Class notes - 2 - 10 Flashcards
Effort praise + failure:
high enjoyment; high willingness to continue
2nd type of misregulation: trying to control the uncontrollable
It is best to not try to control it
Example: choking in performance setting
Choking: dramatic underperformance compared to practice or at less important competition
Elite athletes and musicians are best when they trust their training and do not think much about specifics of what they are doing
Not trusting automatic responses and stopping to think and control results in lower speed and accuracy
Ericsson wrongly believes that Flow is incompatible with Deliberate practice
Contrary to Ericsson’s belief, experiencing positive affect isn’t a key component of flow
- Flow is a consciousness, a mental state of being immersed and focused in the present moment.
- Ericsson is making deliberate practice come off as very difficult and associated with negative affect.
There are two types of eaters:
intuitive or controlled
- Rely on hunger (intuitive) or control eating through willpower (controlled)
- Intuitive eaters are less likely to be overweight and spend less time thinking about food
- Controlled eaters are more vulnerable to overeating in response to environmental triggers, a small indulgence leading to a food binge.
Autonomous goals
Mediating factors
- Greater effort
- Less conflict with other goals
- Capacity to shield goals from distraction and temptation
- Autonomous goals make you better at doing this
- Capacity to overcome action crises
How can we help young people be more accepting of different physical sizes and eating tendencies?
self-acceptance, fitness and healthy eating and mindfulness
Superior Basic Abilities
Absolute pitch (perfect pitch): among musicians, the ability to recognize or sing a given isolated note
daily experience sampling
Participants are beeped randomly throughout the day. When they are, they fill out booklets given to them. Allows monitoring of how our experience fluctuates throughout the day, depending on the activities we engage in.
how do we disengage from valued goals and find new goals?
The Goal Action Sequence: selection –> engagement –> disengagement
- Student-relevant examples: not being able to continue with desired career goal or with sport/musical activity
- Large percentage of pre-med and music students abandon their goal once in university. However, quitting has a bad reputation.
Ability praise + failure:
low enjoyment; low willingness to continue
Jennifer Heil in 2006 and 2010
Heil had physical problems from training and felt mentally unprepared when she competed in 2002. However, when she competed in 2010, she felt ready and calm- more so than usual. When competing, she just “let it go” and allowed her body to take over. She knew that with thousands of hours spent practicing and a support team with the right resources, she would never be more prepared than she already was.
Why did Tiger Woods become so good
- Early exposure
- Extensive training
- Highly involved parents
Also… a keen interest and high self-control.
mother-daughter example: brooke raboutou
Brooke is a rock-climber that is incomparably talented to others her age
Very evident passion for her talent domain
- Feels in control and happy
- Always challenging herself
- However, Brooke’s mother is also her coach. This may be problematic as the relationship becomes more complicated.
Brooke is always driven to take things a step further. On top of the cliff, she feels in-control and isn’t scared
- Has all six components of flow
- Good chance of emerging as an Olympic athlete
- Brooke’s other coach made the comment that while rock climbing, you cannot have a lapse in concentration but must be totally focused and immersed.
Kohn what distinguishes healthy self-control
seligman conclusions on weight
Natural weight is largely genetically determined.
- There is a fixed range in which our weight can fluctuate.
The body will vigorously defend this weight by making you intensely preoccupied with food and causing metabolic changes
- After a successful diet, body believes we are living through a famine
- Evolutionarily prepared to defend weight.
Our natural weight may be quite discrepant from ideal weight.
- Ideal weight is continuously decreasing over time, making discrepancy more striking
- Feeling more like we shouldn’t weigh as much as we do
home environments of youngsters who become elite performers
- Child-oriented
- Achievement-oriented
- Responsibility oriented
sexual involvement is a good way to discourage romantic love.
Baumeister’s analysis:
No challenge, no skill: watching TV
APATHY
Proving Koestner’s TV defenses wrong:
- TV watching is a fuller, more rich experience if we watch with others. We feel more absorbed and interested. However, this positive effect of doing things with others is true for all activities. Thus, on the whole, TV watching is still the least rewarding in terms of flow.
