lecture 1-12 Flashcards
Timeline of Goal Setting
- First 3 weeks - setting personal goals.
- 3 to 6 weeks - how to develop expertise.
motivation
more drive, energy, focus, and persistence
How do we overcome our self-control limitations to succeed at our personal goals?
- Clear standards.
- Monitoring our behaviour.
- Self-control resources.
Goal
Specific and challenging, presence of social support, made public.
Don Taylor Belief’s
- Having a clear goal.
- Monitoring.
what was later added to taylors beliefs
social support, going public
SMAART Goal
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Approach Oriented vs. Avoid, Realistic, Time-framed.
Koestner’s 3 secrets on how to get through the self-control barrier
- How we select/develop our autonomous goals.
- Support the goal with an implementation plan.
- Borrow self-control resources from friends and family.
Autonomy - Sheldon 2001.
A sense of ownership and personal endorsement, and ask people why are you setting this goal?
Autonomous Reasons
ME because I really believe it is an important goal to have, because of the fun and enjoyment the goal offers. It is intrinsic.
Controlled Reasons
SOMEONE ELSE because someone else (my mom) wants me to, because I would feel guilty if I didn’t. It is extrinsic.
Study: Sheldon 2001
Measured autonomy versus control in terms of reasons for goals.
* List 8 goals that would last you through the end of the semester.
* 240 incoming college students followed for entire freshman year.
Results: Sheldon 2001
Found that people with more autonomous goals were more successful at reaching their goals over time. This progress led to improved adjustment and they made more goals later on. However, with the controls, they had worse adjustment.
Factors in Sheldon 2001 Study
- Greater effort.
- Less conflict with other goals.
- Capacity to shield goals from distraction and temptation.
- Capacity to overcome action crises.
Implementation Plans - Gollwitzer and Sheeran 2006
- “If, then” plans.
- Explain “when, where, and how”.
- Connect good opportunities to accomplishing goals.
- Anticipate obstacles, and plan to overcome this.
Study: Implementation Plans
People who expected to have cognitive deficits work even better with implementation plans. The more difficult the goal, the more helpful the plans are.
The author of Succeed thinks implementation plans are the #1 most important while Koestner believes
the key is to make the plan automatic.
Two Kinds of Support
Directive support and autonomy support.
what are the two types of directive support
Directive Support 1. Providing positive guidance and encouragement.
2. Cheerleading.
Autonomy Support two types
- Support framed as empathetic.
- Take the person’s perspective.
3 ways to extend self-control
- Select autonomous goals.
- Make goal pursuit automatic with implementation plans.
- Find the right kind of support.
Lecture 2 Summary
- Select autonomous goals.
- Augment the goals with implementation plans.
- Find autonomy supportive goal-supporters.
Case Study: Eileen Barton
Claims to be obsessed with weight, gained 60 pounds by winter break in her freshman year, and doctor believed she was predisposed to be heavy. Her obsession is how we should be.
How has the ideal weight changed?
Used to be 124 pounds but now it is 140 pounds. 70% of people admit they are over this ideal.
Order of things from curable to incurable
- Panic = curable. Must get the right professional.
- Specific phobias = almost curable. Need the right professional.
- Depression = moderate relief.
- Anger problems = less treatable.
- Overweight = temporary change.
- PTSD = highly retractable with marginal relief.
Oprah Winfrey Phenomenon
Used nutritional supplements, OPTIFAST, to go from 180 pounds to 128 pounds in six months. She gained all the weight back.
Study: Hovell et al. 1988
Half people drop out and half make remarkable progress, and lose 84% of their excess weight.
They followed people for 18 months. On average, people gain 80% of the 84% they lost. Only 3% considered success at 5 years!
The Biggest Loser
Motivational speaker who won the competition is back to 300lbs.
Most contestants are back to their original weight as it’s very hard to maintain weight loss.
Seligman and Weight
Weight is largely genetically determined and will defend this weight.
