Essay Sample on Self-Presentation Research of the Main Concepts

Essay Sample on Self-Presentation Research of the Main Concepts Self-Presentation essay example: Introduction The ability to manage impressions is an integral part in everyday life as individuals are able to alter peoples perceptions according to how one sees or wants to be seen by others. Self-presentation, also referred to as impression management, implies that an individual is monitoring how one is being perceived and evaluated by others and has considered the self-presentational implications of ones behavior (Leary, Nezlek, Downs, Radford-Davenport, Martin, McMullen, 1994). The amount of attention that people devote to their public images varies across situations and individuals. Some people are oblivious of others impression of them. On the other hand, there are people who are highly attuned to others evaluations and devote enormous amounts of effort to create the correct impression. A majority of people usually operate somewhere between these two bounds in that they tend to monitor at a moderate level on how they come across to others. However, in many situations people who are not mo nitoring or thinking about the impressions they are making can become quickly aware of others evaluative reactions (Leary Kowalski, 1990). Impression Motivation The discrepancy between why in certain situations people are motivated to affect how others perceive them, and other times not is referred to as impression motivation (Tetlock Manstead, 1985). Leary and Kowalski (1990) described impression motivation as being affected by three primary sets of factors: the perceived goal relevance of the persons impressions, the value of the persons desired goals, and the discrepancy between the persons desired and current images. Goal-relevance of impressions The more important the attainment of a goal is to ones self image, the more motivated people are to manage impressions to achieve that goal. People become more concerned with how others perceive them. Ferris and Porac (1984) researched some of the factors that would determine how relevant ones impressions are to the fulfillment of their goals. Their results indicated that people set higher goals when others were present. In other words, the more public a behavior is, the more significant it is to manage impressions to accomplish that goal. However, there are private behaviors that some people feel is necessary to self-present. Leary and Kowalski (1990) stated, people may privately prepare to perform impression-relevant behaviors in public (pg. 38). In some instances, people self-present in public settings so often that the actions become habitual, which may eventually carry over into their private behaviors. Value of desired goals People are motivated to manage their impressions the more they value a particular goal. Because the value of outcomes increases as their availability decreases, impression motivation should increase when valued outcomes are scarce. Pandey and Rastagi (1979) found that ingratiation in the workplace appears to increase, for example, as job competition becomes more fierce, and strategic self-presentation arises when valued resources are scarce. However, individual differences occur with people who are high in need for approval, because they are more motivated to self-present after failure in order to preserve their self-esteem (Schneider Turkat, 1975). This illustrates that being high in the need for approval is associated with greater incentive to manage impressions. Discrepancy between desired and current image This type of impression motivation occurs when there is a discrepancy between how the person wants to be seen by others and the image that person thinks others have of them. When an individual recognizes this discrepancy, there is a motivation to reduce the discrepancy. In a majority of situations, an embarrassing incident that is witnessed by someone else causes the need to initiate self-presentational tactics. Leary and his colleagues (1996) conducted an experiment that caused participants to become embarrassed, and then researchers noted that some of these participants engaged in self-presentational tactics to improve their damaged social image. Participants, through verbal expressions or blushing, were motivated to portray face-saving tactics to try to repair their image in the researchersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ eyes due to the embarrassing incident. Another type of discrepancy can occur when a person conveys an impression that is inconsistent with his or her own sense of self (Leary Kowalski, 1990). For example, if an applicant inadvertently insults an interviewer during a job interview, he or she would frantically try to retract the comment and assuage the situation. In these circumstances, individuals immediately try and self-present to get others to see them as they truly are, and to re-establish their social identity, which also restores their own sense of self. Self-Concept A persons self-concept is a primary determinant of the impressions one is trying to project. The more important or central a particular attribute is, the more likely it will be recognized through self-presentational behaviors. Effects of self-presentations on self-beliefs In a series of experiments, Jones and his colleagues (1981) investigated the effects of strategic self-enhancement or self-deprecation on subsequent ratings of self-esteem. In the first two experiments, participants who were induced to present themselves in either a self-enhancing or self-deprecating fashion during an interview later rated their self-esteem in a manner that was consistent with their self-presentations. Similarly, in the third experiment, participants who played a self-enhancing role for the interview also assessed their self-esteem as higher than they original began with. This shift was only true if the participant did not have pre-planned answers to the interview questions, but answered