Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
ID: 17887
Introduction
Heredity is the passage of biological traits or characteristics from parents to offspring
through the inheritance of genes. It greatly influences the different aspects of human
growth and development. Biologically speaking heredity is the sum total of potential
traits that describes a childs resemblance to his/her parents i.e. in terms of heigh t,
weight, shape, colour of hair and eye, intelligence, and other characteristics. .
teaching environment has helped to enhance these abilities. The exposure includes
skills to operate complex experimental equipment, machines and working with different
computerized technologies to analyze and provide solutions to difficult problems. I
gained this skill mostly in UTP than I was in my country. Figures 1 & 2 in Appendix
shows my school experience in high and school and now in the University.
Through high quality education my thinking capabilities improved towards providing
reasonable judgments that is sound and which depicts maturity. For example in my
primary through high school, speaking in public was the most disastrous thing I could
do. I was too shy and shaky to stand before people to give a speech or comment on
anything or even attend public meetings. However, this behavior slowly faded as I
progressed and got exposed to various gatherings, presentations and meetings. My
language and communication skills improved and fear for public speaking is no more
which is a positive developmental change in mind and body. This change has helped
me in overcoming panic especially in Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) where we
need to do presentations, gather for meetings and write projects in a concise manner.
Therefore, although heredity determines a persons abilities, I strongly accept that
education as an element of environment has placed an impact on my learning,
knowledge, language, thinking/problem solving and development in communication
skills.
2.3). peers: While my child's early social experiences were centered on family
members, this lately expanded to the neighborhood and at school. Because I spent
much time at school, interacting with fellow students of diverse cultural and ethnic
backgrounds, my earlier perceptions as a kid have totally changed. The emotions and
tempers that I had at childhood are integrated into positive feelings and social
interactions. I have met both good and bad friends and through their behaviors and
attitudes, I learnt to adjust to situations accordingly. For example, when I was ten (10)
years old in primary school my friends influenced me to drink alcohol and move to night
clubs. When my family realized about this they immediately transferred me to a different
school where the rules are very strict. From that moment to date, I tried to target
relationship with friends that are supportive and have similar life style like me.
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Since then, I realized that age was a major factor for accepting any friendship without
assessing the kind of person to move with. Today I have grown to be independent and
careful about the type of people to befriend and share social interactions with. After
evaluating the past behavior during my middle age, I changed positively and left
drinking Alcohol. Although some of my friends drink and smoke, I have resisted this
behavior especially after coming to Malaysia. The only activities we do here is either
academic related or sports which usually brings us together. In fact my coming to
Malaysia has changed most of my behaviors and way of handling issues of different
settings. Back in my high school for example, we could gather and sleep in groups,
noisy all times which affected my academic performance to some extent. Here in UTP,
there is no such association and sleeping in groups, thus gives me enough time to plan
and do my academic job and this has worked in improving my performance.
2.4). Culture adds yet another element that strongly influences development. It is a way
of life that impose limits on behaviors across societies (Yates, et al, 1996). My personal
experience in different cultural environments is part and partial of the behavioral pattern
that I poses. I can break this experience into few sections as follows:2.4.1). Symbols and gestures: These two elements are common across cultures in
the world. Especially for me who studied outside my country or hometown for a very
long time, symbols and gestures have really impacted my understanding of non-verbal
communication. For example when I was studying in Uganda, blinking an eye to
someone especially ladies was a sign of mocking or flirting yet in my country it is a sign
we use to alert someone. Also handling hands when walking together as boys was
perceived as gay behavior which is a normal expression in my community. So in
Uganda, I had to learn many symbols and gestures to be able to fit in their society
comfortably. The same is true with various gestures like thumb-ups, whistling, etc. I
learnt that these symbols portray different meanings in different countries although
others have common meanings. Whenever I go for holidays to my home country, my
friends get confused with most gestures that I display until I explain to them the
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meaning. This is all because of diversity in cultural environments and people. In fact I
am always very careful when making a gesture and in most cases I prefer verbal
communication.
