Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion What would you ask Carol Dweck?

Environmental influences play a huge role in intelligence, so I definitely don't see it as being something that is innate and unchangeable. Just consider the Flynn effect (the average performance on IQ tests going up over time) and the fact that there is a huge difference in IQ scores between races, but the gap is narrowing. Some people may try to argue that some races are genetically superior, but I don't buy that. That being said, some people have more cognitive potential than others at birth, but that innate ability is not enough. The person with more determination/drive may ultimately achieve more (and ultimately do better on an IQ test) than the the person born with superior innate cognitive ability (but poor effort or a poor environment). From the little I've read here, I think that may be what Carol Dweck is attempting to say. That being said, I don't necessarily agree with everything she says either, and think that it can have undesirable consequences, for instance treating people like they are all the same. I have always disliked the word "gifted" myself. I really don't care if the abilities of my children are genetic or because of something related to their upbringing or environment. Whatever the case, they are more advanced than average (at the moment, at least), and need more challenge in school than what is generally offered, so that is why I visit this site.

Indigo,

I wouldn't describe Dweck as "waffling" exactly, but she does sometimes seem to ridicule the mere concept of innate ability and other times acknowledge it.

These two statements of hers, for instance, seem to be at odds.

The quote I provided earlier:

From an interview with her at http://www.iub.edu/~intell/dweck_interview.shtml :
Granted, she doesn't use the word ability in the second quote, though I read "innate component" as being equivalent to "innate ability" as measured on an IQ test (since she brought up geniuses).

I would strongly disagree that the word "gift" conveys all of the meaning she is assigning to it in the first quote. Unless we as parents and educators are actually assigning that meaning to the word, those ideas do not have power. I use the term "gifted learner" with DS rather than simply telling him he is gifted. To me, that acknowledges that he can learn quite differently than many of his age peers, but that the learning part is still up to him and will take effort.

I think the larger problem with the growth mindset movement is what Dweck doesn't say about the very practical challenges of motivating students who indisputably learn far more quickly than others from the start (i.e., the gifted). This article, for instance (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-secret-to-raising-smart-kids1/) jumps to the conclusion that Jonathan checked out from seventh grade solely because his parents praised him for being smart:

I have a real problem with the way this is presented. She makes it seem incontrovertible that Jonathan's problem was the ability-based praise he received suddenly wasn't enough to motivate him when the "going got tough." More likely, he hadn't been given enough challenge all through grade school, and no amount of growth mindset was going to work for him since he had already "hit the ceiling" on expected growth. More likely, seventh grade absolutely sucked socially and emotionally for him (as it does for so many kids), and what was previously a less-than-ideal-but-tolerable situation suddenly became living hell. More likely, it was easier to "throw in the towel" completely on school and run away from "boring and pointless" work... the school was providing him nothing but 6-7 hours a day of waste.

And, also? Jonathan is fictitious! She needs to prove her point by making someone up? Couldn't she have taken an actual student and changed his name to make her point?

If she has considered that gifted kids needs a more challenging environment to grow (rather than simply a change of mindset), I have yet to come across a quote of hers that states that. And I think that is what irks so many people on this board.

Great post, interesting thoughts.

Thanks for clarifying. Over the course of nearly a decade of discussing a topic, there may be some variation in language... From the examples given, this may be occurring.

Debate about the word "gifted" is common, and for many it does imply that either you have it or you do not (a binary situation: on or off) rather than a continuum, with different degrees of many different attributes. The gifted (in this context meaning top 2% of the population, as reflected in scores on IQ tests) are a minority by definition, and the findings of the research on motivation apply to all individuals, not just the gifted... therefore the message must get past the negative vibe and visceral responses often elicited by the word "gifted" to reach the majority population. I think that acknowledging the controversial nature of the word "gifted" makes sense.

Two thoughts:
1) IQ tests measure both fluid reasoning and crystallized intelligence (acquired knowledge).
2) The book mindset also discusses musical realms and athletic realms, with relatively little emphasis on education. There are different types of geniuses, including scientific geniuses and musical geniuses.

