A Christians Experience In A Mosque Religion Essay Example

A Christians Experience In A Mosque Religion Essay Example A Christians Experience In A Mosque Religion Essay A Christians Experience In A Mosque Religion Essay I am a Christian by personal religion, genetic sciences and through circumstance of being raised in the church. I have been a Christian so long that any other faith to me is of small concern to me personally. But, I do non state this to be average because I have many friends of different faiths, beliefs and races. Whatever they believe in is all right with me and frailty versa. I decided to travel to a mosque with my best friend since 4th class since she is a Muslim. I learned a batch more than I originally thought and this is my journey. Humama and I have been best friends since 4th class. My household and hers are close despite one being Christian and the other Muslim. To each other we are people, friends, and faith does non specify our relationship. I asked Humama to come with me to the mosque business district on King Street because I would experience more comfy being with person who knew what was traveling on. We decided to travel on a Friday, which is their holy twenty-four hours. Before go forthing her house in Goose Creek, we performed ritual called a Wudu. It is rinsing of organic structure parts of import to executing formal supplications, called Salah. She said that there is a station at the mosque for it, or they use a sink for it but it would be easier to make it before we left place. She gave me a bluish outfit to have on with a fiting head covering to cover everything from our carpuss to our mortise joints for modestness and regard. On the thrust business district, bundled up in a beautiful outfit wholly out of my normal signifier of dressing, I wondered how I would be greeted and how I would be changed by this. I have walked and drove past the mosque on King Street many times. After populating business district for about a twelvemonth, you would hold to be blind non to detect it. It sits at that place on the corner of King and Romney street, quiet and non architecturally designed like the mosques I have seen in images. It is simplistic in its design for its intent. We parked and walked to the mosque and I noticed people of different races come ining the mosque which surprised me. There were Blacks, White persons, and many people of Middle Eastern descent. There were immature people, old people and all seemed unified in their beliefs of Allah. We entered the mosque and entered a speedy supplication to bless the mosque. The supplication had non started yet, so Humama introduced me to other Muslims in the hallway. My anxiousness was easing slightly talking to others that did non look to mind I was at that place, despite being a Christian. Before come ining the existent mosque, Humama and I took off our places to demo another signifier of regard. Humama and I sat confronting Mecca, after talking for a few proceedingss to the others, she said we could offer other speedy supplications while waiting for the discourse to get down. I realized for the first clip that the work forces and adult females were separated in the mosque. The work forces were in the forepart and the adult females in the dorsum, though we could still see everything. I noticed that there were two rows of chairs and I saw that the disableds or work forces of importance sat at that place. I sat beside Humama thought, this is sort of unjust holding to sit all the manner in back and non among the work forces. In my church you sit anyplace, but I pulled the idea back, to non judge but take part in her religion. To acquire my head off it, I thought to myself that I truly enjoyed non holding my places on since I am slightly Bohemian. Humama informed me we were waiting for the Imam, the sermonizer and leader of the mosque, to come out and preach which is called the Pre-Prayer. She informed that the Imam would normally come out and give a discourse on whatever he wished to or state a spiritual narrative. He would subsequently in the discourse connect the significance of it to his discourse. I became a small impatient waiting for the Imam to come out, but she reassured me that he would be out shortly. After five more proceedingss he walked out and world eventually set in that I was wholly out of my deepness. The Imam, whose existent name is Mohamed Melhem did non look like a sermonizer to me. He seemed like a regular adult male yet easy to speak to. He began the discourse by welcoming everyone to the mosque and praising Allah. He was easy to listen to and to understand. He gave a discourse on functioning Allah and fasting. That by fasting you gain a closer relationship with Allah. Allah is at that place for us and there is merely one. Prayer should be consistent ( they pray five times per twenty-four hours ) and that the Quran is at that place to steer us. He spoke of being a Muslim in the universe, that all facets of being a Muslim should be retained one time go forthing the mosque. As a Muslim, your moralss and how you stick to them in the universe shows how Allah is working through you. I noticed that everyone seemed in awe and took in every word he said. They seemed wholly devoted to listening to the Imam speak about this, because by looking at them you could state some found themselves once more by being among equals like themselves. After completing the discourse, the Adhan or Azan, did a call to prayer. Everyone listened and moved frontward face down listening to the Azan pray. After the supplication was finished, some people continued to pray and others got up to socialise. The mosque offered nutrient to us to raise money for the mosque. The nutrient was similar to what I had eaten earlier at Humama s house and it was delightful. I do non retrieve the names of the nutrient, but it did non affair at the clip. Everyone socialized for about an hr and a half and some continued to talk about Allah, others about school and work. Some people were coming in late holding merely got off work to come in at the right clip to pray. Leaving the mosque, I felt a small different. The peace of praying with others who get along despite your race. The sacredness of go forthing the universe outside and happening yourself once more when come ining the mosque. Confronting Mecca and everyone praying in one way and at one clip. They all believe the same manner and it shows why they have such a strong community. No 1 is seeking to draw off and do their ain thing. It made me experience nearer to my ain God, and that it makes life easier cognizing that basically we all have the same belief in one God, despite the different ways we worship. I gained a closer relationship with my best friend and with my God and that truly changed me.

