In all honesty, I entered Psychology 1001 reluctantly, because I had to and not expecting to encounter any particularly influential ideas. However, I was surprised when learning about psychology changed my worldview in a number of ways. The most significant of these was my concept of morality. A short time ago I believed humans' moral instincts were perhaps divinely inspired, or at least of more significance than simple science. However, psychology reveals that morality is in fact perfectly explainable with evolutionary theory. They are created in people when they associate actions perceived as immoral with punishment; later immorality is associated with fear and, later still, immorality is a negative stimulus all by itself. This revelation has a vast number of implications. For example, if one were a perfectly logical person, one could arguably use this information to commit any immoral act without reservation. I don't think I could ever be such a cold person, since my morals are too deeply ingrained in me and to break them would cause me too much psychological pain for it to be worth it. However, after this new knowledge I will be sure not to judge too harshly people I consider to be immoral, because it's not necessarily their fault, but the fault of the environment in which they grew up. In any case, there is no way I will forget this information in five years, or ever.
kissx015: April 2012 Archives
For the last few years, one of the most hotly debated topics in America has been the question of whether homosexual couples should be able to get married. Specifically I will discuss the issue of whether or not homosexuality is a choice, as it has become a major part of the debate. If it were a choice, then gay marriage would arguably be unnatural and banning it would be more defendable. However, I believe that the idea of homosexuality being a choice is ridiculous. True, one's sexuality is likely not entirely determined by one's genes. The textbook tells of an experiment which shows that even identical twins, with 100% identical genomes, can often have different sexualities. However, this only proves that sexuality is more complicated than simple DNA, which has nothing to do with choice. Even if sexuality were entirely determined by environment, it would still be chance and not the decision of the person in question. I have never heard of a person of any sexuality who chose to be that way, and I am fairly certain that few such people ever existed. Even the stories in textbook of gay men who were 'corrected' to be straight turned gay again within a matter of years. So I don't think there can be any debate about the fact that homosexuality is not a choice.