Starving and Weight
If we try to go below 10% of our set range, our bodies would react, thinking we are starving. Our bodies hate this, so it triggers certain defences and our resting metabolism slows down and we lose less calories.
leptin
Satiety hormone that measures when one is full or not.
Study: Polivy and Herman 2002 on the false hopes of self-change
The diet industry thrives for two reasons - big promises and repeat customers. We should instead think about lifestyle change.
diet
Special course of food to which a person restricts themselves, either to lose weight or for medical reasons
The False Hope Syndrome
- Initial expectations. (They aren’t realistic)
- Commitment to change. (Reinforcement from others)
- Initial efforts.
After the first three steps, and around week 4, we hit a plateau.
- Resistance to change.
- Failure/Abandonment. (Around 2/3 months)
- Attributions.
- Emotional, behavioral and physiological consequences.
attribution error
Blame is related to internal versus external or stable versus unstable. Unstable determines whether or not you will try something again. If something is blamed as stable, you will not try it again.
Study: Stanley Schacter 1982
- 75 people in psych department and adults who have a summer house.
- Interviewed people to see if they were ever overweight.
- 1/3 said at one point in their life they had been obese. However, 2/3 of this 1/3 did lose the weight and kept it off.
Why is there a discrepancy within weight studies?
Because people who enrol in weight loss studies are probably the worst at keeping weight off. They have the most difficulty with eating.
Evaluation of Different Support
The more people were guiding you, the worse you did. Directive support was bad while autonomy support & motivation was good.
Polivy and Herman’s Recommendation
Cannot lose weight quickly during a crash diet. Better to aim for a couple pounds a month while making exercise regular and improving eating habits.
What 2 programs are said to be effective?
- Jenny Craig.
- Weight watchers.
Recent Research on Weight loss
- Lose weight = diet by reduce calories.
- Keep it off = exercise.
lecture 3 summary
- Start with realistic goals
- 5%-10% of current body weight
- Be sure to focus on maintenance
Baumeister’s 2 different kinds of failure
- Under regulation.
- Misregulation.
Why does Baumeister believe you should be built like a missile?
You’ll fly through the air better. Not too tall or curvy and better for younger girls before they’re developed.
Pro’s of Young Training
Many of the girls end up socially immature, suffer from eating disorders, physically interrupted and depression
kerri strugg
She was a member of the Magnificent 7, was the 5th best, and had a introverted personality. She broke her leg during the olympics but continued to perform gymnastics.
Self-Control
When we can override our typical response because of something bigger.
Transcendence
Helps you do what you wouldn’t usually be able to do. Can think about religion as it seems to train people in self-control.
May Lou Retton on Kerri Strugg
Believed that females gymnasts are tougher than football players and Kerri would be praised if she were a man.
Steps of Successful Self-Regulation
- Standards.
- Monitoring of feedback.
- Self-regulatory feedback. - Koestner thinks this is astonishing as there is a delay of gratification.
Under-regulation
Failure is due to failure to monitor or lack of self-control.
Misregulation
Exerting self control in a way that fails to bring about the desired results because the efforts are misguided or wasted.
- Misunderstood Contingencies.
- Trying to Control the Uncontrollable.
Misunderstood Contingencies
Common amongst young people due to naiveness.
Example: Unrequited love.
Trying to Control the Uncontrollable
Example: Choking in a performance setting.
People perform worse in competition relative to training.
We choke because we think think about accuracy more than normal. Example in Kerri’s first jump.
Baumeister’s opinion on Strugg’s regulation
Strugg did not under-regulate or misregulate.
Humanistic perspective of healthy self-control
Think about basic psychological needs such as relatedness, competence and autonomy.
Relatedness
There are some people who care about you and you care about them.
competence
You can master activities, you can do some things well, and you can learn to do things better
autonomy
You need to feel like YOU are in charge or that what you are doing is your choice.
Koestner on Strugg’s Autonomy
Koestner says Strugg’s autonomy probably wasn’t real. It was internally controlled.
Study: Sheldon 2010
Recruited 160 people from a community, and assigned them to 4 conditions.
