14.3: Managing Resources over the Venture Life Cycle
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Explain how resource dependence theory helps a venture grow
- Understand typical resource needs through the life cycle
- Describe the basic steps in securing human resources
- Understand the importance of educational and personal resources to the entrepreneur
The evaluation of needed resources does not end with the startup phase. This is an essential activity that the business owner must engage in throughout the life cycle of the business. Many entrepreneurs have failed to re-assess how their needs have changed as industry, technology, economic, political, or social changes emerge in the marketplace. This lack of timely assessment of operational needs can result in business struggles or even failure. Business owners need to be engaged in ongoing research, monitoring of the external environment, ensuring they have the ability to easily respond to changing circumstances.
When Birchbox, a business covered in Entrepreneurial Marketing and Sales , first entered the cosmetics sales market through an innovative business model, the founders (Katia Beauchamp is pictured in Figure 14.14 ), were able to fund their startup through venture capitalists who saw a great opportunity to tap into a new model of selling cosmetics. After it had been in business for a while, Birchbox grew not only in customers and employees, but also in competitors. The company struggled with cash flow as it grew its customer base and struggled to keep a healthy profit due to its tight margins from selling other brands’ items. After talks of selling to QVC and Walmart, Birchbox sold its ownership to an internal investor who provided the cash for the company to continue to innovate its products and digital processes, and to add more cosmetic partners. 26
As we can see from the Birchbox example, business operations are impacted by various internal factors such as increases in the customer base, employee growth, as well as changes in marketing needs and external factors, which include fierce competition that can curtail the venture’s productivity, impact competitive advantage, or limit its access to key resources. In the case of Birchbox, cash flow was necessary for product innovations and digital marketing changes to combat their competition.
To counteract some of this, dependencies can be formed with others in a network of enterprises. This can aid in circumventing the impact of external factors such as an increase in competition in their respective market, limited ability to obtain credit for capital resources, shortages of the raw materials needed to produce their goods, or human resources to meet demanded service and production levels.
For example, many businesses within a particular industry are dependent on the same purchasers, vendors, raw materials, or other environmental resources. The resource dependence theory (RDT) model posits that forming networks such as mergers, vertical integrations, and joint ventures, or engaging in joint political activities, can help mitigate dependencies among member groups. 27 This classic model remains relevant today.
As Launch for Growth to Success discussed, mergers occur when two companies have the same specific goal and create a contract to become one company, with the shared goal usually of gaining new customers, growing market share, improving purchasing power, or reaching new markets.
In vertical integration, a company acquires members of its supply chain, which helps gain economies of scale, improve deliveries of inventories, reduce costs, and may also stifle competition.
A joint venture (see Business Structure Options: Legal, Tax, and Risk Issues ) can be less taxing to the companies involved, as each of them retains their identities and management teams while pooling their assets to create synergy through a new project or engagement in political activities. Being able to gain control over their external environment through these alliances is essential to aid a small business toward growth and sustainability.
In the case of Birchbox, there could be a time when a cosmetics brand and Birchbox could merge to create a new line of products, or Birchbox could acquire one of its cosmetics brands in vertical integration. However in more recent years, cooperative (“coop”) arrangements have emerged to help small businesses share resources collaboratively based on a common interest and trust. For example, Community Supported Agriculture is a popular way for farmers and other commodity growers to gain selling power through their combined efforts. 28 In particular, Red Hen Bakery, a small artisanal cheese making company in Ontario, has supported its business by partnering with both local pig farmers and craft breweries to help manufacture their cheeses. They also sell vouchers to customers in advance to help manage seasonality.
In another example, farmers have turned to commercial aerial drones to help assess their crops’ viability and optimize their use of fertilizers, irrigation, and other resources. Consulting firms have emerged to provide these monitoring services, despite the constraints that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) imposes on commercial drones. These common interests have helped them lobby the Farm Bureau and other trade associations to accelerate FAA permits for this type of commercial use.
Auntie Anne’s Pretzels and Strategic Partnership
Visit Auntie Anne’s Pretzels to learn more about their story.
- Write a summary on how Anne Beiler leveraged relationships in the initial launch of her business.
- What strategies did Beiler use to identify strategic partners, resources and processes to protect her profitability?
Resources Needed Based on Life Cycle
Entrepreneurs need to identify and plan for their resource needs ( Table 14.6 ) and costs for all stages of the venture’s life cycle, which is shown in Figure 14.15 . Evaluating the cost of the enterprise at each phase for both a good and a service helps the entrepreneur assess its feasibility (see the discussion on funding at various life cycle stages in Entrepreneurial Finance and Accounting ).
Startup Phase
The startup phase is an exciting and exploratory time for the entrepreneur. In this phase, ventures are defining their identity, growing their customer base, learning more about their target market and how best to serve it, how to develop the products that will meet demand, and how to hire the people that will make it all happen. At this time, resources are often scarce, and the entrepreneur may be bootstrapping to keep costs low. This means that the entrepreneur might be working from home to save on rent and utilities, and may have only a part-time employee or none at all. The product may be created on a single piece of equipment that can produce on only a small scale. When a product is first developed, there are also costs to consider. These include costs of raw materials, production, packaging, and personnel for the production, or what is commonly known as cost of goods sold . Recall that the cost of goods sold is the accumulated costs of creating a product (materials, direct labor) or a service (direct labor). At introduction, there is packaging, marketing, promotions, and shipping, and, if inventory is maintained, warehousing.
Any sales revenue is immediately re-invested into the business with the aim of developing a cycle of growth. The entrepreneur at this point may forgo a salary while the business takes off and may also wear many hats to keep the ball rolling instead of hiring employees.
Advisory boards are crucial during this phase, as they bring current information to the table to inform entrepreneurs of trends, changes, or regulatory adjustments within the industry that could affect their enterprise. An advisory board is a group of knowledgeable people who aid an organization to make strategic decisions about the business and its issues without having the power to vote or make any legal decisions. Having access to key contacts, networks of professionals, and public resources are key to having a current toolkit from which to draw information to inform decision-making and resource management.
In the case of Christina’s Confections, she started baking goods at home with her own oven. She did quite a bit of bootstrapping and used her savings to buy ingredients, utensils, packaging materials (boxes and containers), marketing materials (flyers, brochures, business cards), and a basic website, and to pay a part-time employee. For two years, Christina didn’t collect a salary so she could save money for the next phase, which is growth.
Growth Phase
During the growth phase, the business has been around for a few years, its identity has been developed, its customer base has grown, sales are accelerating, and there is a need for more resources to sustain this growth. Resource needs can take the form of cash to invest in new equipment, new materials, more marketing, or new personnel. Additional equipment may be needed to help with a higher output, or perhaps the current location is too small to produce at a larger scale. The location might not be big enough for customers, or to welcome guests, so a new building may be required. More material might also be needed to create more products due to higher demand, and more people may need to be hired for production. There may be a need for management and administration to expand as the organization grows, too. Departments may now evolve and require processes to coordinate efforts between functions such as production, human resources, and marketing.
Take a look at this checklist for growing a small business from Visa and SCORE. Review the seven steps that address key issues that can affect business growth.
During the growth phase, the entrepreneur might need to change marketing strategy, advertising, production, or even packaging to keep up with demand.
Let us revisit Christina’s Confections bakery. Two years into operations, she needs to identify a larger location for her bakery. She now has ten employees and has several corporate accounts she services for special events. She recently partnered with a neighborhood catering company and has been retained to provide the baked goods for their catered events. These changes mean that Christina will need to obtain funding for the expansion, locate a space near her existing location, or expand on the location she is currently leasing. Part of her consideration at this point is determining if it is feasible for her to purchase a location, which would allow her to gain all the benefits of facility ownership as she often works long hours and needs flexibility for access. The ideal location would be one in which she could reside above the storefront so she can incorporate living expenses into her monthly expenses.
Maturity Phase
In maturity, when the product has perhaps saturated the market and there may be lower-cost alternatives, the entrepreneur has to deal with competition as sales level off and more companies are fighting for customers’ dollars. At this point, spending resources in branding becomes very important, as customers have many choices available to them and having a reputable image and uniqueness as well as a brand that inspires brand loyalty helps businesses attract them.
As needs change with this growth, the entrepreneur must reconsider the resources, operationalize how these are used, and determine what efficiencies may be gained by retaining certain resources and outsourcing others. Outsourcing is the activity of hiring an outside company or third party to perform a specific task, job, or process, or to manufacture goods. This is common in human resources, where many companies outsource their workforce to reduce costs and focus on retaining tasks they excel at.
For example, if you are a digital marketing company and have several web design projects you are working on, outsourcing can help you pass some of the most challenging tasks in the design or coding process to another company, while your venture focuses on the steps in the process that are your company’s strengths. Similarly, another company could seek to use your company’s resources if they believe your company has a greater proficiency for specific tasks.
