How to build your kid’s intelligence

In a previous blog, I posted a quote from Richard Nisbett, distinguished psychology professor at Michigan and Malcolm Gladwell’s guru on human intelligence, who indicated that intelligence is under our control.  So how do you get our intelligence under control? 

Although there are a lot of answers to that question, including basics like nutrition and exercise, the best response is tied to the research of Carol Dweck, the world renown expert on human motivation.  I have written previously about her work here, here and here.  Dweck’s early research focused on why some school children persist in the face of failure while others quit as soon as the going gets rough.  Over the years her research has shown that it is crucial for parents to teach children that their intelligence is under their control. Indeed, she found that when children are praised for their intelligence, they resist accepting a challenge and doing things from which they can learn a lot.

Here is Richard Nisbett’s summary of that fascinating research:

In a clever experiment . . .developmental psychologists Claudia Mueller and Carol Dweck told children that they had done very well on problems from the Raven Progressive Matrices test and praised them either for being bright or for working hard.  They then offered the children the opportunity to work on another set of problems—either easy ones (“so I’ll do well”) or hard problems that would challenge them (“so I’ll learn a lot from them, even if I won’t look so smart”).  Sixty-six percent of the children who were praised for their intelligence chose to work on easy problems that would show that they were smart; over 90percent of children praised for hard work chose problems that they would learn a lot from.  If the children did well because they worked hard, they wanted problems that would test their limits and teach them how to do even better.

But in order to further test their conclusions, the researchers added some important “difficulties.”

Before the children actually got a chance to work on a problem set of their choice, Mueller and Dweck required them to work on a second set of problems that were much more difficult than the first set.  The children were then asked to explain why they had performed poorly on the second set of problems.  The children praised for intelligence based on performance on the first set of problems were more likely to think that their failure on the second set of problems reflected lack of ability; children praised for hard work initially were more likely to think that their failure on the second set of problems was due to lack of effort.  Children praised for ability were less likely to want to continue to work on the problems and reported enjoying working on the second set of tasks less than did those praised for hard work.  As icing on the cake, Mueller and Dweck then had the children work on a third set of problems.  Children who had initially been praised for intelligence solved fewer problems than those initially praised for hard work. 

The conclusions are obvious:  If you want to build your kid’s intelligence (and your own), emphasize and praise for effort and hard work, not for intelligence or IQ.  Not only does that process reject the conventional and highly limiting views of innate intelligence, but more significantly, it puts performance under the control of the person.  You may not think you’ve got the ability, but you sure as hell can put more effort into something you want to learn.  And, that’s especially true when you’ve got an effective teacher and coach.

Later studies by Carol Dweck and Anders Ericsson on “deliberate practice” research successes in numerous fields based on the results of this seminal research.  That includes research on sports such as golf, ice-skating, and tennis, as well as games like chess, and academic subjects like math, business, the arts and an ever-enlarging set of disciplines.

翻譯：

 如何開(kāi)發(fā)你孩子的智慧

  在之前一篇博客中，我引用了 Richard Nisbett的話(huà)。這個(gè)不是在密歇根馬爾科姆格拉德維爾的宗教老師。他說(shuō)，智力在我們的掌握之中。那么如何能將智力掌控自如呢？
雖然這個(gè)問(wèn)題有許許多多答案，包括基礎(chǔ)的營(yíng)養(yǎng)和鍛煉，最好的回答來(lái)自人類(lèi)動(dòng)機(jī)專(zhuān)家Carol Dweck 的調(diào)查。我在之前許多文章中提及過(guò)她的工作。Dweck最早的調(diào)查集中于為什么一些學(xué)生支持直到面對(duì)失敗，而另一些像事情變?cè)阋粯友杆俜艞墶＝?jīng)過(guò)幾年的調(diào)研，她的調(diào)查發(fā)現(xiàn)家長(zhǎng)告訴孩子們他們的智力是在掌控之中的這一點(diǎn)至關(guān)重要。
事實(shí)上，她發(fā)現(xiàn)當(dāng)孩子被夸獎(jiǎng)聰明，他們會(huì)敢于接受挑戰(zhàn)并且從中學(xué)到很多。
這是 Richard Nisbett 的調(diào)查總結(jié)：

在一個(gè)聰明的試驗(yàn)中……實(shí)驗(yàn)心理學(xué)家Claudia Mueller和Carol Dweck告訴孩子們他們?cè)诶追沂蠞u進(jìn)圖形測(cè)驗(yàn)中做得非常棒并且分別贊揚(yáng)他們聰明或勤奮，然后他們給孩子們做另一套的機(jī)會(huì)，簡(jiǎn)單的（所以我可以做好）或難的（即使我做不出以致看起來(lái)不那么聰明，但我可以學(xué)到很多）結(jié)果之前被夸獎(jiǎng)聰明的孩子中有百分之六十六選擇了簡(jiǎn)單的題，因?yàn)槟菢涌梢员憩F(xiàn)他們的聰明。百分之九十以上被夸獎(jiǎng)勤奮的孩子選擇了困難的題，以便能夠?qū)W到更多的知識(shí)。如果孩子因?yàn)榍趭^而做的很好，他們就希望難題來(lái)彌補(bǔ)自己的不足并且告訴他們?cè)撊绾巫龅酶谩?/p>

為了鞏固他們的結(jié)論，調(diào)查者們?cè)黾恿艘恍┲匾摹半y點(diǎn)”
在孩子們得到機(jī)會(huì)選擇問(wèn)題之前Muller和Dweck要求他們做一組比第一組更難的題目。然后詢(xún)問(wèn)他們?yōu)槭裁醋龅煤軤€。第一次被表?yè)P(yáng)聰明的孩子更容易認(rèn)為自己能力不足而被表?yè)P(yáng)勤奮的孩子則認(rèn)為第二次的失敗在于不夠努力。“聰明”的孩子很少想要繼續(xù)鉆研這些難題，而勤奮的孩子認(rèn)真的計(jì)算第二組難題。專(zhuān)家們趁熱打鐵給了孩子們第三組題，結(jié)果被夸獎(jiǎng)聰明的孩子做對(duì)的題遠(yuǎn)少于被夸獎(jiǎng)勤奮的。

結(jié)論顯而易見(jiàn)：如果你想要開(kāi)發(fā)你孩子的智慧（和你的），強(qiáng)調(diào)并且贊揚(yáng)他努力和勤奮而不是聰明或IQ,不僅僅是因?yàn)槟菢訒?huì)嚴(yán)重限制天賦的智慧，更重要的是，這樣能夠使孩子的成長(zhǎng)在控制之中。你也許會(huì)想你還沒(méi)得到這能力，但你的確可以更專(zhuān)注地投入到你想得到的東西上去。并且，當(dāng)你有一個(gè)有影響力的老師或教練時(shí)尤為這樣。
根據(jù)這個(gè)調(diào)查Carol Dweck 和 Anders Ericsson后續(xù)的“刻意練習(xí)”調(diào)查在許多領(lǐng)域取得了成功。包括體育界的像高爾夫、滑冰、網(wǎng)球和游戲如國(guó)際象棋以及學(xué)校課程如數(shù)學(xué)、商業(yè)、藝術(shù)。