- Set a goal that will make your life better/improve your circumstances.
- Set 3-4 goals to satisfy relatedness.
- Set 3-4 goals to satisfy competence.
- Set 3-4 goals to satisfy autonomy.
Results: Sheldon 2010
Control: didn’t affect with your well-being/affect.
All other 3 conditions: IMPROVED well-being and positive affect.
Summary: If your goals satisfy these basic needs, then you will actually feel better about yourself.
Retirement within women gymnastics
Gymnasts retired early and didn’t know what to do after gymnastics. They feel like they missed out on life.
Study: Shun Fujimoto
Shun performed on a broken right knee. Perform on the rings so they could beat the Russians and scored 9.7 to win the gold medal.
Koestner thinks the Simpsons video is much more accurate as he
jumps off and yells like a psycho.
Jack Block on Self-Discipline
You have to put it on a continuum = ego-control. It is the extent to which impulses and feelings are expressed or suppressed.
Important to have the capacity to CHOOSE whether and WHEN to persevere.
Lecture 4 Summary
- Must consider whether goals are adaptive in some broader way.
- Should question whether self-control is always adaptive.
- Humanistic view is outlined by Sheldon in 2010.
Unrequited Love
Romantic, passionate love that is felt by one person toward another person who feels substantially less attraction toward the lover.
The Bachelor Paris
Girl was the unrequited lover who wasn’t chosen because she told the bachelor her eggs are expiring and she wants to reproduce. Lol.
Study: 1990
College students asked to provide detailed narrative accounts of a powerful experience of unrequited love.
95% of students were able to provide a narrative, while majority had experience in both roles. These students were analyzed to take personality and gender out.
Study: 1990, inclusion criteria
- You weren’t dating before
- It wasn’t stalking
- There had to be some kind of INDICATION of your interest like you had to GO for it at some point.
falling upward
Falling for someone more attractive than you. Can be physical but also attitude or confidence.
Someone who is “out of your league”.
Intrusion of romantic feelings into a platonic friendship
These feelings can blossom from one side as all of a sudden this frienf wants to be your partner
Transition from casual dating to serious, possibly exclusive romance.
Dating is not a commitment to a relationship. The less attractive person escalates faster.
Why do we tend to marry someone who’s about the same level of attraction as us?
Done systematically. Cut out pictures of men and women to guess who married who based on ranking people based on attractiveness. Achieve a correlation of about 0.6 to 0.7.
average joe hawaii
chose hot model ober average joes. not representative of sample
why do we fall upward
we overestimate our desirability
debbie
koestners dream girl who was more attractive than him
Baumeister’s beliefs on these experiences
Pursuers don’t remember it so badly while the pursued feel awkward and harassed. However, the pursued is very empathic toward the other person.
Why does unrequited love persist and become a problem?
Because it’s not REINFORCED.
1. Vicarious learning. Learnt by watching tv shows, listening to songs and watching others.
2. Difficulty delivering rejection.
We have a hard time to do this.
Example of Vicarious Learning
- Big Bang Theory.
- The Office.
- Friends.
- The Hunger Games.
- My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
Baumeiter versus Koestner on rejection
Baumeister says you have to be crystal clear while Koestner thinks Baumeister is wrong because it’s not the norm.
Koestner’s perspective on how to reduce problems of unrequited love
- Be wiser about how relationships and attraction work.
- You can’t make someone be attracted to you
- From a logical point of view, do not persist.
- Think about goals and how to disengage.
How do we disengage from valued goals and find new goals?
Unrequited love is too specific so it’s a bad goal. From research at Concordia, people see it as a long term process.
The Goal Action Sequence
Selection to engagement to disengagement. Have to actively disengage.
Disengagement
Have to make a judgment about your opportunities for success if they’re good, then you should continue.
Disengagement prevents accumulated failure experiences while reengaging creates purpose in life.
Goal Adjustment Scale
Measures the style of disengaging.
