Thus far I feel that Psychology has been the only relevant class to my education and development as a human that I will use in real life. In five years I hope to possibly be starting a family and with this I will hope to remember a few things I learned in the unit of developmental psychology. Looking at the research done, I have learned that kids are much smarter than I previously believed them to be. After all, a baby in utero is habituated to recognize its mother's voice! 
When it comes to rearing a child, it's pretty difficult to 'mess up' a child. All kids really need is lots of love, some direction and support when needed and within reason and an outlet of creativity and energy. One does not need to be a superstar parent. Kids will develop at their own pace if you give them the resources and the room to develop. I hope to remember to keep a balanced, authoritative parenting style- a happy medium between authoritarian and permissive parenting styles.
Chapter 10 is what I hope to retain the most of from this semester of psychology. Although the development was described from conception to old age, the research done on children from birth to adolescence was the most fascinating to me. Although the things described above are intuitive for most people, it is incredibly important that not only nature, but nurture plays a vital role in the development of a healthy, functional individual.
nech0013: April 2012 Archives
As we approach the end of the semester and the weather gets warmer, and our desire to procrastinate and relax into a vegetative state of mind for the next 10 weeks increases exponentially on a daily basis, an ominous feeling looms in the air. It is the threat of impossibly difficult finals, and students are bracing themselves for the toughest week of the semester, if not the whole year. Some students become hermits, never leaving their rooms unless to acquire basics such as food. Others cluster, trying to learn as much from each other as possible. And then there are those, like me, who panic. 
All human personalities are measurable on some scale of the 'Big 5' traits- openness, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism.
Can these five traits affect in any way our abilities to study under pressure? I asked a few of my friends in Psych1001, who took the online survey provided to us, to help me out. One of my friends said that although she understands the gravity of the finals, she isn't worried and feels confident in her abilities. Not surprisingly, she scored high in extraversion and openness, and relatively low in neuroticism (actually low, but numerically high as we were "tricked" when taking the survey) and average in conscientiousness. Another friend said that she, (like myself) is very anxious about the upcoming tests and prefers to study alone rather than with others. She also finds it rather difficult to get things organized and get going, something I am quite good at. How did our scores compare? We had the exact same score in neuroticism (19- although 'low', inversely was rather high). Our extraversion and agreeableness scores were also very similar. Conscientiousness, the behavior associated with constraint, differed significantly- her score was 6 points lower than my own.
Do you feel that your scores on the survey given to us before class last week reflect your study habits and the feeling you have about stressful situations, like finals? (Forgot your score? Click here for an online test in the big 5!) Is there anything you've found to be contradictory or unexpected?
Finals de-stress-er: If you need a mental break, take 2 minutes and look at the '13 Simple Steps to Get You Through a Rough Day'
