Parents Anger and favoritism and flying grapes

[Midwestmommy]

Has anyone else seen the Brain Games show and the episode on anger? I thought the experiment showing the monkeys in side by side cages getting different rewards for the same task was hilarious. They put a nut or something in the cage and the monkey had to hand it back. One money got a piece of cucumber as a reward and the other got a grape. Apparently monkeys much prefer the sweet juicy grapes.

After a few turns, the one getting the cucumber got so mad he threw the cucumber at the scientist and started rattling his cage.

The point was to illustrate that primates are hard wired with this reaction of anger over thousands of years as a means of survival and fighting for your share.

I wish I could show that experiment to the coaches who think blatant favoritism is OK--seems like "unearned" favoritism could actually be pretty destructive and distracting.

Not that my daughter is a monkey, though sometimes she thinks she is...

Another experiment (I think the show was on stress) showed the effectiveness of positive feedback and advice versus verbal tirades on human performance (haha on humans playing that game that pops up if you don't fit all the pieces in on time)...... I've known a few folks in my day who should take a look at that one too.

Just saying...

 

[blueredzone]

Its all in our DNA.

Favoritism, Anger, Selfishness, all that stuff.

We all have anything from food to people that we favor over others. Even Colors there are preferences or favorites.

We all know people that we don't agree with or have strong view points that might make us mad. That is great though.... Could u imagine a conversation when everyone agreed with everything all the time. How boring

This is just life. Which is great because with no valley's how do you know when the peaks are?

Do we all wish that there would be none of this in our sport? Absolutely! It seems like some parents issue is jealousy.

What if the goal was to everyone get better, and maybe get a team trophy. Hard to be jealous, angry, play favorites, and all that other stuff.

Although I get pretty jealous when I see a starbucks cup in someone elses hand at an early morning meet. lol = )

 

[peginer]

This is exactly what we are dealing with with my DD's coach currently, as well as a lack of empathy for obvious injury (eg. Crotching the beam). DD is 7 so she's young and still needs that occasional hug. We're having a meeting this afternoon with the coach this afternoon actually. Definitely nervous.

 

[Amusibus]

I heard about that monkey experiment but didn't see the show you mentioned. What I heard was they were trying to determine if a) the monkies could show empathy by sharing grapes with others that didn't get one (they could), and b) whether the monkies were capable of using the grapes as currency, like money (they were-apparently one of the males procured the..."services" of a female with the payment of a grape). Possibly different experiments also involving monkies and cucumbers and grapes.

 

[windydays]

I must say, when I saw the title of this post, I thought it was going to be about a parent throwing grapes