Group items tagged

Stafford, Tom. "The psychology of why cyclists enrage car drivers." BBC. BBC, 13 Feb 2013. Web. 14 Feb 2013. Tom Stafford suggests the possible cause for why cyclists aggravate other road users. The car riders becomes frustrated at the cyclists since the people on bike can use the same road as them but do not have to follow the same rules. Stafford relates this situation to the "free rider problem," which is an issue in the society where small portion of the community skip their duty. The duty addressed here is the individual's role in the community that will produce load on the other members if they do not accomplish it. He also insists that the notion of altruistic punishment is strongly linked to the car rider's fury. Altruistic punishment is a psychological term that indicates the strong desire to impose punishments on others that does not bring direct benefit. Usually, the person who provokes altruistic punishment has to pay some form of cost. The car riders have to pay the cost by distracting their mood while angering at the cyclists. They build up strong desires to fix the cyclists' road manners and to impose them punishments for their misbehaviors in the drivers' perspective. Altruistic punishment also possesses the power to bring together the individuals carrying the same issue. These individuals will act in the same direction to resolve the issue. For example, the emergence of altruistic punishment can function to prevent the "free rider problem" since people will be watching over each other for possible faults. Stafford insists that the issue over the road manners of the bike riders and the car riders can be solved by altruistic punishment.

In a sense, I kind of connect the notion of altruistic punishment with the reasons why people judge others based on their bias. As we discussed in the previous class, some individuals judge others based on their physical appearances. They will often create conflict with the others by insisting about their weight and look. Doing so does not bring them any benefit, yet they still desire to impose punishments on them; often times in verbal forms. These punishments do not trace morality or civility, though, since they are simply based on their complacence. As a result, the self-centered judgments sometimes can develop into a serious issue. The people who give biased judgments believe strongly that the people they judge have an issue, and they consider that they are doing the right thing by giving the judgments. This situation is very similar to the process of the car drivers becoming enraged at cyclists. The only difference is that the target of the altruistic punishment in this is not doing anything that opposes the moral behavior. The people being judged are obviously not "free riders" since they are not putting any form of load upon others. Thus, although altruistic punishment may sometimes function to improve the society, they can also do the exact opposite.

"Doctors 'miss' Underweight Children, UCL Study Suggests." BBC News. BBC, 02 Aug. 2013. Web. 14 Feb. 2013. It is common knowledge that the number of children and teenagers with eating disorders is rising, and this problem has raised a red flag within the medical community. It is said that these days, there are more under-13s with eating disorders than the common illness of meningitis. However, despite the high death rates and severity of this life-threatening mental illness, researches at University College London have found that many doctors in England and Wales have poor knowledge on identifying underweight children, and were especially perturbed by that fact that only 13% of them could identify specific signs that the heart was not working properly. Doctors also had poor knowledge on how to feed a person who was severely malnourished. However, the researches were not criticizing the doctors - they found that there was a gap in medical training concerning eating disorders. The Royal College of Paediatrics Nutrition Committee said that they would be improving training in this field and are developing a training program around mental health in adolescents.

I was very surprised reading this article because I assumed that there would be more knowledge concerning eating disorders. However, I understand that the symptoms can vary a lot depending on the person, making it harder to spot. Also, because eating disorders have only recently been recognized as a serious mental illness, some older doctors may not have had the right training and education in this field. I am pleased that they are trying to improve this situation by providing training for the doctors as this is a very serious illness which affects people of all ages. I hope that over the years, the seriousness of this disease will be more widely recognized and I hope the high numbers of cases declines, and that all doctors and therapists can treat this illness as effectively as possible.