Levels Of Pollution In The Brisbane River Environmental Sciences Essay

Levels Of Pollution In The Brisbane River Environmental Sciences Essay River Brisbane is the longest river in the southeast Queensland of Australia. It originated from the foothills of the great dividing and flows through Brisbane city before releasing its water into Moreton bay. The river was named after Thomas Brisbane, New South Wales Governor, by John Oxley in 1823. The river provided and still provides a main form of transport between the city of Brisbane and Sydney. Before the European settlement Brisbane River was very clean and unpolluted. It was then used as a source of food and also for recreational purposes. For quite a long time the growth and settlement of people around river Brisbane has adversely affected the quality of its water as well as the life that it supports (Straughan 1972 p.93). As the town of Brisbane grew the river became very unclear and polluted and by 1928 the water quality had deteriorated to the extent that it was not safe even for bath. However the government of Australia decided to protect the river from pollution and by adopting antipollution acts as well as educating the public on the importance of protecting the environment. The river was used the source for agricultural water and also provided sand used in the construction around the growing city. The river faced so many risks of pollution from the growing industries and from the waster vessels that transported petroleum products and other substances. Nitrogen from sewage treatment and phosphorous from industrial discharge as well as other metals, were and still are among the main pollutants (MacKey, Hodgkinson Nardella 1992). However the data taken on the nitrogen and phosphorus levels in the river shows that the efforts of protecting the river have bared some fruits. In 2000 the average nitrogen levels were about 2.2mg/l while in 2009 the average level had dropped to 0.5mg/l. A graph plotted for both nitrogen and phosphorous show a decrease in their concentr ation in the river. Introduction For more than 400 million years now, the Brisbane River has been flowing. Its catchments have endured a number of floods and droughts seasons while its origins have continuously shifted as the surrounding land kept changing from time to time. In 1823 when John Oxley entered River Brisbane for the first time, the river was very clean and unpolluted. After a while Oxley realized that the river could be used as a new site for new settlement and through his suggestion, the city of Brisbane was developed alongside the River in 1825. The Brisbane River, whose origin is at the base of Great Dividing Range, has a catchment area of about 30,000km square and it releases its water into the bay of Moreton (National Library of Australia 1988). The once pure water of Brisbane was mostly used for drinking and for recreational purposes like swimming and the like. However as the city of Brisbane developed, industries started growing in it. At that time industries took the river as an efficient and cheap point for waste disposal. The Brisbane River was the only means of transport between Brisbane town and Sydney until when the road links were established. This river has for long been the most important asset for of Brisbane city as its still used for transportation, recreational and relaxation purposes. For the better part of the twentieth century, this river has been polluted and overused as its basin provided grazing grounds as well as fertile lands for agriculture (Institution of Engineers, Australia, 1986). According to AsiaRooms.com, the river basin also provided suitable catchment areas which could be used for damming purposes. The river presented several advantages which for the town and its people but the people exploited these advantages so carelessly such that self reparation appeared unfeasible. Today the Brisbane River has undergone considerable modifications to meet the requirements of the citys population which is increasing. Through diverse public awareness on the need to protect the environment, the river has gained significant political support in form of anti-pollution acts and policies that were adopted by the government (Doyle Kellow 1995 p.180). Currently the duty of checking pollution levels and water quality of river Brisbane is currently on the Queensland parliament. The parliament has so far made a lot of progress in its efforts of maintaining the quality of the river by establishing two anti-pollution acts. These acts comprise the 1971; Clean Waters Act and the Pollution of Waters by Oil of 1973. Due to the current public awareness on environmental protection and by the help of these acts, the quality of River Brisbane has significantly improved although its not yet at the safe levels. According to Doyle Kellow (1995), the River is currently supporting a population of 2 million people while transport and industries and still dependent on the river, which then helps to understand why its pollution level is still above the safe levels (p.180). The aim of this essay is to give a report on the levels of pollution of Brisbane River from the year 2001 to 2010. For the 150 years that the Europeans have occupation the region, River Brisbane has seen a number of modifications. The river has survived waves of exploration including agriculture, grazing, urbanization and settlement, etc. the urbanization and settlement required flood mitigation strategies and water storage for drinking purposes (Straughan 1972 p.94). Shipping channels and flood prevention measures also needed to be taken as the river was the main means of transport between the city and Sydney. Sand dredging along the river has been the main activity as sand was highly needed for construction in the city. Between the year 1900 and 1970 approximately 12 million cubic meters of sand were extracted from the banks of River Brisbane. Extraction reached its peak latter in mid 70s when about 1.45 million cubic meters of sand were being extracted annually. The extraction later dropped to 1 million per year and eventually ceased in 1996/7. The riches of the river between mt Crosby