Decline/Rebirth Phase
During the decline phase of a business, if there is to be rebirth, resources must account for making changes to the product so it can have its renaissance. In Christina’s case, if the traditional bakery industry were to decline, she could decide to use different ingredients and equipment to make a new kind of cake that uses only fruit and vegetables, or something completely different that would ensure the business would still be unique enough to come back to the life cycle. Most companies that have lasted many years in business have gone through this cycle several times and have been able to reinvent themselves. Small bakeries, clothing chains, and car manufacturers have been able to “come back” within industries that are easy to fail in due to their decline. Also, many tech companies such as Apple, Nintendo, and Polaroid were once in the decline phase, but their ability to shift allowed them to have a rebirth.
| Business Phase | Resources Needed |
|---|---|
| Startup | Initial capital, basic equipment, inventory, few employees, facility (home or location), cost of goods sold, marketing materials, mentorship |
| Growth | More capital, additional employees/departments, marketing, additional equipment, inventory |
| Maturity | Branding, outsourcing |
| Decline/Rebirth | New equipment/technology, new products, new patents, equity funding for possible merger |
Human Resources
As you begin your entrepreneurial journey, you will realize that you cannot do everything on your own. You will need people to help. In the beginning, you may need office assistance or production assistance, and, initially, they could be part-time hires. As you grow, though, you will realize that you need to have a more sophisticated understanding of how to build a skilled workforce. Human resources are the people needed to support the current and future growth of the venture, and help the company increase production and the provision of services, as well as help with the administrative tasks required to operate the business. Employees add value to the enterprise in that they help the business generate revenue. Having the proper staff is a constant process that must have procedures in place and starts with having a plan set out to recruit and hire the people with the skills that match your venture’s needs. In addition to hiring, a small business owner can consider getting human resource help through partner firms, outsourcing, and even outside consultants who are not actual employees of the company but provide support or specialized services for the company. Building Networks and Foundations discusses building a team. Here, we focus on the essentials of the human resourcing process.
First, figuring out why you need the help is an important step in assessing the needs of the company. Usually, entrepreneurs will need some sort of part-time help managing an office, manufacturing a product, or producing a service. The need and the outcome must be greater than the cost of hiring someone. This assessment ensures that current revenue can cover the addition of another person’s compensation. For example, you may need to hire a part-time assistant who would cost $15,000 to $30,000 a year. If having that part-time assistant frees you up to sell $50,000 of product, then it is financially worth hiring that person. In addition, if you hire a salesperson at $40,000 to $50,000 per year, including benefits, and they sell $100,000 a year for you, then it is worth hiring that person because they are generating profit. Keep in mind that many entrepreneurs start with virtual assistants, bookkeepers, designers, web developers, or managers who can vary in price and only work when you need them. Using sites such as UpWork to hire freelancers to cover a portion of your business allows you access to dozens to hundreds of choices to find a resource that works for you, often at lower costs than hiring someone on staff.
Once you establish that hiring new employees is a need and a smart financial choice, you need to create a job description to attract the right candidates. This contains a statement of the employee’s tasks and responsibilities, the processes used, and the desired outcomes. It will also include the parameters of how the job will be done, the environment, the hours, and the skills and experience necessary to perform well.
In preparation for determining your hiring needs and creating job descriptions, the following steps will guide you on topics and decisions to consider. After determining your resource needs, the remainder of the steps can occur in varying order depending on your specific situation.
Step 1: Determine Resourcing Needs
Understanding the needs of your business in terms of job functions is the first step to hiring. Defining the work that needs to be done based on your business strategies can help guide your business needs. If you are a business consultant and need help managing the office, you can make a list of all the needs of the upkeep of the office. This can include answering phones, setting appointments, attending customers, making copies, paying bills, and ordering materials.
You will also need to determine whether you need full-time or part-time people, and what the budget is to clarify the direction of your hiring. Making a list of the tasks or goals for the business and estimating the time that it will take to finish them can help decide to hire a part-time or full-time person.
Keep in mind that needs may change, so even if you made a plan, the execution may vary, and you may need to make changes. By determining your costs and the benefits of those costs, you can figure out how many people you can bring on to accomplish the goals set in your business plan or marketing plan. If your plan calls for having sales of $100,000 the first year, you might want to hire one part-time employee at $25,000 who can help you achieve that goal. If your goal is to have sales over $1 million, then you likely might need more employees.
Figuring out what skills and experience your team should have is a good starting point for developing the job description, and setting the salaries and benefits you will offer. Once you set your descriptions and post them, whether online, at a job fair, or in a newspaper, you will see the applications coming in. If your industry calls for more sophisticated experience and skills, you may also want to hire a staffing agency to help you with the hiring.
Step 2: Hire a Team
Hiring a team of employees can be a daunting task, but if you first focus on understanding the needs of your business and the amount of time required to perform those tasks, this step will be a lot easier ( Figure 14.16 ). It involves setting up the job description, deciding on a salary and benefits to pay, posting it on various job websites such as Indeed.com, careerbuilder.com, or monster.com, and any industry job portal that may be important to reach qualified people. Oftentimes professional networking—such as online sites like LinkedIn or local groups like your chamber of commerce—may result in additional leads. The alumni center at your local university or community college may also be a place to connect with qualified candidates. Technology schools or trade schools are excellent sources to find skilled workers looking for that first full-time job after earning certification or licensing.
Once posted, you must decide how long to advertise the position. Also consider that the interview process can take a few days, weeks, or months, depending on how many people you are hiring and the quality of your prospects. If you are satisfied with the process, then you select the employee(s) and inform them of your selection. But before you extend an offer, you might want to conduct a background check first and then offer and welcome them into your team. Conducting background checks, including criminal checks, should be a routine procedure in the hiring process. A formal job offer should never be made until the results of the background checks have been received and reviewed. If a potential candidate accepts a job offer and you are then required to withdraw that offer because results of a background check disqualify the candidate, many problems will be unnecessarily created.
Before conducting any interviews, you should be aware of which questions are legal and which are not legal to ask in an interview. Minnesota State Colleges and Universities website offers a repository of appropriate questions.
Step 3: Create an Employee Handbook
If you’re starting your business from scratch with no sales, it is likely that you will only need one or two part-time people to help you with your business. An employee handbook at this time may not be necessary; however, once you have ten or more employees, and your business begins growing, you will want to create company employment policies and rules for all employees to follow. You could also create this handbook at the inception of your business. This handbook is a road map that may include rules about how to act as representatives of the business, attire expectations, hours required to work, proper etiquette, legal and regulatory compliance for full- or part-time employees, and sanctions for when these rules are not followed. Most companies today also need to create policies around social media use and statements made online via social media. Listing any benefits such as earned vacation, paid time off for jury duty, holiday pay, personal time off, and price discounts for employees and family members should also be included. Sometimes in filings for unemployment, the state workforce commission will require a copy of the employee handbook to help determine what the former employee is entitled to receive. Having written policies in a handbook and following them can save a lot of time and protect against conflicts with employees.
Some companies have begun to create funny and memorable handbooks to entice employees to read them and understand them.
Step 4: Secure Independent Contractors, if Necessary
As covered in Building Networks and Foundations , sometimes looking outside of your business to get help can be a good idea while building or growing your venture. Independent contractors are people who provide work without being part of the payroll for the contracting business. They may perform work similar to employees, but they are not employees of the company; therefore, the business does not have to pay for benefits or withhold taxes. However, these workers set their own time for work, can come and go as they need to, use their own equipment to complete assigned tasks, and can perform the work in their own way, as a service provided. You may want to consult with an accounting expert in tax issues before beginning work with independent contractors.
Take a look at this checklist to determine whether a human resource should be considered an employee or an independent contractor from the IRS. The distinction carries important legal implications, and the burden is on the employer to make the correct classification. Failure to classify workers correctly can be an expensive mistake.
Step 5: Establish Benefits
When designing a position and hiring people, another important consideration is the benefit plan you will offer. Common benefits include contributing to or providing health insurance costs, paid vacation time and sick days, providing access to 401K retirement accounts and contributing to them on the employee’s behalf, and insurance—including life, long- and short-term disability, and accident insurance. In addition, you might want to offer stock options to provide employees with a piece of your business and entice them to work for a company that they own. Each of these benefits is subject to state or federal regulations, or both. Seeking advice from professionals on these issues would be a valuable use of the entrepreneur’s time and money. Getting these employee benefits wrong can doom a company quickly.
Visit the Society for Human Resource Management site for examples of benefits and how to implement them to learn more.
