by Paul Tough
Investigating successful kids and programs at low-income schools and high-achieving prep schools, as well as interviewing psychologists and neuroscientists, Tough challenges some conventional wisdom on causes of failure (poverty, teacher quality) and contends that nurturing character in children and young adults is the key to success. He argues that the gap between poorer and wealthier kids’ success levels is caused not mostly through lack of cognitive stimulation, but through a chaotic environment where mothering attachment is lacking and childhood traumas are plentiful. Evidence for this abounds: there is a drop-off in performance among elite prep school kids who have had no lessons in determination and failure management; the ACE score, a measurement of childhood trauma, is a reliable indicator of future performance; and a student’s GPA is a better indicator of college completion than standardized tests, regardless of the quality of the school (which makes sense: a kid in a chaotic environment with a high GPA obviously had high determination, while a kid in the richest prep school with tutoring and enrichment opportunities abounding, with an average GPA, is clearly not working as hard as he could be. The good news is that according to some of his interview subjects, mothering skills can be taught and non-cognitive skills such as curiosity and grit are malleable traits and can be developed fairly late in life.
I found this book to be inspiring and important. Written in an easy, engaging style, with great ideas and surprising revelations bursting forth from nearly every page. The broad studies and character interviews are extremely valuable, while a surprisingly long discursus on chess isn’t so much – and why Tough gives any page time to the “bell curve” idea, which is basically giving a little air time to Hitler, is beyond me. Of course, in a way it’s a depressing book, because it makes clear how totally the system has failed low-income kids, giving the most needy the least instruction – though Tough notes that some programs, such as the Knowledge Is Power Program, are trying to make a difference. In the end, Tough diplomatically addresses what few dare to, though I have advocated for years: we don’t need teacher reform or school reform quite as much as we need family reform. It’s a delicate thing for a well-off white person to criticize the parenting skills of poorer minority parents, but the fact is that with a few simple lessons to new parents after a child’s birth, many costly problems would be avoided before they began. They do it in Germany – it’s too bad so many policymakers in America are so short-sighted when it comes to helping others.
four stars
Showing posts with label brain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brain. Show all posts
Friday, September 6, 2013
Monday, August 12, 2013
Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing
by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman
The authors study the brain science behind competition – why some people thrive under stress and some don’t, the role of gender and hormone levels, the role of reward vs. risk, and so on – to uncover some findings that run counter to common belief. One of these is that stress can be a positive factor in some types of personalities, called “warriors” here and distinguished from “worriers”; the latter thrive better in situations that call for planning, memory, and organization. Another finding is that teams do not have to get along or be friends to succeed, rather dominating when players’ roles are known and unequal (think of Lincoln’s “team of rivals,” or the NBA, where rivalries run high but skill and pay levels are generally conceded as commensurate). Recalling studies I have read elsewhere about the science of top athletes “choking,” the book also explores how expectations and the presence of spectators can affect performance, and how the idea of “playing to win” rather than “playing not to lose” is much more appealing to us, and thus by its framing determines how the same physical action might succeed or fail. I found the information on the role hormones play to be fascinating: for example, testosterone does not increase aggression in competitors but rather increases determination, teamwork, fearlessness, tactical decision-making… indeed, any trait that will increase a player’s esteem in the eyes of others and determine a win. In the same vein, the authors show that oxytocin, widely known as the “love hormone,” does not merely increase a nurturing instinct but also sharpens the ability to determine threats vs. friends, and increases wariness and the protective urge, both of which help competitors win. In regards to gender roles, in what is probably one of the more controversial section of the book, the authors assert that men, blind to their shortcomings, are more likely to take on competition with very little chance of success, whereas women, “better judges of their own ability,” tend to compete only when there is a realistic chance for success, which helps in part explain why there are far fewer women than men candidates for public office at the high levels, and why women make much more accurate stock analysts. Finally, in one of the more counterintuitive findings, the book shows that positive thinking can actually hurt competitors: not taking the competition seriously, or assuming everything will go smoothly, does nothing to help one prepare. Instead, top competitors review their failures rationally and indulge in “subtractive counterfactuals” – that is, identifying what one should not have done, identifying obstacles to success and removing them, rather than saying “if only I had…”
This is not a self-help book, but the science can, of course, be used to help improve competitors’ performance. For example, knowing that each person has an optimal level of stress, that controlled focused anger can boost performance, or that reviewing failures is more productive than fantasizing about victory, can help competitors adapt a winning mindset. The information is sometimes presented in a rather scattershot way within chapters, and there is almost no discussion of how environmental factors may influence competitions, but it is on the whole a lucid, thorough, illuminating, and useful work on one of humanity’s most basic urges – the impulse to win.