freely in-role. In the opposite experimental condition, participants playing a self-deprecating role demonstrated a lower self-esteem only when they were given a clear choice on whether to engage in the interview. Overall, the participants believability of their self-presentations en hanced the internalization of those presentations (Jones et al., 1981). Another experiment demonstrated that self-presentations have an impact on subsequent self-appraisals, behaviors, and recall of relevant events (Schlenker, Dlugolecki, Doherty, 1994, Experiment 1). Participants were either instructed to present themselves as sociable during an interview or were given information about the importance of sociability but were not interviewed. All of the participants waited in a room with a confederate who later judged how sociable each participant behaved. After the experiment, participants completed an assessment of their own sociability and any instances outside of the laboratory that were relevant to sociability. The results revealed that the participants who presented themselves as sociable at the interview later behaved more sociable, rated themselves as more sociable, and recalled more past experiences in which they behaved sociable than did the participants who were not interviewed. Another important finding was that no differences emerged for an y other features such as self-esteem, intelligence, leadership abilities, or affective states. Therefore, this experiment demonstrated not only that self-presentations have an impact on behaviors, but also that these effects correspond only to self-images portrayed in self-presentation and are not the results of a shift in affect or self-esteem (Schlenker et al., 1994). These findings allude to the idea that peoples self-concepts can be influenced by the way people present themselves. Audience effects Research has demonstrated that even the mere presence of an audience can enhance the internalization of ones self-presentations (Tice, 1992). A pair of studies showed that participants who were induced to describe themselves in particular ways for an audience tended to bring their self-beliefs more in line with their self-descriptions than participants who described themselves anonymously. In each study, after the participant was told in which manner to act, they were asked to take a chair into a waiting room where an unknown confederate would already be sitting. Sitting relatively close to the confederate and having a conversation characterized extraverted behavior. Introverted behavior was seen as sitting far from and not speaking to the confederate. The changes in self-beliefs extended to changes in the participants behaviors, and these behavioral changes occurred even when the participants were unaware of being observed (Tice, 1992, Study 2). At the end of the experiment, the par ticipants were debriefed and so no lasting self-concept changes would be seen in any follow-up procedures. Further research could examine whether this induced self-concept change could have lasting effects. Self-Presentation to Help Others People will strategically exploit or withhold information regarding a friends identity in order to help create a desired impression for a friend upon significant audiences. For example, if an employee in a business is trying to get a friend a job where he or she works, then the employee will deliberately speak of only the good qualities that the friend possesses and not about how lazy their friend can be at times. Schlenker and Britt (2001) explored this with participants who had to describe their friend to a researcher who was evaluating their partners cognitive skills. As predicted, people engaged in more beneficial impression management to help friends who experienced more evaluative pressure to make a good impression, and this was stronger for people who were higher in empathy. Participants spoke of their friends with more favorable descriptions, and this effect increased as empathy increased. In addition, the stronger the friendship was, the more their friends portrayed their pa rtner as having a great deal of integrative ability about an important trait. In contrast, when the measure of friendship strength was weaker, there was very little display of any significant responsiveness to the evaluative pressures on their friends. The closer the relationships were, the higher the empathy and concern for the well being of the other became (Schlenker Britt, 2001). In a similar study by Schlenker and Britt (1999), friends would strategically control information about their friends identity according to the qualities preferred by an attractive person of the opposite sex. The same was conducted with an unattractive person of the opposite sex. When the friend found the other person to be good looking, the participant described their friends attributes consistently with the qualities that the attractive person deemed important. For example, if the attractive target prefers someone who is outgoing and sociable as an ideal date, they will describe their friend as relatively outgoing and sociable. The opposite was true for an unattractive individual. The participant would describe the friends attributes as contradictory to what the unattractive person considered important. The participant hoped the unattractive person would feel that the friend was not their type. This tactic could serve to protect the friend from unappreciated and unwanted attention. This experiment illustrated impression management to benefit friends by promoting and protecting their desired identities. Thus, all acts of self-presentation are self-serving or devious (Schlenker Britt, 1999). Self-presentation among friends and strangers Most self-presentation research has dealt with managing impressions among strangers but not friends. However, how one creates a positive impression may vary according to the audience one is trying to impress. Tice and his colleagues (1995) found that people self-present in a