All The Saints Into A Short Film

overall length of the short film affects its structure, characterisation, plot and especially story. ‘The longer a short film lasts, the more the audience wants it to be a story. They want it to mean something.’ (Cowgill (2005 :9)). This means that shorter films, up to 5 minutes, are usually a comedy sketch with a punch line, such as in Knob, or a horror with a twist, like Selfie From Hell. The reveal or surprising ending seems to be common in the under 5 minute short, as the film has little time to†¦ All Saints day or Dia de los Santos is celebrated throughout the world and sometimes referred to in North America as the Day of the Dead or Dia de los Muertos. All Saints Day is a Catholic celebration on November 1st that celebrates all saints that have gone to heaven, and is followed by Souls day on November 2nd that celebrates all who has died (Catholic 2015). However, everyone throughout the world celebrates Saints Day and Souls Day differently with their own unique traditions. For instance,†¦ Rhetorical Analysis of â€Å"Smooth Talk: Short Story into Film† Joyce Carol Oates is an esteemed short story author with over forty novels, many of which have gone on to become films. Smooth Talk, one of such movies is based off of Oates’s short story, â€Å"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?† â€Å"Smooth Talk: Short Story into Film† is an essay response by Joyce Carol Oates to her short story and its movie counterpart in her book, (Woman) Writer: Occasions and Opportunities. The essay was published along†¦ The Hero’s Journey in Film: The Boondock Saints The idea of a clear and precise pattern that nearly all heroes follow is not something new. In fact, one of the most famous examples of a hero cycle is the one created by Joseph Campbell. In his world-renowned book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell sets up and explains how every hero follows the same basic path until he/she winds up back at the beginning and another cycle begins. â€Å"The mythical hero†¦is lured†¦to the threshold of adventure†¦journeys†¦ Animation films have a way of expanding one’s imagination in a way that ordinary films do not. The ability of the animated movies to make us understand and make a connection with a non-existent world is fascinating. Most animated films are created in imaginary environments, and the characters are created, creatures. This factor explains why some of the characters including animals are given human voices. Walt Disney Pictures produces movies that are meant to be enjoyed not only by children and teens†¦ Arguments can be expressed through verbal language, writing compositions, and visual designs. Director Jacob Kornbluth’s film Inequality for All is a visual argument, which allows for a stronger persuasive effect than by just using words alone. The film successfully advocates former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich’s economic idealisms and concerns. Due to the combination of video clips, pictures, and text, Reich is able to effectively communicate the argument that the gap in income inequality is†¦ No Justice for the Short-film Judgment Was Minnie Foster going to quilt it or knot it? When this question arose in the short story A Jury of Her Peers, two women were slowly piecing together Minnie Foster’s murder mystery, and when the dominant male characters overhear the women’s conversation, they merely scoffed and couldn’t seem to understand why the women were worried about ‘trivial things’. Little did they know, it was the ‘trivial things’ that gave clues to figuring out the motive for the†¦ â€Å"So that 's all. You come here, you look and leave?† Her voice was low and trembling, begging him to face her, but he just kept walking forward, â€Å"two years of my life and you just walk away! Face me, Caryll! Say something!† Her voice was a loud scream as she couldn 't contain herself anymore. Tears poured down her face as she turned from the view of the sunset to Caryll, her voice cracked and the tears glistened in the light as she struggled to catch her breath. Both her hands clenched the pendant†¦ Romantic love in Casablanca The film Casablanca is noted to be one of the most romantic films of all time. It inspires many and is held near and dear to our hearts. Casablanca continues to hold that place in history today. The art of romance is hidden amongst the film and shows us what a true classic love story is all about. The film Casablanca was released on November 26th, 1942 in the United States. It set a new benchmark for what we consider to be romance in film making. The romance in Casablanca†¦ The work that I want to propose is a short film. The film takes place in the future. The main character creates a doppelganger of himself by authorise and connect the robot to his cellphone. Through download and search the data that were stored in the digital device or been uploaded to the cloud, the doppelganger is able to conjecture and simulate how the main character communicate and react to others. Then the main character began to rely on the doppelganger and eventually been replaced by it.†¦