four stars
The authors study the brain science behind competition – why some people thrive under stress and some don’t, the role of gender and hormone levels, the role of reward vs. risk, and so on – to uncover some findings that run counter to common belief. One of these is that stress can be a positive factor in some types of personalities, called “warriors” here and distinguished from “worriers”; the latter thrive better in situations that call for planning, memory, and organization. Another finding is that teams do not have to get along or be friends to succeed, rather dominating when players’ roles are known and unequal (think of Lincoln’s “team of rivals,” or the NBA, where rivalries run high but skill and pay levels are generally conceded as commensurate). Recalling studies I have read elsewhere about the science of top athletes “choking,” the book also explores how expectations and the presence of spectators can affect performance, and how the idea of “playing to win” rather than “playing not to lose” is much more appealing to us, and thus by its framing determines how the same physical action might succeed or fail. I found the information on the role hormones play to be fascinating: for example, testosterone does not increase aggression in competitors but rather increases determination, teamwork, fearlessness, tactical decision-making… indeed, any trait that will increase a player’s esteem in the eyes of others and determine a win. In the same vein, the authors show that oxytocin, widely known as the “love hormone,” does not merely increase a nurturing instinct but also sharpens the ability to determine threats vs. friends, and increases wariness and the protective urge, both of which help competitors win. In regards to gender roles, in what is probably one of the more controversial section of the book, the authors assert that men, blind to their shortcomings, are more likely to take on competition with very little chance of success, whereas women, “better judges of their own ability,” tend to compete only when there is a realistic chance for success, which helps in part explain why there are far fewer women than men candidates for public office at the high levels, and why women make much more accurate stock analysts. Finally, in one of the more counterintuitive findings, the book shows that positive thinking can actually hurt competitors: not taking the competition seriously, or assuming everything will go smoothly, does nothing to help one prepare. Instead, top competitors review their failures rationally and indulge in “subtractive counterfactuals” – that is, identifying what one should not have done, identifying obstacles to success and removing them, rather than saying “if only I had…”
This is not a self-help book, but the science can, of course, be used to help improve competitors’ performance. For example, knowing that each person has an optimal level of stress, that controlled focused anger can boost performance, or that reviewing failures is more productive than fantasizing about victory, can help competitors adapt a winning mindset. The information is sometimes presented in a rather scattershot way within chapters, and there is almost no discussion of how environmental factors may influence competitions, but it is on the whole a lucid, thorough, illuminating, and useful work on one of humanity’s most basic urges – the impulse to win.
four stars
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School
by John Medina
The author, a lecturer, researcher, and molecular biologist, lists twelve major principles that help explain how the brain works: though processes are improved by physical exercise, we pay attention to evolutionarily important things like sex and danger, we need sleep to cogitate properly, repetition is crucial to long-term memory, we learn more through a variety of sensory inputs, gender influences how our brain process certain interactions, and so on. In most of the chapters, he goes on to advocate for the integration of these findings into education, thus revolutionizing the traditional classroom.