much more promoting manner when the audience consisted of strangers, and more modestly when self-presenting among friends. Friends presumably know about their friends past successes and achievements, eliminating the need to be boastful so not to seem conceited. On the other hand, strangers are unaware of any achievements the participants had partaken in; therefore, they could speak more favorably about themselves without seeming redundant or arrogant. In Study 2, the audience was manipulated to be made up of all strangers and one friend. With the addition of a single friend, the participant was inhibited to self-present even though the audience was made up of a majority of strangers (Tice et al., 1995). The resul ts of Study 2 replicated the results found in Study 1. Participants were more modest when answering questions in front of a friend then in front of a stranger. This result is because it is unnecessary to try to impress people who already know their friends successes and failures, this would only make one seem arrogant and pompous. Therefore, when the opportunity arises to flaunt ones positive characteristic, it is usually among an unknown audience. Influence of Cognitive Load on Self-Presentation Pontari and Schlenker (2000) explored the difference in peoples self-presentational abilities when given an additional cognitive load. The participants were either extraverted or introverted, and were asked to participate in an interview where they would act either extraverted or introverted. When a participant was self-presenting congruently with their own behavior, remembering an eight-digit number did not hinder their self-presentational abilities. However, incongruent self-presentations were affected by the additional cognitive demand. When an extraverted person was asked to behave introverted during an interview and remember an eight-digit number, their acting capabilities were decreased. For extraverts, cognitive demand seemed to block needed cognitive resources, but they were still able to perform reasonably well. Ironically, the opposite was true for introverts playing an extraverted role during the interview. It seems that the addition of the cognitive load had a liberating effect in that their attention was diverted from worrying or feeling shy about acting extraverted since they had to remember the eight-digit number. Pontari and Schlenker (2000) took this a step further with their next study to evaluate other situations when introverted individuals may feel less publicly self-conscious or had fewer negative self-focused thoughts. It was found that regardless of the social situation, if any cognitive load was placed on an introverted individual, that person would experience a reduction in negative self-thoughts, a reduction in public self-consciousness, and an increase in the ability to create an out-of-character impression. Overall, increased cognitive load can improve social performance (Pontari Schlenker, 2000). Nonverbal Behavior and Self-Presentation Much of previous research has been devoted to the verbal aspects of self-presentation. Depaulo (1992) explored the realm of controlling nonverbal behavior for self-presentational purposes. People might take a chance at expressing something nonverbally that they would normally be reluctant to express verbally. It is easy to deny or alter the meaning of a facial expression if a person begins to regret having done so. Sex There is a gender difference in the ability to nonverbally self-present throughout all ages. Research conducted on preschoolers to adults all indicated that females are the more talented deceiving sex (Depaulo, 1992). Depaulo (1992) asserted that women are nonverbally more involved and more open in their interpersonal interactions than men. Their faces are more spontaneously expressive, and they are more successful at posing a particular emotion. Depaulo (1992) also reasons that from an early age, women were more concerned with making good impressions and avoiding bad ones that over time their ability to nonverbally self-present was enhanced. However, a womens ability to move their body in a more involved and expressive manner may have been deliberate to begin with, but over time could become a habitual act. On the other hand, it may just be a natural and more comfortable way for a woman to behave and has no self-presentational implications. Physical Attractiveness Physically attractive individuals are better at expressing emotions spontaneously and are better at posing emotions with their faces (Depaulo, 1992). The contributing factor is believed to be that attractive people are more confident about their abilities and feel that they have an advantage over others. Perhaps an explanation for this phenomenon is that the person who is speaking to the attractive individual is not paying attention to the words or facial expressions the good-looking person is portraying, but rather concentrating on his or hers physical attributes instead. Conclusion The level of self-presentation one partakes in is motivated by how relevant managing an impression is in order to obtain a goal, how much an individual values that goal, and if an individual feels that there is a discrepancy between the image one wants to project and the image others perceive. In some situations, a person may self-present so often that the actions become habitual, then the person may begin to internalize those beliefs and their self-esteem is affected accordingly. There are a myriad of possibilities where a person can use self-presentation to influence others perceptions. Research has indicated that people will self-present in behalf of a friend to try to create an impression for another individual while the friend is not available. Further, a person will refrain from self-presenting when speaking about themselves in front of friends, but will boast in front of strangers. The complexity of verbal and non-verbal self-presentation makes it an integral part in everyday life.