Once employees are on board, there is an ongoing process of training, promoting, and managing them, as well as developing relationships that will be key to the success of the enterprise. In the evaluation of human resources, you may need to consider these questions:
- Are the skill levels that I need available in the region where I plan to operate?
- What is the prevailing wage for the human resources I need?
- How much can I afford to pay employees at this phase in my business?
- Are independent contractors the best option or are employees a better fit?
- Will I need to provide ongoing formal training or maintain certifications or licensures for my staff or are employees responsible for these items themselves?
- How can I be competitive with other business to attract the talent I need?
- Will I need to provide benefits such as vacation, retirement plans, health insurance, or life insurance?
Educational, Support, and Mentorship Resources
Entrepreneurs need to be mindful not only of the resources needed to operate the business, but also of the resources needed to support them in their challenging role of being an entrepreneur. Ongoing education and mentorship are key supports. When entrepreneurs are asked what topics they need learn more about when starting and growing a business, often they request more educational support in management, leadership, communication, financial, and marketing education. Many owners are experts at their craft but don’t know how to manage the business itself and must take courses or earn certificates to gain that “how to run a business” knowledge. Local chambers of commerce and other organizations provide training sessions, workshops, and educational programs in marketing, communication, management, and leadership. Other needs include finance, accounting, and software use. The SBA has a learning center where business owners can learn about many topics from how to write a business plan to the legal requirements and financing options that apply to their venture. 29 One important topic they address is digital marketing, a training most entrepreneurs need in this day and age. The Small Business Development Center and SCORE are organizations that also provide myriad workshops at no cost or for a very small fee.
Although some entrepreneurs do have business degrees and a few have advanced degrees, they still need to keep abreast of trends and changes in their industry. They have to continually educate themselves through various forms of research, by attending conferences, and through programs available through the chambers and other organizational networks. Maintaining a subscription to a major industry newspaper or trade magazine can be extremely beneficial. Another common trend is for starting entrepreneurs to work in the industry of their business to acquire the skills and knowledge necessary before they embark on their journey. For example, if you want to open a digital marketing business, you might first gain some experience by working for a digital marketing company prior to opening the business. However, you should make certain you abide by any noncompete or similar clauses in your employment contracts.
As we have seen throughout the text, being an entrepreneur is no easy task. It requires many hours to start and grow a business, not to mention the daily stressors from challenges that arise from interactions with employees, customers, and suppliers. High-performing entrepreneurs must have a good support system to help them overcome the ups and downs that owning a business might bring.
Having friends and family members who are supportive of the venture is important because these are people the owner trusts with personal and work issues on a daily basis. Their support is key to the success of the entrepreneur as they listen and understand the frustrations of being in business and may also help with the business itself. By the same token, the entrepreneur needs to spend time with friends and family to bring work-life balance to their lives.
Having mentors who have gone through similar issues and can listen and advise is a great advantage to entrepreneurs. Mentors act as counselors to the business and are genuinely interested and happy to help the business owner. Most mentors have been through similar challenges and have great knowledge and passion about the industry in which they work. SCORE can be a strong network for finding a mentor. This program is a partner of the SBA and provides free education and mentors to business owners. The mentors are volunteers who have many years of experience and now want to help other businesses for free. You can go to their website ( https://www.score.org/ ) and type in your zip code or industry to find a mentor near you. Doreen Graves is an example of a marketing mentor in northeast Mississippi who feels that she is not only a mentor to her mentees, but a support system and confidante, as they share with her their most personal stories of struggle, family values, and business dreams. She feels fortunate to have the power to help them. 30
Take a SCORE Course
Go to SCORE (Senior Core of Retired Executives) and take a look at Become a SCORE Volunteer ( https://www.score.org/volunteer ). It outlines four ways to donate your time:
- Mentor: Offer confidential business mentoring services, either in person or online
- Subject matter expert: Provide focused knowledge based on your professional skills or industry
- Workshop presenter: Lead local workshops, seminars and events to help entrepreneurs meet their goals and achieve success
- Chapter support role: Share your skills in marketing, tech, finance, fundraising and more to help expand the outreach of SCORE
Which of these roles do you see yourself fitting into some day and why?


15: Antibiotics
In nature, some microbes produce substances that inhibit or kill other microbes that might otherwise compete for the same resources. Humans have successfully exploited these abilities, using microbes to mass-produce substances that can be used as antimicrobial drugs. Since their discovery, antimicrobial drugs have saved countless lives, and they remain an essential tool for treating and controlling infectious disease. But their widespread and often unnecessary use has had an unintended side effect: the rise of multidrug-resistant microbial strains. In this chapter, we will discuss how antimicrobial drugs work, why microbes develop resistance, and what health professionals can do to encourage responsible use of antimicrobials.
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- 15.1: Discovering Antimicrobial Drugs
- Antimicrobial drugs produced by purposeful fermentation and/or contained in plants have been used as traditional medicines in many cultures for millennia. The purposeful and systematic search for a chemical “magic bullet” that specifically target infectious microbes was initiated by Paul Ehrlich in the early 20th century. The discovery of the natural antibiotic, penicillin, by Alexander Fleming in 1928 started the modern age of antimicrobial discovery and research.
-
- 15.2: Antibacterial Drugs
- Antimicrobial drugs can be bacteriostatic or bactericidal, and these characteristics are important considerations when selecting the most appropriate drug. The use of narrow-spectrum antimicrobial drugs is preferred in many cases to avoid superinfection and the development of antimicrobial resistance. Broad-spectrum antimicrobial use is warranted for serious systemic infections when there is no time to determine the causative agent or when narrow-spectrum antimicrobials fail.
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- 15.3: Antibacterial Drugs
- Antimicrobial drugs can be bacteriostatic or bactericidal, and these characteristics are important considerations when selecting the most appropriate drug. The use of narrow-spectrum antimicrobial drugs is preferred in many cases to avoid superinfection and the development of antimicrobial resistance. Broad-spectrum antimicrobial use is warranted for serious systemic infections when there is no time to determine the causative agent or when narrow-spectrum antimicrobials fail.
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- 15.4: Drugs Targeting Other Microorganisms
- Antibacterial compounds exhibit selective toxicity, largely due to differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell structure. Cell wall synthesis inhibitors, including the β-lactams, the glycopeptides, and bacitracin, interfere with peptidoglycan synthesis, making bacterial cells more prone to osmotic lysis. There are a variety of broad-spectrum, bacterial protein synthesis inhibitors that selectively target the prokaryotic 70S ribosome, including those that bind to the 30S and 50S subunits.
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- 15.6: Testing the Effectiveness of Antimicrobials
- Antimicrobial resistance is on the rise and is the result of selection of drug-resistant strains in clinical environments, the overuse and misuse of antibacterials, the use of subtherapeutic doses of antibacterial drugs, and poor patient compliance with antibacterial drug therapies. Drug resistance genes are often carried on plasmids or in transposons that can undergo vertical transfer easily and between microbes through horizontal gene transfer.
Footnotes
- 1 “Treatment of War Wounds: A Historical Review.” Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research 467 no. 8 (2009):2168–2191.
Thumbnail: Staphylococcus aureus - Antibiotics Test plate. (Public Domain; CDC / Provider: Don Stalons).


By the end of this section, you will be able to do the following:
Define health, illness, sickness, and the sick role.
Describe early research and methods in medical anthropology.
Explain Franz Boas’s influence in establishing the foundations of medical anthropology.
Describe how medical anthropology has developed since World War II.
Social Construction of Health
The World Health Organization defines
health
as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (World Health Organization 2020). Health is affected by multiple social, biological, and environmental factors.
Disease
is strictly biological—an abnormality that affects an individual’s physical structure, chemistry, or function. Going back to the time of the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, doctors have regarded disease as the result of both a person’s lifestyle habits and the social environment in which they live.
Illness
, by comparison, is the individual’s
sociocultural experience
of a disruption to their physical or mental well-being. An individual’s perception of their own illness is shaped by how that illness is viewed, discussed, and explained by the society they live in. The social perception of another person’s
sickness
affects that person’s social well-being and how they are viewed and treated by others.
Sick roles
are the social expectations for a sick person’s behaviors based on their particular sickness—how they should act, how they should treat the sickness, and how others should treat them.
Malady
is the term anthropologists use to encompass disease, illness, and sickness.
Health
is your state of well-being.
Disease
is a biological abnormality.
Illness
is your sociocultural experience of health.
Sickness
is a social perception of ill health.
Malady
is a broad term for everything above.