- Being a professor is the second-least most stressful job (first least stressful is being a nun)
- Most genres involve the same negative consequences
Flow:
sense of effortless action felt in moments that stand out as the best in our lives
The False Hope Syndrome
- Initial Expectations
- Unrealistic, that we will lose a lot of weight quickly & easily – this will dramatically change many aspects of our life
- Commitment to Change
- Tell ourselves, and others, about our goal because we feel we are “addressing this”
- Other people are encouraging; we get reinforced
- Tell ourselves, and others, about our goal because we feel we are “addressing this”
- Initial Efforts
- Seem to work pretty well, regardless of which diet you are trying
- Resistance to Change
- After about a month we plateau, we are no longer losing weight doing the same things from before. This reflects the body’s defenses kicking in (metabolism!), there will be resistance now. People try to struggle through this, but normally cant manage it.
- Failure/Abandonment
- We give up on the goal.
- Attributions
- Same error we always make. If you blame on a stable thing, you won’t try it again. 2 reasons – I didn’t keep my effort up (didn’t have enough will power) – this is changeable!, and they blame their diet (external/changeable/unstable thing)
- If you blame something stable, like genes, you would be less likely to try again
- Same error we always make. If you blame on a stable thing, you won’t try it again. 2 reasons – I didn’t keep my effort up (didn’t have enough will power) – this is changeable!, and they blame their diet (external/changeable/unstable thing)
- Emotional, behavioral, and physiological consequences
- Process of having to try to lose weight is brought with a lot of negative emotions.
The pursuer tends to overrate how attractive they are,
while the pursued does not
theories to support ability praise - reinforcement
- Reinforcement
Praise can be a social reinforce: children like to be praised, making it more likely that they will engage in behaviors that elicit praise more frequently
psychology skills training
- Goal setting
- Many make the common mistake of setting too many goals and never lowering their goals, despite injuries
- Sports psychologists train athletes to not focus too much on outcome goals but on process goals
- Before the Olympics, athletes are trained not to think about the medals but doing their personal best
- Recommended to compare your current performance with your own past performance, not other competitors’ performance
- Terrible mistake of putting medal ceremony uniform in athlete’s suitcase increased pressure (others’ expectations that they will win)
- Arousal regulation
- Involves relaxation training and learning how to modulate arousal (calm, not hyper)
- There are very few sports, such as power sports, that require an increase in arousal
- Visualization
- Involves mentally rehearsing the path or route that will be taken during the competition
- Important that it involves the full sensory experience, not just visual
- Self-talk
- Involves engagement in internal dialogue, which is naturally mostly negative and unhelpful
- Sports psychologists find 2-3 simple thoughts that athletes could focus on to keep out anxiety-provoking thoughts
Dweck sited Koestner’s dissertation, in which participants received false feedback regarding either their ability or effort. Participants who received ability-related praise had more intrinsic motivation. However
Dweck commented that Koestner failed to consider two problems in the experiment set-up:
-
All participants succeeded. In real life, this rarely occurs.
* In an important domain, most of us experience challenge and failure at some point. What happens during this period is important. -
Short and long-term impact of praise are not distinguished
* There is momentary happiness associated with praise in the short-term, but the long-term impact may be different.
Happiness is different from
flow
second pattern for unrequited love
- Intrusion of romantic feelings into a platonic friendship
- Intimacy and time spent with friend results in emergence of romantic feelings.
- Note that we do not choose friends based on attractiveness
Methods for Arousal Regulation
A focus plan, such as a pre-performance routine, that will focus attention and manage anxiety during the competition is very important
- The worst thing you could do is watch others perform.
Kerrigan is a good practice but not so good competition performer However, when she switched from listening to rock-and-roll music to watching comedy clips prior to her performance, it helped clam her down. This new pre-performance routine benefit her a lot.
Wayne recommends that athletes make a list of things they believe about themselves
- Results in feeling more relaxed and increases self-efficacy
- Not thinking about other things that could potentially bring down performance
Tiger Woods had the same pre-performance routine since age 10
- Practicing putting, a fine motor skill that is easy to mess up, with precise timing increased likelihood of enacting swing in perfect manner almost unconsciously if practiced in the same manner over and over again.