and Wivehoe are most pleasing aesthetically because of their cool atmosphere. Between Jindalee and mt. Crosby the river widens and then flows through rural and residential areas. In this area pollution by human beings is very evident and likely. Currently the Brisbane port is accountable for extraction of sand in the lower reaches of the river so as to maintain deep channels for water vessels. This long time dredging has considerably deepened the river hence making its banks quite unstable (Olafson 1978). Strong urban development has been evident throughout the city and on the south bank reach. As this river proceeds towards the Pinkenba, commercial and industrial areas dominate while further down from Murarie to the mouth, the river passes through mangrove lined region which is dominated by commercial shipping activity (MacKey, Hodgkinson Nardella 1992 p 418-420). The speed of water in this region is often determined by season. In this region the river reaches its highest flow speed during summer when there is high rainfall while the minimum flow is in winter when rainfall is minimal. Due to the slow flow of water in this region, there is likelihood of pollutants accumulation and overall deterioration of water quality. However this accumulation of pollutants can be cleaned by the release of water from storage dams situated in the river upstream. Wivenhoe and Somerset dams release certain amounts of water that are satisfactory to the water needs of the people of Brisbane. These two dams enable a more even water flow throughout the year thus maintaining and improving the qu ality of water in the river. The dams are also used as a means for flood prevention by reducing water flow from the range. Analysis of the past and current pollutants of river Brisbane According to Connell Shaw (1980), the major sources of pollutants of the river comprise the many large scale discharge points where wastes from industries and treatment plants discharge into the river (p.356-358). Currently the discharge from sewage is treated to a safer secondary standard with only a small portion of it being left in the primary standard. The small portion of primary standard sewage discharged into river Brisbane does not only contribute considerably to the toxicant load in the river but also to the nutrient load and increased demand for oxygen. This pollution leads to the contamination of fish and other aquatic life by such substances. Sewage discharge around the city of Brisbane is usually chlorinated hence causing a negative impact to the river. The most common discharges to river Brisbane resulted from the highly industrialized section of the river. The city of Brisbane has two main treatment plants for waste water as well as Gibson Island on the Southside and a luggage point on the North side both of which are found at the industrialized section of the river. Moreover River Brisbane faces other risks of pollution from the BP and Caltex oil refineries which discharge into the river discharge streams from potentially contaminated areas. Other discharges into the river such as runoff from the urban and industrial parts, and from upstream parts of the catchment, discharge substantial toxic pollutants into the river (Wong Tam 2005). Sometimes accidents occur resulting to spills of petroleum and insecticides among other substances. This often results to contamination of the river leading to fish death and other water lives. For instance in April 1998, a tanker known as Barrington was docked at White Island in Brisbane collided with a local boat named Austral Salvor. This accident resulted to a spill of 8 tonnes of heavy fuel into the river. Conclusion In order to recommend any possible measures that can help improve the quality of River Brisbane one must understand the past and the current pollutions characteristics of the river. In this paper, the pollution analysis of river Brisbane is based on the data provided by Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management. Nitrogen and phosphorous which are the main pollutants of the river have been measured and their levels in the river minimized. Nitrogen is found in fertilizers and it usually reaches the river when rain water passes through agricultural fields where fertilizer has been applied. Its also produced during sewage treatment processes. Phosphorous is produced in the waste treatment plants in Brisbane and from confined livestock operations. According to Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (1997), both nitrogen and phosphorous are can be harmful and toxic to aquatic life since their enhance growth of aquatic plants which then depletes the water of oxygen hence posing d anger to fish and other organisms (p.35). The graph below shows the levels of nitrogen and phosphorous in River Brisbane from the year 2000 to 2009. The concentration of these pollutants was measured in milligrams per litre of water. Fig.1 graph of nitrogen and phosphorous concentration against years From the graph we see that in 2000 the level of nitrogen in river Brisbane was quite high with more than 2mg of nitrogen in every litre of water. However due to the extensive public awareness and the anti-pollution measures taken by the government these levels reduced drastically between 2000/1 to below 1.5 mg/l. the downward trend in decrease of nitrogen continued until 2008 when the average level was about 0.5 mg/l. in 2009 the levels appeared to be rising again which shows that the government as well as the general public of Brisbane may have relaxed in its efforts to maintaining the quality of the river. On the other hand phosphorous levels have been low all through with level of below 0.4mg/l in 2000. The phosphorous levels have also shown a general downward trend and show a likely hood of reaching zero levels within the next few years if the same trend is maintained. The analysis of the past and the present pollution situations of river Brisbane indicate the government as well as the local authorities have done tremendous work in controlling the water quality of the river. If the efforts are maintained, the river will reach its old clean levels within a few years.