Goal Disengagement:
1. Reduction of effort.
2. Withdrawal of commitment.
Goal reengagement:
1. Identification of goals.
2. Commitment to goals.
3. Pursuit of goals.
Freud and Unrequited Love
A psychodynamic framework: the unconscious forces shape our behavior as fantasy relationships are enjoyable. It’s harder to find real relationships that actually might work. Unrequited love may mirror the Oedipal conflict.
Lecture 5 Summary
- You shouldn’t have a highly specific goal for someone.
- You can have general friend-making goals.
- Make sure you disengage from goals.
T.V. Viewing and Ages
Current ages watch the least amount of T.V. at 18 to 24 years. As we get older, we watch way more.
flow
An optimal state/experience that most of us CHERISH and it makes the rest of our experiences dim by comparison.
Example: Surfers who go to Nova Scotia. They change their lives to surf.
Csikszentmihalyi’s Findings
Everyone who was doing something challenging and skill required, have some kind of feeling while they are doing the activity. They describe themselves being “carried by a current”.
Flow Characteristics
- Clarity of goals.
- Immediate feedback.
- Challenges and skills are matched. Csikszentmihalyi defines flow by this.
- Absorbed in the task.
- Sense of personal control.
- Altered sense of time.
altered sense of time
Can both lengthen or shorten time. 85% of us can come up with a flow activity.
Daily Experience Sampling (EMS) Experience Measure Sampling
Key to meaningful life. Gave people pagers and measured flow at different points of the day as soon as possible. (Retrospective reports are not accurate).
Division of Daily Time
During 18 hours in a day:
1/3 time working, 1/3 doing leisure activity, and 1/3 doing maintenance activity.
Example: Lady in ESM
- Her mood varied.
- She was unhappily married.
- She was way happier with her girlfriends than with her husband.
flow during the day
People experience flow 20% of time during leisure, but 50% of the time during work or school.
Challenge = Flow.
tv and flow
Lowest experience of flow. This capitalizes on the orienting reflex. Requires low concentration and low skill.
potency
how active, alive, alert you feel
T.V. versus Reading
The longer you watch TV, the worse the experience becomes. However, the longer you read, the better your experience gets.
Csikszentmihalyi and T.V.
The natural state of our mind is chaos and antropy. T.V. is a distraction due to ease of availability and this is why it’s addictive.
Study: Csikszentmihalyi and T.V.
Decision to do leisure, sports or television, are not affected by how stressful your day was. We may even feel more stressed after T.V. then when we started. We should do productive things in our leisure time.
Koestner’s 3-Pronged Defense of TV Watching
- It’s okay if you do it with others.
- Life as a professors is stressful but T.V. helps with relaxation and recuperation.
- It’s okay if you watch good shows.
Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi’s Recommendations
- Don’t try to give up T.V. totally.
- Watch with other people.
- Be a discrimination viewer. Find a show that nourishes you.
Computer Mediated Activities
- Instrumental use is goal oriented. Example: Using the internet to learn something.
- Ritualistic use is not goal oriented. Example: Facebook.
lecture 6 summary
- Csikszentmihalyi believes it’s about providing your own goals, and having sub-goals within them.
- Look for challenges.
- Make sure you become more skilled.
flow method: summary
- Overall goal and as many subgoals as possible.
- Find ways to measure progress.
- Concentrate and make finer distinctions re-challenge.
- Develop new skills.
- Keep raising the stakes when it becomes boring.
Ericsson and Expertise
99% effort and 1% innateness
People’s views on talent
- 85% of people believe they have talent at some level.
- Starts at age 8 and trains 8 hours a week.
- Attributes performance to 45% natural talent and 55% practice.
prodigy
someone at child age who can perform very well similar to an adult or better
Expert Performance
Consistently superior performance on specified set of representative tasks for the domain that can be administered to any subject. Has to be objectively decided.
golf’s par
standard of excellence. saying youre right around pay says youre an expert at golf
Young Tiger Woods
Drawn to all sports, naturally athletic at 3 years old.
