Thursday, March 26, 2020

Using Operant Conditioning to Increase Productivity Among Workers free essay sample

If I would be a manager of a large automobile factory, I would be interested in increasing the productivity among all workers. A good tool for this is Operant Conditioning. I would have 3 types of workers: white collar office employees, factory line workers, and quality control employees. I would use different techniques for each type. For quality control workers I would use punishment. If they didn’t notice a defect in the product that they were supposed to check, they would get a fine taken off their paycheque. I would use fixed ration scheduling for punishment, so that every mistake is noticed and punished. This will make them extra careful, and will increase the quality of the product on the market. This form of treatment – punishment – might make them angry. But they can’t express their anger on me because I’m their manager and I might fire them. So they will be angry with workers and will be checking product for defects with special passion. We will write a custom essay sample on Using Operant Conditioning to Increase Productivity Among Workers or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page For white-collar office employees and for factory line workers I would use Positive reinforcement. This technique will bring enthusiasm and optimism to workers, will create positive environment, and will increase their productivity. If I will reword workers for extra work done, or for being done the assignment before the due date, I will strengthen their motivation for work because it is followed by the presentation of reward (money added to the pay check). I would use variable ratio schedule for the rewords to be given out, meaning that on average I will reward every 5th outstanding achievement. I would not choose variable interval, because giving reward simply after a period of time wouldn’t bring the response as fast and efficient as I want.

Friday, March 6, 2020

Two Kinds of Homage

Two Kinds of Homage Two Kinds of Homage Two Kinds of Homage By Maeve Maddox Way back in elementary school when we learned about feudalism, we were told that the medieval vassal paid homage to his lord. My teachers pronounced the word homage: [hom-ij]. Note: Some English speakers don’t pronounce the h in this homage. When I became interested in movie criticism, I came across the word homage in connection with the practice of incorporating a name or a scene or a bit of dialogue from an old movie within a new production. When I read the word in my head, I pronounced it [hom-ij]. The first time I heard the pronunciation [oh-mazh] in an interview with someone from the film industry, I thought I was hearing a new word. I soon realized that when movie people talk about homage, they give it a French pronunciation. That’s when I realized that homage is a kind of heteronym. heteronym: A word having the same spelling as another, but a different sound and meaning. Both versions have to do with showing respect for someone or something, but the latter is used in the context of art. In general use, homage now means â€Å"acknowledgement of superiority in respect of rank, worth, beauty, or some other quality.† It’s usually used in the expression â€Å"to pay homage to.† The other kind of homage is â€Å"a work of art or entertainment which incorporates elements of style or content characteristic of another work, artist, or genre, as a means of paying affectionate tribute.† It can also refer to an example of such a tribute within a work. I noticed one in an episode of the television police drama Castle. The episode was presented as a frame story. The â€Å"frame† was the present day investigation. The story within the frame followed the usual Castle characters in a plot set in the 1930s. The homage [oh-mazh] reenacted a scene from the James Cagney movie Public Enemy (1931). See if you can tell which kind of homage is meant in the following examples from the Oxford English Dictionary: He must do homage to Philip for his lands in Normandy and Anjou, accept Philip as his overlord. Before leaving the mountains Picasso embarked on a major homage to El Greco. There is no country in which so absolute a homage is paid to wealth. That vice pays homage to virtue is notorious; we call this hypocrisy. Her first volume, however, was not the battle cry of a new poetry; it was a homage to Keats. This character is named after Humphrey Bogarts Fred Dobbs in the 1948 film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but its an homage that doesnt appear to make much sense. Proust pens homages to such modern inventions as the railroad, the telephone, the airplane. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:100 Beautiful and Ugly Words15 Words for Household Rooms, and Their SynonymsFew vs. Several