The relevance of Psychology

Finally, something I'm learning seems to be immediately applicable and impactful on my daily life.

I'm revising for my Psychology module and I found this topic on Nature VS Nature useful and illuminating. Excerpts from "The Psychology of Childhood" are summarised below.

With regard to the role of nurture in particular (since we can't change our genetically endowed intelligence), researchers have asked whether an enriched environment gives rise to higher IQ.

Diet and nutrition
Benton & Roberts have found that giving vitamin supplementation increases the IQ of the recipient children dramatically. However, their provocative findings were not replicated in another study. Benton explained the discrepancies in the findings by suggesting that additional vitamins will be redundant in improving a child's IQ score if the child's diet is adequate
in terms of vitamin content. In contrast, if the child has a vitamin deficient diet, this could prevent her brain from operating to its full potential.

The lesson to be learnt is that a healthy diet is vital to mental functioning.
An inadequate diet puts one at a distinct disadvantage!

After reading this, I went oh my goodness, I'd better put in more effort at eating a healthy and balanced diet! More fruits and veggies, as well as a faithful daily consumption of the cocktail of vitamins Mum has entrusted me with: DHA, Chorella, Wheatgrass, Vitamin C etc etc etc. Better force Vincent to take his vitamins too!

Social and psychological factors
According to Elardo et al, factors which they believe to contribute to an enriched environment are as follows:
1) Mother's voice conveys positive feeling when speaking to child.
2) Mother structures child's play periods.
3) Mother reads stories at least 3 times weekly
4) Age-appropriate learning equipment is provided for child.
5) Child gets out of house at least 4 times a week.
etc

This would be so relevant for Cheh. :)

After reading this I told that I cannot be cooped up in my room all day anymore! Must go out to breathe in the fresh air, admire the daffodils etc.

I'm feeling quite proud of myself today cos I exercised: skipping, crunches and weights. ;)

Ok I'm going off to cut an orange.