Showed an instinct for the spotlight but claims he still has a lot of room for improvement.
You want to attribute this to some sort of innateness but it’s genetics. The bodily and brain structures that allow you to succeed.
Traditional View of Expertise
Most common current view that ‘giftedness for a given activity is NECESSARY to attain the highest level of performance in that activity’.
Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence
- Linguistic-verbal.
- Logical-mathematical.
- Spatial.
- Musical.
- Bodily kinaesthetic.
- Interpersonal.
- Intrapersonal.
intelligence tested at school
- Linguistic-verbal.
- Logical-mathematical.
Intelligence relevant to psychologists
- Interpersonal - the ability to understand people, what motivates them and what works with them.
- Intrapersonal - know yourself really well.
Study: The Classroom X Test
Models the classroom, and asks kids to place where other kids like to play. Some kids can perfectly place other kids while others cannot.
test-retest
he ones who do well once, do well again
discriminatory validity
not correlated with other intelligence tests
Ericsson versus Gardner
Ericsson doesn’t think we have any predisposition to anything but it’s how we practice. Gardner believes we should help children identify their natural competencies and cultivate those.
Evidence for Talent View
- Evidence of prodigies at a young age.
- Savants.
- Seemingly superior basic abilities predestine for success in a certain domain.
savants
individuals with less than nromal intelligence and show remarkable skill in some narrow area
Examples of Superior Basic Abilities
- Absolute Pitch.
- Visuo-spatial memory of chess players.
Canadian Music Prodigy: Wesley Chu
Child prodigy with perfect pitch. Packed 9 grades of study into a single year before he was 5 years old. Both his parents were music teachers.
Chu accelerated movement but never skipped a stage.
How did Tiger become a prodigy?
A timeline:
Father decided he would raise the best golfer in the world.
1. Train a child to have a golf swing before they develop self-consciousness.
At 6 months: He had golf balls in his garage and make Tiger watch him hit golf balls for like 2 hours.
At 14 months: Gave him a driver, and it was a perfect imitation of his father’s swing.
At 2 years: took Tiger to the driving range and started working with other clubs.
At 4 years: Tiger beat the man who owns the course.
Savants at the Summer Camp
Display unusual activities that others do not have.
Example: kid with a wooden platform who picked up sticks, stole glue and made incredible stuff.
Mental Representations
Key to developing expertise in a domain. Ericsson focuses here.
Lecture 7 Summary
Tiger became a prodigy because of:
1. Early exposure, extensive training, and involved parents.
2. Keen interest and high self-control.
Koestner’s Basketball Experience
Started at 10 years, and went to an academically-oriented high school. He had a great coach during Freshman year who made a difference by helping Koestner get over a plateau and focus on drills. In sophomore year, Koestner got worse.
Deliberate Practice
Individualized training on tasks selected by a qualifying teacher. The only practice where we are motivated to get better by working on thing we aren’t good at. People stop this practice quite early. Practice requires:
- A field that is relatively well-developed.
- Expert instruction.
Purposeful Practice
Individualized training on tasks without an instructor. Practice is:
1. Goal-oriented.
2. Thoughtful.
3. Focused.
Koestner believes this is just as good as deliberate practice.
play
primary goal is the inherent enjoyment of the activity
work
public performances competitions or other performance motivated by money
What do Deliberate practice and Purposeful practice have in common?
In both deliberate and purposeful practice you have a SPECIFIC goal and you do SPECIFIC drills.
Naive Practice
Doing something repeatedly and thinking this will improve your performance.
Hoosiers
Example of deliberate practice.
Practices are designed to help them improve by not being comfortable. There is no homeostasis in this video. Kids shouldn’t be playing the game more than 10% of the time.
Why is Deliberate Practice important?
- Goal to attend to the task and improve performance.
- Explicit instructions about best methods of improvement.
- Immediate feedback on one’s performance.
- Repeatedly performs the same or similar tasks.
Stephen Curry and Basketball
- There are drills that make you dominant in both hands.