Table 17.1 Key Terms Used in Medical Anthropology
Term
Definition
Example
Health
State of well-being
Wellness prior to infection
Disease
A biological abnormality
Viral infection
Illness
A patient’s sociocultural experience of disrupted health
Fever, sore throat, cough, worry about missing class, disappointment of missing an outing with friends
Sickness
A social perception of ill health
Expectations such as: stay home and rest if you have a fever; do not attend class or go out with friends; see a doctor if it lasts longer than 48 hours
Malady
A broad term for everything above
Disruption of health caused by a viral infection with fever, sore throat, cough; worry about missing work/class; and the social expectation you will stay home and rest
Foundational to medical anthropology is an understanding of health and malady that includes social experiences and cultural definitions. Medical anthropology studies how societies construct understandings of health and illness, including medical treatments for all types of maladies. Culture affects how we perceive everything, including health. Culture shapes how people think and believe and the values they hold. It shapes everything people have and do. Many cultures approach health and illness in completely different ways from one another, often informed by a number of societal factors. Medical anthropology provides a framework for common study and comparison between cultures, highlighting systems and illustrating how culture determines how health is perceived.
History of Medical Anthropology
While medical anthropology is a relatively new subfield, it has deep roots within four-field American anthropology, with a strong connection to early European anthropologists’ study of religion. The holistic approach of Franz Boas was also key to the development of medical anthropology. One focus of Boas’s research was analysis of the “race theory” common in the 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States. According to this theory, one’s assigned racial category and ethnic background determined certain physical features as well as behavioral characteristics. Boas challenged this assumption through studies of the health and physiology of immigrant families in New York City in 1912. Boas found that there was a great deal of flexibility in human biological characteristics within an ethnic group, with social factors such as nutrition and child-rearing practices playing a key role in determining human development and health. He noted that cultural changes to nutrition and child-rearing practices, changes that are commonly a part of the immigrant experience, were linked to generational changes in biology. Boas provided empirical data from his own primary sources that refuted theories of biological inheritance as the source of social behaviors and revealed the impact of local environments (natural, modified, and social) in structuring cultural and physical outcomes. This foundation was starkly opposed to the inherent racism of social evolutionism, which was the dominant anthropological theory of his time.
Boas’s students, such as Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, and Edward Sapir, all continued aspects of his work, taking their research in unique directions that affect medical anthropology to this day. Benedict’s cultural personality studies, Mead’s work on child-rearing practices and adolescence, and Sapir’s work on psychology and language laid the foundations of psychological anthropology. Their foray into psychological anthropology was preceded by the work of British psychiatrist and anthropologist W. H. R. Rivers (1901), who studied the inheritance of sensory capabilities and disabilities among Melanesian populations while participating in the Torres Strait island expedition in 1898. He developed a great respect for his Melanesian research participants and utilized his research findings to denounce the “noble savage” fallacy. By demonstrating that a shared biological mechanism of inheritance and environmental influences shaped the Melanesian senses in the same way as it did the British, he illustrated that their mental capacity was the same as Europeans.
Medical anthropology also has roots in the anthropology of religion, a subfield of anthropology that shines a lens on many aspects of health. The anthropology of religion looks at how humans develop and enact spiritual beliefs in their daily lives and at how these beliefs are utilized as a form of social control. A number of commonly studied key frameworks of the anthropology of religion—rituals of healing, taboos of health, shamanic healing, health beliefs, cultural symbolism, and stigma, among them—focus on health and health outcomes. A number of notable early religious anthropologists, including E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Victor and Edith Turner, and Mary Douglas, did work on subjects such as healing rituals, misfortune and harm, pollution, and taboo. Evans-Pritchard’s work among the Azande people of North Central Africa continues to be foundational to medical anthropology. Especially important is the chapter “The Notion of Witchcraft Explains Unfortunate Events” from the book
Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande
, which introduces the domain of causation and its many cross-cultural forms. This chapter directly impacted the concept of explanatory models, which we will cover in depth later in this chapter. The work of Victor and Edith Turner focused on ritual healing, pilgrimage, and socially enforced morality. Mary Douglas’s
Purity and Danger
([1966] 2002) examined the concepts of pollution and taboo as well as rituals designed to restore purity. Her work continues to be influential, particularly for medical anthropologists focused on sickness-related stigma and its impact on patients’ illness experiences.
World War II brought about a profound change in the way anthropologists did their work. A number of Boas’s students helped the British and United States governments during the war, a trend that continued after the war. Focusing on both public and private health initiatives, anthropologists increasingly worked to help people improve their health outcomes in the post-war era. These public health efforts were directly connected with the founding of the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO). In this period, well-being and health care were included in the declaration of human rights, and biomedical thinking became focused on “conquering” infectious disease.
The formal founding of the discipline of medical anthropology can be traced to the late 1970s. One landmark is the publication of George Foster and Barbara Anderson’s (1978) medical anthropology textbook. However, many applied anthropologists and researchers in allied health fields, such as social epidemiology and public health, had been conducting cross-cultural health studies since the conclusion of World War II. These include Edward Wellin, Benjamin Paul, Erwin Ackerknecht, and John Cassell. Many of these early figures were themselves medical doctors who saw the limitations of a strictly biomechanical approach to health and disease.
Profiles in Anthropolgy
Paul Farmer, 1959–present, Jim Yong Kim, 1959–present
Personal Histories:
Paul Farmer is a medical anthropologist and physician who first visited Haiti in 1983 as a volunteer. Inspired by this experience, Farmer set out to find a way to bring necessary treatments to parts of the world seemingly forgotten by modern medicine. When Harvard Medical School began offering a dual PhD/MD program, Farmer was among the first enrolled, and he soon founded Partners in Health (PIH) with his colleagues. Since then, he has championed affordable health care around the world. He is currently a professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, while still being actively involved in Partners in Health. Farmer has written extensively on the AIDS epidemic, infectious diseases, and health equity. In 2003, Farmer was the subject of Tracy Kidder’s book
Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World,
which is an accessible account of Farmer’s work with Partners in Health. Farmer is married to Didi Bertrand Farmer, a Haitian medical anthropologist. They have three children.
Like Farmer, Jim Yong Kim was one of the first to enroll in Harvard Medical’s dual medical anthropology PhD/MD program. He was a cofounder of Partners in Health while still in medical school, at a time when he was spending his summers in Haiti treating patients with limited access to health care. He championed the initial expansion of PIH into other countries, beginning with Peru. In 2003 Kim left Partners in Health to join the World Health Organization, becoming director of HIV/AIDs treatments and research in 2004. Under Kim, the WHO has fast-tracked a number of new treatments to help those affected by AIDS in Africa. Kim was the president of Dartmouth College from 2009 until 2012, when he became president of the World Bank. He held this position until 2019, when he left to join Global Infrastructure Partners.
Area of Anthropology:
medical anthropology, applied anthropology
Accomplishments in the Field:
Partners in Health was founded in 1987 by a group including Farmer and Kim, with the goal of setting up a clinic in Haiti to combat the devastation of the AIDS epidemic. Made up of volunteers, philanthropists, and medical students trained in anthropological methodology, the organization sought to combat the AIDS epidemic at a time when governments refused to adequately fund efforts to combat what was then perceived as a “gay disease.” By the mid-1990s, PIH was offering patients in Haiti treatments that cost hundreds of dollars, as opposed to the tens of thousands of dollars they would have cost in the United States. They have since duplicated this work in other settings, and their methods have been used by countless nonprofits around the world to offer life-saving treatments to impoverished communities.
Importance of Their Work:
Partners in Health works today in 11 countries, with a staff of over 18,000 spread across the globe. They build hospitals, health clinics, and research labs aimed at improving medical treatment and creating a more equitable global health care system. Their model has been replicated by countless organizations around the world to bring down the cost of health care and increase the quality of the care given.
Since the 1980s, medical anthropologists have diversified the field through interdisciplinary applications of anthropology and the applied use of medical anthropology in health care and government policy. The role of the anthropologist in this work often varies but is typically focused on translating cultural nuance and biomedical knowledge into policy and human-centered care. Today, the field of medical anthropology includes applied anthropologists working in medical settings, nonprofits, and government entities such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the WHO. Academic medical anthropologists are problem-oriented researchers who study the complex relationship between human culture and health. As can be seen in the lives and careers of the medical anthropologists highlighted in this chapter’s profiles, medical anthropologists frequently occupy both academic and applied roles throughout their career as they seek to apply insights from their research to effect positive change in the lives of those they study.


5.6: Documentation
Sample Documentation:
11/17/20XX 1030
The NG tube insertion procedure was explained to the client. Prior to the NG tube insertion, hypoactive bowel sounds were present in all 4 quadrants, and the abdomen was slightly distended with no tenderness noted upon palpation. Client reported nausea and bloating. A 14 French, Salem NG tube was inserted via the left nostril at 1008 on 11/17/20XX. Placement was verified by X-ray and then the NG tube was attached to low intermittent suction as ordered. Tube was secured to the nose with exit point at 53 cm. Gastric drainage was pale green with pH of 4. Client tolerated the procedure without complication and reports decreased nausea. Client is resting comfortably in bed with no complaints of pain.
