How Experiences Affect You

My mom is reading a book that she is glad to constantly share. In "the Outliers", by Malcolm Gladwell, some of the psychological characteristics of human beings are looked at. It talks about the way in which past experiences reflect on the person we become because we tend to repeat pleasant memories and avoid harmful and sad memories. "All that happens is that individuals who are accustomed to winning become even more likely to win, while individuals who are accustomed to losing become steadily more likely to lose." pg 82 This happens because the individuals who won will enter the next fight with more confidence and will therefore have a higher chance of winning, because they believe in themselves, the ones that have lost in the past enter the fight doubting their abilities and pushing themselves lower and lower and will probably loose and then the stimulation will be even stronger for the next fight and the cycle will begin. These individuals will probably end up avoiding fights and have a very low self esteem regarding this section. "The Outliers" talk about the way in which a human is formed since he is little. He says that, in general, obviously there are always exceptions but we´re not considering them, the oldest ones in a group tend to be more successful. In a grade level, for example, the older ones are usually more confident because they have had more development. Comparing a kid that was born in January and a kid that was born in December will probably show what the author is trying to say. When they are young, each year is a big significance in development, therefore when they are in school, the January kid has had 11 more months to develop both mentally and physically, therefore when PE class begins, or when the kids are asked to learn some facts, the December kid is more likely to have a harder time accomplishing the goals. The December kid will look at the January kid and see how he accomplishes things much easier and immediately decides that it is based on ability and not development. All his life, he will grow seeing how the the January kid finds everything easier and he will consider himself lower and he wont realize that maybe, if the January kid had been born on December as well, that he might have kicked his ass at everything because it turns out he is smarter and more coordinated, hes just one year behind in practice. As the two kids grow, their age stops affecting as much, however, the two kids have already established the idea that the January kid is better than the December kid in their minds and the January kid will have probably been inhibited as a kid and wont try many more things when he is older from the fear of failing.
So the kid that always wins, will believe in himself and probably win once more, while the kid that always looses kind of accepts that as a fact and enters the fight already believing that he will loose and will therefore not give everything hes got. So your past experiences do affect it and if humans have seen that their selfishness has helped them survive as an individual, they will keep on being selfish to be able to survive.