UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI PETRONAS

DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT AND HUMANITIES

COURSE: GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY

CODE: HCB 2063

ASSIGNMENT 1
DHANESH KUMAR A/L BABU
18119
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

Introduction
Heredity and environment both affects a person behavior. Heredity occurs in a
person when their biological or psychological characteristics or both are conveyed by
the parents to their off-springs. It is a biological process where the traits of behavior
are passed from the parents to the child through fertilization of an egg. These traits
are inborn and naturally occurred and present in the birth. In term of environment
affects a persons behavior due to the surrounding situation of them. For an example
when a pair of twins is raised in a different environment for a long time and in
comparative of their behavior there will be some differences besides the heredity
factor. It is very abstract to categories in terms of behavior to heredity and
environment till a reflection on a person life experience. Which I will be reflecting
about myself from young age to now and evaluate which factors has influenced me
the most. This assignment will be broken down into my age group and specific life
experience to determine if its heredity or environment.

Physical Traits
Based on physical traits makes up almost all by heredity. For example, I am a
thin person regardless of how much I eat. This can be clearly shown as heredity of
the metabolic rate that I gained from my mother. My mother is also a slim person
which she inherits from her grandfather. Besides that, both of my parents has good
arrangement of teeth as so do I, but my sister do not have a good set of teeth.

Birth to 6 years old

I am Malaysian Indian and by right I have to acquired three languages which
is Malay, English and Tamil my mother tongue When I was still an infant my
grandmother took care of me for several months and she will be speaking to me in
Tamil. Naturally, me today I am able to converse in Tamil moderately. But in my
memory if I reflect my parents only speaks to me in English when I was young.
Based on this, due to the differences of environment I can learn two languages
without attending a formal class. When I was a kid I usually like to dissect big toys to
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see what is inside and how it works. This ends up me destroying toys which only last
for 2-3 weeks of usage. The only toys that lasted long was Lego . As I grew older I
found out that this behavior was due to genetics. My father was a mechanical
engineer, the mindset of knowing how things work and how to fix back things to its
original state is inherited. Another example of this heredity was the Lego toys that
lasted is because playing with it makes me able to understand how to build things
and its function was limitless. Through this heredity, I was very creative in building
things out of Lego based on my imagination.
As soon I went to kindergarten, I begin to have almost like an autism in the
beginning it takes time for me to blend with new groups of friends. As I completed my
kindergarten I only have one or two close friends.

Entire of Primary School

At this age, I was still shy on meeting new friends and wait till people
approaches me. I was never serious in studies now of my life as compared to my
sibling, I was living life happy go lucky. Somewhere around the age of nine I began
to pick up interest on drawing and sketching. This happens suddenly and I started to
enjoy art classes in school. As I observed, both my parents are good in drawing, as
for my mother she always doodles when talks on the phone and on the other hand
since my father is an engineer he usually sketches some machines or plans. This
trait is heredity. At this era, I was transitioning from playing toys to computers. Same
as before due to curiosity I begun to understand how computer works and slowly
started to identify the components of the computer chips. During standard six I was
taking up UPSR examination as the same year my sister took PMR. Since I was very
playful and didnt concentrate on studies I didnt get good results meanwhile my
sister got excellent results in PMR examination. So, the environment of the family
was praising her while I felt I was left out. Thats when where I had the turning point
of my life, I begin to focus more on studies, this is due to the changes in environment
that makes me change.

Secondary School
Continuing from the previous part, I started to change myself to achieve better
grade in school. I struggled a lot from Form 1 to Form 3 and I managed to get the
same results as her in PMR but that wasnt good enough as I must be better. While
transitioning from second last class in Form 1 to third class in Form 2, my circles of
friends started to change to an English-speaking medium which is what I preferred.
Life at that period began to be better and I felt more comfortable to go to school.
Referring to my so-called autism behavior since at the age of six on being shy was
still there but since my classmates are more liberal and open minded, I felt much
easier to blend in. In form three, I manage to enter the first class where new set of
classmates that are from well to do and educated families. Finally, I could converse
more in English as my preferred daily communication language and get more friends
in a short time. Based on this, I can conclude that it is pure environment that affects
my behavior. First is me changing myself to be more organized so that I can achieve
better grades in school. Secondly, as I moved to higher classes, I can converse
much better with new people as most of them use English as their communication.
After PMR examination during the break I started to immersed myself into English
television series and music. That is when I begin to start watching movies and
television series as it becomes my new hobby. Since then, I have watched many
movies to the point I always gives critical reviews and constantly thinking on how
they could have improved the storyline. I manage my studies very well to the point
where I always will be in the top ten of the whole Form. For SPM examination, I
managed to have an excellent result where it is much better than my sister.

University Life
After five of waiting SPM results and applying for universities, my application
to Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) was accepted and I enrolled for May
Semester. During the orientation week, since it is a new place and new people and
away from home suddenly I felt so insecure and my so-called autism kicks in. I was
very quiet and was trying to find the one friend that I can cling on for time being
before I know who is my course-mates are. During foundation, I will be the only
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Indian guy that sits with the Chinese in front of the lecture. Back then people do not
often remember me. As time goes by with many group projects along the way I have
adapted myself in the new groups of friends and could confidentially talk to people. I
have participated an exchange program by Aiesec. This exchange program aim
participants to travel to different country and participate a social themed project. In
my case I took a project that is based in Delhi that involves school students. Our task
is to go to school and present about your country to them, teach them few subjects.
Through this program participants from other countries will join to carry out the
activities. I feel some difficulties in the beginning but I could adapt faster successfully
carried out the project. Before enrolling to university, at home I usually do not bother
about the cleanliness of the room but my mother makes sure the house is clean and
organized. When I stayed in the hostel, I make sure that my room is cleaned and
organizes as well. Based on this since I am used to living in an environment that is
clean and organized, I subconsciously practice to clean my room in hostel.