Jaimie Salvator, RN


2.8: Motions of Satellites and Spacecraft
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Explain how an object (such as a satellite) can be put into orbit around Earth
- Explain how an object (such as a planetary probe) can escape from orbit
Newton’s universal law of gravitation and Kepler’s laws describe the motions of Earth satellites and interplanetary spacecraft as well as the planets. Sputnik, the first artificial Earth satellite, was launched by what was then called the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. Since that time, thousands of satellites have been placed into orbit around Earth, and spacecraft have also orbited the Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and a number of asteroids and comets.
Once an artificial satellite is in orbit, its behavior is no different from that of a natural satellite, such as our Moon. If the satellite is high enough to be free of atmospheric friction, it will remain in orbit forever. However, although there is no difficulty in maintaining a satellite once it is in orbit, a great deal of energy is required to lift the spacecraft off Earth and accelerate it to orbital speed.
To illustrate how a satellite is launched, imagine a gun firing a bullet horizontally from the top of a high mountain, as in Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\), which has been adapted from a similar diagram by Newton. Imagine, further, that the friction of the air could be removed and that nothing gets in the bullet’s way. Then the only force that acts on the bullet after it leaves the muzzle is the gravitational force between the bullet and Earth.
If the bullet is fired with a velocity we can call \(v_a\), the gravitational force acting upon it pulls it downward toward Earth, where it strikes the ground at point \(a\). However, if it is given a higher muzzle velocity, \(v_b\), its higher speed carries it farther before it hits the ground at point \(b\).
If our bullet is given a high enough muzzle velocity, \(v_c\), the curved surface of Earth causes the ground to remain the same distance from the bullet so that the bullet falls around Earth in a complete circle. The speed needed to do this—called the circular satellite velocity—is about 8 kilometers per second, or about 17,500 miles per hour in more familiar units.
Each year, more than 50 new satellites are launched into orbit by such nations as Russia, the United States, China, Japan, India, and Israel, as well as by the European Space Agency (ESA), a consortium of European nations (Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\)). Today, these satellites are used for weather tracking, ecology, global positioning systems, communications, and military purposes, to name a few uses. Most satellites are launched into low Earth orbit, since this requires the minimum launch energy. At the orbital speed of 8 kilometers per second, they circle the planet in about 90 minutes. Some of the very low Earth orbits are not indefinitely stable because, as Earth’s atmosphere swells from time to time, a frictional drag is generated by the atmosphere on these satellites, eventually leading to a loss of energy and “decay” of the orbit.
Interplanetary Spacecraft
The exploration of the solar system has been carried out largely by robot spacecraft sent to the other planets. To escape Earth, these craft must achieve escape speed , the speed needed to move away from Earth forever, which is about 11 kilometers per second (about 25,000 miles per hour). After escaping Earth, these craft coast to their targets, subject only to minor trajectory adjustments provided by small thruster rockets on board. In interplanetary flight, these spacecraft follow orbits around the Sun that are modified only when they pass near one of the planets.
As it comes close to its target, a spacecraft is deflected by the planet’s gravitational force into a modified orbit, either gaining or losing energy in the process. Spacecraft controllers have actually been able to use a planet’s gravity to redirect a flyby spacecraft to a second target. For example, Voyager 2 used a series of gravity-assisted encounters to yield successive flybys of Jupiter (1979), Saturn (1980), Uranus (1986), and Neptune (1989). The Galileo spacecraft, launched in 1989, flew past Venus once and Earth twice to gain the energy required to reach its ultimate goal of orbiting Jupiter.
If we wish to orbit a planet, we must slow the spacecraft with a rocket when the spacecraft is near its destination, allowing it to be captured into an elliptical orbit. Additional rocket thrust is required to bring a vehicle down from orbit for a landing on the surface. Finally, if a return trip to Earth is planned, the landed payload must include enough propulsive power to repeat the entire process in reverse.
Key Concepts and Summary
The orbit of an artificial satellite depends on the circumstances of its launch. The circular satellite velocity needed to orbit Earth’s surface is 8 kilometers per second, and the escape speed from our planet is 11 kilometers per second. There are many possible interplanetary trajectories, including those that use gravity-assisted flybys of one object to redirect the spacecraft toward its next target.
Glossary
- escape speed
- the speed a body must achieve to break away from the gravity of another body
Contributors and Attributions
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Andrew Fraknoi (Foothill College), David Morrison (NASA Ames Research Center), Sidney C. Wolff (National Optical Astronomy Observatory) with many contributing authors. Textbook content produced by OpenStax College is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 license. Download for free at https://openstax.org/details/books/astronomy ).


14.2: §92. General Principles of Latin Compounds
Most Latin compound words and their derivatives can be divided into two classes:
- In DESCRIPTIVE compounds, the first element (usually an adjective) describes the second (usually a noun). A good example is aequ-i-libr-ium (E equilibrium ), where the first base is the adjective aequus (“even”) and the second is the noun libra (“balance”). Another is mult-i-later-alis (E multilateral ), where the first base is the adjective multus (“many”) and the second is the noun latus , lateris (“side”). The English compound adjective many-sided corresponds closely to multilateral.
- In DEPENDENT compounds, the first element (typically a noun or adjective) is dependent on the second (usually a verb). For example, carn-i-vor-a (E carnivora, carnivores ) are “eaters of flesh,” and a con-i-fer (E conifer ) is a “bearer of cones.”
It doesn’t seem very profitable deciding whether a Latin compound is descriptive or dependent, since we don’t worry about these academic distinctions in English (where housemaid is descriptive, but housecleaner dependent; homemade descriptive, but homemaker dependent). In practical terms, it is more important to observe how Latin compounds are formed: the two bases are linked by a CONNECTING VOWEL , almost always -i- . That is a principle that was followed throughout the history of Latin, and is still observed today when new Latin loan-words are coined in science or medicine. In some old Latin compounds—especially numerical compounds—a different connecting vowel can be seen, like the -u- in quadr-u-ped (“four foot”). Normally, however, it will be -i- . No such vowel is needed if there is already a vowel at the juncture of the two bases; therefore magn-anim-us (E magnanimous ), “great-spirited,” aequ-anim-itas (E equanimity ), “level-mindedness,” and bene-fact-or (“well-doer”).


2.1.1: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
We all need oxygen, food, water, sleep, and a safe shelter. We all also have psychosocial needs, which involve our social, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual needs. These needs may differ from one person to the next; but we all have them. When our needs go unmet, we may react in different ways. Some people become depressed, some anxious, some afraid, and some may even become angry and lash out at the people around them. When people become stressed, their physical health also is affected, and physical problems that could lead to illness may develop.
Without meeting basic human needs, a person cannot develop to their fullest potential. Home Health Aides/Personal Care Aides are in a unique position to help the people they work with. These individuals help them to meet their physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual needs so that patients can live to their fullest potential.
Abraham Maslow was a researcher of human behavior. He developed the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. This model shows us the importance of the physical and psychosocial needs of humans. The needs are arranged in a hierarchy, which means they are arranged in order of importance. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is arranged in what looks like a pyramid made up of five levels of needs. Maslow believed that people must meet the needs at the bottom of the hierarchy before they can successfully meet the next higher up need.
These needs include: Physical Needs, Safety and Security Needs, Need for Love and Belonging, Need for Self-esteem, and Need for Self-actualization. Let’s explore what each of these levels means and how Home Health Aides/Personal Care Aides can help their patients achieve their needs at each level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Physical Needs
At the most basic levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs are our physical needs. These needs include oxygen, food, activity, sleep, and elimination. These are the basic needs humans must meet in order to survive. Maslow believed that these needs must be met first before a person can go on to meet other needs, such as their psychosocial needs. Home Health Aides/Personal Care Aides, work to help their patients meet their basic physical needs. They assist them in completing Activities of Daily Living (ADLs), such as eating, drinking, toileting, bathing, and grooming. Taking vital signs, shopping for and preparing food for their patient, and measuring intake and output are other important tasks that Home Health Aides/Personal Care Aides do to help patients meet their physical needs.
