5 ms·

The general idea here, "praise effort, not smartness", is pretty well backed by the research, I came across a similar study some years ago and they keep popping

by Jach 15y ago

The general idea here, "praise effort, not smartness", is pretty well backed by the research, I came across a similar study some years ago and they keep popping up. (Maybe it was the same one?) It's definitely made it into my mental catalog of parenting techniques should I ever have kids. It also reflects my own personal experiences I think a lot of above-average-in-something people go through: at some point in their academic or professional lives, they hit a wall where their ability isn't enough and they don't have the mental discipline and other habits to put in the needed effort. Some things stop being fun and look suspiciously like busywork even if it will help. (And sometimes it actually is unhelpful busywork.) I know some people eat up busywork, they just grind through it, personally I can't stand it and avoid it as long as I can. Nor have I found anyone suggesting a general solution to gaining a hard-worker attitude if you didn't develop one in your childhood, and it seems like a hard problem to solve since it's part of the wider motivation and procrastination problem. Unfortunately the conclusion of the post is a bit too strong: "No matter the ability — whether it's intelligence, creativity, self-control, charm, or athleticism — studies show them to be profoundly malleable. When it comes to mastering any skill, your experience, effort, and persistence matter a lot. So if you were a bright kid, it's time to toss out your (mistaken) belief about how ability works, embrace the fact that you can always improve, and reclaim the confidence to tackle any challenge that you lost so long ago." Effort is insufficient, and great effort is not always necessary as those of us, who breezed through anything others struggled with, know. Ability is necessary though not sufficient. A 3-and-a-half foot tall person has no chance of being an NBA All Star, and I've witnessed not-very-smart students pour hours and hours into things like studying and still fail. Work smarter, not harder (though that requires you to be smart enough). I remember Feynman reflecting on his art saying he didn't think it was very good, that he'd never in a hundred years rival a Renaissance master. Yet he still did it, probably because it was fun or interesting. Cultivating a spirit of playfulness and curiosity that produces effort in disguise seems more important to me than cultivating a spirit of effort for effort's sake.

aik 15y ago
I'm fairly sure it was the same (or a similar) study done by Carol Dweck. She's the mastermind behind the effort/fixed mindset theory. Concerning Feynman -- that is very interesting. My belief is that although the brain is massively flexible/plastic later in life, how your time is spent during the "formative" years does have a massive influence on what your brain will be particularly skilled at as you get older (though again, it can be changed to a good degree, it just takes a lot of effort). And, how your time is spent during the formative years is largely guided by your own natural inclinations/interests and hence what you naturally focus on, both in the external world and internally. If it was possible to significantly influence/alter what a child tends to care about, what they tend to focus on or spend their time on, and what they tend to think about throughout the days -- their brain will develop in a significantly different way and the child will end up with different core abilities. I don't know how much one can affect a child's natural instincts however. Thoughts?
kitsune_ 15y ago
Same story here. I was always the "bright kid" in school (and I got beat up quite often because of this : ) My environment (aunts, grand mothers, parents, teachers, friends, other pupils), always made sure that I knew this in some form or another. I was "smart" and excelled in all school classes, without effort. One teacher once found personal gratification by grilling me for 1 hour in front of the class room: He set up an advanced math problem 4 years my senior and ridiculed me until I started to cry. "See, even you don't know everything". This happened when I was 11 years old. Yay for education professionals! Now, as you said, there is always going to be a wall ahead. My parents have no college background so I was pretty much left alone after I finished high school. I enrolled with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Computer Science and bombed HARD. I was shy, I didn't know how to make friends, I failed at simnple administrative tasks required when growing up, couldn't support myself financially and on top of that the course material obviously wasn't going to be a walk in the park. To this day I struggle with "boring" work and procrastination.

by Jach 15y ago

aik 15y ago

I'm fairly sure it was the same (or a similar) study done by Carol Dweck. She's the mastermind behind the effort/fixed mindset theory. Concerning Feynman -- that is very interesting. My belief is that although the brain is massively flexible/plastic later in life, how your time is spent during the "formative" years does have a massive influence on what your brain will be particularly skilled at as you get older (though again, it can be changed to a good degree, it just takes a lot of effort). And, how your time is spent during the formative years is largely guided by your own natural inclinations/interests and hence what you naturally focus on, both in the external world and internally. If it was possible to significantly influence/alter what a child tends to care about, what they tend to focus on or spend their time on, and what they tend to think about throughout the days -- their brain will develop in a significantly different way and the child will end up with different core abilities. I don't know how much one can affect a child's natural instincts however. Thoughts?

kitsune_ 15y ago

Same story here. I was always the "bright kid" in school (and I got beat up quite often because of this : ) My environment (aunts, grand mothers, parents, teachers, friends, other pupils), always made sure that I knew this in some form or another. I was "smart" and excelled in all school classes, without effort. One teacher once found personal gratification by grilling me for 1 hour in front of the class room: He set up an advanced math problem 4 years my senior and ridiculed me until I started to cry. "See, even you don't know everything". This happened when I was 11 years old. Yay for education professionals! Now, as you said, there is always going to be a wall ahead. My parents have no college background so I was pretty much left alone after I finished high school. I enrolled with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Computer Science and bombed HARD. I was shy, I didn't know how to make friends, I failed at simnple administrative tasks required when growing up, couldn't support myself financially and on top of that the course material obviously wasn't going to be a walk in the park. To this day I struggle with "boring" work and procrastination.