Stanford psychologist, Carol Dweck, has spent her career studying the mental phenomena that lead to success. The Effort Effect provides an overview of her findings.
Why do some people reach their potential, while others with equal or greater talent fail?
The answer, according to Dweck, is attitude. In fact, Dweck has observed that believing in fixed intelligence can undermine a person’s ability to succeed.
Many people who believe in fixed intelligence also think you shouldn’t need hard work to do well. This belief isn’t entirely irrational, she says. A student who finishes a problem set in 10 minutes is indeed better at math than someone who takes four hours to solve the problems. And a soccer player who scores effortlessly probably is more talented than someone who’s always practicing. “The fallacy comes when people generalize it to the belief that effort on any task, even very hard ones, implies low ability,” Dweck says.
This fallacy leads people to view set backs as personal failures rather than opportunities for growth.
Students for whom performance is paramount want to look smart even if it means not learning a thing in the process. For them, each task is a challenge to their self-image, and each setback becomes a personal threat.
Is Being Gifted Harmful?
As a person labeled ‘gifted’ as an adolescent, this article lead me to reflect on my own intellectual development.
Has being ‘gifted’ undermined my achievement? Possibly.
When you’re ‘gifted’ expectations change. Intelligence becomes your identity. Everyone knows you’re supposed to do well in school. When you don’t surpass other students with ease you feel like a failure.
Having your identity tarnished is very threatening.
If you do live up to expectations, you start to believe you really are gifted, and that your natural gifts will carry you to immense personal success. This leads to an inflated ego and underdeveloped work ethic.
Did this hurt me? It’s possible, but I wouldn’t want to use it as an excuse for personal shortcomings.
Still, I’m optimistic. At least I’ve realized that being ‘gifted’ doesn’t get you anywhere in the real world. That’s something they should teach in schools.
John,
Great article, but I have to disagree with your main premise that being gifted can cause you to underperform.
I agree that if not properly stimulated, a gifted child can fall into the rut of underperforming, simply because there is no incentive for them to perform beyond the point where they are at the top of the class. (and in most schools, the “top of the class” is embarrassingly low)
However, in the proper environment, I believe that gifted children, and adults, can flourish. Look at Mozart for example. He was born into a very musical environment, with great teachers and access to both sheet music and instruments. It was exactly the right environment for a gifted musician.
Perhaps the problem is not so much that gifted people are natural underachievers, but that gifted children are falling through the cracks and are not learning how to properly develop and embrace their gifts.
Yes, I completely agree that being gifted is a great advantage in the right circumstances.
I think the disadvantage that the psychologist found was that being called ‘gifted’ can lead people to undervalue hard work and increase the fear of failure.
I think children would benefit is schools treated failure as an opportunity for growth, rather than a sign of personal inadequacy.
“I think children would benefit is schools treated failure as an opportunity for growth, rather than a sign of personal inadequacy.”
On that, I completely agree with you.
I had the same problem when I was thought to be “gifted”.
All that did for me in the long run was create headache.
I think it’s possible being labeled ‘gifted’could make a person underperform.
There was an experiment I read about recently which was testing the effects of praise on grade school children. Basically, they were a given a puzzle to solve which was graded on a scale of 1-5 in difficulty.
After completing the test, one group was told they must have worked hard and the others were told they were smart.
When choosing the level of the next puzzle to choose, those who ‘worked harder’ opted for a higher difficulty more often. The smart ones didn’t want to take as many risks.
Found the article:
http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/
Work harder, not smarter?
[...] John Wesley presents Does Being Labeled As Gifted Undermine Personal Growth? posted at Pick the Brain. [...]
John, thanks for this terrific post. You build a good case for lifelong learning that is sparked by curiosity and wonder – and when these sparks diminish the gifted mind slows down.
Love the questions asked and implied in this post – great find.
Ellen, I completely agree with the need to curiosity and wonder. Those are the moments when we really feel alive.
//The answer, according to Dweck, is attitude. In fact, Dweck has observed that believing in fixed intelligence can undermine a person’s ability to succeed.
I got that impression that it is belief rather than attitude from that line.
John,
This is a great topic.
I was gifted and it didn’t do sh!t for me. All it did is make me feel like a weirdo. My wife describes her experience as horrible. In a normal environment, being gifted is a curse.
Now I have a son who’s intelligence is off the map. And I am scrambling to figure out what to do. In contrast, my youngest son seems completely normal and I have no worries about him.
As strange as it sounds, being gifted is a lot like being retarded. It’s a learning disability. But somehow it is worse, because everyone treats you like you should be competent and capable just because your smart, but it doesn’t work that way for many gifted kids. Many of them are incompetent disasters who need special help.
Many people think there is a link between high intelligence and high achievement, but these isn’t.
