The Trouble with Bright Girls [link]

Dreaded_Anomaly

The Trouble with Bright Girls (article @ the Huffington Post)

Excerpt:

My graduate advisor, psychologist Carol Dweck (author of "Mindset") conducted a series of studies in the 1980s, looking at how Bright Girls and boys in the fifth grade handled new, difficult and confusing material.

She found that Bright Girls, when given something to learn that was particularly foreign or complex, were quick to give up; the higher the girls' IQ, the more likely they were to throw in the towel. In fact, the straight-A girls showed the most helpless responses. Bright boys, on the other hand, saw the difficult material as a challenge, and found it energizing. They were more likely to redouble their efforts rather than give up.

The topic of this article seems to relate to several common Less Wrong issues: the nature of human intelligence, and the gender imbalance among LW readers.

I'm not sure how much credence I give to the proposed explanation of the difference in mindsets. It may well have to do with socialization and feedback, but the specific description of feedback that is presented seems a bit too much of a "just-so story" to me. The difference itself is fascinating, though, and I hope more is done to further our understanding of it.

The Trouble with Bright Girls (article @ the Huffington Post)

Excerpt:

My graduate advisor, psychologist Carol Dweck (author of "Mindset") conducted a series of studies in the 1980s, looking at how Bright Girls and boys in the fifth grade handled new, difficult and confusing material.

She found that Bright Girls, when given something to learn that was particularly foreign or complex, were quick to give up; the higher the girls' IQ, the more likely they were to throw in the towel. In fact, the straight-A girls showed the most helpless responses. Bright boys, on the other hand, saw the difficult material as a challenge, and found it energizing. They were more likely to redouble their efforts rather than give up.

The topic of this article seems to relate to several common Less Wrong issues: the nature of human intelligence, and the gender imbalance among LW readers.

This is why I'm skeptical about "gifted" programmes: they segregate children based on innate talents, rather than emphasizing hard work and dedication, and that seems to leave a lot of otherwise intelligent people unable to cope with day-to-day existence outside the world of academia.

This is precisely why I endorse gifted programs.

No matter how much one values or promotes hard work as the road to achievement I think actually having to work harder to achieve "good results" imparts the lesson much better.

The greater problem is that talented children might get distorted ideas about what the average person is capable of. I have to constantly remind myself that the average person isn't slightly above high school level because I've spent so much time in academia that even that seem almost too low to believe. Many people here probably spend days or weeks without ever talking to someone who is below 100, and don't associate or work with people bellow 130. Its useful to remind myself that the average is determined by the adults my classmates in primary school turned into (on a meta-level I of course realize the school was attended by many more children from poor backgrounds than the norm)

24

The Trouble with Bright Girls [link]

24

24

24

The Trouble with Bright Girls [link]

24

24