation by physicians and nurses. The second stage will involve the extrapolation of the essential items from the existing models for suicide and self-harm evaluation by physicians and nurses. The third stage will involve the examination of extant literature that reported the application of questionnaires in the evaluation of mental conditions (suicide and self-harm in particular). The fourth stage will involve the development of the criteria that was derived from the existing models for suicide and self-harm evaluation by physicians and nurses. The fifth stage will involve the design and construction of the online questionnaires to be administered to the target audience (Registered Nurses) via the appropriate channels. The fifth step will involve the piloting and revision of the questionnaires.

Data sources

The primary research method to be used is random survey sampling through the use of questionnaires to the participants of the study. An online survey tool, Survey Monkey, will be used to conduct the primary research. Secondary sources will also be consulted in the research. These sources will be from reliable peer-reviewed journal articles, books, whitepapers, personal experiences, online and offline articles, newspapers and conference papers. The research will target or involve nurses who have dealt with this problem on a personal and professional level as well as research material that can be provided from the hundreds of online websites that are dedicated to helping adolescents who feel that suicide might be their only option.

Target Audience or Participants

The target audience will be nurses who work in all areas of nursing and are not limited to those who are working with youths. The benefit of working with all nurses, regardless of their chosen field is to determine if the adequate tools are in place to identify if a child is at risk or if better screening needs to be in place. The volunteers who are already working with adolescents appear to be ready and willing to co-operate to help identify how additional methods can be identified to assist with this crisis. Nurses are on the frontline of suicide prevention and identifying adolescents who are at risk. The participants’ gender will be both male and female and can include those who have worked with adolescents and nurses who are working in all fields. The sampling survey will involve a total of one hundred (130) RN’s.

Sampling technique

This research will employ a random stratified sampling strategy. The sample population will be stratified according to state and type or nature of nursing career that they engage in (agency, ambulatory care, case management, critical care, emergency, informatics, research, psychiatric, perioperative (OR) etc). The sample will be selected from willing respondents who must all be registered nurses (RNs) and have been on the job for more than five years. The respondents will selected from sample pool of willing online participants who will answer to our request form participation in our online survey. In other words, the sample pool will be derived from various nursing website via their social media portals (Facebook and Twitter accounts) of the following websites;

-www.nursezone.com

-www.nurse.com

-www.medicalnewstoday.com

-www.internurse.com

-www.medscape.com

-www.nursingtimes.net

-www.nurselinkup.com

-www.nurseweek.com

In order to reach an extended audience and to avoid too much time wasted, the surveys will be published on the social media pages of the above mentioned websites (such as HYPERLINK “https://www.facebook.com/NurseZone” https://www.facebook.com/NurseZone for Nurse Zone ( HYPERLINK “http://www.nursezone.com)” www.nursezone.com)).

Additionally, the research will involve professionals who have had experience with adolescents who might have suggested intent to self-harm or commit suicide. A routine Google search will bring up an abundance of websites that are dedicated to helping those who are feeling suicidal. These range from the US Governments Suicide prevention hotline to private groups dedicated to those with specific issues who have volunteers who have survived self-harm or suicidal intent and are now working with others, two such groups are To Write Love On Her Arms and Laura’s Playground. These websites are dedicated to helping youth who are struggling with suicidal thoughts. Through stratified sampling of professional nurses there will be greater precision as to how to interpret assessments and which set of youth are at greatest risk and how to follow through to help adolescents with self-harm history or who have attempted suicide.

Appropriateness of Sampling Technique

The choice for stratified random sampling for this research is inspired by its ability to reduce all forms of human bias in the process of selecting participants to be included in the sample. As a consequence stratified random sample can provide us with a study sample that is highly representative (Daniel, 2011, p.127). This technique also improves the degree of representation of certain groups within a given population (such as nurses who deal with stresses out teens). This means that it ensures that a given strata is not over-represented. This method reduces the sampling error since population statistics estimates are drawn from a known population. Our sampling will be of nurses and professionals working in the field to see if the appropriate tools are being used to identify those who are at the most risk. This would be a stratified sampling that will include professionals who have previous knowledge of adolescents through their own studies, personal lives and work experiences.