- Stephen can do a double-dribble.
- Understand what’s going on inside his head and his body while he’s doing these drills.
- Uses strobe light effect in his goggles to make the training that much harder.
Why is there very little correlation with years of experience and competence? (In fields where you can measure performance)
Because we only do deliberate practice when we are in training.
Why is Carey Price not as good as Tiger Woods?
He hasn’t been able to maintain his practice routine. He needs to continue deliberate practice.
Study: Berlin Violinists
- Best ones had accumulated 7410 hours.
- Very good had accumulated 5300 hours.
- Good had accumulated 3420 hours.
Shows no evidence of someone amazing who doesn’t put in the hours.
Wayne Gretzky
Started skating at 2 years old. Became good because he loved the game and was willing to work hard.
Study: Ericsson 2001
Used 20 and 50 year old amateur and professional pianists. They performed general and piano-specific speed task. The ones who keep up deliberate practice did better.
Lecture 8 Summary
- We often stop getting better because we stop doing deliberate practice.
- Ericsson’s theory is very relevant to our everyday lives.
- Have to challenge ourselves in any area where skill plays a role.
Adults and Singing Ability
1 out of 6 adults say they have no singing ability. Most adults have had an young experience when they were told they can’t sing and it’s been in their minds the whole time.
Mario Lemieux
Mario had 2 older brothers who would play hockey in their basement at 18 months. So, family made an indoor rink.
What do Sports Psychologists believe in terms on talent?
Sports psychologists depend on telling people they’re naturally talented.
Epstein
A columnist pointed how experts’ muscles and anatomy is astonishing. Ericsson believes this is a result of deliberate practice with the exception of height and body structure.
the sports genes
- fast twitch muscle fibres
- slow twitch muscle fibres
fast twitch muscle fibres
- . If you want to win sprinting.
- Can contract really rapidly and don’t need much oxygen.
Slow Twitch Muscle Fibres
If you want to win a marathon.
Ericsson belief’s on the Sports Gene
Angered Ericsson.
1. If you start cardio training, within 3 weeks there will be more capillaries.
2. Within 3 months, fast and slow twitch muscle fibres will start changing.
3. Within 3 years, your heart will literally be larger.
Jim Ryan and Running
The first high school runner to hold records. He improved in 6 weeks due to swim-type workouts by his coach. His slow twitch muscles increased.
Examples Ericsson uses to refute this
- One chess player needed 22 times less practice to become a master.
- Eagle eyes in baseball.
- Twin study “sketch-a-person”.
- Marathon runners from Kenya.
Marathon Runners from Kenya
- Trained to endure pain and their initiation rite.
- Practice in high altitude advantage.
Hence, always study the environment.
Chess and Scrabble: Deliberate Practice
Players who spent 30 hours a week pausing recordings by grand masters, and thinking what they would do there, did much better.
Scrabble Competition
1. McGill student got 80th place.
2. 4 people from Thailand finished in the Top 5.
3. They colour coded their letters in a form of binary coding.
- McGill student got 80th place.
- 4 people from Thailand finished in the Top 5.
- They colour coded their letters in a form of binary coding.
Sophie and Sports
- Had no interest in sports.
- Koestner trained her with a juggling ball.
- She wanted to play tennis but there was no team.
- She joined badminton and won city finals.
Physical Advantanges Examples
- Gretzky - a hockey related stimuli that they have better peripheral vision.
- Phelps - body advantage due to early training.
How does your muscle change over training?
- When you stop training, your muscles get smaller.
- Sometimes there is a critical period for gymnastics and ballet.
According to Ericsson, what mechanisms mediate expert performance?
- Distinctive physiological characteristics of experts are accurately characterized as physiological adaptations to extended periods of intense training.
- Cognitive mechanisms responsible for the acquisition of expert performance involve complex and acquired representations which facilitate an expert’s ability to plan, monitor and reason their performance.
Elaine Winner
A premier expert on giftedness in school. She points out that numerous kids with exceptional skills at young age exist. They even have more developed and more evolved brains.