Definition and Examples of Procatalepsis in Rhetoric

Definition and Examples of Procatalepsis in Rhetoric Procatalepsis is a  rhetorical strategy by which a speaker or writer anticipates and responds to an opponents objections. Also spelled prokatalepsis. Adjective: Procataleptic The  figure of speech and  argumentative strategy of procatalepsis is also known as  the  prebuttal, the figure of presupposal, anticipatio, and anticipated refutation. Nicholas Brownlees notes that procatalepsis is an effective rhetorical device in that while appearing  dialogic, in practice it allows the author to remain in complete control of the  discourse  (Gerrard Winstanley and Radical Political Discourse in Cromwellian England, 2006). Examples and Observations Listen, Liz, I know this is tough to hear, but- I know what youre going to say, she cut in, her voice quiet. I know what youre going to tell me to do. Accept it. Move on. Try to forget about what happened to him.He didnt respond. Shed second-guessed him.Right?Right.Well, its not so easy for me, she said. Im still here in London with all the memories, living next door to his empty house. I havent got myself a nice little holiday cottage in Devon to disappear to and forget about everything that happened.(Tim Weaver,  Never Coming Back. Viking, 2014) Frederick Douglass Use of  Procatalepsis I may be asked, why I am so anxious to bring this subject before the British public- why I do not confine my efforts to the United States? My answer is, first, that slavery is the common enemy of mankind, and all mankind should be made acquainted with its abominable character. My next answer is, that the slave is a man, and, as such, is entitled to your sympathy as a brother. All the feelings, all the susceptibilities, all the capacities, which you have, he has. He is a part of the human family. (Frederick Douglass, An Appeal to the British People. Reception speech at Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, England, May 12, 1846) Platos Use of  Procatalepsis Someone will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that this would be a disobedience to a divine command, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say again that the greatest good of man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living- that you are still less likely to believe. And yet what I say is true, although a thing of which it is hard for me to persuade you. (Plato, Apology, trans. by Benjamin Jowett) Uses of Procatalepsis Strategically, procatalepsis shows  your readers that you have anticipated their concerns, and have already thought them through. It is, therefore, especially effective in argumentative essays...Procatalepsis can even be used if you dont have a full answer to the objection. By being honest about the fact that there are problems with your argument, you show your audience that you are grounded in reality. You should never, however, bring up an objection to which you cannot respond. (Brendan McGuigan, Rhetorical Devices: A Handbook and Activities for Student Writers. Prestwick, 2007)Often, a writer will invent a possible objection or difficulty  in order to answer it in a way that strengthens the writers position. In the event such an objection should arise, the reader has an answer already laid out...An objection can occasionally be  turned into a further point of support for the writers argument. Conceding an objection and then turning it into a point in the writers favor can be a powerful tactic. (Robert A Harris,  Writing With Clarity and Style: A Guide to Rhetorical Devices for  Contemporary Writers, 2003. Rpt. Routledge, 2017) More Examples of Procatalepsis He knows every harbor, every cove and inlet throughout the chain; he has to.Those are fine credentials, Geoffrey, but hardly the sort- Please, interrupted Cooke. I havent finished. To anticipate your objection, hes a retired officer of US Naval Intelligence. Hes relatively young, early to mid-forties, Id say, and Ive no real knowledge of why he left the service, but I gather the circumstances werent very pleasant. Still, he could be an asset on this assignment. (Robert Ludlum, The Scorpio Illusion, 1993)No group in America has had as poor a start as the first Africans. Youll argue that other groups had to suffer indignities and even slavery, but I immediately remind you that they migrated (i.e. came by choice). Africans were wrenched (even if purchased) from their homeland, brutalized and forced to work for free. (Nashieqa Washington, Why Do Black People Love Fried Chicken? And Other Questions Youve Wondered But Didnt Dare Ask. Your Black Friend, 2006)

