Binge drinking and teenagers

Most teenagers are curious about the adult world and most would try to imitate adults' behavior. They would also like to be seen as an adult and cool with their friends. So most would be social drinkers in their baby steps to being binge drinkers.

Ever remember when you were young and your friends were like boasting about the parties they've attended and the alcoholic drinks they've consumed? Or when you see your relatives and siblings drink cocktails during festival seasons like Christmas?

During these occasions, I'm sure you would want to join the party and behave the same as the rest. Even if you don't like the cocktail you are sipping, you conform by drinking and seem like to you are "enjoying" your drink. As your first drink goes by and the second and third went by too, you would be "used" to the taste and start to like the taste even.

Even though there were many reports about alcohol slowing the growth of intelligence, many teenagers doesn't really care about it too.

There was a recent report from BCC News that Binge drinking cause significant damages to teenager's memories ( for full story, please visit website : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7328863.stm ).

The news reported that a team from Northumbria and Keele universities compared 26 binge drinkers with 34 non-bingers in memory tests, and found the drinkers fared worse. In the study, the scientists looked at students aged 17 to 19 - a period when the brain is still developing. The males drank 8 units per session and the females drank 6 per sessions. All were testes on their memories after about 3-4 days.

They were shown a video clip of a shopping trip after being given a couple of minutes to memorise a set of tasks prompted by various cues in the film, such as remembering to text a friend at a certain shop, or to check their bank accounts after seeing a person sitting on a bench. The binge drinkers recalled a third of the items than the non-binge drinkers.

Teenagers may be affected more by memory lost in long term when their brain, especially the pre-frontal lobe , are still developing.

So it would be best to encourage teenagers not to start drinking too early by being examples to them. Role models play a very important part in influencing them on avoiding alcohol too. Show them they can be cool too without a drink and educate them on how to refuse the influence of peer pressure on drinking (normative social influence). Teach them the benefits and harms of alcohol( informative social influence ) so that they can have a better excuse to peers when rejecting their first cocktail. Try not to force them to accept your points in the beginning as teenagers are rebellious at their age as they want to identify with their peers but treat them as an adult and they will listen to you.

Reference :

BBC News, 3 April 2008 ,
Binge drinking 'damages memory'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7328863.stm

Advertisements

Was reading our textbook on hard sell and soft sell ( Chapter 7, page 271 - 276 ) under Heuristic Persuasion. Short definiton on hard sell means an advertising strategy that relies on presenting information about the positive features of a product and soft sell is an advertising strategy that relies on the use of images, emotions, symbols, or values to promote a product.

And my mind came to our television commercials, how their advertisement came to influence us the type of brand of toothbrush we use ( even though there's really no difference in the brands but you use the latest brand due to the television advertisement ) and the brand of digital camera which you may wish to purchase later.

The recent television commercial for Oral-B has been pushing their latest toothbrush which costs $39.90 and they kept stressing how good it was that it cleans your teeth better, with these beautiful people in white lab coats which I take to represent dentists, hard selling us a product under $40. Though the people in the commercial might not be dentists, however, people are still influence to purchase this new toothbrush because the commercial seems "professional" as it is recommended by " dentists" whom we saw on the screen. People would purchase it because it seem rather credible when they shouw the slides of how this new toothbrush will be able to clean all round your tooth.

But seriously, what is wrong with the older version of toothbrush or other brands of toothbrush? They still clean our teeth perfectly well and they are so much cheaper. There are also other brands which are battery operated and the old Oral-B rotating toothbrush was also battery operated. Its selling point was also that it can clean better and the product first came in about 10 years ago. At that time, it was the latest trend for almost everyone of my friend to owe one. It was also priced around $40.

Have you seen the Canon digital commercial on this guy taking photos of his girlfriend who later became his wife and started a family? That is soft selling advertisement.

It makes one want to buy that particular brand of digital camera to obtain what the guy in the commercial had. A girlfriend, a wife and a family. Also because of the numerous times it played, for first time buyers of digital camera, they would also buy this brand as they are familiar with the brand and the representative heuristic it presents.

But does only Canon digital camera brings about all those good feelings? Can Canon bring you a beautiful girlfriend or a wife and can it help you start a family because it helps you to take beautiful photographs?

It is always good to source around and compare if the product is the only brand that can help or provide our needs rather than belief in what we see. Not all expensive product or products with beautiful models means that it is a good product not when a commercial shows "professional" speakers like doctors or research means that it is credible.

Being a Role Model doesn't mean you're perfect

Read The New Paper yesterday and came across an article which after reading, really felt sad for the person involved. For interest, you might be interested in reading it online : http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,160343-1206741540,00.html?

