Wientjes: “Zet deur open voor buitenlandse student”

Dat zegt hij in Transfer, tijdschrift voor internationalisering van het hoger onderwijs. Er komt een enorm tekort aan bèta’s aan, waarschuwt hij. De kosten voor buitenlandse studenten vallen daarbij volgens hem in het niet. “Als een hightech-bedrijf als ASML de komende jaren niet voldoende mensen kan binnenhalen, wordt het gedwongen elders te gaan produceren. In sommige sectoren is het al één over twaalf.”



Buitenlandse studenten zouden gerichter geworven moeten worden, maar de overheid ontmoedigt dat. De discussie over het relatief grote aantal Duitsers dat in Nederland studeert, noemt Wientjes “absurd” en het onderzoek van staatssecretaris Zijlstra naar de kosten en baten van buitenlandse studenten een “nutteloze defensieve exercitie”.



De baten zijn volgens hem niet te kwantificeren: “Russen bijvoorbeeld die in Nederland hebben gestudeerd zijn allemaal ambassadeurs van ons land. Die opbrengst is niet te meten.”

The other day I picked up a copy of the Times while waiting for a friend at the library, but very soon got annoyed by the paper and pushed it away angrily. These days it seems you can’t flip through a newspaper or magazine without being absolutely bombarded with page-space-eating, content-killing ads for crap we don’t want and certainly don’t need. 

Some time ago I read a book about the psychology of modern advertising and there was a whole chapter devoted to the disturbing relationship between Pavlovian conditioning (salivate you little consumer doggies, salivate!) and advertising. This included details of a classic experiment in consumer want: subjects were first made to look at a pair of regular jeans, and then they were given the privilege of staring at Kate Moss for a while. They were then asked to look at the same pair of jeans again. Are they still the same jeans? This was the Pavlovian experiment in advertising. 

Why the hell are advertisers so keen to invite supermodels, celebrities or sportsmen to endorse their products? The reaction in the Pavlovian experiment reveals the answer: advertisers try to pair the conditioned stimulus (regular jeans) and the unconditioned stimulus (Kate Moss) to produce the conditioned response (these jeans are more than just jeans). Pavlovian conditioning, the golden rule of advertising, is a winning strategy for advertisers, forever binding our products to celebrity endorsers.

It’s all so depressing. Aren’t we more than just a pack of drooly-mouthed Pavlovian dogs? I mean, we’ve got the ability to do cognitive thinking, to imagine and to value. Yet all these ‘talents’ are also fully exploited by advertisers. Not for nothing do they say that the ‘most unethical psychologist is the best advertiser’. 

Once we start using our imaginations, for example, ad execs employed by airline companies begin grinning devilishly. Sure the airlines have piled up all the bricks – comfortable lounge chairs, personalised cuisine, in-flight entertainment… – but 

without the consumer audience’s imagination, the whole house can never be built or bought. And when you try attaching a certain value to something, Samsonite immediately says that’s exactly what they value too, so spend millions of euros to invite Richard Branson along for an endorsement ride, reasoning rightly that we’ll transfer Branson’s real human value to Samsonite’s plastic suitcases. Behold the power of advertising to pervert the imagination.   

Perhaps then we feel safer with Publish Service Announcements (PSA)? But just because PSAs don’t blatantly ogle our wallets doesn’t mean there’s no psychological tricks involved. Some PSAs use the strategy of positive reinforcement, like, for example, a ‘Save Our Kids’ themed campaign that shows a dreamland in Africa where there’s no disease, starvation, abuse or whatever, a platonic world that serves as a positive stimulus for increasing our dedication to the campaign. But in the end it all comes down to selling – a product, feeling, way of thinking and way of being. 

Now try to imagine a world in which there was no advertising of any kind anywhere? Impossible. We sold the best part of ourselves – our imaginations – to advertising a long time ago.

Lei Li, from Shanghai, China, is recent MSc graduate in science communication. She can be contacted at: LeiLivanShanghai@gmail.com