It'd be nice to think that IQ is not a big determining factor for how successful and happy we are in life.
But not so, several studies will say.
One study by the University of Delaware found that contrary to popular belief, the higher your IQ, the more likely you are socially smart.
And while genetics make up an estimated 40 to 80 per cent of a person's IQ, there are a number of factors that determine how dumb you get.
Here goes, the TOP 7 Reasons that make men dumb:
FACTOR NO. 7 : Long Management Meetings
And that those people who spend hours and hours holding long, pointless meetings are not only lacking in EQ, they are probably lacking in IQ as well?
"You may joke about how committee meetings make you feel brain dead, but our findings suggest that they may make you act brain dead as well," said Read Montague, director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and the Computational Psychiatry Unit at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute.
His study found that people perform less well on IQ tests directly after spending time in small social groups than they did when they were alone.
And if their performance was publicly revealed and ranked among their peers, they performed even worse.
It is theorised that this is as being in the presence of someone whom you think is smarter than you triggers debilitative cognitive responses by making us act stupid because we feel stupid.
Brain scans revealed that just being reminded of how the rest of group were scoring lit up parts of the brain responsible for fear, anxiety and emotional response.
FACTOR NO. 6 : Jet Lag leads to permanent brain damage
A study conducted to investigate the effect of flying on Indian male and female flight attendants (FAs) found that a whopping 67.47 per cent of FAs who fly more than 10 years suffer from memory loss.
The paper, published in 2007, found that stress, loss of memory and headaches appeared to share the same etiology such as hypoxia (the deprivation of adequate oxygen supply to body parts), jetlag and irregular sleep.
Another study, this time conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, found that hamsters subjected to extreme, chronic jetlag had about half the normal rate of new neuron birth in a part of the brain, by as much as 50 per cent.
These animals, when later tested in learning and memory, performed poorer than the control group hamsters.
It wasn't that the hamsters were sleep deprived. The two groups of hamsters slept the same total number of hours, but one group had their hours screwed up by sleeping at times completely unrelated to their external environment.
The most frightening point is it is permanent. Or at least a long term problem. The learning and memory problems remained even after the hamsters were put back on a 28 days back-to-normal schedule.
FACTOR NO.5 : The Firstborn is the Smartest
Several studies have found that firstborn children score higher on IQ tests than their younger siblings - a fact backed-up by history, where most Nobel Prize winners and US presidents are firstborns.
However, as a consolation, the effect seems to be slight - a study found that the average difference in IQ was just three points higher in an eldest child than in the second.
Researchers believe this effect is due to family dynamics, and not biological factors. A firstborn is likely to have had more alone time with his or her parents, and those extra months or years of undivided attention can translate into IQ results.
But all is not lost if you are a secondborn. Older siblings tend to exhibit more dutiful and cautious behaviour than their siblings, while younger siblings often develop other skills, like social charm, inventiveness and confidence.
FACTOR NO.4 : Mommy's Love and Nutrients
In a 2011 study from the UK, kids who were breastfed as babies had higher scores on tests of vocabulary and reasoning at age five than those who weren't breastfed.
The physical bond between mom and her child promotes the child emotional and cognitive development at a rate five times faster than a child without being breastfed.
"There are essential fatty acids in breast milk which are good for cell development and brain development in particular," said Amanda Sacker, one of the authors of the new study from the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex.
She added that there also could be differences in hormones and growth factors which are lacking in formula. A third possibility is that the act of cuddling during breastfeeding sessions may be translating to better smarts in the future.
This adds on the the host of benefits science has found in favour of breastfeeding, including lower infection risks, stronger lungs and less asthma.
Mommy's constant love that includes worries, anxieities and at times panic attack that the child doesn't perform to behavioural and academic expectations are actually a good thing. It persuades the child to be determined and focused in order to gain mommy's acceptance and love.
Invariably, this promotes achievement and mental development in the form of higher IQ.
FACTOR NO.3 : Gadgets and City Life
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| Dumb 03: Playing non-essential gadgets |
Researchers from the University of Michigan found that just being in an urban environment can impair our basic mental processes.
After spending just a few minutes in a crowded city street, your memory capabilities are affected and the mind suffers from a drop in self-control.
In a series of psychological tests, subjects who walked through a city ended up in a worse mood and scored poorly in attention and working memory tests.
The reason is simple: A city, with a concentration of activity in a small area, is a brain drain. The mind has to pay attention to so much stimuli and irrelevant things that what results is an overload on the brain's processing power. Gadgets such as iPhones, Samsung and Notepads sucked up so much time that inhibits brain development.