1st pattern for unrequited love
- Falling upwards
- Most common
- Falling for someone who is more attractive and out of our league
- Physical attraction plays a large role, despite there being other aspects of attractiveness
- Physical attraction is easiest to measure
how is unrequited love experienced?Pursued:
- lingering negative feelings
- No win situation
- Feel awkward and uncomfortable
why do we watch TV?
According to Csziksentmihalyi,
if we let our consciousness run freely, it finds a state of entropy or chaos, which is the natural state of our mind.
- We watch TV because it is the easiest, most accessible, and least expensive way to provide order to our consciousness
- Wards off anxious and depressive feelings.
- TV is designed to prey on the orienting reflex, involving new scenes that are so hypnotizing that watchers are left with no choice but to continue watching.
typical stages of involvement phase II
moderate skill building; internalization
- Around age 5-7, parents typically find a coach
- Sign up for classes or training locally, not always the best
- Parents look for someone good with children, someone who makes the activity fun and interesting
- Distinctive in terms of personality: warm and supportive
- However, there is still some focus on skill-building
- For example, teachers can tell when the child has not practiced and done their homework
- Parents play a vital role in internalization: teaching the instrumental value of practicing
Best Evidence for the Talent View?
- Performance of prodigies: children who acquire expert levels of performance at a very young age
- Performance of savants: individuals with under average intelligence who display unusual abilities that others do not have
- Seemingly superior basic abilities that predestine one for success in a certain domain
- Absolute pitch in music; spatial memory in chess
Dweck on Ericsson
- It is more adaptive to not believe in natural talent, as it sets up for choosing the wrong set of goals and responding badly to failure
- It is healthier to frame things in terms of effort and strategies, without being limited by lack of innate talent.
- This may be especially important for parents and teachers when working with children
Goal Adjustment Model
Disengagement doesn’t occur naturally; one must be aware of the important of disengaging and put their minds to the process of disengagement.
If pursuing a goal, especially one that is important and long-term, it is normal to encounter action crises
Difficulty with goal attainment leads to judging the opportunity for success
- Good opportunity: redouble effort and commitment
- Try things differently and continue with goal pursuit
- Poor opportunity: begin disengagement process and engage in pursuit of other goal
Ability praise: interested in social comparison
Effort praise: tips on how to improve
ability to delay gratification
predictive of school and social performance
Psychology or Mental Skills
- The key deciding factor is whether the athlete is able to be the best even under stressful conditions.
- Mental training can be attributed to about 50-90% of success for figure skating
According to Koestner, Three Ways to Extend Self-Control
- Select autonomous goals
- Make goal pursuit automatic with implementation plans
- Find (the right kind of) interpersonal support
Using Psychological Skills Training To Develop Soccer Performance
Multimodal interventions:
- Relaxation training
- Visualization
- Positive self-talk
There was a significant increase in pre- and post-training outcomes
- Percentage of completed passes increased from 66% to 74% and caught passes from 72% to 79%
- However, there was no control group
Accumulated deliberate practice:
amount of weekly practice and age at which the individual began
Performance feedback is very important for learning; children must know how they are doing, either through the test score or task itself.
This is different from praise, which is not needed and has associated risks.
Bedard:
- One of the first women to participate in the biathlon.
- Score of 75 on cardiovascular measures, which is higher than most other athletes
- Her belief in a God-given talent would be unbelievable to Ericsson, who would attribute her success to training
- Playing and competing doesn’t help you get better; only deliberate practice helps you get better
- We have to learn what is the best deliberate practice for your domain
- These insights will be especially helpful in our everyday lives, as a worker, amateur performer and parent
x
seligman advice
focus on self-acceptance, healthy eating and fitness
Purposeful practice:
deliberate, goal-directed practice without teacher guidance
theories to support ability praise - expectancy
- If children are given a positive expectation for their future behavior, they may behave in ways that orient towards fulfilling this expectation
- In one study, ½ of children were told that their test results show they will blossom in upcoming school year. The other ½ were told they would not. There was random assignment, ensuring equal baseline ability. It was found that children told they would blossom performed much better.