2.4.2). Language forms another environmental factor that influences human
development. For example I am able to communicate in my Language because I was
born and grew from my home town where everyone speak the same language. This
would be different if I was born and grew in an environment where no one speaks my
language. Although it is obvious that I should speak the same language as my parents,
this is never a good explanation. Language is related to interactions and where one
grows from. And this is true because I entered school with one language in mind but
today, I can speak many languages; English, Kiswahili, Arabic, Acholi, and now bit of
Malay. This is all because of interacting with people from different cultural entities which
have nothing to do with heredity. I also learnt that some names and words have different
meanings which are perceptions of something else in other languages. Example in
Malay, Abang means brother but means circumstance in my language.
2.4.3). Food is another potential factor that has influenced my development. Just like
I have repeatedly mentioned, I have spent 3/4 of my life schooling outside my country.
This possibly have a hand in shaping the kind of person I am today. For example, the
main stable food eaten in my community is corn, cassava and beans which is common
to all homes. More so, we dont eat spices and sea food and only limited to certain
vegetables and fruits. This in one way or the other really changes my digestion habits
and body response to various foods. In fact my coming to Malaysia has left me with
serious digestive disorder which I blame mostly on the spicy food. Just after a year here
in UTP, I started to develop a rare digestive behavior, sometimes I rarely go to the toilet
and sometimes cannot pass bowel normally. In fact the doctor told me to eat more
vegetables because I lacked fibers in my body. More so, I am not comfortable with
eating rice as this digests very fast and makes me very hungry in few hours. I have
always jogged to my mother that the only reason I call her most often is to tell her that I
miss her food. Figure 3 in Appendix section shows food in my country and Malaysia. I
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believe when I go back to my country, adapting to the taste of the food will take
sometimes.
2.4.4). Cultural beliefs, norms, values and traditions: I do acknowledge some few
areas in which beliefs and traditions have formed part of my development especially in
social interaction. Good example is Religion and other typical cultural norms like rituals
and ceremonies which are the most sensitive elements in many cultures globally. My
moral values mostly follows my belief in Christianity and those being displayed at the
level of my community. These beliefs and values are a result of exposure to teachings
and practices in school, prayers, etc. which I personally accept as experiences received
from the environment and have nothing to do with heredity. My parents being Christians
could be the main reason for my moral values and practices in Christianity but not that
they transmitted the genes for these values in me. I also believe that traditional
practices and rituals are factors in my development. For example, I cannot marry unless
I go to my community and perform a traditional ritual for recognition as an adult. Even if
I neglect this strict norms and cultural laws, my marriage will not be respected and
valued by the elders.
In a related development, I have learnt to respect and recognize the variation and
existence of different beliefs, norms and traditions wherever I have lived or studied. I
gained much of this experience in Malaysia for example not being in contact or greeting
Muslim ladies which is free in the case of my culture. After staying in Malaysia for 3
years, I got used to the culture and this had much influence when I went for my
internship earlier last year. Sometimes, I could still forget and just wave a hand to greet
a lady although they were getting close to me. I realized I was already used to the
attitude until a month where I normalized. Also in Malaysia, people drive on the left side
of the road which is oppose to right hand side in my Country. These and other factors
discussed in this chapter are majorly environmental related attributes that have in one
way or the other placed a big impact on my development throughout the growth cycles.
At the same time, some of these elements helped me to understand why people behave
as they do.
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Conclusion.
It is undeniable that heredity plays an important role in dictating many aspects of who I
am today. This is particularly true in regard to my physical characteristics and genetic
makeup. But I am of the same time, environment is highly responsible for influencing my
behavior, health, perceptions, problem solving approaches, social life and several other
non-physical attributes that I possess. I would therefore comment that both heredity and
environment interact to give expression for the development of behaviors and other
physical characteristics that are built in me.
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Reference
James.W.Kalat (2010). Introduction to Psychology. Wardsworth Publishing, 9 th edition.
Ge X, Conger RD, Cadoret RJ, Neiderhiser JM, Yates W, et al. (1996). The
developmental interface between nature and nurture: a mutual influence model of child
antisocial behavior and parent behaviors. Development Psychology 32:574-589.
Appendix
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