Safety and Security Needs
After meeting our basic physical needs, according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs we must have our safety and security needs met. This includes having a safe place to live and to not feeling afraid within our homes, or of the people around us. Home Health Aides/Personal Care Aides work within the patient’s environment to make their home safe so that their patient feels safe. This means they will need to ensure that there are no hazards in the patient’s home such as clutter or loose rugs that could cause a patient to slip, trip, or fall. Checking to ensure safety and grab bars are secure to the wall and that non-slip tub mats and shower chairs are used ensures a safe environment for their patient. Keeping the patient’s home clean and free from dirt by completing tasks such as laundry, vacuuming, and cleaning, maintains a safe environment for their patient. Ensuring that their patients properly use assistive devices such as canes and walkers also ensures their safety. Helping patients to meet their safety needs also includes taking care to properly wash hands and to wear gloves as appropriate, in order to prevent the spread of infection. When people are sick or who may not be as independent as they used to often feel afraid. The job of a Home Health Aide/Personal Care Aide is to help them feel secure by reassuring them, being patient when they try to complete tasks on their own, and being competent (good) in the tasks they complete.
Need for Love and Belonging
Once people have met their physical and safety/security needs, the need for love and belonging is the next important level in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in order for us to grow and flourish as humans. This need includes feeling that we are loved and cared for. Humans need to feel important to other people and to feel that they are a part of something, such as a family or community.
For Home Health Aides/Personal Care Aides, the way they care for their patients demonstrates to them that they care for and about them. This means being patient, kind, compassionate, understanding, trustworthy and accepting the patient’s thoughts, feelings, and uniqueness, even if they do not agree with them.Home Health Aides/Personal Care Aides can ask patients to share their memories and stories with them to help the patient recognize the importance they have in others’ lives.Family is an important part of a patient’s life and helps them to meet their need for love and belonging. We all have different views of what “family” means to us. Individuals must be careful not to judge who a patient considers part of their family. Family means everyone the patient sees as part of their family. Include the patient’s family in their care if they wish for them to be involved.
Spirituality and religious practices may also be important parts of the patient’s life. Helping patients meet their spiritual and religious needs may help them to cope with an illness or disability. Remember that each of us has our own unique spiritual and religious views. It is important not to judge the beliefs of others and to allow the patient to practice what they believe. If a patient has particular dietary restrictions due to their religious belief, a Home Health Aide/Personal Care Aide must be sure to accommodate these. They must also allow their patient to have privacy to pray, practice religious rituals, and to have time for clergy visits. If asked, they may read aloud religious materials and sit with their patient as they pray. A person does not have to believe in their particular religion in order to be respectful and to support a patient’s beliefs.
Need for Self-esteem
The need for self-esteem is the next level in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Self–esteem involves valuing and respecting oneself. Self-esteem comes from within us, and from interactions and feedback from other people. When people become sick, injured, or disabled, their self-esteem may be affected. They may not see themselves the way they used to.They may have concerns about their appearance or physical disability. They may feel that others do not see them as a whole person. They may worry that others see them less than they used to be or what they could be due to limitations from their physical or mental disability. A Home Health Aide/Personal Care Aide can help patients to accept physical changes by demonstrating acceptance. This means they must watch their body language while caring for patients. There may be situations where a patient has an injury or wound which may be difficult to look at. It is important to remember that the patient is watching for a reaction. Showing that they are okay with the patient’s physical changes will tell the patient that they are accepted exactly the way they are.
It is important to treat each patient as a unique individual with talents and strengths. Sometimes, people forget that they still have value as a person when they are sick. Home Health Aides/Personal Care Aides should get to know their patients to find out who they are as a person. Understanding their patients will allow the Home Health Aides/Personal Care Aides to help the patients see how valued they are. Home Health Aides/Personal Care Aides can also help to increase a patient’s self-esteem by allowing them to be as independent as possible, providing encouragement when they are doing a task they have difficulty with, and giving praise when they are successful. Demonstrating that they value the patient’s feelings, values, and their beliefs also helps to increase a patient’s self-esteem.
Need for Self-actualization
The need for self–actualization is the highest level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Self-actualization means that we try to be the best person that we can be and try to reach our full potential. We each have different views of what being our best person means and what reaching our full potential means. It is important to remember to respect a patient’s thoughts and goals. The goals that we each set often change throughout our lives and may change as a result of experiencing an injury, illness, or disability. As a Home Health Aide/Personal Care Aide, it is important to accept others the way they are. Home Health Aides/Personal Care Aides are also in a position to help their patients work to accept themselves and to set and work towards new goals.It is important to remember that what a HHA/PCA views as a good goal may be different from the goal the patient wants to set. Using good communication skills is important to help patients work towards realistic and achievable goals.
Match the HHA/PCA’s task to the appropriate level of Maslow’s Hierarchy
| Task | Level of Maslow’s Hierarchy |
| 1. Allow a patient time to pray before they eat if they want | a. Physical Needs |
| 2. Assist with eating and dressing | b. Safety/security Needs |
| 3. Help a patient to set and meet their goal of putting their shoes on independently | c. Love/Belonging Needs |
| 4. Teach a patient to correctly use their walker | d. Self-esteem Needs |
| 5, Giving praise to a patient when they can do a task such as put on their shoes, which they have not been able to do since injured | e. Self-actualization Needs |
Solution
1). C
2). A
3). E
4). B
5). D
Feedback :
1. Allowing a patient time to pray before they eat helps a patient meet their Love/Belonging Needs. As humans, we all have a need to belong to a community and to feel connected to people and things outside of ourselves. Praying allows a patient to maintain a connection with their religious beliefs and community.
2. Assisting a patient with eating and dressing helps to meet basic physical needs of obtaining food and protecting their bodies with clothing. Helping patients complete ADLs is an important task of the HHA/PCA.
3. A HHA/PCA can assist a patient meet their goals by encouraging independence. Goals will vary by patient and change throughout our lives. They can be affected by illness and disability. Goals we set for ourselves can help us be the best we can be. This helps to ensure Self-actualization Needs.
4. Meeting a patient’s Safety/Security Needs is an important task of the HHA/PCA. Teaching a patient how to use ambulation devices (e.g. walkers and canes) helps to ensure their safety and reduce the risk of injury to the patient.
5. Providing praise and encouragement for completion of any task, no matter how small allows the HHA/PCA to help patients meet their Self-esteem Needs.


4.6: Communication Competence
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In this section, we will discuss self-presentation, ways in which identities are contextual, and the importance of reflecting on your self-concept.
Effective Communication: Self-Presentation
Consciously and competently engaging in self-presentation can have benefits because we can provide others with a more positive and accurate picture of who we are and in doing so better achieve our communication goals. People who are skilled at impression management are typically more engaging and confident, which allows others to pick up on more cues from which to form impressions (Human et al., 2012).
There are two main types of self-presentation: prosocial and self-serving (Sosik, Avolio, & Jung, 2002). Prosocial self-presentation entails behaviors that present a person as a role model and make a person more likable and attractive. For example, a supervisor may call on her employees to uphold high standards for business ethics, model that behavior in her own actions, and compliment others when they exemplify those standards. Self-serving self-presentation entails behaviors that present a person as highly skilled, willing to challenge others, and someone not to be messed with. For example, a supervisor may publicly take credit for the accomplishments of others or publicly critique an employee who failed to meet a particular standard. In summary, prosocial strategies are aimed at benefiting others, while self-serving strategies benefit the self at the expense of others.
In general, we strive to present a public image that matches up with our self-concept, but we can also use self-presentation strategies to enhance our self-concept (Hargie, 2011). When we present ourselves in order to evoke a positive evaluative response, we are engaging in self-enhancement. In the pursuit of self-enhancement, a person might try to be as appealing as possible in a particular area or with a particular person to gain feedback that will enhance one’s self-esteem. Self-enhancement can be productive and achieved competently, or it can be used inappropriately. Using self-enhancement behaviors just to gain the approval of others or out of self-centeredness may lead people to communicate in ways that are perceived as phony or overbearing and end up making an unfavorable impression (Sosik, Avolio, & Jung, 2002).
Contextual Communication: Identity and Context
We all have what is called our primary and secondary identities. Our primary identities are said to be consistent and are comprised of factors that we usually cannot change, such as ethnicity, race, and gender. While these identities are usually permanent, our awareness of them and the degree to which we acknowledge or align with them changes based on the context. For example, a woman may not really focus on this identity when in a room full of other women, but it may suddenly become salient when she is the only woman in a room full of men.
Secondary identities, on the other hand, are more fluid, dependent, and dynamic. Factors that make up our secondary identities include occupation, relationship status, and the various roles we occupy. For example, you may be a student, office manager, janitor, mother, brother, wife, husband, single, etc. As with our primary identities, the salience of secondary identities also changes based on context. Right now, as you are reading this and when you are in the classroom, you are enacting your identity of student, learner, or scholar. However, once you leave the classroom you may switch to another identity, such as a parent. While you are still a student (and vice versa still a parent while in the classroom), this identity is placed on the ‘back burner’ and another comes to forefront.