In the case of secondary data, the sources will be derived from peer-reviewed journal articles, books, whitepapers, personal experiences, online and offline articles, newspapers and conference papers. Only the most relevant and most credible sources will be included in this research. In order to choose the most relevant and credible secondary sources, an elaborate strategy aimed at authenticity, credibility, representativeness and meaning was used as described in the work of Scott (1990). All the sources will be evaluated for currency (must be up to date) (Stein, 2002).

Role and Bias of Researcher

The role of the researcher in this study will be to investigate by means of credible sources and latest information, the role of nurse-assisted early detection of adolescent suicide and self-harm in order to interrupt the deadly cycle that leads to suicide. This would be done by the formulation of objective research question and following a research methodology that is accurate, valid and free of any bias.

Bias is defined by Sica (2006) to be a type of systematic error that can ultimately influence scientific investigations and hence distort the overall measurement process. Panucci and Wilkins (2010) noted that the identification and avoidance of bias is the sole responsibility of the researcher. In order to avoid researcher bias, I will ensure that I formulate research questions that are not too leading. As a researcher, I recognize that I will be interviewing nurses who have already had experience with young people who might be prone to self-harm or suicide. It will be necessary to develop a suitable survey to allow for those with different experiences to ensure that the data is without bias. The survey needs to be refined to eliminate bias from those who might have considerable experience with adolescents who have followed through from self-harm, to completion of suicide. A potential bias or error in the survey can be recognized by realizing that individuals with more experience who are interviewed would be more inclined to take adolescents threats more seriously than those with only casual experience who might hear the adolescents concerns but might see them as maneuvers to get attention from parents or school authorities.

References

Adami M.F., Kiger A. (2005) The Use f Triangulation For Completeness Purposes. Nurse Researcher. 12(4): 19-29

American Association of Suicidology (2013). Youth Suicide Fact Sheet. Accessed on 13th August,2013 from HYPERLINK “http://www.suicidology.org/c/document_library/get_file?folderId=232&name=DLFE-161.pdf” http://www.suicidology.org/c/document_library/get_file?folderId=232&name=DLFE-161.pdf

Daniel,J (2011).Sampling Essentials: Practical Guidelines for Making Sampling Choices. SAGE

Fielding, N. G., & Fielding, J. L. (1986). Linking data: The articulation of qualitative and quantitative methods in social research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Hawton, K., Saunders, K. E. A. & O’Connor, R. C. (2012). Self-harm and suicide in adolescents. Lancet, 379, 2373-2382

Hussein, A., 2009. The use of triangulation in social sciences research: Can qualitative and quantitative methods be combined? Journal of Comparative Social Research, (1): 1-12.

Mathison, S., (1988). Why triangulate? Educational Researcher, 17(2): 13-19.

National Institute of Mental health (2008). Suicide in the U.S.: Statistics and Prevention. NIH Publication No. 06-4594. Accessed on 13th August, 2013 from HYPERLINK “http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/suicide-in-the-us-statistics-and-prevention/index.shtml” http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/suicide-in-the-us-statistics-and-prevention/index.shtml

Panucci,CJ ., Wilkins., EG (2010).Identifying and Avoiding Bias in Research. Plast Reconstr Surg. 2010 August; 126(2): 619–625.

Scott, John (1990) A Matter of Record: Documentary Sources in Social Research, Cambridge: Polity Press

Sica, G.T. (2006) Bias in research studies. Radiology, 238 (3) 780-9.

Stein. ,S (2002). Sociology on the web: a student guide

AAFM Manufacturing

Prior to 2005, did local AAFM management adopt a unitarist or pluralist approach to employment relations? Does the new management team espouse the same ideology?

AAFM case generally reflects on opportunities, which are unique to untangle both the pluralist and the unitarist roots on employment relations roots. This is in relation to the marked shifts that existed between the paradigms on the managerial periods. With reference to this concept, Gennard reveals the existing distinction between pluralist and the unitarist approaches on aspects to do with human resources. He emphasizes that this form will remain harmonious indicative, a one-team aspect and an integrated approach while it will always distinguish that different groups will always exist in organizations. Additionally, he emphasizes that conflict between employees and their employers will always remain inevitable. With this in mind, the AAFM adopted the pluralist agenda, which enabled the facilitation of the internal groups by supporting the AMWU union. Additionally, some of the communication channels that were used were generally circular hence allowing organizational employees to maintain their interests’ representation through AMWU consultations with the management.

