Reflection: Lick Your Rat

After completing the Lick Your Rat activity (or watching the video), please answer the following questions in your own words (meaning, do not use direct quotes from the book). Be sure to include terminology and concepts from the readings in your response to the 2nd prompt.

• In approximately 100 words, please share your thoughts about the YouTube video and reading/watching the supplemental page from University of Utah on Lick Your Rat experiment.
• The rat nurturing example in the reading and activity show us how parental behavior can shape the behavior of offspring on a biochemical level. In approximately 200 words, please explore how this relates to humans and include the personal and social implications.

Reflection: Lick Your Rat Answer

After watching the video entitled “Licking Rat Babies,” I learned about the important concept of epigenetics and how it works. I was amazed how the basic concepts and principles of behavior between human and animals are similar. I have seen the nurturing behavior of animals, and I have also seen animals who would abandon their offspring almost instantly after birth. And quite surprisingly, this greatly mirrors human behavior as we have seen mothers who are very loving and caring and mothers who has no problem leaving their children in odd places like trashcans and in other people’s gate.