Student Protest movement Essay -- essays research papers

A Battle of Rights The Student Protest Movement of the 1960's was initiated by the newly empowered minds of Americas youth. The students who initiated the movement had just returned from the â€Å"Freedom Summer† as supporters of the Civil Rights Movement, registering Black voters, and they turned the principles and methods they had learned on the Freedom Rides to their own issues on campus. These students (mostly white, middle class) believed they were being held down by overbearing University rules. Student life was governed by the policy of in loco parentis, which allowed colleges to act "in place of the parents." Off campus,these young people were considered adults, but at school they were subjected to curfews, dorm visitation restrictions, close supervision, and rules against having a car or even renting an apartment. Not only were these students being treated as children in this respect, but there were also heavy restrictions put on what they could and could not discuss. Any issues, especially political, not directly related to the university were strictly prohibited. Only sandbox issues, those related to university issues were allowed on campus. This created an extremely controlled environment and severely impinged on the students rights to free speech. In reaction to such limitations, college students across the country decided to do something about it. The Student Protest Movement (SPM) began at the University of California at Berkeley in the Fall of 1964. In September of that year Berkley campus authorities declared the area directly outside of the main entrance to the school off limits for advocates of civil rights and other causes. For years the strip had been accepted as a place where students could hand out pamphlets, solicit names for petitions, and sign people up. This ban set the stage for the beginning of the SPM. On September 29, demonstrators defiantly set up tables on the Bancroft strip and refused to leave when told to do so. The next day university officials took the names of five protesters and ordered them to appear for disciplinary hearings that afternoon. Instead of five students, five hundred, led by Mario Savio, marched to Sproul Hall, the administrati... ... the spot light. Many had negative feelings towards the protests and sit-ins, arguing that they did nothing but impinge on classroom time and interfere with the students ability to carry out there education. Though the SPM may have created chaos around campus, it was well manored and non-violent. The protestors took hold of the methods used in the Civil Rights movement, knowing that violence only made situations less credible and more dificult to keep under control. They were trained to simply go limp when arrested, not to resist the officers, therefore avoiding any danger to themselves or others. The sit-ins were just that; a group of students calmly sitting around conversing and playing music, all the while getting the attention and recognition they strived for. Whether the effectiveness came for the bottom up, with student organizations gathering to approach the administration, or top down, with the administration addressing the students, the issues were recognized and discussed. Both parties had their gains and losses, and the Student Protest Movement came out on top with a memorable place in

Donald Trump as a Presidential Candidate Essays -- Trump Should NOT Be

Due to Donald Trump’s lack of political experience, preoccupation with multiple careers, and blatantly self-serving intentions, he should not ever have been considered a reasonable candidate for the presidential election. First of all, Donald Trump is a businessman-not a politician. He received his degree in Economics/Real Estate from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance. In 2007, Forbes Magazine reported his annual earnings in entertainment alone to be $32 million. This would have meant a significant pay cut, had he become United States President. Currently, he is the producer and star of â€Å"The Apprentice,† which has been on air since 2004 (â€Å"The Apprentice†). He holds multiple offices at the Trump Organization, and is also a chairman of Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts, Incorporated (Project Vote Smart). Donald Trump has put his name on products and companies both successful and unsuccessful, including food products, corporations, and a clothing line. Trump once stated that â€Å"The stuff that’s been sent over from China falls apart after a year and a half. It’s crap.† Ironically, the majority of his products are manufactured i n China (Webley, 8). How can we expect a man to keep in touch with an entire country when he can hardly keep in touch with his own business? Donald Trump has had some other losses in business as well, including a failed airline business and multiple bankruptcies in his casinos, among other lost investments. (Webley, 3). This may not have been so damaging, if only Donald Trump had any political experience whatsoever, but he has none (Project Vote Smart). Karl Rove, former President Bush’s chief political advisor, once said that being the President of the United States may b... ...lirtation Meant for "The Apprentice" Ratings? - Political Hotsheet - CBS News." Breaking News Headlines: Business, Entertainment & World News - CBS News. CBS, 19 Apr. 2011. Web. 17 May 2011. DiGiacomo, Frank. "President Trump? The Donald Swapped Party Affiliations for Potential Presidential Bid in 2009." Featured Articles From The New York Daily News. New York Daily News, 15 Feb. 2011. Web. 15 May 2011. Gelman, Andrew and Gary King, â€Å"Why Are America Presidential Election Campaign Polls So Variable When Votes Are So Predictable?† 1993. PDF. Rove, Karl. â€Å"What Makes a Great President.† Lecture. Rocco C. Siciliano Forum, Univ. of Utah. 13 Nov 2002. History News Network. George Mason Univ.’s History News Network, 30 June 2003. Web. 08 May 2011. Webley, Kayla. "Trump Airlines - Top 10 Donald Trump Failures - TIME." TIME.com. Time, 29 Apr. 2011. Web. 15 May 2011.