High challenge, high skill:
- sports and hobbies (enjoyment)
Koestner at the Ferrata Parc Nationale Des Grands Jardins
Had no opportunity to think about other things- required full focus on activity ahead
The beauty of flow activity is that there is no time to be self-conscious; the task is too demanding
- Enables turning off rumination about negative memories
- Some of our worst experiences are when we were self-conscious
Play:
primary goal is inherent enjoyment of the activity
Self-control def’n
capacity to alter or override one’s typical way of responding
Goal progress results in enhanced wellbeing only if
pursuit is associated with basic need satisfaction
- No challenge, high skill: work and housework
Boredom
When succeeding, making attributions to your ability has positive effects.
However, when failing, making attributions to ability had negative effects. Children who received ability praise attributed their failure to a lack in intelligence/ability.
- Feel helpless
Koestner’s Three-Pronged Defense of TV Watching
- It’s ok if you do it with others.
- Life as a professor is stressful. I watch TV when I feel exhausted and it helps me relax and recuperate.
- It’s ok if you watch good shows.
Canadian athletes have been delivering good performance- evident in the increasing percentage of hopefuls that stood the podium
- 70% in 2006; 75% in 2010; 65% in 2014
How many of our goals are achievement/interpersonal?
85% of our goals are achievement oriented and only 15% are interpersonal.
The difference is that achievement goals revolve mainly around the person setting the goal, while interpersonal goals involve another individual.
- Interpersonal goals related to befriending or dating one specific individual is rare because the other individual makes contributions to the process of goal-attainment, making it more or less difficult. For example, if the other individual is not reciprocating, the likelihood of goal achievement becomes low, regardless of how much effort and time is invested by the goal setter.
Simulation Training -
critical for preparation for competition
Becky Scott participated in the Olympics in 2002. She came 52nd in the Olympics prior to 2002, when she won first in cross-country skiing
- She slept in a high-altitude tent to prepare herself for the mountainous environment she would be competing in.
- Salt Lake City is at high elevation, which is disruptive if athletes are not prepared
- Many athletes move closer to the competition site a year prior to train in that specific environment
- She believes in the importance of having a good time during the whole competition experience
- Finds meaning in what she does
healthy habits
(fruits/vegetable consumption, exercise, not smoking, drinking in moderation)
- For those overweight, adding just one healthy habit puts them back on normal range for death risk
- For those obese, 7x increased risk of death compared to healthy individuals
- Weight makes very little difference if all four healthy habits practiced
Key Questions to Consider
- Have I reflected on why I am pursuing this goal?
-
Want to VS. Have to goals
- Say “GET” to not “GOT” to
-
Want to VS. Have to goals
- Is this goal in tune with myself?
- Can I make it in tune with myself?
aamodt: why dieting doesn’t usually work
It is better to eat mindfully instead of dieting.
Hunger and energy use are controlled by the brain.
Thus, it is difficult to lose more than 10-15 pounds.
- Five years after a diet, most regained weight (40% gained even more)
Monotonic benefits assumption
performance is a monotonic function of the amount of deliberate practice accumulated since these individuals began deliberate practice in the domain.
Which type of support is more helpful for progress?
- Autonomy support > directive support is associated with better progress
- Mediating factor? Supportive people makes your goal more autonomous and less control
There is no transfer between malleability belief of parent and child because
beliefs are created based on how teachers and parents act in situations in which children encounter failure.
- It is vital that we become comfortable with our children’s failure
- Must communicate message that there is a lot to be learned and that things can change if more effort is put in
- Instead of minimizing failure, it is better to talk to the child about what could be done differently and how
Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006
Holding a goal intention does not guarantee goal achievement because
failure to deal with self-regulatory problems during goal striving
- Interference from other planned and unplanned goals:
- Unanticipated obstacles and distractions
goal sequence (trajectory)
Selection:
- finding volitional and autonomous about the goals we pursue. Alienation from our goals makes success harder.