However, after the 2005 managerial exchange, the unitarist agenda replaced the pluralist vision. This was done by adjusting the decision to make it fit an authoritarian framework. This aspect was rejected by the AMWU representation contract merits. In its bid to prescribe an effective corporate employee vision adherence, the leadership staff of AAFM decided to pursue the unitarist employee policy of relations. This was also established to prevent interests of the group in influencing group-oriented objectives and the performance based objectives. The pluralist leadership model gave the employees an opportunity to have a common voice under the protection of the AMWU.

Identify the ways industrial conflict is being expressed at AAFM and the factors contributing to this conflict

Generally, industrial conflicts roles in protecting organizational worker’s interests have changed over the past years. With reference to human resources conflicts and industrial relations in Europe, the aspect of organizational conflicts tends to affect both organizational works and their companies negatively. AAFM lacks reciprocity of mitigation and bargaining opportunities when it comes to organizational communication hence a direct influence on organizational conflict. In most cases, this aspect tends to result in different measures by the affected parties, which stemmed from the dissociated organizational goals and objectives.

With reference to industrial conflicts, there are aspects that play a key role in such breakdown especially on matters that relate to employment relations. Some of these factors include strike-based advantage, fractured identity and consciousness, determined regime of accumulation and union dynamics that are variable. In as much as these factors were obvious to some extent in the AAFM conflict, the aspect of consciousness and identity and accumulation regime were main determinants of outcomes that were negative. According to both Blyton and Bacon, modern partnerships addresses mutual gains principles in a situation where the aspect of integrative bargaining allows the organizational employees to share the performance-based rewards. Nevertheless, at AAFM, employee interest’s marginalization limited the organizational employees’ identification degree within the agenda of the organization and the elimination of profit sharing potentials in their organizational economic interests.

Generally, the AAFM management was not willing to recognize AAFM employee’s dissatisfaction at the organization; instead, the unitarist position generally affected the employee’s ability to reflect on the interests of the employees. In this case, instead of putting more focus on the larger scale agenda of the pay-based concerns, the organization put priorities on other aspects. The introduction of the conceptual collective model of bargaining was an important determinant on the organizational attritional behaviors. However, reputation perceptions in such organizations are inaccurate, hence the emergence of a bargaining conflict strategy. In this case, AMWU and AAFM management established an inflexible aspect of the winner takes it all situations in the organization against compromise. In such organizations, this aspect resulted into significant losses of performance and efficiency from the workers because of the confrontational work stoppages. It was quite evident that, the in ability to establish reputational biasness and the organizational managers in ability to establish some of the employees’ motivations aspect in conflicts pursue played a key role in conflicts in the organization thus leading to strike decisions and workforce lockout.

How would the conflict at AAFM be explained and resolved from (a) a unitarist perspective and (b) a pluralist perspective?

Conflicting with the AAFM management perspectives, most practitioners claim that organizational strike activities tend to be largely intrinsically and rational generally especially when there is the aspect of a faulty negotiation framework in the organization. The main breakage of indeterminacy that is unavoidable especially in establishing relationships tends to result in positions that might be rigid which might fail to establish rational opportunities that come with collective bargaining. Van Buren et al thoughts on unitarist describe two main strategic measures of the human resources management including both hard and soft employee perspectives on contributions. In the AAFM industry, various aspects play a key role in influencing productivity against resource based employee value perspectives. Some of these factors include high volume-low industrial cost nature and labor intensive. With reference to this aspect, strategic managerial agenda might fail to align the value of organizational employee perspectives thus resulting in organizational disconnection, which might then lead to healthy conflicts in organizational labor.

Generally, unitarist aspects put more emphasis on organizational performances and market opportunities in as much as organizational employees’ interests might be subjugated. Additionally, economic priorities and human assets values according to the unitarist agenda might sometimes be overwhelming. Most unitarist agendas emphasizes on managerial controls and informational management. These agendas mostly view the thoughts as important mechanisms, which play an important role in developing, attaining, enacting and achieving organizational explicit performance objectives. In as much as it is based on harmonious agenda, unitarist authoritarian nature plays a key role on the satisfaction of AAFM employees because of their negotiation strategies and past pluralist experiences values. Over the past years, AAFM managers have pursued unitarists agenda regarding their employee perceptions for the sake of the interests of the employees. However, the underlying priorities in the unitarists agenda are economic generally. This means that outsourcing threat in the organization would be of employee concern thus thrusting this aspect might discourse into pluralistic debate within the organization for the purposes of resolving the competing interests.

