[tt] High-Aptitude Minds: The Neurological Roots of Genius

[Allen Smith]

In message <20080830132045.GJ10566 at leitl.org> (on 30 August 2008 15:20:45
+0200), eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) wrote:
>
>http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=high-aptitude-minds&print=true

>Perfection from Practice 
>Whatever the neurological roots of genius, being brilliant only increases
>theprobability of success; it does not ensure accomplishment in any
>endeavor.Even for academic achievement, IQ is not as important as
>self-discipline anda willingness to work hard.

"Achievement"? Hmm... pretty frequently, particularly in lower levels, all
that "a willingness to work hard" is needed for is to do rote work, at least
once students are smart enough to get what they need to do.

>University of Pennsylvania psychologists Angela Duckworth and Martin
>Seligmanexamined final grades of 164 eighth-grade students, along with
>theiradmission to (or rejection from) a prestigious high school. By such
>measures,the researchers determined that scholarly success was more than
>twice asdependent on assessments of self-discipline as on IQ. What is more,
>theyreported in 2005, students with more self-discipline - a willingness
>tosacrifice short-term pleasure for long-term gain were more likely than
>those lacking this skill to improve their grades during the school year. A
>high IQ,on the other hand, did not predict a climb in grades.

Of course, a "low level of self-discipline" is often meaning impulsiveness,
most notably due to ADD/ADHD; I'll have to take a look if they looked at
that. And one matter which may distort the statistics is that
highly-intelligent people tend to grow up not needing to do as much, thus
not developing as much self-discipline (although, again, if one grows up
with ADD/ADHD and has to deal with that, then gets treated, this may induce
some increased level of self-discipline)... so I would wonder if they
checked for a negative correlation between the two.

	-Allen

-- 
Allen Smith, Ph.D.		  http://cesario.rutgers.edu/easmith/
September 11, 2001		   A Day That Shall Live In Infamy II
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin