Christmas Trends, Demographics, Spending and Waste

Christmas is one of the most widely celebrated holidays by people all over the world, but what are the particularities of it in the United States? Who is celebrating it? How are they doing it? How much are they spending? And how might social differences shape our experience of this holiday? Lets dive in. The Cross-Religion and Secular Popularity of Christmas According to Pew Research Centers December 2013 survey about Christmas, we know that the vast majority of people in the U.S. celebrate the holiday. The survey confirms what most of us know: Christmas is both a religious and a secular holiday. Unsurprisingly, about 96 percent of Christians celebrate  Christmas, as do a whopping 87 percent of people who are not religious. What may surprise you is that people of other faiths do too. According to Pew, 76 percent of Asian-American Buddhists, 73 percent of Hindus, and 32 percent of Jews celebrate Christmas. News reports indicate that some Muslims also celebrate the holiday. Interestingly, the Pew survey found that Christmas is more likely to be a religious holiday for older generations.  While just over a third  of people ages 18-29 celebrate Christmas religiously, 66 percent of those 65 and older do so. For many Millennials, Christmas is a cultural, rather than a religious, holiday. Popular Christmas Traditions and Trends According to the 2014 National Retail Federations (NRF) survey of planned activities for Christmas Day, the most common things we do are visit with family and friends, open gifts, cook a holiday meal, and sit on our bums and watch television. Pews 2013 survey shows that more than half of us will attend church on Christmas Eve or Day, and the organizations 2014 survey shows that eating holiday foods is the activity that we most look forward to, after visiting with family and friends. Leading up to the holiday, the Pew survey found that  the majority of American adults—65 percent—will send holiday cards, though older adults are more likely than younger adults to do so, and 79 percent of us will put up a Christmas tree, which is slightly more common among higher income earners. Though hurtling through airports at top foot-speed is a popular trope of Christmas movies, in fact, just 5-6 percent of us travel long-distance by air for the holiday, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. While long-distance travel  increases by 23 percent at Christmas time, most of that travel is by car. Similarly, though images of carolers punctuate holiday films, just 16 percent of us join in the activity, according to Pews 2013 survey Studies also show that we are getting engaged, conceiving children, and deciding to get divorced more so on Christmas than during any other time of  the year. How Gender, Age, and Religion Shape Our Christmas Experiences Interestingly, a 2014 survey by Pew found that religious affiliation, gender,  marital status, and age have an impact on the extent to which people look forward to the  common ways of celebrating Christmas. Those who regularly attend religious services are more enthusiastic on average about Christmas activities than are those who attend less often, or not at all. The only activity that escapes this rule? Americans universally look forward to eating holiday foods. In terms of gender, the survey found that, with the exception of visiting with family and friends, women look forward to the holiday traditions and activities more than men. While the Pew survey did not establish a reason for why this is the case, existing social science suggests that it could be because women spend more time than men do shopping and visiting with or taking care of family members in the context of their everyday lives. Its possible that mundane and taxing chores are more appealing to women when they are surrounded by the Christmas glow. Men, however, find themselves in the position of having to do things that they are not normally expected to do, and so they dont look forward to these events as much as women do. Echoing the fact that Christmas is less of a religious holiday for Millennials than it is for older generations, the 2014 Pew survey results indicate an overall generational shift in how we celebrate the holiday. Americans over the age of 65 are more likely than others to look forward to hearing Christmas music and attending religious services, while those in the younger generations are more likely to look forward to eating holiday foods, exchanging gifts, and decorating their homes. And while the majority of all generations do these things, Millennials are the most likely to buy gifts for others, and the least likely to send Christmas cards (though still a majority do it). ChristmasSpending: Big Picture, Averages, and Trends More than  $665  billion is the amount the NRF forecasts  Americans will spend during November and December 2016—an increase of 3.6 percent over the previous year. So, where will all that money go? Most of it, on average $589, will go  to gifts, out of a total $796 that the average person will spend. The rest will be spent on  holiday items including candy and food (about $100), decorations (about $50), greeting cards and postage, and flowers and potted plants. As part of that decorative budget, we can expect Americans to collectively  spend more than $2.2 billion on about 40 million Christmas trees in 2016 (67 percent real, 33 percent fake), according to  data from the National Christmas Tree Association. In terms of gift-giving plans, the NRF survey shows American adults intend to buy and give the following: Clothing or accessories (61%)Gift cards or certificates (56%)Media items (books, music, videos, games, etc.) (44%)Toys (42%)Food or candy (31%)Consumer electronics (30%)Personal care or beauty items (25%)Jewelry (21%)Home decor or furnishings (20%)Cash (20%)Sporting goods or leisure items (17%) The plans adults have for gifts for children reveal the stronghold that gender stereotypes still have in American culture. The top five toys that people plan to buy for boys include Lego sets, cars and trucks, video games, Hot Wheels, and Star Wars items. For girls, they plan to buy Barbie items, dolls, Shopkins, Hatchimals, and Lego sets. Given that the average person intends to spend nearly $600 on gifts, its not surprising that nearly half of all American adults feel that exchanging gifts leaves them stretched thin financially (according to Pews 2014 survey). More than a third of us feel stressed out by our countrys gift-giving culture, and nearly a quarter of us believe that it is wasteful. The Environmental Impact Have you ever thought about the environmental impact of all this Christmas cheer? The Environmental Protection Agency reports that household waste increases by more than 25 percent between Thanksgiving and New Years Day, which results in an additional 1 million tons per week going to landfills. Gift wrapping and shopping bags amount  to a whopping  4 million tons  of Christmas-related trash. Then theres all the cards, ribbons, product packaging, and trees too. Though we think of it as a time of togetherness, Christmas is also a time of massive waste. When one considers this and the financial and emotional stress of consumerist gift-giving, perhaps a change of tradition is in order?

How Can Creating A Science Based App - 3504 Words

Section A: Investigation My focus question is: How can creating a science-based app have an educational impact to children, that were never exposed to this material in depth and do they show signs of improvement after testing the app? As I recall from personal experience, children do not learn in depth about diseases in the school curriculum. Technology is being implemented into school systems for educational purposes; therefore, I wanted to test if using technology, in this case apps, helps a student learn? By including learning styles, I can accurately test if the children are able to retain information and learn from the app. The goal of my Personal Project is to create app that addresses the contents of Cancer, Diabetes, and Heart†¦show more content†¦My personal inspiration and influence for this project comes from my interests in the medical field, and STEM. Even as a child, I loved hands-on activities and STEM and the field of medicine really appealed to me because of those activities. Also, I always had a passion for information technology and I’ve always wanted to learn coding because it is the basis for websites, or apps and any mobile technologies found that we use majorly today. Personally, my influence was from an article about a twelve year old boy that constructed an app for his mom, and it inspired me to take challenges and be a risk-taker while try something new. My inspiration also comes from campaigns associated with Girl’s involvement coding because girls only make up 3% of jobs in coding, and this inspired me to take the challenge and be one of those girls that do coding. My personal interests relates to my goal because of my enthusiasm to explore coding, and to include information from the science field because of my interest in various types of science, as well as explore deeper into the different learning styles of children. Prior to my project, I knew an adequate amount of research for my project. I did not know c oding at all for my project, but I knew where to starting learning about these coding languages and how to get started. I knew some of the information/content that was going into my project like Diabetes’s background, Cancer’s background, and Heart Disease’s