* Koestner’s focus: we should be mindful about the goals we are selecting and committing to
Work:
public performances, competitions or other performances motivated by money
- Goal isn’t to learn and improve but to produce reliable performances that meet expectations
SMAART GOALS
- Specific
- Measureable
-
Achievable – under your control
- Approach oriented (Koestners addition)
- Realistic – or ready, especially self-efficacy
-
Time-framed
- Proximal VS distal goals
- Typically want both, that are linked together
- Proximal VS distal goals
typical stages of involvement - first phase
exposure and playful interaction
- Ericsson believes that if there is no exposure very early on (before age 8), low likelihood of becoming an expert
- Requires exposure and reinforcement
- Allow children to do more, facilitating their interests and skill development
Autonomy, Goal Pursuit, The Pursuit of Happiness (Sheldon & Marko 2001)
- L240 incoming college students followed freshman year
- List 8 goals that would last at least through the end of the semester
- Autonomy measured in terms of reasons for goals
- IV: autonomy vs. control DV: progress & adjustment
-
Results:
- People w/ more autonomous goals (interest/meaning) were more successful with reaching their goals over time
- Those who had goals because of other people were less successful
- People who made progress reported improved adjustment, they were feeling better about a wide array of things (grades, social, emotional, etc.)
- Opposite for control goals – no improvement in adjustment
koestner’s traditional response to polivy and herman
Progress may improve if other motivational factors are considered
- Implementation plans
- Autonomous motivation
- Autonomy support for goals
reading is a much better way to experience flow
- Gain relaxation and cheerfulness
- Better on phenomenological level
- More potent, cheerful and higher concentration over time
Three Ways to Overcome Self-Control Limitations
- Select or develop autonomous goals
- Support goal with implementation plans
- Borrow self-control resources from friends & family
Our level of expertise is determined by how many hours and years are put towards
deliberate practice and how early we start.
Misregulation:
- exerting self-control in a way that fails to bring about desired results because efforts are misguided or wasted
* Pursue goal with effort and vigor but do so stupidly, without reaching goal
Watching TV is highly passive and antagonist to optimal state of flow
- Low potency (feel alive, vital and powerful)
- Low concentration
- Low challenge
- High relaxation
- Moderately pleasant
Goal sequence: pursuit
Pursuit: making active progress towards goal achievement
- Setting an implementation plan is very helpful
- Outsource self-regulatory challenge by allowing people around you to become involved and provide support
Phase III: intensive preparation towards expertise
- Once the child gets closer to pre-teen years, amount of practice and training must be ramped up
- It is the parents’ job to find the best coach or teacher in the city.
- Sometimes, this may require moving
-
At this stage, parents must begin disengaging
- No longer the primary coach; must let the elite coach take over
- Still playing an important role but more so in the background
Dweck assumed children would pick up belief in malleability of intelligence if their parents believed in the incremental theory
However, this doesn’t occur. There is no association between the parents’ orientation and their child’s mindset on ability.
Ability praise: 60% wanted problems they would succeed at
Goal: performance and validation
Evidence against basic abilities as a prerequisite for expertise:
- Failure to find basic abilities that predict later expertise
- Failure to find experts with less than 10 years of training
dweck’s view of critical motivational factors
- Challenge seeking
- Resilience in face of obstacles
- Effort
- Strategies
Refocus Plan
Salle was hit right before her performance yet recovered and delivered a perfect performance. Like Salle, many athletes are trained to refocus after a fall or other disruptions. They enact a specific plan to calm down and get back into the competition.
- Whenever I see the Enjoy Coca Cola sign, I thought to myself, “I will enjoy this competition and do my best”.
- Koestner’s wife had a plan to think “I can keep going” every time she saw a billboard sign with the Energizer Bunny on it as she was driving to work.
Implementation Plans and Goal Success
- 94 independent studies show a correlation of .33
Kubey and Cz’s recommendations about TV
- Don’t try to give up TV totally.
- Watch with other people.
- Be a discriminating viewer
- Make it goal oriented
- Most people do not look at the TV guide but just flip through channels
- Beneficial to know ahead of time what shows you like and are interested in
- Record
- Recording a show involves more thought in the selection process
- Going to the movies is an entirely different experience since movies are chosen (discriminated amongst many choices)
- Supplement with study
- Try to learn something while watching TV
Key predictor of long-term success in any domain:
mastery orientation
Transcendence:
seeing beyond immediate stimulus environment by focusing on more long-range goals that are higher in value
- Way of exercising self-control
- Those who received ability praise showed a significant drop in performance.
- Those who received effort praise were improving after encountering failure
- More effort and trying new strategies
- Focusing on progress in order to get better
JUMP nurtures children’s true math potential by breaking down challenges into smaller steps and explaining each step thoroughly so that no “steps” are missed
Micro-steps provide more practice and increases math skill incrementally.
