英語故事:如何開發你的智慧
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 . . lopmental 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.
如何開發孩子的智慧（以及你自己的）
在之前一篇博客中，我引用了 Richard Nisbett的話。這個不是在密歇根馬爾科姆格拉德維爾的宗教老師。他說，智力在我們的掌握之中。那麼如何能將智力掌控自如呢？
雖然這個問題有許許多多答案，包括基礎的營養和鍛鍊，最好的回答來自人類動機專家Carol Dweck 的調查。我在之前許多文章中提及過她的工作。Dweck最早的調查集中於爲什麼一些學生支持直到面對失敗，而另一些像事情變糟一樣迅速放棄。經過幾年的調研，她的調查發現家長告訴孩子們他們的智力是在掌控之中的這一點至關重要。
事實上，她發現當孩子被誇獎聰明，他們會敢於接受挑戰並且從中學到很多。
這是 Richard Nisbett 的調查總結：
在一個聰明的試驗中……實驗心理學家Claudia Mueller和Carol Dweck告訴孩子們他們在雷芬氏漸進圖形測驗中做得非常棒並且分別讚揚他們聰明或勤奮，然後他們給孩子們做另一套的機會，簡單的（所以我可以做好）或難的（即使我做不出以致看起來不那麼聰明，但我可以學到很多）結果之前被誇獎聰明的孩子中有百分之六十六選擇了簡單的題，因爲那樣可以表現他們的聰明。百分之九十以上被誇獎勤奮的孩子選擇了困難的題，以便能夠學到更多的知識。如果孩子因爲勤奮而做的很好，他們就希望難題來彌補自己的不足並且告訴他們該如何做得更好。
爲了鞏固他們的結論，調查者們增加了一些重要的“難點”
在孩子們得到機會選擇問題之前Muller和Dweck要求他們做一組比第一組更難的題目。然後詢問他們爲什麼做得很爛。第一次被表揚聰明的孩子更容易認爲自己能力不足而被表揚勤奮的孩子則認爲第二次的失敗在於不夠努力。“聰明”的孩子很少想要繼續鑽研這些難題，而勤奮的孩子認真的計算第二組難題。專家們趁熱打鐵給了孩子們第三組題，結果被誇獎聰明的孩子做對的題遠少於被誇獎勤奮的。
結論顯而易見：如果你想要開發你孩子的智慧（和你的），強調並且讚揚他努力和勤奮而不是聰明或IQ,不僅僅是因爲那樣會嚴重限制天賦的智慧，更重要的是，這樣能夠使孩子的成長在控制之中。你也許會想你還沒得到這能力，但你的確可以更專注地投入到你想得到的東西上去。並且，當你有一個有影響力的老師或教練時尤爲這樣。
根據這個調查Carol Dweck 和 Anders Ericsson後續的“刻意練習”調查在許多領域取得了成功。包括體育界的像高爾夫、滑冰、網球和遊戲如國際象棋以及學校課程如數學、商業、藝術。
