The Science of Success

Hello Dr. Halvorson,
Very interesting reading here. It made me look back on my 5th grade experience and realize that I was considered one of the "good" students you mentioned. I was always one of the more rare, self-reliant girls who saw every problem as a challenge-I think this had to do with the fact that my father's influence during this stretch of my life was very strong-much stronger than my mother's influence. Father always taught me to stop and think through each problem to find a solution (bless him, the business owner that he was!) and if I was seriously stumped, then ask for help. This was a lot to ask from the shy, quiet girl at that time, but I realized at an earlier age than 5th grade that talking to the adults did not scare me as much as some of my fellow peers. So what does it mean if the 5th grade girl in question looks at new material as a challenge but if she seriously cannot solve it, she asks for help? Does this make her less bright than her peers who would just "give up" as you mentioned?
Today I am in my mid-30s, considered attractive (in a homely way, not supermodel way), somewhat care-free, respectful biologist who is by no means wealthy but have been doing bioresearch for the past 10 years (pretty much since I graduated from college). I do not know if this translates into successful or unsuccessful in psychological terms, but I believe that confidence is great while for all of us there is always room for advancement/improvement. Very interesting article once again, thank you for posting.

Respectfully,
Heather

Very nice piece.

One thing I have always found ironic about Dweck's early work and that of Jackie Eccles as well was in the feedback given to girls (at that time at least).

Girls were told that their performance was due to effort and praise focused on improvement.

Boys were told their performance was due to ability and praised for its absolute quality.

This was interpreted as bad because it told boys they were smart but girls they worked hard, undermining their self-esteem. However, the focus on incremental improvement and effort is exactly what Dweck found to be associated with seeking out challenge, not giving up after failure, and focusing on improving performance rather than losing focus after a setback.

I've never been able to reconcile these findings. Am I remembering them wrong?

It is my opinion that long term, seeking out those challenges and plugging away at them is what makes all the difference in the long term trajectories of success in adulthood.

At reading was all my life, now, I have 28 and still I don´t have enough confidence, and always I like to give up in almost everything. Irony, the best student at school, and now, so needed.

I was a smart 5th grade girl and I'm still a smart woman. I never fell for the "smart girl" trap with my peers because I, like a lot of girls, was also raised with a heavy duty teaching in gauging "consequence". I was not a "geek" girl;nor did I go the other way and hide my intelligence. The consequences for providing the requested action was simply not important enough to me personally, to buy into stereotyping.

In other words, I had no interest in figuring out the puzzle because the Pavlov scooby-snack (peer and teacher admiration) simply had no effect on me. Offer me a reward in which I was interested (books, more books), and you got all you wanted from me. I was amazed at how often the status quo was rammed down my throat because evidently I wasn't smart enough to know what I really wanted--or smart enough to learn to like it. But grades and "scholastic accolades" didn't do it for me either, so no, I wasn't in the "honors" crowd.

I feel we spend more time teaching girls what they should want rather that teaching them what they want to know but I am encourage by the wave of girl-power and daughter doting I've seen for the millennials. I've read studies before that support, and as a former elementary teacher have personally observed, the idea that girls pick up on action=consequence thinking faster than boys (or possibly that girls' teaching subconsciously reinforces this moray stronger in girls similar to the innate v effort praise the article highlighted).

For some girls, this action=consequence manifests as hiding their intelligence, or lack of confidence in intelligence. My understanding was that I was smart, and if a boy--or anyone else was not intelligent enough to understand that was a positive--then the more intelligent action on my part was to consider these persons a less evolved form of human and therefore, not intelligent enough to advise someone like me. (Try pulling that off as a 6th grader to a school official; not easy, but I managed).

There are studies out today that began on the premise of questioning why women don't "succeed" in certain professional areas, in greater numbers, when the surprising result was found that it wasn't that women weren't confident in their abilities, but rather that they defined success differently, and were not "interested" in succeeding that way, so simply did not. Again, the emphasis seemed to be "how do we get women to want these rewards," not: how do we reward women fulfillingly?

I weigh action and consequence, and I see no need to shine in areas that may be of great interest to the rest of the population, but are of no interest--or use-- to me. That fact that there is a segment of the population that thinks there is something wrong with that tells me that there is a large segment of the population that still hasn't been able to evolve its thinking processes--and I still haven't bothered learning how to want to win those peoples' approval.

Again, anyone that buys into that stereotyping is simply not an intelligent enough human for that opinion to be given serious weight. Arguing that it is a 100 to 1 battle, doesn't make the 100 "right".

This is a gross over-generalization. Your point about how environment affects a person's outlook and overall confidence and self-esteem seems quite possibly true. However, there are some key factors that you failed to take into consideration. It seems you base your opinion on the premise that boys and girls are physiologically and neurologically identical at birth and that differences begin to appear after how they are treated in their environments. While it is true that environment shapes a person, the predisposition for being shaped is genetic. You yourself made the point that boys are a handful, which is true and has a strong evolutionary roots but your comment: “Girls, who develop self-control earlier and are better able to follow instructions, are often praised for their ‘goodness’”, begs me to ask, what happens to the girls that don’t? And what about the boys that do? Do boys generally develop self-control later than girls and if they do why? These questions should be answered before arriving at any conclusion but if I were to give my opinion I would agree with your general assessment about the disparities between men and women in the workplace but I would disagree that it is purely the fault of social upbringing.
Men are more competitive and are therefore willing to face the next challenge, they are not cohearsed into taking it by some teacher in elementary school. There are more men in prisons compared to women more men in sports and more male geniuses and it cannot be blamed soley on society but also on women for sexually selecting the stronger males, those who stood out, those who could better provide for their offspring those many million years ago. The way things are now is mainly based on the differences between the male and female instinct, instinct that is innate and a product of evolution.
I conclude my comment by again agreeing with the idea that there is disparity but I disagree on the reasons why.

I was never much rewarded for being smart. By anyone really. If anything, being smart drove people away from me (even my parents: they love me, but they really don't understand me). My interests and lifestyle are not that chosen by many people. I tried to conform more to stereotypes, for the sake of fitting in, for the sake of having friends, etc. I ended up confused, walking around in shame and self-hatred.

Much of this was the example my parents set for me, the series of events I know as my life story.

In the last year or so, I've been trying to turn it all around. To forgive myself for wasting time, energy, and being too depressed and confused about the world pulling me in a thousand different directions to really launch myself out of college.

I think the examples of our parents and the role models we encounter are the things that really show us how to seize all of the potential inside ourselves. It's more than just money and gendered speech that keep people stuck -- it's how they see themselves against the world, something I believe our parents, more than anyone, shapes for us.