Based on the context, we should be flexible in what identity we enact and may need to shift or highlight one particular identity versus another. This, in turn, will influence your communication and interactions. For example, when you are a student in the classroom you may sit at your desk, answer questions when asked, and discuss communication-related topics.  Issues may occur if we do not adapt our identity to the situation. For example, we may enact a particular identity with a group of friends that manifests itself in dressing and speaking a particular way, but enacting this identity in the workplace could have negative repercussions. While it’s important to feel authentic and ‘true to ourselves’, it is also important to realize that who we are is dynamic and changes based on the context. In order to better meet your goals, consider communicating aspects of your identities that are appropriate to the context.
Reflective Communication: Reflecting on your Identity
As we learned earlier in this chapter, our self-concept and self-esteem influence how we communicate and interact with the world around us. Because of this, it is necessary to reflect on these aspects of our self-perception and how they influence our thoughts, actions, and relationships in both positive and negative ways. In particular, it is important to be aware of self-fulfilling prophecies.
Self-fulfilling prophecies are thought and action patterns in which a person’s false belief triggers a behavior that makes the initial false belief actually or seemingly come true (Guyll et al., 2010). The concept of self-fulfilling prophecies was originally developed to be applied to social inequality and discrimination, but it has since been applied in many other contexts, including interpersonal communication. This research has found that some people are chronically insecure, meaning they are very concerned about being accepted by others but constantly feel that other people will dislike them. This can manifest in relational insecurity, which is based on feelings of inferiority resulting from social comparison with others perceived to be more secure and superior. Such people often end up reinforcing their belief that others will dislike them because of the behaviors triggered by their irrational belief. Take the following scenario as an example: An insecure person assumes that their date will not like them. During the date they don’t engage in much conversation, discloses negative information about themselves, and exhibits anxious behaviors. Because of these behaviors, their date forms a negative impression and suggests they not see each other again, reinforcing the original belief that the date wouldn’t like them.
The example shows how a pattern of thinking can lead to a pattern of behavior that reinforces the thinking, and so on. Luckily, experimental research shows that self-affirmation techniques can be successfully used to intervene in such self-fulfilling prophecies. Thinking positive thoughts and focusing on personality strengths can stop this negative cycle of thinking and has been shown to have positive effects on academic performance, weight loss, and interpersonal relationships (Stinston et al., 2011).


1: Medieval and Renaissance Last updated Save as PDF Page ID 72478 Elliott Jones Santa Anna College 1.1: Medieval and Renaissance Playlist 1.2: Introduction to Music in the Middle Ages 1.3: Slideshow- Music in the Middle Ages 1.4: Medieval Music Overview 1.5: Gregorian Chant 1.6: Hildegard of Bingen 1.7: Organum 1.8: Perotinus (Pérotin) 1.9: Cantus Firmus 1.10: Secular Music—Troubadours 1.11: Introduction to the Elements of Music 1.12: Beatriz, Countess of Dia 1.13: Guillaume de Machaut 1.14: Examples of Medieval Music 1.15: Introduction to Music in the Renaissance 1.16: Slideshow- Music in the Renaissance 1.17: Renaissance Music Overview 1.18: The Printing Press 1.19: Imitation 1.20: Motet 1.21: Josquin des Prez 1.22: Slideshow- The Elements of Music 1.23: Protestant Reformation 1.24: Counter-Reformation 1.25: Giovannia Pierluigi da Palestrina 1.26: Italian Madrigal 1.27: Claudio Monteverdi 1.28: The English Madrigal 1.29: Thomas Weelkes 1.30: Renaissance Dances 1.31: Tips for the Listening Exam 1.32: Slideshow- Form 1.33: A Historical Approach to the Elements of Music 1.34: Melody 1.35: Rhythm 1.36: Meter in Music 1.37: Yale Lecture on Rhythm and Meter 1.38: Texture


3.2: Assyria
The Assyrian Culture
The Assyrian and Neo-Assyrian capitals of Nimrud, Dur-Sharrukin, and Nineveh are known today for their ruins of great palaces and fortifications.
Describe the key aspects of the Assyrian capitals of Nimrud, Dur-Sharrukin, and Nineveh
Key Points
- Nimrud, also known as Kalhu, was the Assyrian capital from the thirteenth century BCE until 706 BCE. Ashurnasirpal II made the city famous when he built a large palace and temples on top of ancient ruins c. 880 BCE.
- Dur-Sharrukin was a single-period site; therefore, few individual objects were found. The primary discoveries shed light on Assyrian art and architecture.
- Nineveh, the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire , rose to greatness under Sennacherib . He laid out new streets and squares and built within it the famous “palace without a rival”, the plan of which has been mostly recovered.
Key Terms
- Obelisk :A tall, square, tapered, stone monolith topped with a pyramidal point, frequently used as a monument.
- ziggurat :A temple tower of the ancient Mesopotamian valley, having the form of a terraced pyramid of successively receding stories.
Nimrud and Ashurnasirpal II
Nimrud is an ancient Assyrian city located in southern, modern Iraq on the River Tigris. In ancient times the city was called Kalhu. The ruins of the city are found some 30 kilometers (19 miles) southeast of Mosul.
The Assyrian king Shalmaneser I made Nimrud, which existed for about a thousand years, the capital in the thirteenth century BCE. The city gained fame when king Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria (c. 880 BCE) built a large palace and temples on the site of an earlier city that had long fallen into ruins. Nimrud housed as many as 100,000 inhabitants and contained botanic gardens and a zoologic garden. Ashurnasirpal’s son, Shalmaneser III (858–824 BCE), built the monument known as the Great Ziggurat and an associated temple. The palace, restored as a site museum, is one of only two preserved Assyrian palaces in the world. The other is Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh. Nimrud remained the Assyrian capital until 706 BCE when Sargon II moved the capital to Dur-Sharrukin, but it remained a major center and a royal residence until the city was completely destroyed in 612 BCE when Assyria succumbed under the invasion of the Medes.
Excavations at Nimrud in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries revealed remarkable bas- reliefs, ivories , and sculptures . A statue of Ashurnasirpal II was found in an excellent state of preservation , as were colossal winged man-headed lions, each guarding the palace entrance. The large number of inscriptions pertaining to king Ashurnasirpal II provide more details about him and his reign than are known for any other ruler of this epoch.
Portions of the site have been also been identified, such as temples to Ninurta and Enlil, a building assigned to Nabu (the god of writing and the arts), and extensive fortifications. Furthermore, the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, discovered in 1846, stands six-and-a-half-feet tall and commemorates the king’s victorious campaigns from 859–824 BCE. It is shaped like a temple tower at the top, ending in three steps.
On one panel, Israelites led by king Jehu of Israel pay tribute and bow in the dust before king Shalmaneser III, who is making a libation to his god. The cuneiform text on the obelisk reads “Jehu the son of Omri” and mentions gifts of gold, silver, lead, and spear shafts . The “Treasure of Nimrud” unearthed in these excavations is a collection of over 600 pieces of gold jewelry and precious stones.
Sargon II and Dur-Sharrukin
Dur-Sharrukin, or present day Khorsabad, was the Assyrian capital in the time of King Sargon II. Today, Khorsabad is now a village in northern Iraq, and is still inhabited by Assyrians. The construction of Dur-Sharrukin was never finished. Sargon, who ordered the project, was killed during a battle in 705. After his death, his son and successor Sennacherib abandoned the project and relocated the capital with its administration to the city of Nineveh.
Dur-Sharrukin was constructed on a rectangular layout. Its walls were massive, with 157 towers protecting its sides. Seven gates entered the city from all directions. A walled terrace contained temples and the royal palace. The main temples were dedicated to the gods Nabu, Shamash, and Sin, while Adad, Ningal, and Ninurta had smaller shrines. A ziggurat was also constructed at the site. The palace was adorned with sculptures and wall reliefs, with its gates flanked by winged-bull shedu statues weighing up to 40 tons. On the central canal of Sargon’s garden stood a pillared pleasure-pavilion which looked up to a great topographic creation—a man-made Garden Mound. This mound was planted with cedars and cypresses and modeled after the Amanus mountains in northern Syria.
The colossal bull statue (above) was uncovered outside the throne room. It was found split into three large fragments. The torso alone weighed about 20 tons. Since Dur-Sharrukin was a single-period site that was evacuated in an orderly manner after the death of Sargon II, few individual objects were found. The primary discoveries from Khorsabad shed light on Assyrian art and architecture.
Nineveh
Nineveh was an ancient Assyrian city on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, and the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Its ruins are across the river from the modern-day major city of Mosul in Iraq.
Today, Nineveh’s location is marked by two large mounds, Kouyunjik and Nabī Yūnus “Prophet Jonah,” and the remains of the city walls. These were fitted with fifteen monumental gateways which served as checkpoints on entering and exiting the ancient city, and were probably also used as barracks and armories. With the inner and outer doors shut, the gateways were virtual fortresses. Five of the gateways have been explored to some extent by archaeologists.