Free College Essay

I personally don’t believe that college should be free. Making it free would only serve to limit the value of the education while filling colleges with students that have no business/need there. College would become nothing more than a 4 year extension of high school if it were free. As things are now, society needs about 25% of the population to have a college degree for the jobs that require one and about 30% of the population has a degree. As a result, you hear from a lot of people that believe that they wasted time getting the degree because it’s not serving them as an employment enhancer. Further, nothing is truly free. Were college free to all students, someone would still have to pay those bills. Public education is already the single largest expense of non-federal governments and a huge part of the federal expense. Increasing the scope of free public education would also significantly increase the costs involved – those costs must be borne by someone. So, you either pay for it now as tuition or you pay for it for the rest of your life in the form of taxes but either way, you’ll pay for it. And then there’s the very valid point that all people aren’t really â€Å"above average† in intellect and therefor all people aren’t capable of attending and graduating from college. Our society would like to pretend that everyone is equal in motivation and intelligence but we know that’s not really true. Don’t we? What would be the result in terms of quality if we made college completely free to anyone? Add to that problem – costs keep some people from attending. This is only bad in-as-much as it limits those individuals personally. But it’s just that barrier that makes it possible for others to attend – college seats are not an unlimited resource of which we have plenty. There are only so many colleges with so many seats and more people would like to have those seats than can. If we removed the cost barrier then the competition for seats would be even greater and we’d still not have solved the problem of universal higher education. We’d need to have as many colleges as we have high schools to truly solve that problem. Then we’d need as many professors to teach in them in. Just a few of the arguments against your position that you might want to prepare to counter in your essay. There are many people that believe the compulsory secondary school education movement (‘create 100% HS graduates†) was a mistake too. While being well educated is very good at the individual level – society still needs people to do jobs that those who keep gaining more education simply don’t want to do.

Literary Theme Essay Essay

The Privilege of Freedom â€Å"Only the educated are free.† Said by Epicetus, this simple quote demonstrates the importance of education. A solid education will provide for an excellent future and give one freedom: freedom to take on a career, to jump at opportunities, and to make choices. There is no saying where the future might take an educated man. Dangarembga uses highly educated and successful characters to illustrate the privilege of education and the power, control, and freedom that it provides. Dangarembga shows that education can change a life for the better by presenting the main character, Tambu, with the privilege of attending an outstanding school. When Tambu is given the opportunity to live with her uncle and go to the mission school, she is thrilled to become educated. Before her brother died, â€Å"the needs and sensibilities of the women in† her â€Å"family were not considered a priority,† and school was not an option for her (Dangarembga 12). Education has provided Tambu with the privilege to escape her old life on the homestead and â€Å"take another step upwards in the direction of† her â€Å"freedom† (Dangarembga 186). Also, education has given Tambu the power to use her education to control the rest of her life. â€Å"By the time she has finished Form Four,† she â€Å"will be able to take† her â€Å"course, whatever it is that† she chooses (Dangarembga 183). â€Å"In time,† she â€Å"will be earning money,† which will then lead to a career and onto the rest of her life (Dangarembga 183). The wealth that Tambu will earn when she is successful will provide for her and her entire family. Education builds the foundation of Tambu’s future, and â€Å"the prospect of this freedom† is unlimited (Dangarembga 186). The character, Babamakuru, is used by Dangarmebga to demonstrate that one educated relative effects an entire family. Education is â€Å"not just an individual blessing† but one that extends to all members of a â€Å"less fortunate family† (Dangarembga 89). For example, Dangarembga shows that one educated man can support the whole family. Babamakuru, â€Å"who had obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in South Africa,† is extremely generous and provides resources and opportunities for his entire family (Dangarembga 13). Whenever Babamakuru goes to visit the homestead, he comes bearing food, gifts, and supplies for the family to thrive off of. Also, Babamakuru is responsible for Tambu’s education and her coming to the mission school. To Tambu’s family, â€Å"Babamakuru was God†, â€Å"big brother to all†, and â€Å"his divinity† filled them â€Å"with awe† (Dangarembga 70, 36, 88). â€Å"As an early educated African,† Babamakuru has â€Å"found himself in positions that enable him to organize his immediate world and its contents as he wished† (Dangarembga 88). His great power has insulated him â€Å"from the necessity of considering alternatives unless they were his own† (Dangarembga 88). Education has given him opportunities that have led to great power and control over others; nobody â€Å"dares to challenge his authority† ((Dangarembga 117). Without a well-educated, successful man like Babamakuru, Tambu’s family would not be as the same. Throughout Nervous Conditions ¸ Dangarembga exemplifies the key role that education plays in becoming wealthy and successful. The basis of a good future begins with education. Such a privilege can lead to so many new things, and when one is educated, the possibilities are endless. Works Cited Dangarembga, Tsitsi. Nervous Conditions. New York: Seal, 1989.

