In my Psych course in college we were told on how playing on gender roles can affect performance. Boys and girls were given a math test. On average they performed equally. However when they were given the test and told that the test was also to evaluate how girls do as compared to boys the results were interesting. Girls did worse then average on being told this and boys did better than average.
This article seems to reinforce this point, as the expectation that boys would do better actually caused them to perform better than average.
It also points out how corrosive stereotypes can be, as just the expectation that girls would not do well in math caused a drop in their performance.
I don't have references for these studies unfortunately.
Your Thoughts Can Release Abilities Beyond Normal Limits
21–30 of 151 posts
Re: Your Thoughts Can Release Abilities Beyond Normal Limits
#22A quote: "There seems to be a simple way to instantly increase a person’s level of general knowledge. Psychologists ..." Ahh. Psychologists. Expectations calibrated. "Expecting to know the answers made people more likely to get the answers right." Ah, yes -- that conclusion should be easy to rigorously quantify, explain in neuroscientific terms, turn into a general theory, and replicate before anyone assumes we're do…
This is a real thing. There appear to be intimate connections between the mind and the body, in both directions. Levels higher up the hierarchy of dynamical systems within an organism appear to direct the function of lower systems. It's feedback loops all the way down.
Re: Your Thoughts Can Release Abilities Beyond Normal Limits
#23A quote: "There seems to be a simple way to instantly increase a person’s level of general knowledge. Psychologists ..." Ahh. Psychologists. Expectations calibrated. "Expecting to know the answers made people more likely to get the answers right." Ah, yes -- that conclusion should be easy to rigorously quantify, explain in neuroscientific terms, turn into a general theory, and replicate before anyone assumes we're do…
explain in neuroscientific terms Isn't that putting the cart before the horse? The article draws attention to a phenomenon that isn't predicted by current theory. Before a predictive theory has been developed, there is even some censorship or bias risk in using neuroscientific terms.
>> explain in neuroscientific terms
> Isn't that putting the cart before the horse?
Not in science. In science, the explanation is both the cart and the horse. No explanation, no science. Einstein didn't win a Nobel Prize for noting that electrons are emitted by a metal surface, he won for explaining why they are emitted. Had Einstein been a psychologist, publishing the fact that electrons are emitted (for simply describing) would have been enough.
> The article draws attention to a phenomenon that isn't predicted by current theory.
That's uncontroversial, since there are no theories in psychology, only descriptions. This, by the way, is why the director of the NIMH recently decided to abandon the DSM, to so-called "bible" of psychiatry and psychology, on the ground that it only contains descriptions and therefore has no scientific value (the DSM will remain as a diagnostic guide):
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-dia...
Quote: "... symptom-based diagnosis, once common in other areas of medicine, has been largely replaced in the past half century as we have understood that symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of treatment ... Patients with mental disorders deserve better."
> Before a predictive theory has been developed, there is even some censorship or bias risk in using neuroscientific terms.
I think there's little risk in asking "Where's the science?"
Re: Your Thoughts Can Release Abilities Beyond Normal Limits
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "Expecting to know the answers made people more likely to get the answers right." Well, yes, if someone expects you to know the answer it seems pretty straight forward that you would be more inclined to make a guess rather than saying "I don't know." All of us who ever watched a quiz show on TV know that people who guess an answer instead of passing will sometimes get it right. More often than people who pass, actu…
> Well, yes, if someone expects you to know the answer it seems pretty straight forward that you would be more inclined to make a guess rather than saying "I don't know." And what makes you think that they didn't account for the "I don't knows"? It generally surprises me how, from reading an 100 high mile description of an article, some commenters always assume (without any evidence) that the results are due to some…
But did they account for the "I don't know so I'll just randomly pick something" vs the "I should know this, so I'll reason about it" groups?
If you're teaching a subject to someone, you will often come across situations where what is lacking is not knowledge, but confidence or willingness to apply the knowledge. I see that often in my son, and I've seen that at work: People say they don't know, or make a crap guess even in situations where I know that they know the actual answer. Often some prodding or "confidence boosting" will make them produce the real answer very quickly, and often subsequent answers appears to be forthcoming a lot quicker.
It'd be very surprising to me if you can't systematically improve peoples response by increasing their confidence in their ability to answer. The more interesting question to me is by how much, and with how little encouragement.