Dangers of deliberate or purposeful practice
You can only do a maximum of 4 hours or your body will break down. Overtraining is a big problem.
Lecture 9 Summary
- Barriers do exist but innateness is not a factor.
- Those who start earlier will always have advantage over those who did not.
- Must consider barriers to expertise like moving, not overtraining, early exposure and financial resources.
How did Canada become a powerhouse at the Winter Olympics?
- All of them benefitted from sports psychology.
- Invested in preparing the athletes training programs.
Canada didn’t win any medals in 1988 but won 14 medals in 2010.
Ericsson and Sport
He would try to identify when deliberate practice really started. He would only focus on deliberate practice. (not medals or tournaments)
Terry Orlick’s model of sport excellence
- Teaches you mental skills when you’re on site ready to compete.
- Addresses external conditions and cognitive/affective conditions when the person had good/bad performances.
Four Basic Human Requirements for Excellence
- Talent.
- Effort.
- Simulation.
- Mental skills.
Sports Psychologist belief’s
- Figure skating at the Olympic level is 90% mental.
- Believe in natural talent.
- Also emphasize hard work and practice.
- Might say deliberate practice is key, but talent does exist and can even be wasted.
simulation training
practicing for the exact conditions you’re going to face
mental skills training
this is what sports psychologicsts specialize in as it makes that extra difference
Jennifer Heil
Won in 2006 because she was:
1. Has amazing key team.
2. An amazing osteopath.
3. Bunch of resources.
4. Many people behind her.
5. Welcomed the challenge of being last down the hill.
Hopefuls
Those who should win medals, based on other world competitions. 60% of your hopefuls should win medals.
Myriam Bedard
Biathlon who believed she had a god given talent. Originally trained as a speed skater then moved to biathlon.
Biathlon
Cross country skiing whilst stopping 3 times to shoot a target.
VOX max test
A test that assumes a hockey player should score 50 and a cross country skier should score 60. Myriam Bedard scored 75.
Becky Scott
Won the gold medal for sprinting because others were on drugs. She used an altitude tent, equivalent to 2100 meters or something in Utah. This is 5,000 feet above sea level.
Hence, simulation is critical for preparation for competition.
special mental skills
- Goal setting.
- Arousal Regulation.
- Visualization.
- Self-talk.
Goal Setting
Most athletes set too many goals.
They are good at raising goals, but poor at lowering their goals. Process goals are more important than outcome goals.
Arousal Regulation
How to stay calm and relaxed but ready and confident. Generally, relaxation training. Performers have a routine that prepares them to be in the right zone. This includes a refocus plan in anticipation of something going wrong.
visualization
Literally seeing and hearing. Full-sensory experience similar to deliberate practice.
self-talk
- Motivation self-talk like “don’t give up”.
- Instrumental self-talk like “stand tall”.
Study: Self-talk
Done with soccer players.
1. Found collegiate players with no training with sports psychologist.
2. Used midfielders only as they run the most.
3. Tracked 9 games where the first 3 games were baseline.
4. Recorded how well you executed your passes
5. Performed relaxation training.
Results: EVERYTHING IMPROVED.
smart goals
Used by sports psychologists too. Jennifer Heil wrote 10 things she knows about herself to boost self-efficacy.
Measuring Implicit Theory
Either that intelligence is something that you cannot change much or that no matter how much intelligence you have, you can change a bit.
Population divided into 50% whilst Japan/Korea would pick B 80%.
little genius story
6 year old girl was upset because she could not go to school. She was part of a group called “little geniuses”, identified as the 5 best math students, who got extra attention from the teacher.
little genius: consequences
- Other kids will feel different, will choose easier exercises and won’t persist as much.
- More dangerous to the genius group.
ability praise
Focus on ability rather than effort.
1. Self-efficacy goes up.
2. Expectancy: self-fulling prophecy.
3. Reinforcement theory: praise is verbal reinforcement.
Koestners PHD findings
Had kids do hidden figures. Told them they did very well even, if they didn’t, either because they are natural at this or they worked hard.