Intro to Religiion

Jake Walton There are many different definitions of religion, but two we are studying about is Paul Tillich’s definition and Melford E. Spiro’s definition. Paul Tillich is a Christian theologian and philosopher who defined religion â€Å"the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the meaning of life.Melford Spiro, a contemporary anthropologist defined religion â€Å"an institution consisting of culturally patterened interaction with culturally postulated superhuman beings. † I prefer Tillich’s definition. I prefer Paul Tillich’s definition because I am a Christian and I can relate to what he is saying with his definition. As a Christian, God is your ultimate concern, just like Tillich said. God comes before everything. He is your only way to heaven. So you have to make him your ultimate concern by living for him every day.Tillich’s def inition went on to say â€Å"a concern that qualifies all other concerns as a preliminary†¦Ã¢â‚¬ , this means that God comes before anything else in life. Nothing should ever come before God. Everything else should just be a preliminary, or second to God. The last part of Tillich’s definition says a concern which contains the answer to the question of the meaning of life. This means that God is the meaning of life. I prefer Tillich’s definition because this is what I believe.I believe that God is the answer to what is the meaning of life, he has a purpose for everyone and everyone’s life. God should be your ultimate concern if you want to go to heaven, He is the only way in. You have to live your life through him, and to do that he has to be your greatest concern. If other things get in the way you have to put them off and make them second to God. Never let anything get in the way of you and God. I feel Tillich’s definition of religion is a great d efinition of religion.

Extended Essay: How Does Culture Influence Social Conformity to Groups? Essay

Introduction I still remember my first day of American Government class freshman year. The teacher asked us, â€Å"What are the three branches of government?† I wanted to raise my hand and say â€Å"Judicial, congressional, and executive.† But no one else raised their hands. I thought to myself, â€Å"No one else knows it, maybe I don’t know it. I don’t want to stand out on my first day. Better just keep my hand down.† As it turns out, my answer was correct. However, conformity got the better of me. Conformity is modifying one’s behaviors or actions because of others. The influence of conformity can be subdivided into informational (being influence because of information) and normative (being influenced because of social pressure) influence. Conformity is an important topic because conformity has a profound impact on human behavior in groups. Collective human behavior can almost be defined by conformity. Humans constantly look to others for support and kn owledge, and when we see others act in a specific way, we mimic it in the form of conformity. To take on a more global view of conformity, it is important to understand how cultural differences between different civilizations impact the ways in which the people of those cultures will be affected by conformity. Perhaps someone from the United States will conform more than someone from Germany, or China, or Mexico. Then we must undertake the question, â€Å"how does culture influence social conformity to groups?† In this essay we will first take a look at what conformity is and what may cause it within a culture, and then we will discuss three aspects of a culture that may modify that culture’s levels of conformity. The first major factor we will examine is the level of food accumulation within the society. The second major factor we will examine is the impact of a country’s industrial development on conformity. The third major factor that we will examine is how individualism or collectivism will influence a culture’s level of conformity. Social Causes of Conformity Sherif defined conformity as â€Å"being influenced by the judgments of others.† (Sherif, 1935) In the context in which we are speaking, conformity can be defined as the modulation of one’s behavior or judgment due to influence of a group. Sherif’s conformity experiment was designed to show how the judgments of others would influence the judgment of a test subject. Sherif used the autokinetic effect as the subject of judgment. The autokinetic effect is when a dot of light in a dark room appears to move because the eye has no other frame of reference. Subjects were instructed to observe the light and tell researchers the distance the light moved. Sherif operationalized his variable by first testing subjects individually and then testing them in groups to see how this would affect their reported observations of how far the light moved. If the reported observations of the dots movements converged to a central measure, Sherif would know that conformity had played a r ole in altering his subject’s judgment. What Sherif discovered was that when subjects were tested individually, their judgments of the dots movements varied greatly, anywhere from 2 to 15 inches (Sherif, 1935). When the subjects were then tested in groups, their measurements maintained a distinct level of divergence from each other. However, when the subjects were tested first within a group, the subjects’ average judgments of the dot movements converged within a particular range that would imply that the subjects were abiding to a common norm that had been established in the group. In addition, when the subjects were later tested individually, their judgments on the dot movement would diverge from the group norm, but less significantly than when the subjects were first tested individually. Sherif wrote that he felt this was the most significant observation of his experiment. What Sherif observed is one of the key factors of conformity- that the norms which people conform to are not always intentionally established, but can occur naturally, and these naturally occurring norms will be conformed to due to man’s tendency to want to fit in as a part of the group. This is reinforced by another one of Sherif’s observations during this experiment. During the last session of his experiment, Sherif added the question â€Å"Do you think you were influenced by the judgments of the other persons in the experiments,† to which 25% of the subjects responded that they were. Sherif commented that this was a comparatively small amount of