every man for himself

is this always the case? that we have incorporated this mentality into our heads through evolutionary psychology? but what about altruistic behaviours? are there no more people showing altruism in this world anymore?

according to Vaughan and Hogg (2005), altruism is a special form of helping behaviour, sometimes costly, that shows concern to for fellow human beings and is performed without expectation of personal gains.

do we still see this kind of behaviour around? do we even believe that there is this kind of people able to do something so self-sacrificial for other people? sometimes we can justify the person's altruistic behaviour by saying it for a good friend, family member or a loved one, but does everyone action have to be explained by a reason? can't people do things out of love for others?

sometimes when we see people doing such things, we'll scold or comment that the person is being stupid and that his or her actions have no meaning in it. must there be a good reason for all your actions? we're living in a world where all your actions have to be explained by reasons, if not people will judge you and criticise you. is this the reason why we're seeing lesser and lesser people behaving altruistically? is it even wrong to do something good without expecting and returns at all?

some of the altruistic behaviours are being see as a norm in the current society. actions like giving up your seat to an elderly, helping a pregnant woman carry her heavy stuff, keeping the door open for someone. these are some behaviours that we do not require any form of returns at all. and so, why is it that when we do such things, people say its alright, its ok. but when we do something in a slightly bigger scale, people's perception changes? isn't it the same form as helping? or do people think that the effort in helping have no justification, and thus does not help at all? and how do we justify whether our actions are worth it? i feel that all these boils down to the society, culture and environment we live in. if we're primed to do good for others without asking for any returns, we'll most likely to show help to others. but if we're brought up in a environment high in evolutionary psychology, we'll be selfish and only look out for ourselves.

Wonder whether will there be a day when no one bothers helping anyone anymore. it would be a cold and lonely world then.

Guys vs Girls

why everyone says that guys are insensitive creatures? is it that gender stereotypes are so imprinted into our brains that we can never remove it forever?

gender stereotypes are beliefs about a characteristics that are associated with men and women. who suffers more under these gender stereotypes? men? or women? most would argue that women always get the end of the stick, that may be true, but to me, i feel that its those people at the ends of the gender bell curve, regardless of gender, that suffers the most.

most people say that guys are insensitive, and that they don't understand women at all. but that is not always the case. Not all men are insensitive, if that isn't so, then where does the acronym SNAG come from? for those people out there, SNAG stands for sensitive new age guy. these guys empathise for the women out there as they understand what they are feeling and waht they are going through, but often a time, women just say that guys don't understand them and that all men are the same. How sad can that be?

on the other hand, men think that all women should stay home and do the cooking, wash the laundry, look after the kids and all the other domestic stuff. now is the new age, i believe that everyone deserves a fair chance in everything. why is it that only women can stay home and the men cant? is it gender stereotype? or is it just plain male ego? hard to swallow, but guys, face it! your egos are bigger than anything else on the earth. ok, but i'm quick to add that not all men are like that. some wouldn't mind staying home and be househusbands (and i'm 1 of them!).

anyway, why is it that people have these kind of unhealthy stereotypes? would these stereotypes strain a relationship when it comes to that point of life? for me, personally, i feel that if everyone just communicate with each other, then things would be easier, life would be happier and everyone will live happily ever after. Ha! it only happens in fairytales...

so do we just carry on living with our gender stereotypes or do we change them to accomodate in this ever changing world? stereotypes are not easy to change, and it take a lot more effort and truth out there to make us change. but if we're exposed to more of each others thoughts, thing might be easier and that would be nice.

Looking up or Looking down?

In life, there is always someone we have as our role model, someone we look up to, someone's example we can follow. But what if you live in in an environment where you have no one that you can relate to and look up to? a place where you learn things from your your peers and influence each other?

In social Comparison Theory, it says that people look out of themselves and to the world and the others to evaluate, criticise, improve or to understand more about themselves. there are two types of comparisons: Upward comparison and Downward comparison.

Being able to compare with someone better than you, in terms of achievement, looks, abilities or any other thing, is a good thing. From these comparisons, we are able to mould ourselves more to our role models and selectively learn the stuff we see in these people. But learning from the wrong people, or rather, no one to learn from, where do we head from there?