Antecedents Of Organizational Commitment †Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Antecedents Of Organizational Commitment? Answer: Introducation The employment relationships are changing rapidly and most of the organizations are facing challenges to manage these relationships. According to Ghalamkari et al., (2015), HR practices shape the employee attitudes and behavior and in turn influences the organizational outcomes. Thus, it is clear that HR practices affect conception of employment relationships due to its manipulative effect on the employees attitude and behavior. Recently the study of Schleicher et al., (2015) has shown that overall job attitude of the employee act as the powerful predictor of their integrative behavior in the organization. The present essay provides an insight into the attitude-behavior relationship in an organizational setting. It further discusses the factors significantly affecting the organizational commitment of the worker and why it is important for the manager to ensure that the employees carry a long term commitment towards organization. An attitude is defined as the way an individual responds to his/her environment; it can be a positive or negative response. The important thing about employees attitude is that it can influence the people working around them. For example, people with a positive attitude are found to lift the spirits of their colleagues. The attitude of a person can have a noteworthy impact on employees own performance as well as the performance of his or her colleague. So, the question comes that are employees themselves responsible for their attitude? Or managers at work can influence the attitude of the employees? The answer is attitude is a confluence of both external stimuli as well as individual characteristics (Pratkanis et al., 2014). Employee attitude gets affected by working conditions or the environment. For a instance, employees develop a negative attitude when they have relationship issues with managers or working for long hours. Thus, the effective work environment can be a key aspect to enhance positive attitude among employees. The attitude of a person can be infectious and it can influence their behavior. It is imperative for an organization to be familiar with the influence of attitude on behavior. Past studies have shown that positive work environment, reward system, code of conduct and job satisfaction influences the employee attitude and can help to reinforce certain employee behaviors. The theory of planned behavior confirms that behavioral objective of an individual can be predicted based on three factors namely attitude, subjective norms and perceived control ((Pratkanis et al., 2014). The attitude here is determined based on individuals belief and evaluation about the possible consequences of the behavior. According to ABC model of the component of attitude, it consists of three elements namely affect, cognition and behavior. Theaffectis related to the feelings of individual about the attitude object; behavior is linked with the individuals intention whichcognitiverefers to the beliefs of that pers on about the attitude object (Proctor, 2014). The widely researched attitude in the organizational context is commitment. Organizational commitment is one of the important aspects which represent the attachment which is psychological in nature of the employee with the organization. The past research has provided the various types of commitment and stated that affective type of commitment is a result of emotional affection and association in the organization while continuance type of commitment is a result ofcostassociated with discontinuing the employment from the organization, while normative commitment is the obligation the employee feels to remain in the organization (Meyer et al., 2012). As stated by Fornes et al., (2008) in a comprehensive review organizational commitment is highly influenced by backgrounds such as interesting work, equity, and fairness, clarity of purpose, feedback and recognition, autonomy and empowerment. The factors which can predict the organizational commitment of the employee are divided into three categories personal, job-related and organizational factors. The personal factors of the employees consist of the demographic variables such as age, marital status, gender, length of service and level of education which can be predictors of commitment. The role and exchange theory along with the side-bet theory explains the linkage between demographic factors and organizational commitment (Lam and Rahma, 2014). The theory suggests that factors like increase in age, role characteristics, gender and longer tenure increase the individuals investment and participation in the organization which make it difficult for the employee to depart from the organization. As per Meyer et al., (2012), there is a positive correlation between demographic variables (age and tenure) and employees organizational commitment. The study by Cho and Mor Barak (2008) has shown that age positively influences the organizational commitment, thus older employees have a higher intensity of commitment as compared to the employee who are younger. Some past research has also shown that as older employees have relatively fewer job alternatives available they are more committed to their present organization as compared to the younger employees. Mowday et al., (2013) stated that gender also has an influence on organizational commitment; female