Blue Eyes, Blue Eyes

Blue Eyes

The homology behind the blue eye phenotype makes me rethink dominant versus recessive genes in the United States. Due to the diversity, more sense directs towards targeting each ethnic environment. For example, blue eyes remain recessive in the diverse United States; whereas, blue eyes are a dominant gene in the Balkans. In addition, I always thought people relate to one another through common ancestors. A lack of melanin, or any other genetic mutation, simply shows the diversity in people that makes the anatomy of the human species more fascinating.

Nature vs. Nurture

I believe genotype and phenotype has a 33.3% effect on our behavior and mental processes, and environment has a 66.6% effect on our behavior and mental processes. The debate of nature versus nurture brings nothing new to the table, as the concept has existed since the beginnings of psychology. In the present day, environment takes its toll to change people's lives. For example, nearly every significant landmark in medical history defies the laws of nature. Transplants, prosthetics, glasses, and even braces changes people's lives everyday. Even without these medical advancements, environment can affects the possible degree of self consciousness and peer pressure. A region where people voluntarily pay for plastic surgery foils a region where people feel comfortable with their phenotypes. For example, emerging Korean actors are opting out of over doing plastic surgery to stay unique to themselves. Before, so many people paid for eye jobs, nose jobs, jaw shavings, etc. that they started looking alike. Yet fans expected South Korean idols to uphold preferred phenotypes. Genotypes and phenotypes may provide initial characteristics, but environment determines character.

This particular picture came from a Tumblr site dedicated to showing the before and after pictures of Korean idols who underwent the extremes of plastic surgery. This person had what I like to call "the Classic South Korean Make Over", it includes larger eyes, smaller nose, a shaved jaw line, and whitened skin. An example in Koran media culture where the environment of media takes precedence over the genotype of her natural face.

Is Torture Moral?

Ethical Consideration in Psychological Research

In order to develop thorough and concrete information, scientific research becomes a necessity. Especially with psychology, scientists have more factors at risk with live subjects. By the American Psychological Association (APA) ethical standards, debriefing and the subject's comfort takes priority over the experiment itself. On paper, everything looks pretty straight forward. However, the unfortunate case for Stanley Milgram on obedience contradicts the whole theory. In replicated experiments, I learned that the subjects, despite the urge to pull out of the experiment, were strongly encouraged to complete the experiment. Tricked into giving an actor progressively high voltage electric shocks, the subjects completed the experiment with extreme uneasiness. Ethically, the concept feels inhumane to trick innocent people into causing more danger.

Animals in Psychological Research

As far as  animal experimentation goes on paper, I disagree little. Unless experimental scientists take advantage of the animals through traumatic abuse, I would not oppose to the rules already in place. Unfortunately, experimental scientists take often take advantage of animal torture. As a result, consequences put them back in their place. Simply put, treat animals like one would treat people. Unless one has a justifiable cause for inflicting harm without consent, do not take any immature actions. Meanwhile, animal testing provides a small scale test for the human species. With the selfishness of human health improvement as a top priority, animals provide the necessity to advance the means of science.

Ethical Correlation Between Interviews and Torture Interrogations

The main paradox arises for APA members working for the government. Though they oath to no humiliating dignity, religion, etc in the 1949 Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, government authority takes all prescedence. The APA specifically defines torture in its 1984 Convention Against Torture as without using instruments. However, Congress passed legislation allowing torture with agonizing physical pain and elongated mental suffering. In specific occasions such as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prisoners have committed suicide out of trauma and pain. Ironically, the federal government does not perceive the torturing at Guantanamo Bay inhumane treatment. I understand that the military wants to obtain information from its hostages and prisoners, but the government's response that water boarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, etc. remains humane tactics baffles me. Especially with an increased amount of psychiatric techniques, psychiatrists and psychologists have officially put ethics second to government authority. I see ethics superior to government authority. Though I may go against the norm and risk a successful career in the U.S. military, I would not live with guilt for traumatizing people's lives.

Obesity Meets Psychology

1. Which approach do you think is more concrete? Explain why.

Reflecting on my childhood phases in food science and America's obesity epidemic, I clearly remember the high amount of marketing that affects the average American diet. In the days when my family had cable and watched commercials, McDonald's would announce the return of its McRibs while Subway's and Quizno's battle over toasted versus un-toasted subs. One of my favorite studies, not mentioned in the lecture, involves a group of fifty-four volunteered individuals who ate from a self-refilling bowl of creamy tomato soup and a regular bowl of soup. By combining the factors of behavioralism and developmental psychology, the individuals eating from the self-refilling bowls ate more. The surprise however, was that they denied eating more than the people who ate from the regular bowls. How full they became took no matter. Although I feel the psychological influence convincing, I believe that through the American marketing system the socialcultural influence perceives most concrete.

While biology and psychology provide background and foundation, the socialcultural influence cements the growing American obesity epidemic. Compared to other cultures, the American diet focuses on speed and availability. Temptations in the everyday life exist from the food giants: PepsiCo, Dole, General Mills, Nestle, and Kraft. These companies aspire money and America's millionaire and billionaire food industries. For example, the infamous Kraft American Cheese is a "dairy product" with too many artificial processed ingredients to be considered actual chess by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Melanie Warner's Pandora's Lunchbox: How Processed Food Took Over America notes that for several years, these giants bribed the USFDA to overlook processing techniques to get more unnatural foods on grocery store shelves. Now, karma makes its full loop as the American population obesity epidemic worsens. In fact, Michael Moss's recent NYT Bestseller Salt Sugar Fats: How Fast Food Giants Hooked Us reveals these companies are trying to recreate the processed foods menu through increased nutrients and fewer fats, salts and sugars. By finding a way to market healthier foods at more affordable costs, weight and following health issues will likely decrease. If companies like the food giants find better ways to reduce the salt, sugar, fat, and processed ingredients, the sociocultural influence will improve, allowing psychological and biological factors to fall in place.

2. Based on you introduction to the various modern approaches to psychology, which approach not discussed might provide another rationale for obesity? Explain you answer.

While evolution, psychology and social cultural influences provide strong cases to the American obesity epidemic, the end result comes down to a battle of the mind. I believe the cognitive perspective provides another rationale for obesity. People eat when they are not hungry; they eat to clear the plates. However, society has far evolved to a point where humans, depending on their country of residence, cannot get away with large meals and minimal activities. Despite chow ups/downs for sporting event, the large consumption of carbs the night before a meet or game does not always help one's performance. Rather, nutritionists propose to eat well balanced meals and not to cargo-load the calories. Exercise, however, takes time away from long hours in work and school. Whether it through walking to and from a destination, simply moving about can speed metabolic rates. The basis to moving comes from the mind. In the end, exercise comes down to whether or not a person can convince him or herself to maintain a stable healthy weight by balancing diet with exercise.


Citations

If You Don’t Recognize an Ingredient, Your Body Won’t Either | REALfarmacy.com | Healthy News and Information. (n.d.). REALfarmacy.com | Healthy News and Information. Retrieved September 8, 2013, from http://www.realfarmacy.com/if-you-dont-recognize-an-ingredient-your-body-wont-either/#!prettyPhoto/0/

Moss, M. (2013). Salt, sugar, fat: how the food giants hooked us. New York: Random House.

Wansink, B., Painter, J. E., & North, J. (2005). Bottomless Bowls: Why Visual Cues Of Portion Size May Influence Intake**. Obesity, 13(1), 93-100.

Warner, M. (2013). Pandora's lunchbox: how processed food took over the American meal. February 26, 2013: Scribner.