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.

CITATION Coren, Anna. "How my brother tried to kill me in 'honor attack'." CNN.com International - Breaking, World, Business, Sports, Entertainment and Video News. N.p., 4 Apr. 2013. Web. 6 Apr. 2013. . SUMMARY In Kabul, Afghanistan Gul Meena, a 17- year old girl, is miraculously alive after being almost hacked to death by her brother. When Gul Meena was 12 years old, she was married off to a 60-year-old man who beat her everyday. When she tried to tell her family about the beatings, they hit her and told that she belonged to him. After 5 years of the abuse, Gul ran away with a male Afghani friend despite the forbiddance of the act. Days after she ran away, her older brother found them and hacked her Afghani friend to death with an axe. He then struck Gul 15 times- cutting open her head, until she was presumed dead. A stranger found her and took her to a nearby Medical Center where she had little hope of survival. There are thousands of women in shelters across Afghanistan due to cases like Gul's called 'honor killings'. The UN states that, "4,000 cases of violence against women and girls were reported to the Afghan Ministry of Women between 2010 and 2012".

This article stuck out because the content was so shocking and horrible that I had to read on. I highly recommend watching the video that accompanies the article on the CNN page because seeing and hearing what happened to Gul is so unreal. What women in Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries go through seems so unreal to me because of the gender equality in societies I've been in. I also can't imagine being attack by a family member- let alone your own brother. It's sad what extremes people will go to to preserve 'family honor', and how little Gul's parents cared that she was beaten.

Citation: UT Southwestern Medical Center. "Unique peptide has therapeutic potential against cancers, neurological disorders, and infectious diseases." ScienceDaily, 7 Feb. 2013. Web. 14 Feb. 2013. Summary: UT Southwestern Medical Center has synthesized a special peptide that has in test shown the possibility of treating infections, neurodegenerative disorders, and cancer through a process were cells recycle called autophagy. It works because the cells break apart into separate building blocks which are then put together in there original form before the disease of infection changed it. This helps them become healthy again as well as fight the problem.

I think that this could be very useful in the future once we fully test it and make a way to utilize it. There are a lot of thing that we know of that can help prevent cancer and help slow cancer. I feel that every time we find a new way of preventing/slowing cancer we get a step closer to finding and actual cure for it. It is also helpful for older people the natural process of autophagy is disrupted with age. If we can find a way of getting it properly into there systems then there cells may live longer.

This article is about a good gift to give for valentine's day if you want to improve your marriage. I realize that none of us are married, but i still thought it applied to us because one day, we will be married. The gift that this article says that one of the best gifts to give is an IOU for every four months, write about the most significant fight in their marriage as a neutral observer. The study concluded that those who write about their marital conflicts from a neutral position actually tend to have less fights later on because they realize what they could have done or said better. The study also shows that those who have less fights actually have better health because they do not have as much stress as those couples who fight and don't look back over their argument.  I got this article from the NY Times, and it is dated Feb. 10th, 2013