Nineveh was an important junction for commercial routes crossing the Tigris. Occupying a central position on the great highway between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, Nineveh united the East and the West, and received wealth from many sources. Thus, it became one of the oldest and greatest of all the region’s ancient cities, and the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The area was settled as early as 6000 BCE, and by 3000 BCE had become an important religious center for worship of the Assyrian goddess Ishtar.
It was not until the Neo-Assyrian Empire that Nineveh experienced a considerable architectural expansion. King Sennacherib is credited with making Nineveh a truly magnificent city during his rule (c. 700 BCE). He laid out new streets and squares and built within it the famous “palace without a rival”, the plan of which has been mostly recovered. It comprised at least 80 rooms, many of which were lined with sculpture. A large number of cuneiform tablets were found in the palace. The solid foundation was made out of limestone blocks and mud bricks. Some of the principal doorways were flanked by colossal stone-door figures that included many winged lions or bulls with the heads of men. The stone carvings in the walls include many battle and hunting scenes, as well as depicting Sennacherib’s men parading the spoils of war before him.
Nineveh’s greatness was short-lived. In around 627 BCE, after the death of its last great king Ashurbanipal, the Neo-Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter civil wars, and Assyria was attacked by the Babylonians and Medes. From about 616 BCE, in a coalition with the Scythians and Cimmerians, they besieged Nineveh, sacking the town in 612, and later razing it to the ground .
The Assyrian empire as such came to an end by 605 BC, with the Medes and Babylonians dividing its colonies between them. Following its defeat in 612, the site remained largely unoccupied for centuries with only a scattering of Assyrians living amid the ruins until the Sassanian period, although Assyrians continue to live in the surrounding area to this day.
Architecture in Assyria
Assyrian architecture eventually emerged from the shadow of its predecessors to assume distinctive attributes, such as domes and diverse building materials, that set it apart from other political entities.
Identify the distinguishing characteristics of Assyrian architecture
Key Points
- Inscriptions and reliefs produced under the Assyrian Empire depict structures with octagonal and circular domes , which were unique to the region at the time.
- Assyrian ziggurats eventually consisted of enameled walls and two towers.
- Massive fortified walls are a common attribute in Assyrian fortresses, pointing to the political instability of the time and the need for architectural defense.
- Architectural materials in the Assyrian empire were quite diverse, consisting of a variety of woods, stones, and metals.
Key Terms
- lamassu : A guardian figure consisting of the head of a human, massive wings, and the body of a lion or bull.
During the Assyrian Empire’s historical span from the 25th century BCE to 612 BCE, architectural styles went through noticeable changes. Assyrian architects were initially influenced by previous forms dominant in Sumer and Akkad. However, Assyrian structures eventually evolved into their own unique style.
Temples
Little is known of the construction of Assyrian temples with the exception of the distinctive ziggurats and massive remains at Mugheir. Ziggurats in the Assyrian Empire came to be built with two towers (as opposed to the single central tower of previous styles) and decorated with colored enameled tiles. Contemporaneous inscriptions and reliefs describe and depict structures with octagonal and circular domes, unique architectural systems for the time. Little remains of the temple at Mugheir, but the ruins of its base remain quite impressive, measuring 198 feet (60 m) long by 133 feet (41 m) wide by 70 feet (21 m) high.
Dur-Sharrukin
Building plans remained rectangular through much of the empire’s history. The fortress of Sargon II (reigned 722–705 BCE) at Dur-Sharrukin, or Khorsabad, was the best known. Consisting of a stone foundation punctuated by seven gates, the fortress housed the emperor’s palace and a ziggurat among massive load-bearing walls with regularly spaced towers.
Despite the intended political symbolism of Assyrian superiority, these fortified walls signify preparation for an attack by enemy invaders. Among the ornamental features excavated was a monumental lamassu outside the throne room. After the death of Sargon II, the site was abandoned.
Nimrud
Lamassu figures abounded throughout the Assyrian Empire, featuring in the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II (reigned 883-859 BCE) at Nimrud. Reconstructions show that they adorned the gateways of the palace, including an entrance marked by a round arch . According to contemporaneous inscriptions, the palace consisted of wood from a diverse number of tree species, alabaster , limestone , and a variety of precious metals. As with Dur-Sharrukin, the palace of Ashurnasirpal II was surrounded by fortified load-bearing walls.
Balawat Gates
Builders increasingly used wood, particularly cedar and cypress, in architecture. As a result, much of the architecture has decayed, leaving archaeologists to produce reconstructions for present-day scholars. One example is the Balawat Gates, from the Assyrian outpost of Balawat, or Imgur-Enlil. Two sets were commissioned during the reign of Ashurnasirpal II and one addition set under the reign of his son Shalmaneser III (859–824 BCE). Assyrian inscriptions suggest the gates were made of cedar. Experts estimate that the gates stood over 22 feet high. The metal bands that adorned the gates suggest that they measured 285 feet wide. Lacking hinges, the gates opened by turning enormous pine pillars that rotated in stone sockets. Despite the long-term fragility of wood, the scale of the gates and the mechanisms by which they opened and closed point to the political instability of the time and the need to defend all parts of the empire.
Artifacts of Assyria
Assyrian artifacts consist of a variety of media and range in size from hand-held to monumental.
Discuss artifacts that have been found from Assyria
Key Points
- The Assyrian Lion Weights and the Statue of Ashurnasirpal II represent rare examples of surviving Assyrian sculpture in the round .
- The Assyrian Lion Weights represent the importance of weights and measures and accommodation of more than one language.
- The Statue of Ashurnasirpal II, the lamassu reliefs , and the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III provide examples of art rich in political and religious symbolism .
- The Statue of Ashurnasirpal II and the lamassu reliefs provide examples of royal hairstyles and beard lengths.
Key Terms
- stylized :Art that is not naturalistic, yet not distorted enough to be abstract.
- sculpture in the round :A free-standing object that is usually meant to be viewed from multiple angles.
- relief :A sculpture that projects from a background.
- Obelisk :Four-sided monument that tapers with height and is usually capped by a pyramidal form.
- register :A usually horizontal band on an artwork that divides designs into logical patterns.
- bas relief :A sculpture with minimal projection from its background.
Artifacts produced during the Assyrian Empire range from hand-held to monumental and consist of a variety of media , from clay to bronze to a diversity of stone. While reliefs comprise the majority of what archaeologists have found, existing sculptures in the round shed light on Assyrian numerical systems and politics.
Assyrian Lion Weights
The Assyrian Lion Weights (800-700 BCE) are a group of solid bronze weights that range from two centimeters (approximately 0.8 inches) to 30 centimeters (approximately 12 inches). Admired as sculptures in the round today, the weights represent one of only two systems of weights and measures in the region at the time. This system was based on heavy mina (about one kilogram) and was used for weighting metals. Additionally, they bear inscriptions in Assyrian cuneiform and Phoenician script, indicating use by speakers of both languages. Eight lions in the set bear the only known inscriptions from the reign of Shalmaneser V (reigned 727-722 BCE).
Statue of Ashurnasirpal II
This magnesite (magnesium carbonate) sculpture of Ashurnasirpal II (9th century BCE) serves as a rare example of sculpture in the round produced during the Assyrian Empire. The kings stands stiffly with a sickle in his right hand (at his side) and a mace in his left, which he holds to his torso. Both objects are symbolic; the sickle was used as a weapon against monsters, while the mace was a symbol of political and religious authority. The inscription on his chest announce his genealogy, titles, and military triumphs. Although the sculpture is stylized , it gives the viewer a glimpse into fashion norms for rulers at the time. The length of the king’s hair and beard set him apart from commoners, who would have found such styles impractical.
Lamassu
The lamassu was a mythological guardian figure with large wings, the head of a human, and the body of a lion or a bull. Originally a protective spirit to the households of Babylonian commoners, the lamassu was later adopted by Assyrian royalty to protect political and religious interests. In Assyrian sculpture, lamassu figures bear similar beards and hairstyles to those of Ashurnasirpal II in the sculpture discussed above. These monumental sculptures usually appeared in relief form in pairs at major entrances to cities, palaces, or fortresses. Each lamassu directed its gaze toward one of the cardinal directions, which explains why some look straight ahead and others have their heads turned.
Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III
Erected during a time of civil war (825 BCE), the limestone Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III is the most intact Assyrian obelisk found to date. Each side consists of five registers of bas reliefs that celebrate the achievements of King Shalmaneser III (reigned 858-824 BCE). Three registers on each side focus on conquered kings from specific regions paying tribute to the Assyrian ruler. The registers at the top and bottom of each side bear an inscription from the annals of Shalmaneser III, celebrating his annual military campaigns.
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