Homeland Security for the Port of Baltimore Essay

Homeland Security for the Port of Baltimore - Essay Example With so much at stake, it is no doubt crucial to consider all possible threats a place like Port Baltimore may be vulnerable to and be prepared with measures to ensure the safety of the city, the people involved, the property and the security of the whole country. Ports are crucial for both, the security of a country and its trade and economy, as they serve as terminals with access across its boundaries. This opens possibilities for infiltration of illegal activities and products along with the usual trade. Thus ports pose a great threat of certain hazards or sources of possible disaster to the city and the country if left improvised. Of the many threats that enable U.S agencies to take effective measures for the protection of the country’s resources and vulnerable assets, the threat of terrorism has the greatest power, especially in the post 9/11 era. The possibilities of terrorist attacks via shipping ports are innumerable. With only six percent of the nine million container s entering the U.S, (Medalia 2) and fourteen percent of the 140,000 containers at Baltimore being examined for explosives, (Davis and GormanSun), it is evident that these portals to the United States are pretty much available to terrorists wanting to strike. It would be fairly easy to hide explosives in the eight to nine feet high and twenty to forty feet long containers that are used to carry the cargo transported between ports. (Medalia 2) Apart from being easy and susceptible targets, they are also fairly attractive in terms of results for such terrorist groups as well. With inflammable material that can cause a minor explosion to spread over miles, even a ten to twenty kiloton bomb could cause a loss of more than $1.2 trillion from direct and indirect costs resulting from the damage of property and disruption of trade activity. (Medalia 2). The destruction could extend to a radius of one or two miles, thus affecting the city the port is in, resulting in a comprehensive disaster. (Medalia 3). Another equally hazardous threat to the U.S port is Drug smuggling, which was the number one priority before September 11, 2001. The failure in the prohibition of drugs infiltrating the country may result in indirect facilitation of terrorist activities and a larger impact on the society by fuelling crime and disease. (Loy 156). According to statistics provided by Interagency Assessment of Cocaine Movement, most of the transportation of illegal drugs is carried out through the sea. (Loy 157) The third effective threat to U.S coasts and ports is the possibility of damage and injury caused by the mishandling of hazardous materials that have the ability to contaminate and destroy not only cargo and property, but marine life and the environment. All this can inadvertently affect the economy by interference in trade and recreation activities around the water front as well as health of the citizens of the port city. Provided that the forces threatening the security of port t oday are much better equipped than they were a decade ago, it is necessary to maintain the efficiency of security systems in the context of developing technology and update methodologies to keep up with the unpredictable and surreptitious approach of the possible enemies of the state. (Pike) Coast guard and customs and Border protection are federal agencies with the strongest presence in seaports. After 9/11 coast guard has created the largest port

Tackling Childhood Obesity Research Proposal Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Tackling Childhood Obesity - Research Proposal Example When the behaviour is culminated in the community and family levels, the children also get to enter into these lifestyle cycles, sometimes inadvertently and sometimes due to lack of knowledge. It has been indicated in studies that dietary changes and schedules of daily activities lacking promotion of physical activities and lack of playtime activities are the reasons in cases of children (Edmunds et al., 2001). For example, in diets, fast foods have been included to a great extent. These contain items with high-fat and high-sugar contents. These mainly come from convenience items for family reasons. Work-roles in the families have led to a decrease in family meals. Outside the home environment, the patterns of dietary changes are also affecting food habits of the young. All studies have indicated the positive roles played by physical activity. Lack of physical activity has been implicated in children's weight gain in excess of what is ideal. Thus, there is a situation where the child ren are