employees are more committed to the organization than male counterparts. However, the meta-analysis by Aydin et al. (2011) found that men are more committed to the organization than women. The level of education is found to be negatively related with the organizational commitment (Trivellas and Santouridis, 2016.). According to Iqbal et al., (2011) the high education provides more opportunity to the individual and thus it negatively affects their commitment to the current organiza tion. The study of Salami (2008) revealed that tenure has a positive impact on organizational commitment. When the employer assists the employee in order to understand their job well, it influences the organizational commitment. The job-related characteristic which has an impact on employee organizational commitment includes role clarity, access to resources and interesting work. Also, as the supervisor and co-workers are a part of the team which works on the assigned task, the supervisor support and co-workers support has a positive effect on organizational commitment. Eisenberger et al., (2010) stated that employees feel obligated to return the supportive behavior of supervisor and co-worker which results in organizational commitment. An impressive amount of past studies has shown that leadership style can make significant changes in employees organizational commitment. A similar study conducted by Yiing and Ahmad (2009) provides that positive, inspiring, transformation and supportive leadership behavior enhances the organizational commitment among employees. On the similar ground, Pie rro et al., (2013) stated that leadership styles are significant antecedents of employees organizational commitment. The environment in which the individual works is equally important to strive commitment. Some of the researchers in the past have considered the relationship with supervisor and co-workers as a part of the work environment. People prefer to have friendly employment relations which excel their commitment towards organization (Kirmizi and Deniz, 2009). Job security and pay satisfaction are some organizational related factors which can influence the organizational commitment. The individual feels more commitment to the organization when they find themselves secure on financial and career track (Kirmizi and Deniz, 2009). The pay satisfaction covers the satisfaction about salary, bonus and other facilities provided by the company. The degree of employee commitment depends on the extent to which they are satisfied with the financial and personal rewards and the extent to which they feel that reward system is fair (Jackson et al., 2012). The link of organizational commitment with the desirable work outcomes is the main reason behind the interest of researchers and industrial individuals in this construct. The vast literature of organizational commitment and the empirical studies on this topic provide an important output. As per Griffin and Moorhead (2011) organizational commitment can have positive effect on the work behaviors of the employees. It influences the effectiveness of the organization by enhancing the performance of the employees and making them stay in the organization for long term (Schrock et. al, 2016). It also stimulates the employees to put extra efforts to accomplish the shared goals of the organization. Organizational commitment is linked with various work related behaviors and employee attitudes such as job involvement, job satisfaction and work motivation (Markovits, Davis and Vandick, 2007). The literature of organizational commitment revealed that it enhances the knowledge sharing behavior of the employees (Mallett and Wapshott, 2012), and also has a positive impact on organizational citizenship behaviors (Meyer et al., 2012). The study by Soltani et al., (2016) provided that organizational commitment can effectively reduce the absenteeism, and improve the organizational performance (Supriyanto, 2013). As employee turnover is a costly affair, organizations are constantly taking efforts to reduce employee turnover, the study by Weng and McElroy (2012) shown that high organizational commitment drastically reduces the turnover in the organization. As precisely suggested by Bergmann et al., (2011), organizations should take efforts to keep the employees committed which will help the organization to survive and improve the competitive advantage. Based on the effect of organizational commitment on various employees outcomes, it is clear that managers should behave in a suppor tive manner, create a healthy working environment and keep the employees committed to the organization. There is no doubt that the organizational commitment is a key aspect manager should look after to improve organizational performance and retain the employees in the organization. References Aydin, A., Sarier, Y. and Uysal, S., 2011. The Effect of Gender on Organizational Commitment of Teachers: A Meta Analytic Analysis.Educational Sciences: Theory and Practice,11(2), pp.628-632. Bergmann, T.J., Lester, S.W., De