Psychology - Lifespan Development Personal Term Paper

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Much later, my father explained the difference between rational optimism and rationalization and suggested to me that the former is probably more healthy psychologically than the latter. According to him, both achieve the same short-term benefit, but rationalization is associated with long-term consequences in the nature of clinical depression and mood swings. He explained that people who rationalize purposely avoid acknowledging disappointments and that this sort of repression usually results in negativity that is always expressed later, and often in manners that are far removed from their original cause. I recognized in friends and acquaintances what my father explained and learned to recognize the value of "making lemonade" as a conscious and purposeful decision to salvage disappointments rather than as a subconscious rationalization.

Empathy:

It is more difficult for me to identify whether natural predisposition or environmental influences and modeled behavior is more responsible for the fact that I seem to have always exhibited a high degree of empathy. I always remember caring about the well-being of animals, including stuffed animals and balloons before the age where I learned that the latter where inanimate objects. Prior to that, I remember being moved to tears over "sick" balloons and my older brother once secured a chocolate ransom from me by threatening to hurt a stuffed bear. I also recall being very concerned whenever someone else sustained an injury or acquired an illness and I always did my best to comfort family members who were sick.

My mother exhibits the same behavior and I specifically recall her modeling an empathetic attitude, which begs the question whether my empathy is a reflection of her environmental influence on me or evidence of the fact that both of us share that genetic component of her genetic heritage.

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Introspection:

Introspection seems to be natural to my father, and according to him, he does not recall any external influences in that regard in his case. In my case, it is more difficult to know whether my tendency toward introspection is a function of sharing my father's genes or a product of his counsel and advice, because I recall his explanations about the importance of being honest to one's self about one's life and to make an effort to think about my feelings and reactions. According to my father, it may not always be possible to know exactly why we feel the way we do or why we do the things we do, but very often, it is possible to learn more about ourselves by making the purposeful effort of putting our thoughts and feelings into words.

My father has always had a habit of spending time alone just thinking about things, but I have learned that my most introspective thinking is stimulated by the process of writing out my thoughts into a diary. In fact, the main purpose of my diary is more of a mechanism to stimulate my introspective awareness than it is, specifically, intended to memorialize my thoughts in a written record. However, since I started driving, I realized that I may share a natural inclination toward introspection with my father, because when I reported that driving long distances by myself tended to trigger introspective thoughts, my father confirmed that he has the exact same tendency......

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