International Investments Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

International Investments - Essay Example ne thing that makes Indian stock market as a good long term investment according to the article â€Å"Advantages for NRIS investing in the Indian Market† 2011, is that most of its stocks are correctly valued, returns of investment are excellent and its stock market is well regulated. In my observation, based on financial reports, India has a booming economy and is one of the emerging economies next to China. As such, confidence of investors is rising such that there are continuing interests from foreign multinationals on Indian companies. As compared to United States that is experiencing a slow economic growth; investors are losing interest of holding US dollars and therefore lessen interest in US investment. These investors now look for new investments in emerging countries like China, India and Brazil. India has advantage on this as the government continuously works on its deregulation and free market principles to attract investments. Because of the investors’ intere sts, the economy of India is expected to improve further and reach a high GDP figure of 10%, and economic growth will continue on years to come. Economic activities along this line are take-over, acquisitions and mergers and are spreading on iron and steel, spirits, manufacturing, auto parts, not just IT, and equity. Investment in the Indian debt securities, I believe, is a good investment because according to BSE (2011), the Indian debt market is one of the largest in Asia. Securities are issued by the government (central and state), public sector, other government bodies, financial institutions, banks and corporations. As such, the fixed income securities become one of the most attractive investment opportunities since it provides safety of investments, adequate liquidity, and flexibility in structuring a portfolio, easier monitoring, long term reliability and assured returns (India Debt Market, 2010). Fixed income securities may either be interest-bearing bonds, varied type of debt

How the organisation can effectively manage staff performance Essay

How the organisation can effectively manage staff performance - Essay Example Effective management of staff performance is very important to any organisation if it is to achieve its goals. The first step in ensuring managing employee performance is recruiting qualified personnel. Key competencies expected of new employees need be outlined in advance before the recruitment process begins (Dickens, 2012). Having a qualified workforce will ensure that tasks are performed effectively, and organizational goals are met (Storey 2007). Accomplishments and Contributions that employees perform give the human resources possibility to appraise the most notable employees and give feedback to their work and thus discover new resources for ideas and innovation (Thompson, 2012). My model organisation will be the Swiss company, â€Å"Nestlà ©Ã¢â‚¬ . It is the world’s number one Food Business with its long record of creating the best food for people. The company states that its main assets are not the numerous office buildings or factories, but the nationalities, religions and ethnic groups who consume Nestlà ©Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s products and services. Unity and among employees enable the company to operate harmoniously in all its activities creating a single corporate culture (Revill, 2013). The company has developed a program that ensures Nestlà © attracts the most talented people/staff. The company is also making efforts to ensure good employees are retained (Revill, 2013). The company contributes actively to the quality of HRM by proposing policies and by constantly applying and implementing them to members of Nestlà © community. HRM assists in the execution of planning and creating awareness towards the required adaptability to unexpected situations. The expectations of the workers are to be clearly set and clarified by the management. There is need for an all-inclusive process between the management and the staff that helps to set what is expected of the employees and continuously spell out their functions. Every staff is from time to