Meuse, K.P. and Grahn, J.L., 2011. Integrating the three domains of employee commitment: An exploratory study.Journal of Applied Business Research (JABR),16(4). Cho, S. and Mor Barak, M.E., 2008. Understanding of diversity and inclusion in a perceived homogeneous culture: A study of organizational commitment and job performance among Korean employees.Administration in Social Work,32(4), pp.100-126. Eisenberger, R., Karagonlar, G., Stinglhamber, F., Neves, P., Becker, T.E., Gonzalez-Morales, M.G. and Steiger-Mueller, M., 2010. Leadermember exchange and affective organizational commitment: The contribution of supervisor's organizational embodiment.Journal of Applied Psychology,95(6), p.1085. Fornes, S.L., Rocco, T.S. and Wollard, K.K., 2008. Workplace commitment: A conceptual model developed from integrative review of the research.Human Resource Development Review,7(3), pp.339-357. Ghalamkari, B., Mahmoodzadeh, N., Barati, N., Isah-Chikaji, A., Alkali, A.U. and Anvari, R., 2015. The Role of HR Managers: A Conceptual Framework.Asian Social Science,11(9), p.118. Griffin, R.W. and Moorhead, G., 2011.Organizational behavior. Cengage Learning. Harrison, D.A., Newman, D.A. and Roth, P.L., 2006. How important are job attitudes? Meta-analytic comparisons of integrative behavioral outcomes and time sequences.Academy of Management Journal,49(2), pp.305-325. Huey Yiing, L. and Zaman Bin Ahmad, K., 2009. The moderating effects of organizational culture on the relationships between leadership behaviour and organizational commitment and between organizational commitment and job satisfaction and performance.Leadership Organization Development Journal,30(1), pp.53-86. Iqbal, A., Kokash, H.A. and Al-Oun, S., 2011. The impact assessment of demographic factors on faculty commitment in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabian universities.Journal of College Teaching and Learning,8(2), p.1. Jackson, E.M., Rossi, M.E., Rickamer Hoover, E. and Johnson, R.E., 2012. Relationships of leader reward behavior with employee behavior: Fairness and morale as key mediators.Leadership Organization Development Journal,33(7), pp.646-661. Kirmizi, A. and Deniz, O. 2009. The organizational commitment of IT professional in private banks. Europeans and Mediterranean conference on information system, July13-14, 2009 Lam, J. and Rahma, Y., 2014. Top Management Commitment to Lean: The effects of side-bets on the implementations success. Mallett, O. and Wapshott, R., 2012. Mediating ambiguity: Narrative identity and knowledge workers.Scandinavian Journal of Management,28(1), pp.16-26. Markovits, Y., Davis, A.J. and Van Dick, R., 2007. Organizational commitment profiles and job satisfaction among Greek private and public sector employees.International Journal of Cross Cultural Management,7(1), pp.77-99. Meyer, J.P., Stanley, L.J. and Parfyonova, N.M., 2012. Employee commitment in context: The nature and implication of commitment profiles.Journal of Vocational Behavior,80(1), pp.1-16. Mowday, R.T., Porter, L.W. and Steers, R.M., 2013.Employeeorganization linkages: The psychology of commitment, absenteeism, and turnover. Academic press. Pierro, A., Raven, B.H., Amato, C. and Blanger, J.J., 2013. Bases of social power, leadership styles, and organizational commitment.International Journal of Psychology,48(6), pp.1122-1134. Pratkanis, A.R., Breckler, S.J. and Greenwald, A.G., 2014.Attitude structure and function. Psychology Press. Proctor, C.R., 2014.Effective organizational communication affects employee attitude, happiness, and job satisfaction(Doctoral dissertation, Southern Utah University. Department of Communication. 2014.). Schleicher, D.J., Smith, T.A., Casper, W.J., Watt, J.D. and Greguras, G.J., 2015. Its all in the attitude: The role of job attitude strength in job attitudeoutcome relationships.Journal of Applied Psychology,100(4), p.1259. Schrock, W.A., Hughes, D.E., Fu, F.Q., Richards, K.A. and Jones, E., 2016. Better together: Trait competitiveness and competitive psychological climate as antecedents of salesperson organizational commitment and sales performance.Marketing Letters,27(2), pp.351-360. Soltani, M., Karimi, H. and Ali, A., 2016. A cross-level model of organizational commitment antecedents.Iranian Journal of Management Studies,9(2), pp.383-405. Supriyanto, A.S., 2013. Role of procedural justice, organizational commitment and job satisfaction on job performance: The mediating effects of organizational citizenship behavior.International Journal of Business and Management,8(15), p.57. Trivellas, P. and Santouridis, I., 2016. Job satisfaction as a mediator of the relationship between service quality and organisational commitment in higher education. An empirical study of faculty and administration staff.Total Quality Management Business Excellence,27(1-2), pp.169-183. Weng, Q. and McElroy, J.C., 2012. Organizational career growth, affective occupational commitment and turnover intentions.Journal of Vocational Behavior,80(2), pp.256-265.