“The foundation of the process is building confidence.
Math is well-suited to build confidence. Teachers can reduce things to tiny steps, gauge the size of each step to the student and raise the bar incrementally.
Terry Orlick’s Model of Sport Excellence
- nt
- It is important that the athletes themselves believe they are gifted and naturally talented
- Increases self-efficacy
- Effort
- In the form of deliberate practice
- Simulation
- Training under conditions most similar to competition conditions increases familiarity and preparation
- Doesn’t require a sports psychologist; it is taken care of by management and the trainer
- Mental skills
- This is the step during which sports psychologists are recruited
- Last step is to mentally prepare athletes so that they can compete under very high pressure
visualization
Nicklaus on visualization in golf: “Before every shot I go to the movie inside my head. Here is what I see. First I see the ball where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then I see the ball going there; its path and its trajectory and even its behavior on landing. The next scene shows me making the kind of swing that that will turn the previous image into reality. These home movies are a key to my concentration and to my positive approach to every shot.”
Naïve practice:
repeated activity that doesn’t translate to improved skill; not challenging
Impact of motivation
- Effort: usually, greater effort equates greater success in most activities
- Goals: are children focused on learning or showing how good they can be?
- Challenge: do children shy away or approach challenge?
- Persistence: do children persist in the face of difficulty or failure?
theories to support ability praise - self efficacy
- Self-efficacy
- Confidence that allows pursuit of goals, leading to more effort and persistence
- Increases if told by others that we are capable of achieving something
- 85% of American parents believe it is good to praise their children based on their ability.
the performance of savants:
Savants’ ability is often very narrow and something very specific.
- His “natural talent” turned out to be compulsive behavior that emerged very early in life, resulting in many years of self-training and practice.
- Thus, focus and repetition can make a difference.
- What appears to be natural talent is just the result of purposeful practice
types of misregulation- Misunderstood contingencies
- Misunderstood contingencies
Not having a good understanding of how to reach goal or what one is capable of
Example: unrequited love
- One person being attracted to another but the other person not sharing the sentiment
- Lack of understanding about working of romantic relationship
- Bound to result in failure and discomfort for other person
- High challenge, no skill
work
2 Kinds of Support
-
Directive Support: provision of positive guidance and encouragement
- “my friend reminds me what I need to be doing”
-
Autonomy Support: support framed as empathic, perspective-taking
- “my friend understands how I see my goals”
distinction between autonomy and direct support
- Autonomy support: more invisible or subtle; interest and empathy, rather than suggesting and problem solving
- More helpful than direct support
- Directive support doesn’t increase success, unlike direct support
Under-regulation:
- lack of focus and monitoring of goals
- Most common: associated with 90% of problems related to goal pursuit
- Lack of standards
koestner’s perspective on how to reduce problems of unrequited love
The pursuer must adjust their goals:
- Wiser perspective on how relationships work
- More respectful of other person’s view
third pattern for unrequited love
- Transition from casual dating to serious, possibly exclusive, romance
Different rules and criteria for going on a date and having an exclusive
. Sports and games are well-designed to produce
FLOW
giving lectures is a flow activity for Koestner.
The difference between amateurs and experts is
deliberate practice.
self control 3 components
- Ingredients: standards, monitoring and strength
The Flow method
- Overall goal and as many subgoals as possible
- Measure progress
- Concentrate, make finer distinctions
- Develop new skills
- Keep raising the stakes when it becomes boring
why does unrequited love persist and become a problem?
- Vicarious learning
- Not reinforced: unlikely that anyone was successful
- Not taught by parents
- Difficulty delivering rejection: no script
- The pursuer has a script to follow: don’t give up on the love of your life; stay in the game and hope for the best
- However, the pursued has no script on how to get out of such a position
- We must train people to give better rejection feedback
- People usually say something that is unstable and not about the person, such as this is not a good time for me
- Baumeister recommends being straight-forward and pursuer-specific. However, Koestner believes this is very difficult and unlikely to work
Effort praise: less than 20% wanted the easy problems; they wanted new problems to challenge themselves
Goal: mastery and learning
Csikszentmihalyi’s prospective study involved 200 9th graders identified by parents as talented in two areas
In 12th grade, only 25% of children were still progressing in their talent domain. Others stagnated or abandoned their talent altogether.