If more people understood this there wouldn’t be so many parents fighting to get their kid into the ‘gifted’ programs. Nobody is fighting to get their kid labeled ‘special’ but many parents with normal kids are fighting to get their kid labeled ‘gifted’ because they think it will help their academic career, but it probably won’t.
Steve,
Your wife’s experience is unfortunately all too common. I think that what a lot of teachers, parents and others forget is that gifted children are _children._ They may have exceptional abilities and they may be very very bright, but they are still kids.
I have a friend who works with gifted kids (he also works with gifted adults) and he says that the problem with gifted children is that they are not being taught by gifted adults.
I don’t want to sound elitist about this, but I don’t think that there is any way that someone who is not gifted can even relate to a gifted child. They simply don’t share the same frame of reference. I had a teacher who would always put me with the lowest achieving students in our class, telling them that he hoped “some of my brains would rub off on them.” They got frustrated and I got wedgies.
My advice to you wrt your son is to do the same thing that we are doing with our son. Keep him out of the public school system and put him in a Montessori program or another “unstructured” type of school where the children are encouraged to learn their own way. And pay very very close attention to his emotions. And remember to treat him as a kid.
Scott
Scott and Steve,
Thanks for the insight. Looking at the situation from the perspective of a parent brings a new dimension to the discussion that I really hadn’t considered.
I couldn’t imagine anything more intimidating than trying to raise a brilliant child. Who really knows what’s right and what will help them succeed?
I guess all you can do is let them decide what they really want and be supportive. I’m glad I don’t have to deal with this one yet.
I think that yes, being gifted can ben harmful. When you have “normal” skills in a given area, you rely on your determination to improve them. When you are gifted in some area, you might be tempted to rely only on your natural talents… which is bad. Stagnation is always bad.
Now if gifted people (which i do not think i am) decided to work as hard as determined people, their achievements could be absolutely phenomenal.
Scott and John,
I appreciate your support. Raising my oldest son is challenging. He is in Montessori and he is doing great. His teachers let him keep going. He’s 4 and he is reading at a third grade level, knows his multiplication tables up to twelve (and understands how it works), and is doing triple digit addition and subtraction. The owner of the school said she had to go out and buy new books because he read everything they had. This must sound like a brag fest, and it kinda is, but I am frightened wondering where this is all going to lead. I’ve never been faced with such a strange challenge.
He just finished the PS1 game Spyro2 Riptos Revenge. His babysitter watched him in utter amazement. She used to play that game when she was 9 and it was hard for her. He knows every detail about every map and problem in the entire game. I know some kids geek out about this stuff… but he’s 4 and he’s mastered a game made for 10 year olds.
I don’t know guys. Christine and I are taking it a little at a time, and we’ll do what we have to.
The one thing that I want him to avoid that happened to me:
I lost all desire to learn anything school related. School killed my passion for learning. In fact, as stupid as this may sound…
While I was in school I had no idea it was intended for my benefit. Please understand… I mean it… I had no concept of school being intended to improve me. I thought it was some strange form of child torture. My wife did too, maybe that’s one reason our relationship has lasted 18 years.
One thing I am intent upon, keeping my son’s love of learning and discovery alive.
Our district allows grade-level students who are gifted and accellerated in subject area to take subjects at the high school level. For example taking a foreign language or advanced math when in the lower elementary grades. We also now offer dual-enrollment, where g/t students are allowed to receive credit both at the high school and college level. It basically boils down to having active, concerned teachers and a school district that is willing to work with the student and parents to find the best solution for the individual learner. Keep in mind that the federal government is steadily decreasing funds for gifted eduation and it is not mandated like other “special education” programs. Each state has to set aside money in its own budget. Luckily, I work in a state that totally supports the gifted learner from k through 12 and allocates approximatly 50 million compared to the feds last year allocating only 5 million. (even less this year, we’re afraid) Best of Luck raising one of tomorrows leaders! What a wonderful opportunity for you and your wife.
Steve,
Sounds like you are doing the right stuff for your son. Montessori is a great program. We haven’t started our son in it yet but we took him in for the tour and he absolutely loved it.
My childhood was very similar to your son’s. I was a couple of years ahead of the rest of my class, but my school didn’t really know how to deal with me. I remember them giving me a ton of tests, but other than that they just gave me extra work and I spent most of my time reading.
Personally I think that the best thing that you can do for your son is make sure you do plenty of kid stuff with him, like playing football, etc. He’s bloody smart, but he’s also still a kid and he needs that social foundation. He’s going to have trouble finding playmates, so you’ll have to take on a lot of that stuff for/with him.
Scott
Steve,
I can certainly empathize with the way school made you feel as kid. My experience was very similar. It was incredibly boring, with the goal being competition rather than discovery.