Re: Your Thoughts Can Release Abilities Beyond Normal Limits
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "Expecting to know the answers made people more likely to get the answers right." Well, yes, if someone expects you to know the answer it seems pretty straight forward that you would be more inclined to make a guess rather than saying "I don't know." All of us who ever watched a quiz show on TV know that people who guess an answer instead of passing will sometimes get it right. More often than people who pass, actu…
> Well, yes, if someone expects you to know the answer it seems pretty straight forward that you would be more inclined to make a guess rather than saying "I don't know." And what makes you think that they didn't account for the "I don't knows"? It generally surprises me how, from reading an 100 high mile description of an article, some commenters always assume (without any evidence) that the results are due to some…
> ... some commenters always assume (without any evidence) that the results are due to some extremely naive methodological mistake.
Since the article doesn't presume to explain its results, the presence or absence of mistakes is moot. Science isn't about descriptions -- that's metrology. The threshold of science is crossed when someone dares to offer a testable, falsifiable explanation. But in psychology, that rarely happens, and psychology has no central defining theories (explanations) such as are found in scientific fields.
Re: Your Thoughts Can Release Abilities Beyond Normal Limits
#26This is all about releasing the blocking mechanism that exists. I feel people like Eckhart Tolle have somehow mastered this, at least in the realm of the scope of abilities they are most comfortable being confined in.
Eckhart Tolle is pretty much repackaging meditation practises with a huge dose of new age nonsense. As such, there are certainly the odd kernel of useful stuff in there, but I'd recommend a decent introduction to meditation over Tolle any day.
Re: Your Thoughts Can Release Abilities Beyond Normal Limits
#27Thought, intention and expectation—these are causal and creative. Our experience of the world is substantially shaped by how we view it.
Re: Your Thoughts Can Release Abilities Beyond Normal Limits
#28A quote: "There seems to be a simple way to instantly increase a person’s level of general knowledge. Psychologists ..." Ahh. Psychologists. Expectations calibrated. "Expecting to know the answers made people more likely to get the answers right." Ah, yes -- that conclusion should be easy to rigorously quantify, explain in neuroscientific terms, turn into a general theory, and replicate before anyone assumes we're do…
> Ahh. Psychologists. Expectations calibrated. A, a positivist reductionist. Expectations on intellectual sophistication and ability to comprehend the world beyond simplistic models calibrated.
>> Ahh. Psychologists. Expectations calibrated.
> A, a positivist reductionist.
With respect to psychology, given its history, the burden isn't on me to avoid faulty generalizations, it's on psychology to overcome the weight of its past.
> Expectations on intellectual sophistication and ability to comprehend the world beyond simplistic models calibrated.
At a time when the director of the NIMH has decided to abandon the DSM on the ground that it's not scientific enough to take seriously?
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-dia...
Quote: "The strength of each of the editions of DSM has been “reliability” – each edition has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The weakness is its lack of validity ... Patients with mental disorders deserve better."
What appears to be a simplistic generalization is, in this case, the result of much reflection and analysis, and a reluctant but legitimate conclusion.
Re: Your Thoughts Can Release Abilities Beyond Normal Limits
#29A quote: "There seems to be a simple way to instantly increase a person’s level of general knowledge. Psychologists ..." Ahh. Psychologists. Expectations calibrated. "Expecting to know the answers made people more likely to get the answers right." Ah, yes -- that conclusion should be easy to rigorously quantify, explain in neuroscientific terms, turn into a general theory, and replicate before anyone assumes we're do…
The article includes a bunch of references to placebo effect research by neuroscientists.
Re: Your Thoughts Can Release Abilities Beyond Normal Limits
#30A quote: "There seems to be a simple way to instantly increase a person’s level of general knowledge. Psychologists ..." Ahh. Psychologists. Expectations calibrated. "Expecting to know the answers made people more likely to get the answers right." Ah, yes -- that conclusion should be easy to rigorously quantify, explain in neuroscientific terms, turn into a general theory, and replicate before anyone assumes we're do…
This is a real thing. There appear to be intimate connections between the mind and the body, in both directions. Levels higher up the hierarchy of dynamical systems within an organism appear to direct the function of lower systems. It's feedback loops all the way down.
> There appear to be intimate connections between the mind and the body, in both directions.
That may be true, but only one of those can be studied scientifically.