subjects relative to the results. Although it is possible that some subjects lied and responded no to this question, it is possible that some of the 75% of subjects who said they were not influenced by the other subjects in the experiment were likely unaware of the fact that they were being influenced, showing that peo ple can unknowingly conform to naturally established norms. Although Sherif’s experiment was not cross-cultural, it can still help us understand why people conform to their individual cultures. Sherif speculated that the cause of conformity was man’s desire to fit in to the group. In a cultural context, this means that if a person is a part of a culture, then that person would have desire to modulate their actions so that they fit into their specific culture. This also suggests that the more immersed one is in their culture, the more conformity will be emphasized in that culture and the more they will conform to their culture. So although Sherif’s experiment was not cross-cultural, the conclusions drawn from his experiment can still help us understand the relationship between culture and conformity. In 1951, Asch sought to try another conformity experiment that would respond to the critique of Sherif’s experiment that the stimulus was too ambiguous. Instead of using an ambiguous stimulus like the autokinetic effect, Asch used a very concrete stimulus. For his experiment, four lines were shown on a projector and subjects were asked which line of three matched the other line. In groups of 8, what subjects didn’t realize was that the other 7 people in the group were actually confederates of Asch, instructed to all unanimously give the wrong answer twelve out of eighteen times. Asch’s aim was to see if this unanimous agreement in the group of a blatantly wrong answer would socially pressure the subject into going along with the group. In this experiment, unlike Sherif’s, the group was intentionally trying to get the subject to conform, and the group’s response to the stimulus was clearly incorrect. Under normal circumstances, subjects gave incorrec t responses less than 1% of the time. However when the pressure of the group was applied, the number of incorrect responses rose to 37%, with 74% subjects conforming to the confederates’ responses on at least one critical trial. Asch had shown something about conformity that Sherif was unable to prove- that conformity could cause a subject to go against their own judgment and conform to the group. Asch speculated that conformity could occur due to a distortion of the subject’s on any one of three levels: perception, judgment, or action. If there is distortion on perception, then the subject perceives the stimulus incorrectly and is unaware of the conflict, and believes the group to be correct. If there is distortion of judgment, then the subject is aware of the conflict but conclude the majority is correct and reject their own judgment. If there is distortion on the action level, the subject is aware of the conflict, concludes the group is incorrect, but goes along with them anyways due to pressure. Asch also determined the two types of group influence. If the subject is influenced because they think the group is better informed than them, this is informational influence. If the subject conforms because they want to fit in with the group, this is called normative influence. Asch also performed tests in this experiment to see how other factors would affect a subject’s conformity. One variation of this experiment Asch performed was adding and subtracting people. Asch discovered that as few as only three confederates was enough pressure to get the subject to conform, but that the more confederates there were in the experiment the more likely it was that the subject would conform. Asch also performed experiments where subjects gave their answers in private, where one confederate would agree with the subject, and where the differences between the lines was smaller. When subjects gave their answers in private, normative influence is eliminated and conformity dropped significantly. When one confederate would agree with the subject, conformity dropped to only 5%, an 80% decrease. This is one very crucial fact about conformity. When one person breaks the unanimity of a group, the normative influence is eliminated. When Asch made the differences in the line lengths less significant, conformity increased. The data collected from this experiment and Sherif’s observations, demonstrate another significant aspect of conformity. The more ambiguous something is, the more humans will tend to conform. This is because when humans are uncertain of what to do in a situation, we look to other humans for information. This is applicable to a real life scenario such as the â€Å"grey area† of morals. When humans see something morally wrong, they will typically go along with what the majority is doing, and will usually not intervene. Although Asch’s experiments were not cross-cultural, the conclusions of his experiments and the theories of conformity formulate d from them can most definitely be applied to a cross-cultural context, such as how culture affects conformity. First of all, Asch determined that there were two types of conformity; normative, which is the influence caused by social pressure, and informational, influence caused by insecurity in one’s own knowledge. These can both be applied to how people conform to cultures. Normative influence can be caused by. If one is completely immersed in a culture, there is normative influence to fit into that culture. Informational influence can be a creation of culture. If a part of the culture is teaching the youth of that culture, than they are subject to the informational influence of their culture. Second, Asch showed that the more people in a group, the stronger the social influence. This could imply that a larger culture may have higher levels of conformity than people of smaller cultures. Third, Asch showed that unanimity is extremely significant to a culture’s levels of conformity. This may imply that the stricter a culture is, and the fewer dissenters from the culture there are, the stronger the social influence the culture will have on its subjects. The Effect of Levels of Food Accumulation on Conformity in a Society In 1967, J. W. Barry wished to replicate Asch’s conformity experiment as a cross-cultural experiment to see how differences in the cultures would correlate with their levels of