the psychology of talent and expert performance
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The Psychology of Talent And Expert Performance. Abe Feinberg http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v =J5J4mWddC70. Natural Talent “Gifted” “A born writer”. VS. Hard work “If you put your mind to it, you can do anything!”. Nature Vs. Nurture. Francis Galton. Do people have natural talent? - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
The Psychology of TalentAnd Expert Performance
Abe Feinberghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5J4mWddC70
Natural Talent“Gifted”“A born writer”
Hard work“If you put your mind to it, you can do anything!”
VS.
Francis Galton
Nature
Vs.
Nurture
Do people have natural talent?
That depends on what you mean.
An unusual natural ability…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVqRT_kCOLI
Kim Peek“Megasavant”
Agenesis of the corpus collosum Stephen WiltshireAutistic savant
An unusual natural ability
for an entire discipline…?
Anders Ericsson
“Deliberate Practice”
The 10,000 hour rule
What about Mozart? Father was a successful
composer/performer/teacher
Started at age three Early work was not
entirely original First masterpiece
(Piano Concerto No. 9) composed at age 21
That’s 18 years of expert training
Tiger Woods
Father was a teacher and golf fanatic
Started at seven months
Became chess grandmaster at age 15
…after playing for nine years.
Bobby Fischer
“Geniuses are made, not born”
László’s experiment:1. Find a wife2. Raise children to
be chess experts
László Polgár
The Polgár SistersZsuzsa, Zsófia, Judit
All three became chess grandmasters
Judit Polgár Defeated nine world champions
Ranked strongest female chess player in history
Hard work?
Practice?Practicing wrong just makes you
better at doing it wrong.
“Deliberate practice.”
Started in high school
In the NFL draft, 15 teams passed him over
Greatest receiver in NFL history
Records exceed 2nd best by 50 percent
Jerry Rice
1. Worked really, really hard Continued
practice after others went home
Intense six-days-a-week, off-season workouts
5-mile run 10 forty-meter
wind sprints Weight training
Jerry Rice
People attribute success to: Ability Other people Luck Effort
Better predictor of academic success than IQ
The importance of effort
1. Many students do not realize the importance of effort
2. They can learn to do so
3. When they do, their performance goes up
The importance of effort
How can we change student beliefs about effort?
2. Designed practice to target specific needs Spent <1% of
football-related practice playing football
Jerry Rice
Highly designed form of practice Isolate specific elements of performance Catch mistakes and target your weak areas
Involves continuous feedback Often requires expert coaching
Highly demanding mentally Not usually much fun Lots of repetition
Especially spaced repetition
Deliberate Practice
1. Everything you do (or think) involves activation of a neural pathway
2. The more you activate a pathway the faster and more reliable it gets
The Biology of Practicing
Fixed mindset Abilities are
the result of natural talent, unchangeable
Growth mindset Abilities are
the result of effort and effective practice
Growth Mindset Effort is normal and
necessary for growth Try to learn/improve Seek challenges Failure = Need to put
in more effort Success of others =
learning opportunity Open to criticism,
with realistic self-concept
Fixed Mindset Effort indicates lack
of talent Try to look good Avoid challenges Failure = It’s
pointless, just give up
Success of others = threat
Defensive, with distorted self-concept