Generally, pluralist regime enables organizational employees to view information aspect as a managerial accountability source and an organizational responsibility hence providing the organization with an intra-organizational competition. In as much as the core conflicts in an organization are likely to be aggravated by this particular group-based orientation, a pluralist organization gives organizations an opportunity to offer support on the organizational objectives and interests. As many practitioners would argue, conflicting aspects in such relationships are mostly based depending on the genuinely of different interests that generally assume a bargaining quality. This aspect is unlikely to attain equality especially through operational frameworks that are holistic. Instead, pluralist agendas depend on specific achievements, conflict resolution strategies and achievement of specific strategies. Additionally, pluralist resolution of conflict schemes would generally adjust towards mutual negotiation forms where organizational managers and employees tend to amend their requests for the purposes of achieving outcomes, which were agreeable. Alternatively, managerial positions which have unitarist framework and ways of thinking, in most cases, the negotiating ability tends to be limited by the operational agendas and business-based strategies.

In AAFM situation, the pluralist and unitarist positions tends to be conflict of purpose indicative whereby both the organizational employees and managers tend to prioritize specific organizational objectives without proper discussions of such arrangements. In this case, the organization preferring to the pluralist based negotiation framework, the organizational strike that was influenced by the employees was enacted for the purposes of challenging the organizational management to look into their objectives and outcomes. Enacting a unitarist-oriented management type, the organizational management dealt with the issue by being dictatorial to the organizational employees and threatened them with the possibility of denying them benefits and wages. The pluralist framework would highly depend on compromise and mutual agreements towards organizational activities while the unitarist framework would largely depend upon communication-driven aspects and different shared ideologies that mostly focus on the long-term organizational stability and performances in the organization.

Bibliography

Bacon, N., P. Blyton. “Co-Operation and Conflict in Industrial Relations: What are the Implications for Employees and Trade Unions?” The International Journal of Human Resource Management 10, no. 4 (1999): 638-654.

Brown, J.A. “Competing Ideologies in the Accounting and Industrial Relations Environment.” British Accounting Review 32, (2000): 43-75.

Calabuig, V., G. Olcina. “Commitment and Strikes in Wage Bargaining.” Labour Economics 7, (2000): 349-372.

Gall, G. “Industrial Conflict in the Engineering Construction Industry in Britain.” Construction Management and Economics 30, no. 7 (2012): 535-544.

Gennard, J., G. Judge. Employee Relations, London: CIPD, 2005.

Geraghty, T.M., T. Wiseman. “Conflict and Compromise: Changes in US Strike Outcomes, 1880 to 1945.” Explorations in Economic History 48, (2011): 591-537.

Gill, C. “Union Impact on the Effective Adoption of High Performance Work Practices.” Human Resource Management Review 19, (2009): 39-50.

Makela, H. “On the Ideological Role of Employee Reporting.” Critical Perspectives on Accounting, (2012): 1-19.

Mauleon, A., V.J. Vannetelbosch. “Market Competition and Strike Activity.” International Journal of Industrial Organization 21, (2003): 737-758.

Scheuer, S. “A Novel Calculus? Institutional Change, Globalization and Industrial Conflict in Europe.” European Journal of Industrial Relations 12, no. 2 (2006): 143-164.

Van Buren, H.J., M. Greenwod, C. Sheehan. “Strategic Human Resource Management and the Decline of Employee Focus.” Human Resource Management Review 21, (2011): 209-219.

a neuroscientist

has a biological basis

and still leave an important question unanswered – When did the biology of a homosexual get changed

should such a cure be sought? Should homosexuality really be considered a vice and thus prompt a search for a cure for it? Although these studies may make homophobic individuals accept homosexuals more readily by the thought that gays and lesbians can’t change their sexual orientation since it appears to be inborn

hormones and other social and environmental factors early in life as confirmed by researchers. The researcher Charles Roselli confirms that studies have shown that the sex of a sheep is pre-determined even before birth. In his research