A Trip to Find Psychology in Business

A trip to find psychology in business

         Since I am a business student, I am really curious about how psychology is applied to business.After studying two theories in learning,classical conditioning and operant conditioning,I started to pay more attention to the business skills such as advertisement,coupon,giving small gifts.I find that these two types of learning are closely associated with some business skills.

I remember when I was in kindergarten,one of the happiest things was going to Mcdonald`s.My friends and I were deeply attracted by the “Happy Meal” which is specially designed for children.Actually,the food in Mcdonald`s is not the most delicious,but why children love it that crazily?I think there may be some factors closely connected with the food that motivate children to go to Mcdonald`s.

Then,I thougt of the theory I have just learnt--classial conditioning.According to Pavlov,classical conditiong is learning to elicit an involutionary response to a stimulus other than the oringinal stimulus that naturally produces the response.(Ciccarelli﹠White,2015)Our emotion can also be conditioned. The emotional response resulting from the association of a relatively neutral stimulus with a happy,pleased,fear-inducing unconditional stimulus. As a result, the former neutral stimulus elicits above emotion.Therefore,I supposed that it was the adorable toy and attractive advertisement that generate an emotional response in children such as pleasure,love.With pairing the toys with foods,emotional response becomes associated with the food. So,when children see the food,they will respond in the same emotion as the response of toys.

        To verify my supposition,I emailed my teacher in primary school who is teaching year 2 students to help me make a survey on the reason why children love Mcdonald`s.The result shows that  63﹪of them  love Mcdonald`s due to the cute toys.27﹪of them think the fast food in Mcdonald`s is delicious.10﹪of them note that they are attracted by the advertisements.From the result of the survey,it`s obvious that the toys play a key role in selling food to children in Mcdonald`s.Mcdonald`s print the picture of the toys on the cover of the food,display the toys on the counter where you order the food.Such behaviors make toys closely connected with the food so that children will love MC at the first sight.

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 As well as using classical conditioning,some companies apply operant conditioning to their business skills.Operant conditiong is the process in which  behaviour is controlled by its consequences(Wade﹠Tavris,2012).According to Skinner,reinforcement can make response  more likely to happen again.Among the four types of schedule of reinforcement,the fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement and variable ratio schedule of reinforcement are frequently used in business skills.In fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement,the number of response will be the same number.Therefore,the quicklier you reach the number needed,the faster you will get the reinforcement.