I’m not sure how the experience can be improved. Public schools simply aren’t made for the gifted. They’re mass processing plants. Trying to keep your son’s love of learning alive is the best you can do.
Some how we all made it through with our intellectual curiosity intact, with you looking out for him I think he’ll be just fine.
As a math researcher who was a profoundly gifted and troubled child, I agree completely with the posted article.
The problem with labels is that it subverts the healthy and original motivation which is a love of the task itself.
One should do math or piano or whatever out of the original love, not out of a need to impress others or achieve external success.
The principle is that motivation for the very smart and creative must come ( and does naturally come) from the inside out, and should NEVER be subverted by any
attempt at motivating from the outside in.
Otherwise, you lose touch with your self.
Thus, I agree completely with John!
To amplify Steve’s comment:
Teachers of the “gifted” have no clue.
The difference between a very gifted child
and the teacher is often similar to difference between an average person and a retarded person–and thus the teacher has no clue.
It is also important not to confuse a gifted child ( or adult!!) with some scifi fantasy of a genius. The gifted make plenty of mistakes, have blind spots, screw up etc.,
–that is: are as human as everyone else–just smarter.
Here is a true story:
When I was 13, I was getting perfect scores in history because of a nearly eidetic memory—yet my teacher decided
( on a whim) to fail me for ” Not keeping a notebook”.
He said: ” I don’t care how smart you are, you won’t make through high school without keeping a notebook.”
Ten years later–I sent him a note on Institute for Advanced Study Stationary:
” I still don’t have a notebook”.
On the other hand, had he said: “Someday, you will be at a week long math conference, with ten talks a day, and little sleep—you really WILL need to know how to keep a notebook..”
, it would have really helped me learn the skill, instead of terrorizing me.
Another problem arises when a child is raised by parents to have to be the absolute smartest—and then, as an adult meets real geniuses.
This is devastating, because the usual skills at coping may have never developed.
But, if the motivation in internal—based on curiosity ( and John Wesley said!), the
person can cope.
Penny,
Your experience with the history teacher is a great example. A lot of times, the problem isn’t with what they want to teach you, but how they go about it.
Dear John,
In raising a brilliant child the important thing is that brilliant modifies CHILD.
It shouldn’t be the defining, overwhelming
thing.
Freud had a concept called transference–where a person puts their neurosis on another’s blank slate. Gifted kids ( and adults) are attractors for this kind of trash.
All sorts of neurotic hopes, hates and confusion get pushed onto the kid.
Just remember: 90% CHILD.
So, get a gifted kid a microscope, but also get the kid Barbie dolls, and rollerskates.
Dear John,
Absolutely.
How something is presented is the
main thing—and a big part of being a teacher is KNOWING and using that fact.
best
Penny
Teaching at its best is ZEN.
[...] In learning what my children were up against and how to best fit it all together, I discovered - or rather re-discovered my own giftedness. I wasn’t officially labeled “gifted” when I was growing up. I didn’t have intelligence as my identity, as John Wesley did. [...]
Blog Carnival Of Leadership Development…
Welcome to the March 23, 2007 edition of carnival of leadership development. I have been overwhelmed with articles but here are the ones that I thought would help you and your thinking. Matt Hutter presents How To Work For A…
[...] John Wesley presents Does Being Labeled As Gifted Undermine Personal Growth? [...]
[...] John Wesley recently wrote an excellent post about the dilemma of giftedness at Pickthebrain.com. [...]
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Welcome to this week’s edition of the Personal Growth Blog Carnival. What’s a Blog Carnival you ask? It’s a chance for writers to submit their best article on Personal Growth. I collect them throughout the week and post them here for you to…
[...] Does Being Labeled as Gifted Undermine Personal Growth [...]
I read some of these posts and if anyone is struggling with where to put their intelligent, curious, exhuberant child because they are afraid that their wonderment will be extinguished or they will get labelled as “gifted” I would highly recommend a Montessori school. The trick is to start them there early otherwise they are already indoctrinated into the whole external motivation schema. My children are curious, and unafraid to take risks. They actually like it when they haven’t figured something out yet and keep working at it until they do. There are no grades or report cards in a Montessori school. They do self evaluations. My kids are beyond where they should be in a traditional school by 2 grade levels. The reason is that they are not pushed or held back. They feel completely in control of their own learning process.
[...] John Wesley recently wrote an excellent post about the dilemma of giftedness at Pickthebrain.com. [...]
[...] Does Being Labeled As Gifted Undermine Personal Growth? [...]
[...] Original post by John Wesley [...]