Yes, "gifted" has become a big umbrella word, with lots of groups beneath it. One example might be 2e... some argue strenuously that a 2e child is no less gifted... however if that child has slow processing speed and low working memory, some might say that child does not have the "gift" of fast processing speed or the "gift" of high working memory. Another child might not have the "gift" of social intelligence in that they are not wired to pick up those skills/abilities naturally from casual observation as many children do. This does not indicate that kids who start out with a relatively lower innate strength in these areas will necessarily remain low in these demonstrated skills/abilities... many children learn by direct instruction, and repetition, to "compensate". This is also seen in successful re-learning after brain damage, for example Bob Woodruff.

Yes, many favor that approach.

Bingo! Yes, I've tried to articulate what I also see as something unaddressed, a flaw, shortcoming, or incompleteness in the work. For example, in the composite case which you mentioned, we do not know whether the child was lacking appropriate challenge (curriculum, pacing, and instruction in his ZPD), lacking peers, etc.

It is my understanding that use of a composite is a common technique, and may also be done for legal, ethical, and IRB compliance purposes so as to protect all study participants.

Yes, we do not have clarity in this area, although we've seen quotes which give hope. Some of the suggested questions were intended to explore this area in more depth.

I think the key word here is "current." This being Silicon Valley, it is extremely likely that she has shares in this company and stands to profit if it is acquired or goes public. Besides, if there was no interest in profits, why not form a non-profit foundation instead? In addition, there are the $20-30K-per-shot speaking fees. I continue to see a financial conflict of interest.




You've distorted what I wrote in a Dweckian way --- link an obvious statement (curiosity in little kids) to a dodgey idea or a valid point (mine, curiosity) and use the obvious one to promote or disparage the linked one. There should be a formal logical fallacy named for that. If not, I choose to call it the Dweckian distortion fallacy.

HG+ kids are often described as meeting milestones well before neurotypical or even MG kids. This is observed as early as the day of birth and throughout the newborn period. It therefore cannot be attributed to "nurture" or "praise" or anything else except innate cognitive abilities in the newborn. The idea that this ability may naturally disappear is effectively equivalent to the statement, "they all even out by third grade." In many ways, Dweck denies the reality of being highly gifted --- as though it's just some brain-muscle growth-thing that you can drive with hard work --- and that's why I get so wound up. Her ideas are very disrespectful of a small segment of the population.

But if she were to write a more nuanced view, she wouldn't book so many lecture dates or sell so many subscriptions to Brainology (tm).

I believe that there are many kids who do look very advanced as newborns, and they actually DO "even out". I'm sure there is a correlation between infant developmental milestones and later cognitive ability, but it probably isn't very strong or predictive. Both of my kids scored 99th percentile on the WISC-IV and both looked pretty average as newborns/young infants. Neither one of them really took off in any obvious way until age 2-3 (and that could have been because of environmental influences). They are 100 percent genetically UNrelated, but have remarkably similar IQ scores, even down to specific subtests. Both of them had Picture Concepts and Matrix Reasoning as their highest scores, and coding as their lowest score. DS was a somewhat early walker, and then he ended up with a developmental coordination disorder diagnosis a few years later. I've seen kids who did everything early as infants, and they are now average, or even behind.

Some may say that an accusation/allegation of conflict of interest against a psychologist is a strong statement. Although asked, you've not provided a source for your information, therefore your repeated statements about conflict of interest appear to be conjecture/hypothetical/unfounded.

Possibly I see things more simply and do not see the argument. Possibly we just disagree. If you believe there was a distortion, please feel free to clarify your point.

Agreed. Infants have varying amounts of innate abilities. For some infants, advanced abilities may be evident on day 1. This may depend upon several things including
- what the infant is doing,
- who may be watching,
- what the watcher's knowledge of milestones may be.

For other babies, advanced abilities may not be noticed until they are several months old. In some cases, the baby could have been doing the same things as the infant, at the same age as the infant, however these actions may have gone unobserved, and/or significance may not have been placed on them possibly due to being unaware of milestones, therefore unaware that the baby's actions were advanced, and that this may be an indicator of high IQ.

For some preschoolers, advanced abilities may have been occurring but also gone unnoticed and/or the child may receive negative responses to his/her precocity.

Similarly for some elementary school children, advanced abilities may be demonstrated but remain unacknowledged and/or unappreciated.

