Blog 1 Week 1

1.             I began reading the article for the week, “The Identity Dance”, without expecting much.  I have    ADD and it can be hard for me to read a whole paragraph without skimming or bypassing it altogether.  This article’s first page about a pair of identical twins, Sandra and Marisa Peña grabbed hold of me such that I was disappointed when I realized this article jumped ahead from page 54 to page 57.  I was left distraught, like I didn’t get to finish the ending to a book.  I’d like to know if the section on these sisters ended on page 54, or whether there was more. 

                  These women are stated to be as alike as any two people can be.  Yet, they are also opposites.  This was the beginning of the second paragraph and I already wanted to know more.  They finish each other’s sentences, one is shyer than the other.  Suddenly, their parents die in a fairly close period of time and one of the them moves away and the other sinks into a deep depression.  Eventually the two find their way back to one another, but one is still suffering from depression.  Sandra and Marisa are in their early 20’s when their parents die.  At the time of the article’s publishing, these young women were 32.  Would they have reacted differently if their parents had passed away in their 30’s?  After reading the first chapter of our textbook (Human Development: A Lifespan View) this brought to mind life cycle forces, about different perspectives of the same event at different periods of time in a life cycle. 

                   I found out in my late 20’s that I have ADD, and also suffer from anxiety/depression.       Don’t get me wrong, I am what I consider to be fully functional and normal.  This article attempts to delve into the root of anxiety/depression (and even alcoholism) and compares two monkeys: one that was raised by its mother, and one that was taken from its mother and raised with other monkeys of it age.  The monkey raised by its mother had the long version of a particular gene and the one raised without its mother had the short version of a particular gene (we are told this gene affects their biology, and that if they have the short gene they are more likely to have anxiety).  The monkey with that was raised without their mother (and had the short gene) was an alcoholic (I know from my experience this is linked with anxiety and depression, especially depression).

                  The monkey results leave one to believe that those monkeys with the short gene that are not raised by their mothers will have a higher chance of becoming an alcoholic (note, it doesn’t cause alcoholism but increases the chances).  Based on what the article described, this may be a clue, but it would only be that, a clue.  I read no mention of monkeys with long genes being raised without their mothers and given a “happy hour”, so it is hard to conclude based on the information given what is really going on.  I would love to ask researchers that conducted the study more information on the monkeys that were written about in the article, and just how many they were basing the research on. 

     

2.               I found it interesting (and a little upsetting, not in an angry way, more in a concerned way) that a monkey raised without its mother (and having a short particular gene) were more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression, and alcoholism.  I have been told I’m an alcoholic by a few therapists, though I suffer from some shame regarding that term.  I was raised by my mother, and I have anxiety, depression, alcoholism…..did I just draw the short stick?  If I ever find out I have the long gene that was studied, but yet I still have all the issues that are more likely for a monkey with the short gene, I am not sure how that could make me feel. 
    
    

3.         I would truly like to know more about identical twins who were raised apart and how they compare.  The article focused solely on identical twins who lived the basic brother-brother or sister-sister childhood.  I feel like a study that compared twins who didn’t know each other as they were developing would be fascinating.  My curiosity is piqued because there weren’t any examples of separated identical twins in the article, and I think this could present an interesting challenge for researchers (though, perhaps that is why there were none mentioned, because it introduced too many variables). 

            If I had unlimited time, money and energy, I would love to read and discuss more on lifespan psychology, especially life-cycle forces.  I would research more on the different lifespan age groups such as infancy and toddlerhood, early adolescence and middle adulthood.  I also am curious as to why we have such few years between the early stages of life development and so far between that latter years.  It seems like a paradox or almost counterintuitive since we start off in diapers and (so “they” say) end in diapers.  Although, I suppose, we are merely biological machines that wear and tear down…..