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Because of majoring in Retail Merchandising, I am really interested in Higher-Order Conditioning and I will discuss this concept in detail using a successful retail brand - Abercrombie&Fitch as an example. Higher-Order Conditioning is a form of learning in which a stimulus was previously neutral is paired with a conditioned stimulus to produce the same conditioned response as the conditioned stimulus. The products that consumers would choose to purchase depend on previous shopping experience or stimuli the brand provided, so Higher-Order Conditioning play an important role on building a brand image. Take Abercrombie & Fitch as an example, one of the most important factors that makes A&F become so successful is a host of new stimuli that A&F provided besides classical conditioning. To begin with, a lot of people are familiar with the special smell when entering in A&F store and the fragrance smells attractive, invigorating, warm and exciting, thus every time you smell A&F perfume on somebody, we will know that he must be wearing A&F style and associate the feelings that A&F fragrance bring to us with this person. In addition, A&F advertisements are well applied the concept of Higher-Order Conditioning. Models on A&F advertisements are all beautiful women or handsome men who present sexually attractive poses and they look strong, energetic, sexy and fashionable which are images A&F want to impress the consumers with, thus A&F achieved great popularity because many consumers unconsciously thought they are sexually attractive just like the models after purchasing A&F products. I am still wondering about, from commercial perspective, how close does a brand succeed correlate to Higher-Order Conditioning and how much efforts retailers should focus on utilizing Higher-Order Conditioning in their advertisements?
liux0656: October 2011 Archives
Circadian Rhythm is a 24 hour cycle in biological process. Circadian Rhythm is a very important concept since it closely related to our everyday life. Here is the video from John Winkelman who are a Medial Director from Sleep Health Centers: Circadian Rhythm The video indicates that Circadian Rhythm is one of the important signals that indicating our sleep and our body is not adapted to disruption in Circadian Rhythm. Mr. Winkelman also suggest that it is important to sleep and wake up at the same time everyday rather than to usually live an irregular life. Let me use my personal experience to illustrate it: as an international student from China, I return to China every year in the summer. I suffer from jet lag during the journey and it always take me more than one week to adjust Circadian Rhythm. When experiencing jet lag, I completely lost my appetite and have bad skin condition, which indicates that my healthy state is pretty bad. Combining what I learn from our book, research as well as my personal experience, I think Circadian Rhythm serves as a centre on operating our internal equilibirum. Having said all that, I am thinking how to avoid bad influence when suffering jet lag, then I find a video that perfectly answer my question: How to Avoid Jet Lag The video indicates several steps helping us to reduce impact on jet lag: first of all, before the trip, we could sleep couple hours earlier or later. Second, we should eat more vegetables and fruit rather than unhealthier food before the trip. Third, we could pretend to be on the destination's time zone. In addition, we can also wear comfortable cloth and drink more water to help us fall into sleep. Beyond talking about jet lag, some of the suggestions above can also be used as our daily tips to keep a good Circadian Rhythm such as eating more vegetables, fruit and drinking more water.
Inattentional Blindness means people ignore some obvious things when they concentrate on something else. Inattentional Blindness is an interesting and a significant concept that deserves a further reflection because this phenomenon has a close relationship with our life. Many tragedies were caused because of Inattentional Blindness. For example, on 9 February 2011, the United States Ship Greeneville struck a Japanese fishing vessel, causing the death of nine crew members. According to the investigation, the visitors on the ship might diverted all the crew's attentions and even the commander of the Greeneville named Scott Waddle surprised that he did not see the fishing vessel through the periscope. 
Moreover, there are many thieves took advantage of people's weakness on Inattentional Blindness. For instance, a year ago, I went shopping with one of my best friends in China and found that I lost all my cashes when I tried to pay a dress. I surprised that my bag was opened by the thief and I did not even feel anything because I was too excited to talk to my friend all the way. After that, I became very cautionary on my valuables in public. To elaborate further, Apollo Robbins, a famous magician and self-described gentleman thief, who can "steal" valuables from others, such as a watch, by diverting suspicion or attention according to his body contact, language and eye expression. Apollo the Pickpocket Video
Having talked about all that, I am wondering are there some ways to avoid the bad effects that Inattentional Blindness bring to us? I came up with some measures that people already took in regards to Inattentional Blindness. For example, road maintenance engineers and street cleaning staff wear luminous uniforms in order to avoid drivers who may only focus on cars. We can also see many cautions for pedestrians or animals on the road to forbid Inattentional Blindness on drivers. As a conclusion, from my perspective, Inattentional Blindness is human's nature and it is hard to be completely eliminated; however, we can reduce the loss to a minimum by taking more measures.