- The key was experiencing flow during their everyday life and within their talent domain
what can help weight loss be more long term?
- Autonomous Motivation
- Autonomy Support for Goals
- Implementation Plans
Similarity/Difference between flow and deliberate practice
- Goal oriented
- Immediate feedback
- Requires complete attention
- Find ways to measure progress
- Beyond comfort zone
In Japan and China, there is emphasis on
a malleable ability + performance orientation
- A lot of pressure to demonstrate and prove that you can develop that ability
- Not out of enjoyment but because it is important for you and your family’s social standing
Athletic family system:
distinct social system that centers on sports involvement of children
- Different family members make different types of commitments, but there is single-mindedness
- Family life revolves around the child’s athletic ability
The same system is applicable to other domains, such as Chu and music
Praising ability leads to negative motivational responses in the long-run:
- Not mastery oriented and fail to seek out challenge
- Unable to cope with failure
- Do not continue putting in effort, nor is there experimentation with new strategies
- Presents as helpless
The pursued is very empathic and engage in perspective-taking
However, the pursuer doesn’t engage in perspective taking.
- Belief that happiness of both the pursuer and the pursued depends on formation of a romantic relationship
- High level of distortion: I am the best match for you.
Deliberate practice:
individualized training on tasks selected by a qualified teacher
Hughes’ accomplishments: 2 bronze medals in bicycling and 3 medals in skating
- Self-talk: I have prepared well. Endure the pain
*
Heil’s technique of instrumental self-talk improves performance more than Hughes’ motivational self-talk.
Cases in which parents still want to control everything, producing negative results
Michelle Wie
- However, not even in top 20 anymore; many blame parents who were hyper-involved
At around age 10-12, the child must be taught to disengage from other activities.
- Amount of deliberate practice in talent domain must increase rapidly and immensely, leaving no time for other activities
- Requires sacrifice of other interests
- Note that parents play acritical role at every stage, and remain involved in the development of expertise
Disengagement: Goal sequence
- realization that goal is impossible to attain and giving it up
- If we continue regardless, there will be mental and physical difficulties and missed opportunities
- Athletes get exciting about raising goals but never consider lowering their goals- even if they are injured
- It is really hard to give up a long-held goal
how is unrequited love experienced?
Pursuer:
- romantic adventure in retrospect
- High stakes gamble
- Bittersweet: wish they were more success but give themselves credit for giving it a shot
FLOW
- Clarity of goals
- Many are unaware of specific goal while carrying out daily life activities. However, when engaging in flow activity, we are well-aware of our goals. Our goals get more sophisticated as we improve in our flow activity but remain clear.
- Not just end goal but also moment-to-moment goals.
- Immediate feedback
- School is unlikely to produce flow, as exam results are not given immediately nor consistently (only midterm and final, between which there is a long wait). In most of our daily activities, feedback is ambiguous and infrequent.
-
Challenges and skills matched
- Empirical assessment of flow. Challenge must be somewhat high but not so much that it is overwhelming and results in inability to concentrate. If skills are not called into action (easy goal), we get bored. It is also important to look for more challenge as our skills improve.
- Example: surfers look forward to the couple days of challenging waves before a hurricane.
- Absorbed in task
- We often split our attention among few activities (never fully concentrated in one activity). However, flow activity is too engaging to allow for multi-tasking: so focused that you lose yourself in the activity. Once you emerge from state of flow, the self is more complex and complete.
- Sense of personal control
- When you experience flow, you feel that the activity is something you can master
- Altered sense of time
- May be in either direction: time flies by or occurs in slow motion
- Criteria that is most easy to figure out if flow or not
- Example: scoring a basket right before the buzzer beat during an important game; when Koestner went on his first date with his wife, he felt like time was moving really slowly
self-talk
There are two types of self-talk
- Instrumental: technical; focuses on process; not thinking about other things
- Motivational: self-trust; sometimes aggressive
It is recommended not to engage in too much self-talk
why is deliberate practice so important?
- Goal to attend to (improve performance)
- Explicit instructions about best methods of improvement
- Immediate feedback on performance
- Repeatedly perform same or similar tasks
