Growing Minds (PDF)

Interest in the human mind is a centuries-old fascination, dating back to Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes. While the theories proposed about the human mind have since advanced and evolved, the fascination remains. Growing Minds is a unique and interdisciplinary work that guides the reader through an examination of the human mind's nature, performance, lifespan, and variations.

The book sets out to answer a variety of questions:

• What are the cognitive processes underlying intelligence?


• What is general and what is specific in intelligence?


• What is stable and what is changing in intelligence as children grow older?


• Why do individuals differ in intelligence, and are differences genetically determined?


• How is intelligence and intellectual development related to the genome and the brain?


• How is intelligence related to personality?


• Can intelligence be enhanced by specific interventions?

The text is organised into three parts: the first provides a summary and evaluation of research conducted on the human mind by experimental cognitive psychology, differential psychology, and developmental psychology. The second presents an overarching theory of the growing mind, showing how mind and intelligence are at the crossroads of nature and nurture; and the third assesses the relationship between education and intelligence.

This book is the result of decades of extensive research and culminates in the proposal of a new overarching and integrated theory of the developing mind. For the first time, research is gathered and combined to form a comprehensive concept and fulfil the need for a fresh, integrative paradigm which both asks and answers questions about the human mind from a multi-faceted perspective.