Lord Of The Flies, Comparison Of Ralph And Jack Essays - Fiction

Lord Of The Flies, Comparison of Ralph and Jack Lord Of The Flies, Comparison of Ralph and Jack There are always people who, in a group, come out with better qualities as a leader than others. The strongest people however, become the greater influences, which the others decide to follow. However, sometimes the strongest person is not the best choice. Authors often show how humans select this stronger person, in order to give an understanding of the different powers that some people can posses over others. In William Golding's novel, Lord of the Flies Ralph though not the stronger person, demonstrates a better understanding of people which gives Ralph better leadership qualities than Jack. Ralph displays useful human qualities as a leader by working towards the betterment of the boys' society. He knows that in order to stay civilized the boys need stability and order. He creates rules and a simple form of government to achieve this order. Ralph understands that the boys, particularly Piggy, have to be given respect and must be treated as equals. This makes Ralph a better leader, as he is able to acknowledge that he was not superior to any of the other boys. Ralph's wisdom and ability to look to the future also make him a superior leader. Ralph has the sense to keep his focus on getting off the island. He insists on keeping the fire burning as a distress signal. Ralph's leadership provides peace and order to the island while Jack's leadership creates chaos. Under Jack's rule, the boys become uncivilized savages. They have no discipline. Ralph, however, keeps the boys under order through the meetings, which he himself calls. At these meetings a sense of order is instilled because the boys have to wait until they hold the conch to speak. When Ralph says, "I'll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he's speaking." (Golding 36) by making such rules as these, and by giving the boys the stability of an authority figure, mainly himself, he enforces his role of leader. He wins the boys respect and confidence in his leadership abilities. Ralph uses his authority to try to improve the boys' society. By building shelters he demonstrates his knowledge of the boys' needs. When he says to Jack, "They talk and scream. The littluns. Even some of the others." (Golding 56) he is referring to why the boys need shelters; they are afraid. Jack fails to realize the boys need security, stability and order in their society. Ralph understands that by building the shelters, the boys will feel more secure. This illustrates his superior knowledge of people, which makes him a better leader than Jack. Ralph's treatment of the boys demonstrates his understanding of how people should be treated. While Jack considers the boys inferior to himself, Ralph treats the boys as equals. Ralph's superior leadership qualities are reflected in his constant defence of Piggy. Piggy is the weakest of the group and is therefore treated unfairly much of the time. When Jack hits Piggy and breaks his glasses, Ralph calls it "A dirty trick." (Golding 78) Ralph's compassion and ability to empathize with others thus illustrating his understanding of people; while at the same time demonstrates Jack's disregard for other humans. Ralph's "government" is a form of democracy which gives each boy equal rights and an ability to express themselves. Jack treats the boys, especially Piggy, as inferiors. When Jack gets meat from hunting, he gives everyone some except for Piggy. When Piggy asks for some, Jack says, "You didn't hunt." (Golding 80) Ralph and many of the littluns did not hunt, yet only this treatment is directed at Piggy. Jack's contempt for Piggy shows his inability to understand people, while a good leader would take care of all of his followers. Ralph possesses this understanding and is therefore a better leader. Ralph's common sense and ability to recognize what is best for the group as a whole further demonstrates his superior leadership skills. His main focus throughout the book is getting rescued and he puts much emphasis on this. He instructs the boys to make a fire and to keep it burning as a distress signal. When the boys do not share his enthusiasm for getting rescued, he becomes exasperated. "The fire is the most important thing on the island. How can we ever be rescued except by luck, if we don't keep the fire going?" (Golding 88) Ralph's determination to get rescued is not for purely selfish reasons, but rather, it is in the best interest of