overweight or obese, and compounded to that there is a diminution of the physical activity in daily lives of the adolescents and the children (Reilly, 2006). Studies again indicated marked decline in schedules of physical activity in the middle school and high school schedules in children. This is more so in case of girls. This may be due to cutting down of physical education in school curricula. Additionally, there is increased use of television and computers, which decrease children's level of activities to a great extent leading to insufficient physical exercise (Brunt et al., 2008). The extent of obesity is assessed by classification in adults. However, it is difficult to assess the same in case of children by such classifications. For studies and research, given the problems in children, the prevalence is an important parameter to study. In research studies, classically this is measured in percentiles. Although there are legitimate criticisms, research literature has conventionally used body mass index. Consequently, there is a prescribed body mass index (BMI) for all ages, and 85th to 95th percentile of the standard BMI has been used as the landmark. This means children within this range will be considered at risk for being overweight. On the other hand, children who are beyond 95th percentile would be regarded overweight. It is evident that studies that involve at risk children as target population for intervention, would attempt to identify them, and in that context, these benchmarks could serve as effective identifiers. Once identified, these affected child ren may be intervened through designed public health measures with the objective and outcomes being prevention of future or existing obesity and reduction of complications and implications of obesity in them (Gibson et al., 2006). The global nature of this problem has already been mentioned, but the important parameter that this study attempts to address is launching the public health intervention at young age when the exposure to life style related risk

Misuse of Ritalin :: Drugs Argumentative Persuasive Topics

Misuse of Ritalin Kyle Carroll of Albany, New York was diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) when he was in the first grade. His teacher told his parents, Michael and Jill, that Kyle was too hyper and couldn't concentrate for long periods of time. Without even going to see a professional about Kyle's problem, Kyle was put on Ritalin. Immediately, his parents started to notice side effects on Kyle and when they tried to take their child off of the medication, the teacher threatened to call social services and lodge a complaint about child abuse (Karlin). Many families across America are faced with the problem of ADHD. In fact, approximately 4-million school aged children suffer from ADHD (Rowland). Many cases are misdiagnosed and over one million children take Ritalin who don't need it (Karlin). In 1939, Dr. C. Bradley first prescribed Methylphenidate, or Ritalin, as a stimulant to treat children with ADHD (Mann). ADHD is a brain disorder characterized by a short attention span, jumpiness, and impulsive behavior. To be diagnosed, the victim of the disease usually has gone to see an average of eleven doctors (Rowland). Ritalin is a risky drug. Taking this drug means having to take a dosage every four hours. Like any other medication, large doses can lead to addiction. At the end of the day, when the medication starts to wear off, mood swings occur and the sufferer becomes irritable. Side effects, which include insomnia, loss of appetite, stunted height, and irritability are brutal to the victim (Mann). Ritalin, if taken improperly, can increase a person's heartbeat and blood pressure. This can cause cardiac arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat) and premature death. If ADHD doesn't get treated correctly, or within the first couple of years, there are some serious long term consequences (Ciampa). Ritalin is also hitting the streets of college campuses under the names of "Vitamin R" and "R-Ball". College students are using this drug to improve concentration, so they can study longer, boost their alertness during major tests, and to help stay up all night. Selling and buying this drug is illegal, but anyone can find it on almost all of the campuses. College kids aren't the only ones who find this a booster.

Dramatic Impact in Act 3 of The Crucible Essay