It was about this guy who was a self-made person; he worked his way up from a mere diploma to an MBA in engineering, earning about 4.5k a month and in the end, due to stress from work, became a runner and got caught.

The story covered that he was also a role-model for his siblings. For all his hard work, he threw it out after going the easy way out as a drug addict and as a runner eventually.

After reading it, felt that it wasn't just the man's fault he's gotten into trouble, more likely, its the society's fault for forcing a promising young man into the deep end.

Most of the society's attitude looks at a guy for being strong and tough. That they can handle a lot of stress and can't go to any therapist else they would be look upon as weak.

When a person climbed and gained enough success academically, their attitude is that this person must be rolling in good money, thus pushing the poor chap into stressing themselves with more projects without knowing when to reject or say "no" to more work.

A competitive person also uses his peers as a comparision, to measure how successful they are in life, be it academically, socially, working or even at home, they compare themselves with other people. Then try too hard to conform to the society's idealistic perfection.

An example is Koh ( the guy who was in this reported news ), he strived to be among the tops academically, therefore he upgraded himself and got a MBA. That's because, when we're all young, our parents kept influencing our thoughts and attitude that only those who studied hard and up can get better paying job and if you're the eldest, you'll probably face more pressure to become a role model for your younger siblings. For Koh, my guess is that he is the eldest in the family, as the news reported that he was a role model for his siblings and that he even coached them in their studies. He must have faced a lot of comformities in society and pressure from his family. Which can be broken down into 1 early factor and 2 continuing factors which influenced his attitude, that is parental socialization , reference groups and jeer pressure.

In our text, Breckler et. al. ( p222, 223 & 224 ) had mentioned that parents can influence an infant's behaviour, thoughts and attitude. This is the first factor we faced in this world that shaped our beliefs and attitudes. As we grow older, we are influence by the exposure we face outside , i.e. peer pressure. This is a greater influence than parental pressure as it shapes our identity ourside and influences our attitude to make us feel safe and secure in a group when we share the same attitude as our friends. The third is us fearing being ridicule, therefore we try to conform to the norm.

Koh, like a normal person, fear being ridicule by his peers, so when he faced pressure, he did not admit it to himself and seek help from others or try to let his superior know his stress. He also faced the pressure by his peers in his workplace to perform and not to lose out to them. In the end, he suffered from insomnia and he made his decision to take a banned sleeping drug instead of seeing a psychiatrist. This ultimately made him lost his job and ended up in jail. His attitude seems to have changed after that ; he came a runner which suggested that he may have given up hope on himself which was probably caused by our society's stigma on convicts. As the paper did not cover if he ever tries for any job, but my guess is, being in an Asian family, once you're in jail, there is no future. So, since you're already in big s***, might as well sink further. It also didn't mention about his family giving him suport after he came out of prison, except them being upset with him. So their attitude towards convicts and people who do drugs must be in the bad end, therefore it again influence ( reverse psychology??? , gave up hope on self ?? )and reinforce Koh's attitude towards the world of drugs. Thus causing him to mire into the world of drugs.

Though many people will view it as "he deserves it", I feel kind of sad for him as he could have come out in a different light if he has been open about his stress in the beginning and disappointed about our society's stigma on a person seeing a psychiatrist. Our Asian values on the victims of drugs and the continuity of the chasing of 5Bs.

Though it is good to have stress and to compare ourselves with our peers to gauge our level of achievement, but we have to be more realistic and know our own limits and try to live within our own means without hurting ourselves.

Let us try to be more conscious of when we are feeling the stress and know how to de-stress.

Reference source :

Lim, C. ( 28 March 2008 ) HE CLIMBS ACADEMIC LADDER THEN FALLS , The New Paper

Breckler, S.J., Olson, J.M., Wiggins, E.C ( 2006) Social Psychology ALIVE, Thomson Wadsworth

Me

During lecture last week, we were taught "Self" and immediately, I thought of myself as a typical mother who worries endless about her child, a working adult endless hoping for a raise in paycheck to increase the living standard of my family and also a still a child in my family.

In total, I am basically term as a " collectivism", a typical Asian. I don't empathise on myself, I see myself with all my links, as a group. I don't think of me as me as in individual, which perphas is the cultural up-bringing which has influenced my thoughts and feelings that it is not right to bring myself to direct attention but to bring my surroundings to attention. Unlike our Western counterparts who can think of themselves as themself, I can't, most of us can't. We were taught to be selfless, to put others before self and so we pull closer ties with our surroundings.
We feel safer in a group, therefore when we do something, or say something, its always " They all also do that" , " We thought", and not " I am the one one" . Besides doing things in a group, we also feel things as a group. Which can be of disadvantage, expecially when it comes to political issues. We go with the flow, we dare not oppose as we do not want to be an individualist. Even if we do oppose, its because we can find someone who shares the ideal and therefore boost the confidence in opposing. As the opposing group increases its members, the confidence level increases.

