UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI PETRONAS

DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT AND HUMANITIES

COURSE: GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY
CODE: HCB 2063
ASSIGNMENT 1 PAPER (10%)

Name

: MOHAMMAD SYAFIQ BIN SULAIMAN

ID No.

: 18559

Course

: MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Lecturer

: Dr. AHMAD SHAHRUL NIZAM ISHA

Q: Do you think heredity or environment best explains who you are today? Give
specific and clear examples of the ways in which heredity and environment or
only one of this factors have affected your development.
A:
Heredity or Environment effect on development of me
Every individual on this earth is different from the other. No one person is fully
like other person and with that being said, every person differs from the other, either
physically or psychologically. This assignment will explain my opinion on whether
heredity or environment that have effect on my development throughout my 22 years of
life journey. First of all, my opinion on the stated issue is that both of the heredity and
environmental factors are effecting my development. Genetics and the environment
shape the development of an individual based on the J.W.Kalat book Introduction to
Psycology. Because both of these factors are interrelated, the issue arise on which
factor has more influence upon the various aspects of personal growth. The parts of
development genetics and the environment can affect include physical and behavioral
of one.
For my background introduction, I am a 22 years old male, a Malaysian born in
Seri Manjung, Perak and comes from an engineer and a soldier background family. My
parent background is that my grandfather and grandmother on my both parent side
originally comes from Javanese background in which there are some Javanese culture
that involve during my development in my family.
My parent decided to have a big happy family which consist of 2 daughters and 4
sons. I am the third son with the oldest is my sister and I have one big brother, following
by my little sister after me and two little brother. As a part of big family, the big family
itself that make me happy and developing me to a family-centered person.

Heredity Effect on my development

Heredity refers to the genetic inheritance received by every individual at the time
of conception. These genes are the real determiners of hereditary characteristics which
pass on from one generation to the other. For me, genetic inheritances have an
enormous influence on my physical characteristics. To begin with, I have many traits
that resemble my mother physical characteristic. My skin color tone is a light tone which
follows my mother skin color compared to my father and his family tree line which have
a darker color. However, my face physical characteristics follows my fathers a lot which
me and my father is a look alike. Besides that, in term of weight management, our
family does not have a problem with weight issues. There are no issue of obesity or
overweight in my family line. Even though my family and I were to gain weight because
of the diet we take, (which the development is in favor of environmental), the weight
gain can easily be reduce by just some light exercise, light indoor works such as
cleaning the house, or even just by walking.
My body physical characteristic follow a lot from my mother side. First, the color
of our eye is brownish and our eyebrows are thick. I have the glass-type of nails which
follows my mother. Also, my height is low than average height which my mother also
has a below average height. In the sport contexts, I have a natural high stamina which
may come from my father who is an ex-Navy and my grandfather from both parent side
who used to be a soldier.
In the contexts of health, I am inherited some of the health issue from my family.
For example, all of my family are feeble towards a common sickness like common flu
and cold. Even when we drink a non-boiled mineral water, we will immediately catch a
cold that will be last for a long period of time, which sometime takes up to 2 weeks even
when taking medication. I also have gastric problem which all my siblings have.
Basically, our siblings have a weak stomach which even a little bit of acid in our
stomach caused by an empty stomach, it will cause a lot of pain feeling until we eat
something. Our family also have an eyesight problem. Both of my parent are wearing
spectacles because they have an eye glare problem which all our sibling inherit the
traits including me.

Environmental Effect on my development

In simple terms environment means the society, the fields of society and even the
places that I have been visited throughout my life as well as the environment around
me. Like heredity, environment also has been found to play a very important role in
determining the behavior and personality development of me.
I have been raised in the academic stressed family which my parent always
reminded me to excel in every academic level. Our siblings are being trained to excel in
academic in which if we had a good results in exam or test, we will be rewarded with
gifts and many more. This methods are the one that driving me to excel in every schools
that I went. Environments around me throughout the journey of my 22 years life are
really effected to my behavior nowadays. Because of my father works as marine
engineer, my family have been staying and moving about 4 times covering 4 states in
Malaysia. I will explain on how the environment of the places that our family moved to
effected my behavior one by one in the next explanations.
In the early stage of my age, my family live at Seri Manjung, Perak. The
environment there is the society is friendly, the neighborhood are helping each other,
and the environment is really suitable to raised children. My family have stayed in
Manjung until I am 12 years old. So, in my early stage of development until 12 years
old, I have been a friendly, family-centered, and sports active boy where in this place, I
acquired the values of kind society. If there are any events happening in the
neighborhood, I will gladly help them and enjoy the event with my friends and my
siblings. In Manjung, I went to schools where they are active in sports and usually
produce the states player. I have been actively in Cricket sport and have been a
representative player for Perak under 12 for cricket.
After that, my family moved to Pasir Gudang, Johor where the place is in the
industries or a port for Johor. The society there are a career-centered society where
people goes to work at the morning and come back later at evening or night and rarely
involve in neighborhood activity. While I am at that place, I rarely speak to my neighbor

around my house. While in this place, I acquired a bad value which is an introverts. My
school is far from my house and it take 20 minutes to go to school.
The only friend that I have are the friends from school and none of them live nearby my
house area. However, this school is one of the top school in the Johor state, which in
this school I have acquired the academic excellence but I gradually become less active
in the sports. My family and I have stayed in Johor, for about one year before we moved
to Pahang.
Then, my family moved to Kuantan, Pahang where there is a port for Pahang
state. In Kuantan, we live in a village area where the elder society there are really kind.
However, for the younger society, they are really roughish since they used to live in
village environment. My family live in Kuantan for about 2 years and during that time, I
have mingled around with a rough and rebellious young society. I have been in a
physical fight with other group that has conflict with my friend group in schools. I have
also been caught stealing goods at one of the village grocery stores but the owner is
kind to let it slide. The school that I went is just an ordinary school where I cannot
develop my academic performance effectively. Even though the hardship in academic, I
managed to excel the PMR exams and become the best student in the school. In this
place, I develop a bad psychology state to myself. I have become rough in my speaking
and also rebellious towards anyone that against my opinion including my own family.
After Kuantan, my family moved to Rawang, Selangor and my parent send me to
MRSM (MARA Junior Science College) Muadzam Shah, Pahang, for upper high school
study. In MRSM, all of the student are academic-centered mindset where their target is
only one that is to get the 4.0 flat pointer at every semester exams and graduate SPM
with excellence results to continue study abroad. During my study at MRSM, my spirit to
study is high and the environment there is better to develop my study skills. Throughout
the 2 years in MRSM, I have been always on top of other student when it comes to
results. I also have been active in the school events which develop my professional
communication skills and also have been active in outdoor event when I joined the
Scouts group. I have been the top student in academic during the graduation in the

MRSM School in which after that I decided to pursue study in engineering at Universiti
Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP).

After all the psychology development I have faced in the early stage in my 20
years of life, all my characteristics, values and set of skills acquired throughout the
journey comes in handy as a student in UTP. It safe to say that, both of the heredity and
environmental factors effects my behavior now as a student in UTP.