conformity. Barry divided the peoples he was studying into two basic groups. The first group was societies with high levels of food-accumulation such as agricultural and pastoral societies, and the second was societies with low levels of food-accumulation such as fishing and hunting peoples. Barry recreated Asch’s line-length conformity test between the Temne peoples of Sierra Leone in Africa, an agricultural people, and the Eskimo of Baffin Island, a hunting people in northeastern Canada. Barry’s aim was to see how levels of conformity would vary between these two distinctly different cultures. Barry formulated his hypothesis by studying each culture and observing characteristics of their cultures that he thought would be pertinent to levels of conformity. Barry studied cultural characteristics of each peoples such as how they characterized success in their cultures, how lenient each culture was when rearing their young, if the peoples were typically group reliant or self reliant for success in their cultures, and of course, if they were a high food-accumulating society or if they were a low food-accumulating society. Barry hypothesized that there would be a correlation between the different cultures’ levels of food accumulation and their levels of conformity; more specifically, in the Temne’s agricultural, high food-accumulating society would show higher levels of conformity than the Eskimo’s hunting-oriented, low food-accumulating society, where he expected to find lower levels of conformity. Barry tested the two different cultures using a variation of Asch’s line test. Instead of having eight confederates supply false responses to the test subject, the subject was presented with a sheet of paper with 9 li nes on it, and was asked to match the top line with one of the lower lines by length. But before responding, the researcher would say, â€Å"I am going to give you a hint. Most Temne (or Eskimo) people say this line (an incorrect line) is equal in length to the one at the top. Which one do you say?† (Barry, 1967) After performing his experiment, Barry found that the difference in conformity rates between the Temne and Eskimos was great enough and with statistical significance, so it confirmed his hypothesis that the Temne peoples did in fact show higher rates of conformity than the Eskimo peoples. Barry’s conformity experiment shows how culture affects conformity. Barry studied two different cultures and noted significant differences between them, and then tested each culture the same way to measure their respective levels of conformity. Barry discovered a key characteristic about conformity- the connection between how a society collects food and their conformity level s. Although that is a broad connection, Barry’s theory was that how food is accumulated in a culture affects other aspects of that culture such as leniency in parenting, levels of independence granted to children, and what characterizes success, and these factors are what determine the levels of conformity for cultures. Low food accumulating societies have very independent individuals and characterize success with independence whereas high food accumulating societies have very interdependent individuals and characterize success through community. Impact of Modernization on a Country’s Levels of Conformity Another significant difference between cultures that can impact levels of conformity is how industrialized and modernized they are, and studying how this has affected levels of conformity among the people of that country. In 1984, Kagitcibasi did just that. Kagitcibasi performed a study on the â€Å"value of children† (Kagitcibasi, 1984) to attempt to understand how several cultures on different levels of modernization would place the importance of raising children (with reference to quantity), and what characteristics the peoples of those cultures would find desirable in their children. Kagitcibasi studied nine countries- Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Germany, and the United States. Kagitcibasi performed 20,403 interviews with families from these countries and asked them questions regarding what characteristics they would find most desirable in children. Subjects from countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines said the most desirable quality in a child was to obey their parents. On average, 86.5% of subjects from Indonesia said obedience of parent was the most desirable quality in children, and 82% of subjects from the Philippines agreed, as opposed to the United States, where only 39% of subjects said obeying one’s parents was the most desirable characteristic in children. On the contrary, 49% of American subjects surveyed said being independent and self-reliant was the most important characteristic in children, whereas only 20% of Indonesian subjects said the same thing. In the United States, being independent and self-reliant was the second most chosen characteristic among subjects surveyed, second only to being a good person. However, even higher than the United States’ percent of subjects putting emphasis on independence and self-reliance is that of Singapore and Korea. This is an interesting observation because many studies have found collectivist (predominantly Asian) cultures to be more oriented towards conformity and less towards indiv idual independence. But if this observation is studied with respect to industrialization and modernization, it is observed that these countries have gone under extremely rapid industrialization, which could have modulated the nuclear family model in these countries to be more westernized, thereby emulating the west in levels of conformity as well. Kagitcibasi observed that overall, it is the nuclear family level which most impacts the levels of conformity in a culture; by which it is meant that factors such as industrialization impact the nuclear family model, which in turn impacts a country/culture’s levels of conformity. Kagitcibasi developed the â€Å"Old Age Security Value† theory (Kagitcibasi 1982a). The Old Age Security Value is the theory that there is additional value in raising children in underdeveloped nations because if they are raised in a conforming way, which stresses values such as family loyalty, they will be more likely to take care of their parents when they become elderly. The Old Age Security Value is less significant in industrialized nations because industrialized, modernized nations typically provide services such