There are many different ways/techniques in which miller creates dramatic impact in act 3. It all starts in the beginning when the play is set off-stage, ‘The room is empty’, which creates an air of mystery and make people hear and listen hard to what is going on. It also makes the audience/reader wonder who the new voices are (Hathorne and Danforth). Then when Giles roars into the court, ‘I have evidence for the court’, the audience who are so concentrated on hearing will immediately jolt and get a fright from the noise and there starts the drama. The dramatic structure of this act plays a key role in the dramatic impact/tension of the act. It starts off with a bang, then goes down in tension, then rises to another climax, continuously. An example of this is: in the beginning Giles roars into court, then this is questioning and explaining, ‘Your Excellency, I only said she were readin’ books†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ which lowers the tension then Fransis shws his deposition and the tension and expectation rises again. Most of the act rises and falls in this manner. This technique emphasizes the dramatic points in the play because it sort of isolates them between parts that aren’t so dramatic. All the little high drama points in the act are leading to the main one in the end. The 3 depositions, Nurse’s, Giles’s and Mary’s, create huge drama in the way that they are presented and out hopes are raises that the court will see justice and then turned down by the court for a small reason. For example: Giles deposition, which stated that Putnam was out for land, was turned down because he wouldn’t give the name of the witness, ‘Why, I-I can not give you his name’. This raising of our hopes then destroying them, continuously, mirrors the impact of the structure of the act. The mention and showing of each deposition creates high drama/tension and as each deposition is destroyed, the dram and our hopes go down. Another dramatic point in this act, of course, is the girls. When they start seeing â€Å"spirits†, ‘A wind, a cold wind, has come’ the tension is raised because the audience knows they are lying but doesn’t know if the court will believe it. They claim that Mary is threatening them with her spirit, ‘Why do you come yellow bird?’ and this threatens Proctor and Mary’s deposition. While the girls are constantly â€Å"seeing spirits† and â€Å"chanting†, they are luring Mary back into their grasp and Proctor notices this, ‘with a hysterical cry Mary Warren starts to run. Proctor catches her’ and this prompts a huge dramatic part in the act: Proctors confession. Knowing Proctors character as a law obeying man with a good reputation and wanting to keep it, this confession shocks the audience and is a big dramatic high. The beginning of the confession is the main shocker to the audience and the court, ‘How do you call Heaven! Whore! Whore!’. When the court decides to look further into Proctors claim of adultery, they call in Elizabeth, who Proctor says never lies. When she lies, presumably for the first time, this is another high point in the act. She, and the audience, realizes what she has done and everyone gets scared and fears the worst. The end is the most dramatic part of the play because Proctor says that he and Danforth are Evil, ‘I see his filthy face! And it is my face, and yours, Danforth’ and this surly means (to the audience) Proctor will be charged heavily. With the hero in jail, what is left for the rest of Salem? This is what the audience will ask themselves. Another part at the end of the act which shows drama is when Hale denounces the court because, as the main priest and witchcraft expert in this ‘trail’ he is supposed to be righteous and tells us that Hale is someone who now really believes the girls are lying. Not only the content of the act but also Millers development and introduction of the characters create dramatic impact. Two main once stand out as very dramatic are Danforth and Hale. The introduction of Danforth in this act, I would consider, is a dramatic point because he is quite stern and the audience no idea what to expect from him. Will he be fair? Will he side with Abigail? The audience is faced with a mystery. All the other characters have been mentioned before and we have an idea of who they are and what to expect from them. With Danforth, especially him being in a position of extreme power, it is dramatic that we don’t know what he is like. In the beginning of the play, we understood that Hale was a self important man who wanted to seem the hero and wasn’t afraid to cry witchery on someone. During this act, he is defensive and doesn’t exactly believe in all the ‘witches’. It is al if he thinks he has caused all this and wants to fix it. ‘Is every defense an attack upon the court?’, ‘Excellency, a moment. I think this goes to the heart of the matter’. He is starting to side more with Proctor in believing this is all the girls and they may have caused this. It his the last quote of Proctors sums up what is going on in act 3 and why it is so dramatic: ‘You are pulling Heaven down and raising up a whore!’. We, as the audience, know things the characters don’t (dramatic irony) and this is a great example. We know the girls are lying, but the court and many people don’t, they believe the ‘whore’ and not ‘heaven’ (the whore being Abigail and Heaven being truth and righteousness).