Xenon :: essays research papers

Xenon Xenon is element number 54 on the periodic table of the elements. It has a mass of roughly 131 atomic mass units. There are 77 neutrons and 54 protons in the nucleus of the atom. The symbol for xenon is Xe and it belongs to the family of elements called the noble gases. It is called a noble gas because the valance shell of one atom contains a full shell. Xenon is one of the most stable elements on the table. The 54 electrons are arranged, so that there are 2 in the 1st shell, 8 in the 2nd, 18 in the 3rd, 18 in the 4th and lastly 8 in the 5th shell. The melting and boiling points of xenon are extremely low. They are -111 °C and -107 °C respectively.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Xenon and most of the other noble gases were discovered by Sir William Ramsey and M.W. Travers from England in 1898. The two scientists discovered it mistakenly while experimenting with crude krypton, another noble gas. They were separating the elements in the crude krypton through a process called fractional distillation. In fractional distillation, the process separates two elements that have different boiling points. Basic-ally, when a sample is heated, the faster element leaves first, leaving the second element behind. Krypton was known to have a boiling point at a temperature that is lower than xenon. So the scientists could predict that heating the mixture would leave krypton in the container, while the faster boiling xenon leaving it. After the two scientists separated krypton and xenon, they identified it as a new element through the emission spectrum of the gas.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Xenon is used heavily in light bulbs. Many of the bulbs in camera flashes have xenon in them, because they can be used over 10,000 times without burning out, as well as producing a good balance of all colors. Xenon is also used in medical purposes. Local anesthesia is made up of 20% oxygen and 80% xenon. Xenon also can be injected or breathed into the body to give clearer M.R.I.'s or X-rays. In addition to the uses above, xenon is also in movie projector lamps, advertising lights, and bubble chambers, Bubble chambers are devices used by physicists that are used to detect nuclear radiation. The element is very chemically stable and unradioactive and is generally not harmful to man. Xenon is also nonflammable. It is only when it combines with other elements that xenon becomes hazardous. Xenon compounds are highly radioactive. This element accounts for a very minimal amount of the earth's crust. Only 3x10-9% of the earth contains xenon.

Do Not Go Gentle to That Good Night by Dylan Thomas Essay

Dylan Thomas was a well-known poet and writer whose poems were very famous, such as â€Å"And Death Shall Have No Dominion† and â€Å"The Play for Voice.† He was born on 27 October 1914, and he died on 9 November 1953. He was very popular in his lifetime, and he is still known by his works after his death. One of his works that I think is the most significant poem is â€Å"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.† This work had been published about two years before his death – 1951, and it is also a part of the collection In Country Sleep. Dylan used the poem to express his feeling while his father was losing health and strength, encouraging his father to hold on to life. The theme of this poem is death. At the first line of the poem, â€Å"Do not go gentle into that good night,† he wants to tell the unknown listeners not to go into that good night. We can easily find a poetic device of metaphor when he used the word night for death. We also have an extended metaphor in which day is life and night is death. The first line is also the title of the poem, repeated four times throughout the poem. The next two lines are â€Å"Old age should burn and rave at close of day/ Rage, rage against the dying of the light.† In the second line, we can see what the poet wants to show us about how the elderly should fight death with their remaining health. In addition, when he says â€Å"Rage, rage against the dying of the light,† he wants to clearly confirm that this is the processing of the age – the death of old age. The first stanza is the thesis statement of the poem about aging and death. The first line of second stanza â€Å"Though wise men at their end know dark is right,† the metaphor of darkness is continually used; dark represents death. The meaning of this sentence is the clever men think that we are all going to die – it’s totally a natural process. However, at the second line â€Å"Because their words had forked no lighting they / Do not go gentle into that good night.† This sentence has an implication. The â€Å"word† in this line is the action of the clever people. The poet shows the unknown listener that though the clever men know that the death of aging is natural, they still try to fight it; they â€Å"do not go gentle to that good night.† This idea is continually developed in the next two stanzas: â€Å"The wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight grieved it on its way† and â€Å"the grave men who see with blinding sight.† They still fight against the dying of light – the death of aging. In the final stanza, â€Å"And you, my father, there on the sad height,† we know the unknown listener is the poet’s father, and he is dying. The poet by this poem, tries to beg and encourage his father to fight against the â€Å"dying of the light.† The speaker ends the poem by two lines: â€Å"Do not go gentle to that good night / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.† These are also the two lines that were repeated throughout the poem. This poem is one of the famous poems in Dylan Thomas’s collection. The poem not only is an encouragement that tells us not give up but fight against the dying of aging, but also he wants to tell his father not go to the darkness – â€Å"Do not go gentle to the good night†. Work Cite Shmoop Editorial Team. â€Å"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night: Stanza 6 Summary† Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 5 Feb. 2013