as healthcare, whereas a more traditional, less developed nation would not, meaning the elderly are more dependent on their children to care for them in old age, which will encou rage raising children to be more compliant to parents. The Old Age Security Value concept relates to industrialization and conformity because the more industrialized a country is, the more the less significant the Old Age Security Value is, and therefore the less conformist the society will be. What we can ultimately understand from Kagitcibasi’s research on the correlation between industrialization and conformity is that less industrialized countries will be more culturally inclined to compliance, due to a modulation of the nuclear family model in which families are more dependent on each other for care and therefore put emphasis on compliance when raising children to encourage family loyalty and obedience of one’s parents. Impact of Collectivism vs. Individualism on Conformity Collectivism is the social belief that the good of the group is more important than the good of the few or the individual. On the other hand, individualism is characterized by the belief that each member of the group should be independent and self-reliant, without a need to consider the wellbeing of the group as a whole. When one considers the characteristics of conformity – compliance, assimilation, putting the group above oneself, etc., it seems logical that collectivists would have a greater predisposition to conformity than individualists. Professor Oh of Konkuk University wanted to test this premise with relevance to normative and informational influence. Oh’s aim was to see if in an experiment, subjects from a collectivist culture (in this case India) would conform more than subjects from a collectivist culture (America). He also wanted to see if they would conform more in normative influence tests than in informational influence tests. Oh hypothesized that the In dian subjects would not only conform more, but would conform more specifically in normative influence tests. Oh performed an experiment with half Indian and half American subjects, in which subjects were asked what the lowest appropriate probability of successfully for a risk to be taken, such as winning an election of a sort. Under the condition of exposure, subjects were only informed of what â€Å"other subjects† had said was an appropriate probability of success for the risk to be taken, but not why. Because the reason why was not explained to subjects, any conformity on this test must have been because of normative influence because they were given no further information to better their judgment. Under the condition of persuasion, subjects were informed of â€Å"other subjects’† responses, and as to why they made their decisions. Subjects were then left to decide for themselves based on more given information relevant to be given stimulus their own response . If subjects modified their judgments under this condition, it would be because they felt they were then better informed of the conditions of the stimulus. The average of the subjects’ conformity scores was measured by the change in pretest to posttest response. The results of this experiment showed that Indian participants were far more inclined to conform then American participants. In addition, changes in conformity levels due to internalization were not shown with statistical significance between Indian and American subjects, while changes in conformity levels due to compliance were shown with statistical significance. This confirmed Ho’s hypothesis that collectivists are more inclined to conform to the group norm then individualists with regard to normative influence. One limitation of Ho’s experiment however, was that he did not use face-to-face social influence, but only informed subjects of what other â€Å"subjects† had stated in a second-hand m anner. This would’ve negated some level of the compliance influence, which could have produced responses of higher levels of conformity between American and Indian subjects. Ho’s experiment examined a direct relationship between culture and conformity- the collectivist vs. individualist relationship. He studied two cultures and saw how subjects from each would respond differently to tasks involving conformity. Ho’s research helps us better understand this relationship between collectivism and conformity in a culture because his research showed that subjects of a collectivist society showed higher levels of conformity than subjects of an individualist culture. Conclusion In this paper, I analyzed three aspects of cultures that can influence a culture or society’s levels of conformity. I analyzed the relationship between food accumulation and conformity, the relationship between modernization and conformity, and the relationship between collectivism and conformity. Examining each of these relationships, it is evident that cultures that are characterized by community and societal unity tend to have higher levels of conformity than their more individualistic counterparts. This was shown by the Temne in Sierra Leone, Africa, who were culturally very focused on the community. This was also shown by the several less modernized countries in Kagitcibasi’s study of modernization on conformity, whose cultural focus is care for the family. Lastly, this was shown by the Indians in Ho’s study, who showed high levels of social conformity as a sample of a collectivist society. From all these results we can conclude that culture influences socia l conformity to groups in that people in cultures characterized by community and social unity are more subject to social conformity than peoples of individualistic cultures because the emphasis they put on community causes the peoples of those cultures to be more conscious of the judgments of others and therefore more likely to modify their own judgments and conform to match those around them. References Independence and conformity in subsistence-level societies: Encyclopedia of Urban Ministry UYWI :: Urban Youth Workers Institute. (n.d.). UrbanMinistry.org: Christian Social Justice Podcasts, MP3s, Grants, Jobs, Books | Home. Retrieved August 23, 2013, from http://www.urbanministry.org/wiki/independence-and-conformity-subsistence-level-societies Barry, J. (1967). Independence and Conformity in Subsistence-Level Societies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 7(4), 415-418. 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