A Fresh Perspective Of Behavioural Finance Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 10 Words: 3013 Downloads: 9 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Argumentative essay Did you like this example? In the present times, investment decision making process is a very complex phenomenon for individuals. Theoretically speaking, investment decisions are guided by various economic models which regard man as Homo economicus who is rational in his economic choices. In reality, the information required for the decision making process is limited and hence the rationality of man is also bounded. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "A Fresh Perspective Of Behavioural Finance Finance Essay" essay for you Create order Thus, in some part of investment decision making process, man may even be emotional or irrational. So in order to guide individuals to make correct choices, economic models should integrate and incorporate psychological theory as well. This is the basic premise of a new paradigm in the field of investment decision making called Behavioural Finance. This subject focuses on how investors interpret and act on information to take investment decision. It uses knowledge from both psychological field and financial theory. Behavioural finance asserts that behavioural biases and heuristics play an important part in influencing the investment decision making processes. A bias is a departure from normative, optimal or rational behaviour.In the investment decision making process, biases can either arise when the decision maker forms beliefs about probabilities of events and values of outcomes or when he sets preferences among the available options. Heuristics are rules of thumbs that help indivi duals to take the most optimum decisions in situations which are cognitively complex. In either case, heuristics and biases if consistently practiced lead to various abnormalities and anomalies. This is a conceptual paper which aims to study various psychological biases which arise from a variety of cognitive mechanisms. An attempt is made to extract from literature of various authors different frameworks in which most known heuristics and biases can be organized. An endeavour to understand their impact will be of great help to investors to acquire the best outcomes by suggesting remedial action. Introduction In the present world, investment decision makingis a complex process. It is dynamic activity which is influenced by many variables and subject to many constraints. These limitations arise due to various environmental and cognitive reasons. Investments are made for earning a return.Investors make investment decisions for maximising their returns but sometimes they are not aware which variables are effecting their decisions due to which they may not be able to maximise their returns. Many times investors want to know which these variables are and what are the implications on their decision making process especially when they are they spending time and money to learn about investment by reading books, attending lectures, listening to all the expert advice on the television and internet chat sites. If investors reflect back, they will realise that some of the common mistakes which they make are buying stocks which are highly priced, booking profits too soon and not liquidating share son which there could be losses if they hold them, and most commonly buying when others are buying and selling because others are selling. These are examples of investor behaviour.The term behaviour literally means the aggregate of all the responses made by an organism in any situation and a specific response of a certain organism to a specific stimulus or a group of stimuli (American Heritage Dictionary, 2003). There is a dire need to understand the behaviour of investors in order to assist them to develop their own trading strategy and investment philosophy. A solution and understanding of many of these issues are the main pedagogical goals of Behavioural finance. Behavioural finance closely combines individual behaviour and market phenomena and uses knowledge taken from both the psychological field and financial theory. In his inaugural address at Interdisciplinary Seminar on Psychonomics on February 6, 2012, Harun R. Khan, Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India emphasises on the resurgence of psychology in economics for linking cognitive models of decision making with economic models of rational behaviour to understand and avoid recent market distortions driven by human traits.Behavioural Finance is a new paradigm of finance theory, which seeks to understand and predict systematic financial market implications of psychological decision-making. Background: During the classical period, economics had a recognized association with psychology. Adam Smith had described psychological principles of individual behaviour in his work, The theory of Moral Sentiments. Jeremy Bentham wrote on psychological aspects of utility while propounding his utilitarism ideas. However, overtime economists in the race of shaping the discipline as a natural science started to distance themselves from psychology. In economics, man or Homo economicus appears perfectly rational and has a complete knowledge and his economic choices are guided by rationality. This means that his choices are consistent, self-contained and he is perfectly rational without being affected by his emotions or his environment. Thus economic theory of Investment decision treats investment decision of an individual as a macroeconomic aggregate and the microeconomic foundations of it are drawn from intertemporal utility theory. This means that individuals maximise their utility based on clas sic wealth criteria making a choice between consumption and investment through time. However, as per studies conducted by Herbert Simon, rationality of individuals is limited by the information they have, the cognitive limitations of their minds and the finite amount of time they have to make decisions. He has coined the term bounded rationality in his book. He argues that most people are only partly rational while are emotional/irrational in the remaining part of their actions. He says that perfect or global rationality is practically and not logically impossible. He claims that classical theories of Rational Choice fail to include some of the central problem of conflict and dynamics which economics are more and more concerned with. Accordingly, concept of rationality has some limits such as risk and uncertainty, incomplete information about alternatives and complexity. (Models of Man, 1972).There was a resurgence of psychology in economics in the 1960s when Ward Edwards, Amos