In the examples, we do not see the infant's abilities disappear, however we begin to see advanced abilities recognized in more children over time, as they may be observed by more individuals and/or the individuals observing them may become more familiar with milestones.

Do you have examples of Dweck denying the reality of being highly gifted?

Dweck is a gifted person herself, and shares anecdotes of teachers with fixed mindset and the impact of those teachers upon the students... therefore I do not believe that she intends to offend or be disrespectful of gifted individuals.

In fact, I appreciate her caution that gifted individuals may stop taking appropriate risks in order to always be seen as smart, thereby choosing to keep-up-appearances rather than embracing possible learning experiences in which they may be exposed as not already knowing something.

Unfortunately, children may develop this defensive/protective stance when subject to unrealistic statements and intentional belittlement along the lines of... if they are smart/gifted/advanced they should know (or be able to do) ___xyz___ (fill in the blank). This seems to ring true to many posts on the forum. In the book mindset, Dweck points out harmful messages given to children by parents, teachers, coaches... so that children may receive more beneficial messages.

Have you read the book mindset? Are there specific passages/excerpts on specific pages which you might point to, as the source for the understanding you seem to take away from mindset? These passages/excerpts may form the basis for insightful questions the OP may pose to the author...

I have not read the author in question, so I am only going to make a small comment on financial conflicts of interest for psychologists and others in related fields:

Due to the current funding structure of research, especially large-scale research of assessments and interventions, most psychologists who develop programs or standardized assessments will at some point have to develop a relationship with a (major) publishing company in order to collect the kind of data-to-scale that is most desirable and publishable. Public and NGO funding is generally not sufficient to run any kind of standardization or efficacy studies larger than a couple of hundred students, so researchers who hope to collect that kind of data on thousands of students almost always have to develop a relationship with a publisher at some point.

And if you want it to be adopted by any significant numbers, you definitely need the marketing muscle of a Pearson or Riverside.

So yes, one needs to be cognizant of financial interests, but also acknowledge that the system currently resists "pure" research in certain domains.

Thanks for that perspective, aeh.

In addition to val's post above, I think that something which bothers me about the Dweckian perspective on "growth" mindset as a construct is that I see this tying into the larger societal ill of frenzied push-parenting.

Now parents who post here regularly over a course of months or years, we're NOT most parents, and our kids (rather by definition) are not most children.

The kinds of settings, opportunities, etc. that we provide our HG/+ children allow them to soar. But there are other parents just as determined to provide those opportunities for their children* so that they can BECOME* "highly gifted" or something even more illustrious.
* regardless of the feelings, impulses, or desire of the children in question, that is.
It's not much of a stretch to assert that this fuels the greater social ill of college admissions frenzy. I don't see much difference between that and SAT tutors and superscoring and Summer AP prep-school, and community-service-as-resume-fodder, etc.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems all of a piece, this notion that push parenting actually pushes on some inherently quite MUTABLE property.

I'm not very confident that it does, in point of fact. Actually-- I rather suspect that it just harms the children who aren't born to be HG+, and makes them feel a lot like their parents can't accept who they actually are as human beings in their own right.

So yeah. Growth mindset? Hmmm. Maybe a useful construct for some things, but maybe not so much for others, and maybe the way that this is being presented is actually fueling something that every parent ought to be more or less appalled by to begin with.

I'm not a fan of "multiple intelligences" either, probably no surprise.



I say all of that and I don't-- inherently-- have much of a problem with loving push-parenting in it's less high-pressure form. I do think that children need guidance about their life decisions, education included. But what I do not believe that they "need" is tinkering with their basic intrinsic motivation to learn in a misguided attempt to make them all SuperKids. That seems somewhat abusive to me on some level. Like me pushing my DD to swim well enough to make nationals or something-- maybe I could do it, with the help of some pros that would push her alongside me... but it would. be. wrong.


This kind of nuanced view, however, is never going to make me one of Jon's Persons of Major Significance, I fear. Perhaps I just need to wish it so using a growth mindset.

Have you read Carol Dweck's book mindset?
Could you formulate a polite question for the author?

This.

As we continue to add to our primitive understanding of the brain, and find that, for instance, musical training increases cortical thickness, it becomes increasingly difficult to accept the notion that the brain's properties are immutably established prior to birth.