Do Excuses Drive Down Sales?

This article posted in the Rock Hill Herald on April 8, 2010, focuses on salespeople and their performance. The researches examined close to 42,000 salespeople and found that the salespeople who were most inclined to blame under performance on outside influences also scored significantly poorer on the sales test and engaged in significantly less client-building activity. As one researcher quoted "Blaming is how some salespeople cope with the underlying discomfort they experience when prospecting new business." Such complaints by the salespeople that are out of their control may include undersized "natural market," not enough advertising, pricing policy, and product knowledge.

The salespeople are defensive about their inability to perform in certain areas and displace this onto others, such as the company and its policies. This is a defence mechanism that was studied in Chapter 11. Rather than address the underlying issue and accept responsibility when their skills are not what they should be, others are blamed.

Biggest Loser

The Biggest Loser is a reality television show that tracks contestants on their weight loss journey. The contestants develop exercise routines and change their eating habits in an effort to lose the most weight at the end of each week, or at least enough weight to beat their fellow contestants and keep them there another week. The ultimate winner receives a large sum of money and a new body. On Tuesday's episode, the contestants were presented with a "temptation." They were given access to a room full of food (healthy and unhealthy) and had to choose all of their meals for one day from that room. Most of the contestants were able to resist the temptation and pick foods that were condusive with their new diets.
The contestants became conditioned to eating a different diet. Rather than choosing the foods that they were used to eating, their behavior was modified. Each week their good behavor was rewarded with high numbers on the scale and a chance to stay on the show another week, which served as their rewards. These are the same concepts that we reviewed in Chapter 5, Learning. In addition, their personal trainers were reinforcers, who ensured that the good behavior was recognized and the bad behavior was punished (with more difficult work outs).

Food Intake and Cultural Obesity

The October 2009 Journal of the American Dietetic Association featured an article on the effects of acculturation and immigration on obesity. The study examined hotel workers who had immigrated to the United States from the Asian-Pacific region during different periods of their life. The results found that those born in the United States had a greater body mass index (BMI) than those born in another country. Age at arrival to the United States was negatively associated with BMI. The researchers concluded that food intake behaviors are related to place of birth, generation of migration, and acculturation.

Our stages of development greatly impact cognitive as well as social behavior and culture. As indicated in chapter 8, Development Across the Lifespan, environmental factors play an enormous role on our development and behavior. In this article, it is evident that those who spent the longest time in their country of origin were more likely to display the lifestyle of the culture in that country rather than that of the United States. There are so many different stags of development that it is easy to be affected at many points in one's lifespan by a certain culture. However, this article makes it clear that we are more apt to develop the patterns of a culture, the longer that we are exposed to their behavior.

Aging Forecast

The December 2009 issue of Allure magazine featured an article concerning our perceptions of aging and how they may be self-fulfilling. Researchers studied 386 people who had taken a questionnaire about aging in 1968 when they were 18 to 49 years old. They rated their perception of the elderly based on stereotypical views, such as "helpless" or "absentminded." After contacting these people later in life, the researchers found that those with more negative views were more likely to experience a cardiovascular event (heart attack, stroke, chest pain) at an earlier age.

In Chapter 1, The Science of Psychology, different theories of psychology are presented. One of which is that of Sigmund Freud. He proposed that there was an unconscious (unaware) mind. Oftentimes people have thoughts or perceptions that are subconscious and can develop into self-fulfilling actions. While Freud believed that repressing certain urges and trying to keep them from surfacing created central nervous disorders, his view of our unconscious mind and its impact in our lives plays an important role in many aspects of behavior.

Don't Let Your Feelings Make You Fat

This article from the January 2010 issue of Shape magazine, discussed "emotional eating." The idea is that many people eat as a way to cope with other stresses that they are dealing with in their life. According to Jane Jakubcazak, a Registered Dietitian, approximately 75 percent of her patients who come to see her for weight-loss advice eat to deal with their feelings. Many people get into a pattern where anytime they feel anything including sadness, loneliness, anxiety, or boredom, they turn to food. The key to avoiding this behavior is to address what it really is that the person is craving.

This topic relates to the coursework that we studied in Chapter 11, Stress and Health. People often develop certain reactions as a way to deal with stressful events that are taking place in their lives. We discussed how possible reactions to the feelings of frustration can lead one to displace this aggression or escape and withdrawal. Some may even resort to drug use. However, for others the escape may be with food and eating as the means to avoid the true root of the problem or their stress.