How much education did the greatest creative geniuses of all time need?
out college-dropout level. Via Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else: Dean Keith Simonton, a professor at the University of California at Davis, conducted a large-scale study of more than three hundred creative high achievers born between 1450 and 1850—Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Beethoven, Rembrandt, for example. He determined the amount of formal education each had received and measured each one’s level of eminence by the spaces devoted to them in an array of reference works.…
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The 3 Techniques The US Army Uses To Instill Mental Toughness
a Annie Murphy Paul's very interesting article in Time: 1) "Mental toughness comes from thinking like an optimist." The program’s key message: Mental toughness comes from thinking like an optimist. “People who don’t give up have a habit of interpreting setbacks as temporary, local and changeable,” notes Penn psychology professor Martin Seligman, describing the intervention in a recent journal article. When such individuals encounter adversity, they think to themselves: “It’s going away quickly; it’s just this one situation, and I…
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Do coffee and cigarettes make you smarter?
s. Via Brain Candy: Science, Paradoxes, Puzzles, Logic, and Illogic to Nourish Your Neurons: You already know that your morning cup(s) of coffee make(s) you a better person: more alert, more outgoing, increasingly optimistic, better looking, better smelling, nicer, etc. But did you know that coffee actually makes you smarter? It does, really. But only for a short period of time, and when you come down, you’re dumber than you were before taking that first sip (unless you drink more…
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Is deliberately screwing up the best way to learn?
ing guided into mistakes during training led to greater confidence and overall better learning than being taught to prevent errors. Via The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work: In one experiment where 90 people went through a software training program, half were taught to prevent errors from occurring, while the other half were guided into mistakes during training. And lo and behold, the group encouraged to make errors not only exhibited…
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Does doodling actually increase your ability to pay attention?
ve posted before about the positives and negatives of daydreaming. Looks like doodling may increase your ability to pay attention when your mind is tempted to wander: Via The Science of Sin: The Psychology of the Seven Deadlies (and Why They Are So Good For You): Now, we know that mind-wandering can hamper memory performance on such tests. Does doodling offer some protection against this? The results of Andrade’s study: doodlers recalled 29 percent more information than nondoodlers did. Precisely…
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How To Increase Willpower: 10 Secrets From Research
me insights about willpower from research, with links to the studies: Practicing a little willpower every day increases self-control over time. For immediate results: tighten your muscles, sit up straight or cross your arms. Or just think about money. Get enough sleep and don't miss meals. More shut-eye will stop you from wasting time on the internet. Skipping breakfast can lead to murder. Context is key. Those around you exert more influence on your behavior than you think. Don't get cocky. Thinking…
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What can you learn about learning from Harvard med students?
acing out learning over time leads to drastically improved retention. Via Annie Murphy Paul at Time: In more than two dozen studies published over the past five years, he has demonstrated that spaced repetition works, increasing knowledge retention by up to 50 percent. And Kerfoot’s method is easily adapted by anyone who needs to learn and remember, not just those pursuing MDs. And there's an easy way to implement this technique: How can you learn like one of Kerfoot’s Harvard…
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Is a Rocky training montage what you need to improve performance?
inking about what you have to do to prepare for a challenge was more likely to lead to success than imagining the victory. Via PsyBlog: Outcome and process have been put head-to-head experimentally by Pham and Taylor (1999) who had students either visualise their ultimate goal of doing well in an exam or the steps they would take to reach that goal, i.e. studying. The results were clear-cut. Participants who visualised themselves reading and gaining the required skills and knowledge,…
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