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.

I've noticed a sort of similar effect with old-fashioned adventure games (the kind that LucasArts and Sierra used to make). The existence of the Internet and GameFAQs has effectively ruined that genre for me. Part of the fun was spending hours on end frustrated when you couldn't solve a certain puzzle, only to finally come up with the solution and get a major feeling of accomplishment. These days it's far too easy to search the web for a solution whenever one starts feeling in the least bit frustrated. (And then when you have the walkthrough open, look up the solutions for the rest of the puzzles as well...)

I've also noticed that if I'm solving math problems and a complete model solution exists, I'm far more likely to give up early and look up the right way of doing it. If there were no such solution available, I might work on it far longer and eventually solve it myself.

A somewhat promising approach I've been experimenting on is to tell myself that no matter what, I need to work on this set of math problems for at least (say) an hour. That reduces the incentive to cheat, since I know that it won't save me any time. The hard part is in actually sticking to this.

I've noticed this as well, although it doesn't seem to apply in all cases. Here's a guess about the distinction between cases:

When the puzzle seems like an obstacle to achieving the goal, I'm more likely to attempt to look up the solution. This is the case for many adventure/RPG games, where I'm mainly interested in advancing within the game, and also for the average homework assignment, where I mainly want the good grade.
When solving the puzzle is an end in itself, I'm more likely to try to keep going by myself. This is the case for games like Portal, where the puzzle is the point and is fairly fun, and also for homework or research in a topic I enjoy.

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The Trouble with Bright Girls [link]

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The Trouble with Bright Girls [link]

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