Tver sky and Daniel Kahnemann began to compare cognitive models decision making under risk and uncertainty to economic models of rational behaviour. Decision making is a process involving making an optimal choice between various alternatives. Since individuals lack the ability and resources to arrive at the optimal solution, they instead apply their rationality only after having greatly simplified the choices available. As a result, Simon claims that individuals have only bounded rationality and are forced to make decisions not by maximization but by satisficing. Satisficing is the hypothesis which allows to the conception of diverse decision procedures and which permits rationality to operate in an open not pre-determined space (Barros, 2010). This is where psychological theory comes into play.In the real world, individuals make decisions using heuristics or rules of thumb that satisfice rather than maximize utility over the long run. Thus individuals employ the use of heuristics to make decisions rather than a strict rule of optimization. These heuristics are useful as they make cognitively difficult tasks easier. However they can lead to systematic biases. When a behavioural bias is consistently practiced, it gives a foundation for prediction of behaviour. The study of this field will be particularly useful where it can influence returns from investment. There is little doubt that an understanding of how such biases and heuristics influence investment decision or impact investment returns will generate insights that greatly benefit the investors. Such behavioural biases and heuristics form the subject matter of Behavioural Finance. Behavioural Finance focuses on how investors interpret and act on information to make investment decisions. It also places an emphasis on investors behaviour leading to various market anomalies. Behavioural Finance closely combines individual behaviour and market phenomena and uses knowledge taken from both the psychological fie ld and financial theory. (Fromlet, 2001).Behavioural Finance seeks to understand and predict systematic financial market implications of psychological decision processes. In addition it focuses on the application of psychological and economic principles for improvement of financial decision making. (Olsen, 1998) Cornerstones of Behavioural Finance Behavioural Finance takes into account the effect of human psychology in investment decision making. It overcomes the shortcomings of traditional finance and finds better explanations of investor behaviour by disregarding the assumptions that investors are rational and markets are efficient. The first foundation stone of Behavioural finance is Mental Accounting. It is a process which helps the investors in using cognitive skills to organise, evaluate and keep track of their financial activities. Mental accounting has three components. First, the outcomes are perceived and experienced and then decisions are taken and evaluated. Second, investing activities are grouped into categories, including the sources and use of funds. Third, the activities are balanced either daily, monthly or yearly, depending on the preferences of a person. (Thaler,1999) Mental Accounting violates economics assumptions because money placed in one mental account is not a perfect substitute of money placed in another account. The second foundation stone of Behavioural finance is Loss Aversion. Since investors engage in mental accounting, investors group the financial transactions either one at a time or in portfolios and myopically evaluate the transactions i.e make short term rather than long term decisions and evaluate gains and losses frequently. According to Kahneman, Tversky and Schwarz and Thaler (1997), individual investors are more sensitive to decrease in their wealth rather than increases and value losses more heavily than gains. The third foundation stone of Behavioural finance is Framing. According to Kahneman and Tversky (1981), when investors face a decision problem, they try to associate each alternative choice with a decision frame. This frame depends on the personal characteristics of the investor and how the problem is formulated. They have found that choices that involve gains are risk averse and choices that involve losses are risk taking. The fourth found ation stone of Behavioural finance is Prospect Theory. This is the seminal work of Kahnemann and Tversky developed in 1979. Prospect Theory is an alternative theory to analyse decision making in situations that involve risk. In Prospect Theory, an outcome is called a prospect and involves a decision with some risk. Instead of wealth, focus is on gains and losses; decision weights replace probabilities and loss aversion is used in place of risk aversion. Decision making process is made up of two stages, the editing phase and the evaluation phase. In the first phase, possible outcomes are arranged on the basis of some heuristic. When investors look at outcomes, they make a mental note of an approximate and possible average outcome. This average is used as a reference point for ordering the lower outcomes as losses and higher ones as gains. Hence, according to Prospect theory, value is a function of the reference point and the distance of the value from the reference point. Many experi ments have been carried out to validate the theory in order to show that investors focus on gains and losses rather than final wealth. Thus from various studies it is clear that investors rely on heuristics which reduce the complex tasks of assessing probabilities and predicting values to simpler judgemental operations. Individual Investors who use heuristics are prone to biases which may lead to anomalies in the market. An empirical result qualifies as an anomaly if it is difficult to rationalize, or if implausible results are necessary to explain it within the paradigm. (Thaler, 1987). The understanding of heuristics and biases with the help of research in Behavioural finance will help to develop an awareness of what, why and how of investing and finance. Investors and advisors may be able to improve economic outcomes and attain stated financial objectives. This could save clients from financial misadventures. Categories and Causes of Biases Knowledge of biases and modification of or adaptation to irrational behaviour will lead to superior results. This paper also aims to develop an awareness of biases, their implications and ways of moderating their impact and adapting to them. This may even serve as a fundamental tenet of a successful investment strategy. Although it is very difficult task to present heuristics and biases because they arise from a variety of cognitive mechanisms, an attempt is