Source: Wikimedia Commons

I have written often in this blog about the how people’s belief in talents and skills affects their behavior. Talents are abilities that you are born with, while skills are abilities that can be acquired with significant hard work.

Carol Dweck and her colleagues have studied these mindsets extensively. As they point out, most mental abilities are skills that can be acquired, though in order to be the best in the world at something it is helpful to have some talent as well. When people believe that mental abilities are skills, they work harder to learn those abilities and they engage in additional effort in the face of failure.

In a global sense, it is probably best for people to assume that everything has a strong skill component to it. That gives children and adults the best chance to succeed at difficult tasks.

That said, an interesting study by Daeun Park and Sara Kim in the May, 2015 issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin explores a case in which the belief in talents can lead to better behavior than the belief in skills. This arises when people switch tasks after a failure.

The idea is that when people fail at a task, those who believe in talents assume that they are just not good at the task. Those who believe in skills assume they did not work hard enough to succeed. If people then have to switch tasks, those who believe in talents look at the new task with fresh eyes, while those who believe in skills are still distracted by their perceived lack of effort on the previous task.

In one study, participants were given a questionnaire to assess whether they think that mental abilities are generally talents or skills. Then, they were given an anagram task in which several of the sets of letters did not actually form a word. Thus, people ultimately failed to solve many of the anagrams. They were given feedback that most people solved more anagrams then they did.

After this failure, participants were given a second task that required solving math problems. Some participants were told that this test tapped the same abilities as the anagram task, while others were told that it involved basic process skills that are independent of intelligence.

Participants with a strong belief in talents did better on the math task when they were told that it involved a different set of abilities than the anagram task than when they were told it involved the same abilities. Participants with a strong belief in skills showed the opposite pattern. They did better on the math test when told it involved the same set of abilities than when told it involved a different set of abilities.

Another study in this series changed the setup in two ways. First, the experimenters manipulated belief in skills and talents by having participants read an article that either claimed that science demonstrates that most mental abilities are talents or that most mental abilities are skills. This manipulation has been shown to influence people’s beliefs in many previous studies.

Then, people did a task in which some of the items were impossible. (This time it was a Remote Associates Test in which people had to find a word that goes with a set of three other words. For example, given the words PAINT CAT DOLL, the correct answer would be HOUSE.)

After failing at this task, participants did the math task described earlier and once again were told that it involve the same general intelligence abilities or a different set of process abilities. Finally, participants were asked to list any thoughts they had about their failure on the first task.

This study obtained a similar result to the one I described earlier. Participants induced to think about mental abilities as talents did better on the math test when they thought it tapped different abilities than when they thought it tapped the same ability. Participants induced to think about mental abilities as skills did better on the math test when they thought it tapped the same ability than when they thought it tapped different abilities.

When people described their thoughts about the failure some of their thoughts were self-critical and some were self-enhancing. Self-critical thoughts were things like: I did not work hard enough on this task, or I don’t have the ability for this task. Self enhancing thoughts were things like: My failure makes me want to work harder.

Participants induced to think that mental abilities are talents were more self-critical when they thought the two tasks tapped the same ability than when they thought the two tasks tapped different abilities. Participants induced to think that mental abilities are skills were more self-critical when they thought the two tasks tapped different abilities than when they thought that the two tasks tapped the same ability. Statistical analysis showed that this difference in thoughts helped explain the difference in task performance.

That is, when people did two tasks that they thought tapped the same ability, people who believed in talents were critical of themselves when they thought their initial failure reflected that they do not have the talent to succeed. When people did two tasks that tapped different abilities, then those who believe in skills were critical of themselves when they thought their failure reflected a lack of effort.

Even though this study demonstrates a case in which the belief in talents leads to better performance than the belief in skills, it is still better overall to recognize the value of hard work and practice in learning. In the short-term you may do worse on occasion by being distracted about your lack of effort. But, the focus on effort will ultimately pay off.

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