We also have this schema that if there is only an individual who goes against the flow, this person is a weirdo, may have nothing to do and is a troublemaker. Look at the education society, if there's a student who deliberately keeps sideburns and this Elvis Presley's combed hair, most of his peers would think that he is a weirdo and his teachers may judge him as a troublemaker or an " Ah Beng". And this poor student may get picked on by his disciplinary master/mistress.

But schema can always come in handy, for example, when someone throws a ball at you, you can always form the shape in your mind and try to catch it. And would also know how it looks like and the texture so that you won't catch the wrong thing!

Correspondence biasing, Just world and Reinforcement in Society?

Yesterday, my colleagues were discussing the different races' characters and their personal views on them during breakfast and lunch. Oh, how they all agreed lofting one particular race's so call in born "personality". Overhere I'm going to discuss this particular race and label it as B and the way it relates to people's believe in a just world ( assuming good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people and in fairness of the world ) and correspondence bias ( the tendency to assume that other people's actions and words reflect their personality,their attitudes or some other internat factor rather than external or situational factors ) enacting in our discussion and reinforcement from our society towards this race..

It all started when one of my colleague JE was just complaining the fussiness of our sudsidaries demanding only to employ only certain races but not other races. Then HY and NBZ started citing examples of their laziness and working attitudes Most felt that this race seldom wants to work, picks social support easily, takes advantage of the society's sympathy and is one of the less educated race of all.

When the government came up with the baby bonus, immediately, you'll see more of them popping even more though they were originally very productive in the area, they produced even more as past year statistic shows their race population increasing. Regardless of their financial status, increase they must, to achieve the baby bonus even if its only a small token.

Most of the time, they take the small token and spend it on their housing/furniture or a holiday, cases cited by one of my colleagues,JE. Her best friend who is race B, has a cousin who took the whole family to Malaysia for a week after she gave birth to her third child with the current husband. That is after her confinement period. After spending all their money there, they came back and within two months, announced she is pregnant again... Now, her family isn't rich, her husband's only a bus driver, earning about a thousand bucks. The wife is a housewife and was a remarried case with one from previous marriage. So in total there's 6 in the family all staying in a four-room HDB flat. They are now reaching and asking for social welfare which is a sad case if they had gone for the birth control. However, they planned to have her pregnant again in order to get more social relief from their community and social welfare club ( which is supporting more of these cases ).

Another commented that it is their nature to be lazy, as they only search for work when they need money but goes AWOL when the tough gets going... Else they get many sick leaves whenever they can in order not to work but when it comes to credit, most would try to claim it ( which I find quite true in some cases and not only in their race, though this could be more of a correspondence bias on my side too ).

Whereas, when it comes to education, because of their working behaviour, most are too poor to send their children in for education and this is even though only their race's education fees were heavily subsidised by the government which I guess its due to our geographical location which spells more advantage to them on creating riots and wars if they all goes to our neighbours and be their spies.

But then, to reflect upon it, trying not to have correspondence biasing, if the society doesn't pamper them too much, would they learn to be more independant ?

It is because of the society's reinforment of rewards, that is they are in their low point, they will get social support in terms of money and they will help them to look for a job too. Though the social support group sounds like they are teaching this race to be independant, but they always go back to their old ways as they mostly found it easier to just reach out and beg for social welfare than to work since it is so easily given to them because of the example set by the government with their political issues around the old age race.

Personally, I am a believer of a"just" world, so I do take an offense when our pledge states on equality, it is really not true and so far, it definitely isn't true in the education and housing. Race B gets subsidy in the education and housing regardless of being rich or poor wheares people like you and I have to pay more just to upkeep our depleting Treasury. If they are really poor, I wouldn't mind my taxes contributing to their subsidy in education and housing, but when they are richer than us or of the same financial status as me, I do mind my taxes contributing to their subsidies. Isn't this a sad case for a developed world like ours to practise this double standard?

After last Wednesday's lecture and reflecting back on week before's breakfast and lunch discussion, I realised we all were victims of the two theories presented above, however, there must be sufficient situations where we've seen their way of doing things and cases we've heard of people commenting about this race's attitudes from our friends and family to influence our biases and attitudes towards them. ( Opps, isn't this defensive attributions on my view?? , isn't there a way to get around social psychology's theories ? )