This book is widely praised for its clear, lucid prose, but I didn’t come away all that impressed. I felt that Medina took up too much space describing various sections of the brain to no real purpose. Does it really help our understanding of how the brain works to visualize axons and brain sections and cells and neurons as, variously, stomped eggs, a scorpion with an egg on its back, or uprooted trees jammed together horizontally? There’s no relation between its physical structure and how it works, so what’s the point? (In the same vein, I was bemused by his habit of describing nearly every scientist he refers to. I simply don’t care whether a man looks youthful or his head is shaped like an egg; indeed, such dwelling on looks turns me off an author.) I also thought that Medina (using tricks based on principles of attention) relied too much on cutesy and misleading attention-grabbers like “we’ll learn that we each have a Jennifer Aniston neuron” (no, we don’t) or “we’ll learn the difference between bicycles and Social Security numbers” (overly playful and not at all accurate). I find deliberately misleading teasers like that to be insulting rather than enticing. Finally and most importantly, most of these principles are extremely basic. (Is it really cutting-edge news that repetition is important when learning, or that we need sleep, or that some people crumple under stress while others rise to the challenge, or that people need to feel safe in order to learn?) Despite that, Medina several times in the book proposes sweeping, pie-in-the-sky “solutions” to education problems based on this research, such as restructuring the school day into short lessons, the same content repeated three times, and thus stretching the school year into the summer to make room for all the information; or offering an early work- or schoolday as well as a later one to accommodate different sleep cycles; or mandating child care and parent classes to everyone. Some of these aren’t bad ideas; it’s just that they aren’t going to happen any time soon. Some reasonable, easily-implemented changes that could provide some benefit would have been better. It is an interesting, if basic, primer on the brain, and it is told lucidly; I just didn’t feel there was much point to it, let alone help for “surviving and thriving,” as the subtitle boasts.
three stars
The author, a lecturer, researcher, and molecular biologist, lists twelve major principles that help explain how the brain works: though processes are improved by physical exercise, we pay attention to evolutionarily important things like sex and danger, we need sleep to cogitate properly, repetition is crucial to long-term memory, we learn more through a variety of sensory inputs, gender influences how our brain process certain interactions, and so on. In most of the chapters, he goes on to advocate for the integration of these findings into education, thus revolutionizing the traditional classroom.
This book is widely praised for its clear, lucid prose, but I didn’t come away all that impressed. I felt that Medina took up too much space describing various sections of the brain to no real purpose. Does it really help our understanding of how the brain works to visualize axons and brain sections and cells and neurons as, variously, stomped eggs, a scorpion with an egg on its back, or uprooted trees jammed together horizontally? There’s no relation between its physical structure and how it works, so what’s the point? (In the same vein, I was bemused by his habit of describing nearly every scientist he refers to. I simply don’t care whether a man looks youthful or his head is shaped like an egg; indeed, such dwelling on looks turns me off an author.) I also thought that Medina (using tricks based on principles of attention) relied too much on cutesy and misleading attention-grabbers like “we’ll learn that we each have a Jennifer Aniston neuron” (no, we don’t) or “we’ll learn the difference between bicycles and Social Security numbers” (overly playful and not at all accurate). I find deliberately misleading teasers like that to be insulting rather than enticing. Finally and most importantly, most of these principles are extremely basic. (Is it really cutting-edge news that repetition is important when learning, or that we need sleep, or that some people crumple under stress while others rise to the challenge, or that people need to feel safe in order to learn?) Despite that, Medina several times in the book proposes sweeping, pie-in-the-sky “solutions” to education problems based on this research, such as restructuring the school day into short lessons, the same content repeated three times, and thus stretching the school year into the summer to make room for all the information; or offering an early work- or schoolday as well as a later one to accommodate different sleep cycles; or mandating child care and parent classes to everyone. Some of these aren’t bad ideas; it’s just that they aren’t going to happen any time soon. Some reasonable, easily-implemented changes that could provide some benefit would have been better. It is an interesting, if basic, primer on the brain, and it is told lucidly; I just didn’t feel there was much point to it, let alone help for “surviving and thriving,” as the subtitle boasts.
three stars
Sunday, May 12, 2013
How We Decide
by Jonah Lehrer
A look at the existing literature on behavioral science and the conclusions it makes about how we make decisions; specifically, the book argues that we do not simply decide rationally. Rather, we use a blend of emotion, gut feeling, or instinct, as well as a rational weighing of pros and cons, when we decide. Or at least, we should. (The experimental literature is especially fascinating here, as for example in the man who has a brain injury that leaves him affectless and unmoved by emotion, and thus unable to make even the simplest decision, as he gets caught up in an endless loop of weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each possibility.) Snap decisions based on observation and instinct, Lehrer shows in countless examples, are often better (as in successfully crash-landing a plane or escaping a forest fire) than simply listening to one’s desires (as those trapped in credit card debt know too well). On the other hand, as Lehrer shows from examples in the fields of sports and art, over-thinking a mistake or a challenge can lead to perpetual self-doubt and undoing. The crucial point is that deciders must analyze their own decisions and watch carefully how much emotion is biasing their choices; we “know more than we think we know,” and if we apply reason to that knowledge, we can make efficient decisions.