Negative Slope and Negative Correlation

In mathematics, the slope of a line (m) describes how rapidly or slowly change is occurring and in which direction, whether positive or negative. Linear functions—those whose graph is a straight line—have four possible types of slope: positive, negative, zero, and undefined.  A function with a positive slope is represented by a line that goes up from left to right, while a function with a negative slope is represented by a line that goes down from left to right. A function with zero slope is represented by a horizontal line, and a function with an undefined slope is represented by a vertical line. Slope is usually expressed as an absolute value. A positive value indicates a positive slope, while a negative value indicates a negative slope. In the function y 3x, for example, the slope is positive 3, the coefficient of x. In statistics, a graph with a negative slope represents a negative correlation between two variables. This means that as one variable increases, the other decreases and vice versa. Negative correlation represents a significant relationship between the variables x and y, which, depending on what they are modeling, can be understood as input and output, or cause and effect. How to Find Slope Negative slope is calculated just like any other type of slope. You can find it by dividing the rise of two points (the difference along the vertical or y-axis) by the run (the difference along the x-axis). Just remember that the rise is really a fall, so the resulting number will be negative. The formula for the slope can be expressed as follows: m (y2 - y1) / (x2 - x1) Once you graph the line, youll see that the slope is negative because the line goes down from left to right. Even without drawing a graph, you will be able to see that the slope is negative simply by calculating m using the values given for the two points. For example, suppose the slope of a line that contains the two points (2,-1) and (1,1) is: m [1 - (-1)] / (1 - 2) m (1 1) / -1 m 2 / -1 m -2 A slope of -2 means that for every positive change in x, there will be twice as much negative change in y. Negative Slope Negative Correlation A negative slope demonstrates a negative correlation between the following: Variables x and yInput and outputIndependent variable and dependent variableCause and effect Negative correlation occurs when the two variables of a function move in opposite directions. As the value of x increases, the value of y decreases. Likewise, as the value of x decreases, the value of y increases. Negative correlation, then, indicates a clear relationship between the variables, meaning one affects the other in a meaningful way. In a scientific experiment, a negative correlation would show that an increase in the independent variable (the one manipulated by the researcher) would cause a decrease in the dependent variable (the one measured by the researcher). For example, a scientist might find that as predators are introduced into an environment, the number of prey gets smaller. In other words, there is a negative correlation between number of predators and number of prey. Real-World Examples A simple example of negative slope in the real world is going down a hill. The farther you travel, the farther down you drop. This can be represented as a mathematical function where x equals the distance traveled and y equals the elevation. Other examples of negative slope demonstrate the relationship between two variables might include: Mr. Nguyen drinks caffeinated coffee two hours before his bedtime. The more cups of coffee he drinks (input), the fewer hours he will sleep (output). Aisha is purchasing a plane ticket. The fewer days between the purchase date and the departure date (input), the more money Aisha will have to spend on airfare (output). John is spending some of the money from his last paycheck on presents for his children. The more money John spends (input), the less money he will have in his bank account (output). Mike has an exam at the end of the week. Unfortunately, he would rather spend his time watching sports on TV than studying for the test. The more time Mike spends watching TV (input), the lower Mikes score will be on the exam (output). (In contrast, the relationship between time spent studying and exam score would be represented by a positive correlation since an increase in studying would lead to a higher score.)