This really struck home for me – when I was in 3rd grade, I was tested and placed in the (unfortunately) public school’s Gifted Program. While I had the opportunity to have some great experiences and field trips (the REAL reason “normal” kids want in the gifted program), I also had a LOT of headaches.
I read at a HIGHLY advanced rate (was tested as “beyond 8th grade level” in Kindergarten), and comprehended a LOT of what I read, yet I was abysmal at Math because of the way it was taught. I only understand a majority of it today because of what I have self-taught myself, and because of a High School teacher who was BRILLIANT and understood that not everyone looks at a problem in the same way. He would let me (and others like me) do the problems how we wanted, as long as we wrote down what we were thinking.
I would also say that, for me, I was ambivalent about school – I did the minimum needed, got A’s and B’s, and counted the days and years until I was out of there. My college experience was a NIGHTMARE, and one I’m not keen on repeating to get a degree. The most important advice I would give parents of a gifted child is to make sure that the teacher, child, and parents are ALL on the same wavelength. If the child is acting up in class, the teacher should recognize this for BOREDOM, and give the child something more difficult rather than think it’s a reflection on their teaching skills.
These feelings and experiences have led my husband and I to strongly consider Homeschooling, even if she DOESN’T test as Gifted (though she IS intelligent). But the “Montessori” sounds interesting, and I will certainly check it out as well!
Hi John!
“Why do some people reach their potential, while others with equal or greater talent fail?”
I must say Law of Attraction is responsible for this.
Be Good!
http://www.antoniothornton.com/law-of-attraction
[...] disorder, but other types include generalized anxiety disorder and acute stress disorder as well. Common triggers are events such as moving house, or schools, or the divorce of the parents, causing worry [...]
[...] you, for example, ask your mind for terrible things? Thoughts create effects, on your body, in your personal interactions, and in the environment. They are dynamic. Even a passive thought is having some kind [...]
To Every Action There Is An Equal But Opposite Reaction
Gifted children, while at an advantage with their capabilities often experience disadvantages with respect to normal children for a number of reasons.
Firstly it is no good being gifted if you are not given the opportunity to use you potential to the full and being subjected to the constraints of society it can be very undermining and lead to problematic behaviour.
Therefore, with respect to society, all gifted children feel society‘s way are too constraining and need to be catered for.
This can be overcome if the child is from a reasonably well off family who will pay for extras to maximise the use of the child’s potential such as going to private school, but I want to consider cases where the situation is worse than what a normal child experiences.
Gifted children from disadvantaged/poor families experience the added constraint of poverty which as well as society holding them back, which holds them back even further and can lead to their intelligence being used defensively and to escape the stranglehold of the circumstances. Such children concentrate on these issues rather than their education since they are not getting the education worthy of their capability.
Disabled normal children are at a disadvantage, so what must it be like for a gifted child who is disabled or has a medical condition? This will be a double blow to some extent. As well as the constraints of society over the gifted, the handicap subjects the gifted child to even more constraints due to the attitudes of society.
Now the worst situation is where a child who is gifted, disabled and from a poor family.
Children who are gifted, disabled and come from a poor/disadvantaged family experience the worst. They are often held back by society, held back through poverty and held back by their disability, and quite often the public services won’t do anything to help them maximise their potential.
I came into this category and the local authority/public sector used my handicap to devalue my intelligence and used my intelligence to deny me support for my medical condition. As a result, I was given less support than a normal able bodied child with no care needs and was treated as subnormal.
Although I was bullied a lot by children, they will have grown up and can be forgiven. But most of the bullying, oppression etc. I experienced was committed by adults with authority – mostly public sector workers and civil servants who neglected my rights and subjected me to constraints of such, I have performed below average in my education as well as my career even though prior to all the problems I was described as “A very capable boy who has been most cooperative during the year. He has good all round ability but is particularly good in maths at which he could go a long way”. I also became one of the most problematic and disruptive as well as occasionally violent of children due to the constraints
I experienced. I have gone berserk and suffered a nervous breakdown as well as threatening to kill myself.
I endured twenty years of oppression by the public sector while I was living in the Bridgend area of South Wales (1973 to 1993) and with the way I was feeling about being treated worse than average I felt suicidal on times. Could there be a link to how these youngsters who have committed suicide and how they have been devalued in life? If I hadn’t had the willpower to fight my way forward I would have killed myself in the Bridgend area thirty years ago.
Maybe these youngsters experienced something similar with respect to having more potential than the circumstances they were living in were letting them use and they felt trapped with no light at the end of the tunnel. You don’t have to be gifted to experience this feeling of rejection and imprisonment by society.
This reveals the problems of being gifted, living in poverty and having a medical condition which others can use to their advantage to treat you as subnormal in order to bring you down to below their level.
I try to surf to your blog amongst my other favorite websites couple times a week, really good work on this site.