This isn’t a particularly weighty or earth-shaking conclusion, and much of the material here can be found in other popular books on neuroscience. I recognized the hot hands study, the story of the firefighter who built a burnt patch to save himself, and several others. Instead of providing further insight on or alternative interpretations of these studies, Lehrer repeats their key points in such a way that they relate to his larger claims about decision making. I also learned, just before finishing this book, that Lehrer is the disgraced journalist who manufactured Bob Dylan quotes for a subsequent book. So, caveat lector, I suppose. Those problematic aspects aside, I very much enjoyed this book, with its wealth of fascinating anecdotes from brain studies and its practical, sensible applications of the studies to advice on how to decide. Lehrer’s style is breezy and accessible, and he has a gift for finding the empathy, suspense, and drama in every human story.
four stars
A look at the existing literature on behavioral science and the conclusions it makes about how we make decisions; specifically, the book argues that we do not simply decide rationally. Rather, we use a blend of emotion, gut feeling, or instinct, as well as a rational weighing of pros and cons, when we decide. Or at least, we should. (The experimental literature is especially fascinating here, as for example in the man who has a brain injury that leaves him affectless and unmoved by emotion, and thus unable to make even the simplest decision, as he gets caught up in an endless loop of weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each possibility.) Snap decisions based on observation and instinct, Lehrer shows in countless examples, are often better (as in successfully crash-landing a plane or escaping a forest fire) than simply listening to one’s desires (as those trapped in credit card debt know too well). On the other hand, as Lehrer shows from examples in the fields of sports and art, over-thinking a mistake or a challenge can lead to perpetual self-doubt and undoing. The crucial point is that deciders must analyze their own decisions and watch carefully how much emotion is biasing their choices; we “know more than we think we know,” and if we apply reason to that knowledge, we can make efficient decisions.
This isn’t a particularly weighty or earth-shaking conclusion, and much of the material here can be found in other popular books on neuroscience. I recognized the hot hands study, the story of the firefighter who built a burnt patch to save himself, and several others. Instead of providing further insight on or alternative interpretations of these studies, Lehrer repeats their key points in such a way that they relate to his larger claims about decision making. I also learned, just before finishing this book, that Lehrer is the disgraced journalist who manufactured Bob Dylan quotes for a subsequent book. So, caveat lector, I suppose. Those problematic aspects aside, I very much enjoyed this book, with its wealth of fascinating anecdotes from brain studies and its practical, sensible applications of the studies to advice on how to decide. Lehrer’s style is breezy and accessible, and he has a gift for finding the empathy, suspense, and drama in every human story.
four stars
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Mind Over Mind: The Surprising Power Of Expectations
by Chris Berdik
A collection of studies on how expectations and belief can control our performance, even our very biology. Investigating the fields of sports psychology (especially the reasons for top athletes’ “choking” in the clutch), medicine (with its use of placebos and their lesser-known opposites, nocebos), wine tasting (breaking down not only the experts’ claims for superior sensory discrimination but also their consistency), and others, Berdik shows the many and varied ways in which what we expect, even what we are explicitly told to expect, can influence our perception and ability. From actual fear reactions during virtual reality experiences to being rated as more leader-like simply after striking a certain pose, these studies confound and delighted me, as they do all those interested in how we can use the hard-wired functions of the brain to improve our everyday lives.
