leex4811: April 2012 Archives

Five years from now, I will remember many concepts from PSY 1001 because almost all the things that I have learned here applied to me as an individual. However, the concept that I have observed for a long time and applies to me the most is the parenting style (permissive, authoritarian, authoritative, and uninvolved). Permissive parents are lenient to their kids, giving them freedom and affection with rare use of discipline. On the other hand, authoritarian parents are strict to their kids, giving little freedom and affection and often use punishments to teach the children a lesson. Authoritative parents are the combination of the two parents mentioned before. They support their children but set a limit to an extent. Lastly, uninvolved parents are ignorant; they did not care if their children have good or bad behaviors. From the four styles above, I can conclude I have authoritative parents. They are very supportive of my education and career, but they set limit to my personal freedom. When I was in high school, unlike my classmates, my parents expect me to study hard and be involved in educational activities. They rarely allow me to play with my friends before I was done with my work. When I was a kid, I got punished everytime I rebelled or broke their rules. I felt that with this parenting style, I grew up to be a more studious than my friends, who mostly have permissive parents. I think from all the parenting styles, the authoritative style is the best because the parents are involved in the kids' life but in a supportive manner.

Altruism is a behavior that benefit others at a cost to oneself. For humans, most altruistic acts serve to relieve distress, experience the joy when helping others, or anticipate helps from the people they helped in the future. I previously learned about altruism in a biology class that I took. The class mostly talked about altruism found in animals. Most of the time, animals help their close relatives in order to benefit the survival of their kins. One example is the altruism observed in Belding's ground squirrels. The squirrels usually feed in groups with certain individuals spreading out as sentries and watching for predators. When a predator approaches, a sentry gives an alarm call and the other squirrels retreat into their burrows. The sentry has a higher risk of being attacked as its alarm call draws the predator's attention. The sentries' altruistic behavior might danger them but it increases the survival of their kins. Another example of altruism is shown in this video, showing food sharing between vampire bats. In here, a vampire bats observer shows that bats, which need to feed on blood to survive, could depend on their friends for food. If they could not get any blood, they could ask from their friends. Alternatively, their friends could do the same thing at other time. Those who are never willing to share their food would not be helped by others in the future. To apply the above examples to humans, I think most humans will be willing to share their food like the vampire bats because the task is fairly simple. However, most might not be willing to act as sentries like the Belding's ground squirrels. Imagine you are hiking with your sibling in the mountain and saw a bear. Would you immediately run away or attract the bear's attention away from your sibling?