Downward comparison on the other hand, lets us view ourselves through another set of glasses. In this comparison, we look out for a different set of people. We would find people that are less fortunate than us, less capable than us, and worse off than ourselves in any possible way.

Is this healthy? always looking down on others and thinking you are far better than some, or at times, most of the people? does this really help you improve, or is it an avenue for us to escape reality? i've heard people saying that in order to fight the monster, we first have to face it. how true is that? if we have no courage to even face the monster, how do we expect to win against it? and know what? often a time, the biggest monster lies within us. and its the hardest to look into the mirror to see it and acknowledge it.

in a world where if we dun improve, we'll be obselete, we have to find ways and means or people to help us improve and continue to climb the corporate ladder in life. and for that to happen, we have to have less of downward comparison and more of upward comparison.

In a Fantasy World of Her Own

I have this friend that always thinks very optismistically. sometimes to a point where i do not know if she's really that optismistic, or living in a world of fantasy, and denying the facts of life. Do we really still believe that in this world that there is a happy ending for everyone and they will live happy ever after like those of the fairtales? Wishful thinking, in normal conversations, its like thinking of a perfect outcome for a situation, but how many times does that happen to us? or to the people around us? this kind of positive thinking, or upwards counterfactual thoughts, may give us the motivation to strive towards something, to acheive some goal or let us believe that we can actually do something to change the current situation. but what if we have an exessive level of these thoughts? wouldn't it be bad for us? its like ignoring the the current status, and actually fantasizing that good things are bound to happen? although it is always good to have a positive attitude and being able to change for the better, but we have to consider all the facts and aspects of each situation in order to do not. Not every scenario is a bed of roses. This does not happen in reality anymore. We have to agree to the fact that this world is ugly and dirty, no matter how hard each person hides their ugly side, it'll bound to surface up when a triggering situation arises. to me, wishful thinking is just a form of defense mechanism. its like ignoring the facts and truths that we know, and constantly praying that things will definitely turn out better and everyone will live happily ever after. That does not happen anymore. People wants to live a happy life, but no one is willing to sacrifice or to compromise for that goal. Time and again, we would think that love is self-sacrificial and we would do anything for our loved ones. But when the circumstances forces us to make a decision and choose, too many a times, we just choose to protect ourselves and our families come after us. Is this the Evolutionary Theory that Darwin proposed? aren't we supposed to fight not only for ourselves, but our loved ones and offsprings as well? how does the animalistic side of each of us takes over whenever we feel threatened by others? I come from a christian environment where everything is more or less protected and the teachings taught to us are imprinted into our minds. But when faced with the world, everything seems to blur, because it does not coincide with what we've learnt before. We really have to experience it ourselves in order to make sense of what others taught or told us. I used to be a very optimistic fellow where everything would turn out alright, but now, i'm wary of the things around me and not being able to commit much to anything or anyone anymore. Life is too scary to be placed in an unknown world and live in it.

Attitudes and Behaviours

Went for night cycling with my friends on friday, and was sort of observing them periodically. The itinery for the night was to cycle from East Coast Park to Changi Village for supper and return back to ECP. We had a lot of time to do that as we can only reutrn the bikes at 9am. So some of us was cycling leisurely, and some were cruising all the way. I could tell from their faces that some were tired already, but yet still want to cycle with the faster guys. Then when we got back to ECP in the morning around 6.30 and had Macs for breakfast. Some people complained that they were very tired and they had never cycled that much before. And it was those same ppl that were cycling too fast for themselves initially. LoL

Soon after breakfast, a couple said they were leaving, and guess what? The rest of them started to leave 2 by 2 from then on..

From the above outing, we can see there's a bit of social desirability bias in some of my friends. To them, being able to cycle fast and be with the fitter guys seem way cooler than cycling slowly with the others. Even when they know its past their own limits, they still did not slow down and asked for a short break. Why do people want to portray themselves as the same as others. Does it mean that being different from your friends would result in losing them as friends? Or even in the working society, do you blend in with the crowd and do what the romans do in Rome? And what if that clashes with your own behaviour and beliefs? Do you continue to do them and to change your beliefs? or do you have 2 sides of your life and pretending to be a roman in Rome?

Haven't touched on attitudes and behaviour yet, so here is my 2cents worth of thoughts.. :)