made here to extract from the literature of various authors different frameworks in which most known heuristics and biases can be organized. After review of literature available on heuristics and behavioural biases, it is found that the common mistakes caused by cognitive limitations can be classified into two categories; how investors think and how investors feel. These two categories are used to classify various biases to which individual investors are susceptible to in the investment decision making process. Under the first category of how investors think, the most commonly existing bias is Representativeness. Investors tend to judge the probability of an event by finding a comparable known event and assuming that the probabilities are similar. As a part of drawing meaning from what we experience, we need to classify things. If something does not fit exactly into a known category, we will approximate with the nearest class available. For e.g., Ifstocks of Tata Steel perform extraordinarily, investors will rush to buy stocks of Essar Steel. This representative thinking makes them believe that Essar steel will perform similarly. (Parikh, 2009)Also because of Representativeness bias, investors may make mistakes while examining past stock returns. For example, stocks with strong performance during the past three to five years are considered as winners. As a result, considering past return to be representative of what to expect in future, investors chase the winners and buy such stocks. They tend to b e overly optimistic about past winners and overly pessimistic about losers. Secondly, investors tend to place more faith in familiar stocks leading to familiarity bias. For example, Investors buy stocks of companies which have local of regional business presence ( Huberman, 2011). Investors disproportionately include in their portfolio, stocks belonging to their country despite knowing the benefits of international diversification. This is known as home bias (French and Poterba, 1991) Third very commonly existing bias is over confidence. Belsky and Gilovich (1999) note that overconfidence is pervasive. It is like an ego trap under the influence of which the investor thinks while picking up winning stocks that their knowledge is more accurate than it really is. This bias may exist because of illusion of knowledge or illusion of control of uncontrollable events. According to Barber and Odean (2002), online investors routinely experience these attributes. Overconfidence causes in vestors to trade too much and take too much risk. Fourthly, investors experience anchoring bias. They become fixated with reference points. According to Benartzi and Thaler (1995), investors start comparing the stock price with the reference point. This reference point may be the purchase price. The brains choice of reference point is important because it will determine whether the investor will feel the pleasure of obtaining a profit or the pain of making a loss. As justified by Prospect Theory of Kahnemann and Tversky, investor will assign separate value premiums to the profits and losses. This bias also causes investors to periodically update the reference point to reflect unrealized profit. The next list of biases can be placed in the category of how investors feel. It is commonly said that stock markets are motivated by greed and fear. Other emotions which can hamper good investment decisions are hope, pride and regret. Firstly, due to emotions like pride and regret, i nvestors are predisposed to selling winners too early and holding losers too long. Shefrin and Statman (1985) have shown in their studies that investors tend to avoid regret and seek pride leading to disposition bias which may lead to poor results. Shefrin (2000) further attributes this bias to stem from conservatism. The second psychological bias which can be placed in this category is attachment bias which is the reason behind why investors become emotionally attached to a security. As a result, the investors fail to recognize bad news about the company and consequently hold the stock too long. Another bias which many investors fall prey to is Gamblers fallacy. After large gains and losses, emotions are particularly strong according to Thaler and Johnson (1990). Large gains cause the investors to become greedy and they feel that they are betting with someone elses money. This causes them to accept too much risk. On the other hand, large losses cause investors to either becom e loss averse completely to the investment activity as defined by Kahneman and Tversky (1979) as loss aversion or they may cause the investors to take more risk in an attempt to recoup their loss. This event is defined by Shefrin (2000) as get eventitis. In either case these biases clouds judgement and investment decision making process. Another bias which causes faulty decisions in invest decision process is herd behaviour. Investors show a tendency to mimic the actions of a larger group though individually, they would have not made the same choice. The cause behind this may be the social pressure of conformity and another may be a common rationale that a large group is unlikely to be wrong. Although it is very difficult task to present heuristics and biases because they arise from a variety of cognitive mechanisms, an attempt is made here to present those psychological biases which arise out of individual investors cognitive and emotional limitations. If the individual inves tors overcome these biases and take appropriate steps to check themselves at the right time, such mistakes will have less influence on investment decisions and potentially lead to improved investment results. Conclusion: Behavioural finance presents a paradigm shift in explaining investment decision making process of individual investors by throwing light on various psychological biases.No easy solutions exist for overcoming the affects of these biases according to Belsky and Gilovich (1999). Merely learning about them will also not eliminate them but at least it will be the first step towards appreciating the importance of this field of study and the limitation of traditional finance in explaining complex phenomena in the financial markets. Baker and Nofsinger (2002) suggest that investors should understand and recognize biases and develop quantitative investment criteria to achieve their investment goals. This paper is an attempt to understand individual investment decision making from a behavioural perspective. The awareness and knowledge of this field of study is at a very nascent stage in India. An emotionally restrained approach to investing based on behavioural finance will go a long way in helping them attain their desired objectives.