This is in contrast to looking at nature and wide areas of greenery, which has been proven to be beneficial to the brain. One study has demonstrated, for example, that hospital patients recover more quickly when greenery is visible from their hospital windows.
FACTOR No.2 : Couch Potatoes & Junk Food
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| Dumb 02: Lack exercise and too much non-nutritious food |
A study has found that children three years old and younger who stuff themselves with foods high in fats, sugars and processed foods grow up to have a lower IQ, while those who eat a healthy diet end up as smarter adults.
This is as the brain is believed to be growing at its fastest rate during the first three years of life, and depriving the brain of proper nutrients at this crucial period may have serious ramifications later on in life.
Eating junk food is not only linked to duller minds in childhood. Other studies have found that diet in adulthood also affects mental performance in later years.
A study, published in a 2003 issue of the International Journal of Obesity, found that obesity works independently, as well as hand in hand with other risk factors, to cause a decline in thinking ability, especially for memory and learning.
Those with a "body mass index" of 30 or more performed significantly worse in tests of mental ability, the Boston study found.
It was suggested that obesity may damage brain function by making it harder for blood to reach the brain.
Other studies have speculated that the reduced cognitive abilities of obese people might be due to their resistance to sugar (caused by prolonged exposure to excessive sugar), which affects the health of brain cells.
Exercise moderately will keep the sugar level in checked and promotes better blood circulation that leads to better oxygen supply to the brains.
AND THE NO.1 FEARED FACTOR THAT MAKES MEN DUMB IS ...
FACTOR NO.1 : Beautiful Women
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| Dumb 01.1: The most destructive, beautiful factor to man's IQ |
In 2009, a study demonstrated that after a short interaction with an attractive woman, men displayed poorer performance in mental tasks. The more beautiful the woman, the stronger the effect.
That's not all. A more recent study showed that even the mere anticipation of interacting with a woman is enough to impair the cognitive abilities of men.
Researcher Sanne Nauts and her team from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands had participants take part in a cognitively demanding test.
During the test, they were told that a person with either a male or female name would be watching them through a webcam.
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| Dumb 01.2: Woman watching you? Be careful, detrimental to ACCA Scores |
The participants knew nothing of the invisible "watcher", other than his or her sex. But just knowing an invisible woman was watching them was enough to severely impact their performance.
In another experiment, the researchers decided to tell the participants that they would be watched by a woman before they took the test.
In reality, the participants never took the test, but took another cognitive test to measure their current level of mental function. Researchers found that just the anticipation of being watched by a woman was enough to make the men score terribly.
Interesting enough, both studies found that this effect only applies to men. Women apparently are not made dumber by interacting with men.
VERDICT
ACCA Male candidates should stopped blaming themselves why their exam scores are so low. In Audit Language, this is an inherent risk to be surrounded by highly intelligent fairer sex. Yes, they as scientifically proven, makes you dumb.
Otherwise, why would an otherwise intelligent man whistle like a fool when a beautiful lady passes by. Can he not talk intelligently? Like saying, "Howdy lady, have a nice day?" Oh no... men make stupid remarks like "Where have you been all my life? or Have we met before?" Duh!
Know your risks! As P1 (GRE-ACCA) paper states on Risks Management - "Be forewarned in order to be Forearmed."
ACTIONS
In class, in order to have optimum score in ACCA Exams, the following strategies are absolutely essential:
1. Focus on the lectures. Not classmates!
2. Take notes to minimise wandering mind or wondering if the lady across the room is cute.
3. Throw away your smart phones, gadgets and delete all software games.
4. Focus on practicing exam questions.
5. Cease looking into the mirror. Remember, we don't want to look good and attract ladies attention. Look into Past Years Questions instead.
6. Spend 6-8 hours a day reading manuals, revising Q&A and doing own notes.
7. Stop thinking if your classmates are smarter. It implies you are not. HARD WORKING people succeeds.
8. Get 45 minutes solo exercise a week like jogging, swimming or washing dad's car.
CONCLUSION
I promise you, guys. It will make you SMARTER and the best part, it has no medical side effects. Your brains become sharper and develop employable skills.But you may ask, What happens when I graduate from ACCA and work in office surrounded by the fairer sex?" Well, all I can say is don't look too far into the future. I am sure scientists will come up with appropriate strategies to manage work.
Source: Asiaone.com (Singapore newspaper)