I don’t like reviewing a book for what it is not (which is like saying “this cupcake is bad, because it is not a donut”), but I was expecting there to be a practical aspect to all these studies: now that we know, for example, that studies prove that most people are overconfident about their abilities, what do we do? How does can we adapt these findings – such as that people who play taller, handsomer avatars in video games act more attractive in real life – to our work lives? Instead it was study after study, with no conclusion or general thesis. Fascinating, but not particularly cohesive or utile.
three stars
A collection of studies on how expectations and belief can control our performance, even our very biology. Investigating the fields of sports psychology (especially the reasons for top athletes’ “choking” in the clutch), medicine (with its use of placebos and their lesser-known opposites, nocebos), wine tasting (breaking down not only the experts’ claims for superior sensory discrimination but also their consistency), and others, Berdik shows the many and varied ways in which what we expect, even what we are explicitly told to expect, can influence our perception and ability. From actual fear reactions during virtual reality experiences to being rated as more leader-like simply after striking a certain pose, these studies confound and delighted me, as they do all those interested in how we can use the hard-wired functions of the brain to improve our everyday lives.
I don’t like reviewing a book for what it is not (which is like saying “this cupcake is bad, because it is not a donut”), but I was expecting there to be a practical aspect to all these studies: now that we know, for example, that studies prove that most people are overconfident about their abilities, what do we do? How does can we adapt these findings – such as that people who play taller, handsomer avatars in video games act more attractive in real life – to our work lives? Instead it was study after study, with no conclusion or general thesis. Fascinating, but not particularly cohesive or utile.
three stars
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
by Carol S. Dweck
The author, a social psychologist, divides people into two types. One has a fixed mindset and so believes that intelligence and personality are fixed traits that cannot change. It follows from this view that effort is to be avoided, because if you need to try you must not have talent; that setbacks reflect personally on you (transference of action to individual); that you blame others or yourself for setbacks; and esteem is garnered through the deprecation of others. The second group is the growth mindset, which believes that intelligence and other traits can be improved on; that success comes through effort; that high standards are a challenge; that flaws should be admitted and faced; that praise should focus on effort, not ability; and that setbacks are not personal. She then applies this mindset theory to show how to deal best with school, teaching, parenting, relationships, and business.
Dweck writes in a readable, conversational style with lots of real-world examples and citations from her personal research. There’s nothing earth-shatteringly revelatory here, but it’s genuine; as someone who was praised ad nauseam for my intelligence as a child, I have seen many of these results first hand. Overall it’s a well-reasoned and persuasive book. Unlike a lot of self-help authors, Dweck writes honestly about the lack of quick fixes and the struggle it takes to change into a healthy growth mindset, and gives clear tips on how to do so. This is no pie in the sky psycho-babble; it’s an easy read with powerful, practical advice.
four stars
The author, a social psychologist, divides people into two types. One has a fixed mindset and so believes that intelligence and personality are fixed traits that cannot change. It follows from this view that effort is to be avoided, because if you need to try you must not have talent; that setbacks reflect personally on you (transference of action to individual); that you blame others or yourself for setbacks; and esteem is garnered through the deprecation of others. The second group is the growth mindset, which believes that intelligence and other traits can be improved on; that success comes through effort; that high standards are a challenge; that flaws should be admitted and faced; that praise should focus on effort, not ability; and that setbacks are not personal. She then applies this mindset theory to show how to deal best with school, teaching, parenting, relationships, and business.
Dweck writes in a readable, conversational style with lots of real-world examples and citations from her personal research. There’s nothing earth-shatteringly revelatory here, but it’s genuine; as someone who was praised ad nauseam for my intelligence as a child, I have seen many of these results first hand. Overall it’s a well-reasoned and persuasive book. Unlike a lot of self-help authors, Dweck writes honestly about the lack of quick fixes and the struggle it takes to change into a healthy growth mindset, and gives clear tips on how to do so. This is no pie in the sky psycho-babble; it’s an easy read with powerful, practical advice.
four stars
Friday, May 23, 2008
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
by Malcolm Gladwell
A treatise on how split-second first impressions, or snap decisions
based on unconscious judgments, are often actually more accurate than
decisions based on a superabundance of data. Using entertaining
anecdotes from the world of ER triage, psychological experiments, pop
music, business, and modern headlines, Gladwell crafts a truly
convincing argument.
Every page has something interesting to say
about human behavior and how easily people fall into self-deception (the
false first impression, which he calls the “Warren Harding error,” or
how looks can sway our decisions; as well as convincing ourselves that
we’ve thought something out when actually we can’t reasonably explain
how we came to a correct decision because it was unconscious). This is
one of those rare things, a truly fascinating book on social psychology.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)