Ability praise seemed to have a better effect. They did more problems and felt better.
Dweck on Koestner’s Findings
WRONG.
- Immediate and long term effects diverge. In long term - not helpful.
- Study didn’t expose kids to real life obstacles.
- Being told you’re a genius sets you up to handle failures very terribly.
Study: Dweck and Mueller
Took 128 fifth graders from rural and inner city schools and provided them with feedback after the first set of problems. Results were NOT affected by their background.
- 10 puzzles where everyone was told they did well.
- 1/3 were told it was due to ability, 1/3 were told it was due to effort, 1/3 received feedback.
- No one received no praise.
Results: Dweck and Mueller
After the first 10 questions, the effort kids didn’t choose the performance questions. After the second 10 questions, (which were harder), effort kids enjoyed and persisted longer than ability kids. After the third 10 questions, ability kids do worst, control kids do the same, effort kids improved.
Results were replicated in other studies.
lack of effort
I didn’t work hard enough.
After failure, find out how to master problems better. They are honest about their failures.
Lack of Ability
I’m not smart enough. After failure, find out how well their peers performed. They lie about their failures.
Dweck’s view of Critical Motivational Factors
- Challenge-seeking.
- Resilience in Face of Obstacles.
- Effort.
- Strategies.
Study: Dweck and Math
- Control group with only traditional study skills.
- Intervention group with a “growth mindset” intervention and learned traditional math skills.
- Mindset is that your brain makes new connections each time.
- Interviewed kids to expand their nature of intelligence.
Results: Dweck and Math
Kids who got the intervention literally visualized their neurons making connections and brain growing. Got significantly better at math.
JUMP
Junior Unidentified Math Prodigy.
In a video, the man explains we believe we are bad at math naturally, but it is a learned skilled.
Micro-steps in JUMP Math
- Teaching in an incremental way.
- Lots of methods and repetition.
- Make them believe they can do anything.
Results in a narrow distribution where everyone can do well.
CHEM 101 Example
Kid withdrew from a course because he did badly on the second test.
Dweck would say this was performance oriented. We should say we aren’t good at something YET.
John Mighton
- every kid can learn
- epigenetics
What secret predicts talent?
Ericsson - the ones who practice.
Dweck - the ones who have malleable or effort thinking.
Koestner - focus on the role of parents.
ryan sullivan
Decided to be a hockey player aged 5. Dad encouraged this. He went to St. Mikes as planned, but not to Notre Dame.
Koestner believes the dad might have been over-involved.
Eventually, got honour of best student athlete but will probably never make it to NHL.
family and talent
Social system that centres around the sports development or involvement around a child. Exists to make this child a great player. Middle to upper class families are more involved with their children.
Study: Benjamin Bloom on Development of Expertise
- Identified 40 people in arts, athletics and academics.
- had to be ranked in the top 25 of your field.
- Questioned about when they started and the roles their parents had.
- Remarkable consistencies between all the families.
child-oriented
Parents willing to devote time, energy, money into the child’s development.
Achievement-oriented
Parents model achievement, even in their own life.
Responsibility-oriented
Expected to do their homework and chores. Look out for themselves.
stages of involvement
Phase 1: Exposure and playful interaction.
Phase 2: Moderate Skill Building.
Phase 3: Intensive Preparation Toward Expertise.
Phase 1: Exposure and playful interaction
- Ages 3-8.
- Expose the kid to the field.
- Play right away, encourage, and praise.
- The parents will expose their own interests.
Phase 2: Moderate Skill Building
- Ages 6 till 9.
- Usually once a week.
- Find a good teacher who makes it fun.
- Deliberate practice.
- Parents help you internalize the value of practice. (Important)
Phase 3: Intensive Preparation Toward Expertise
- Ages 10 to 11.
- Parents scout out to find the best coach.
- Deliberate practice goes up to 20 hours a week.
- Parents must step back at this point.
- Child should get involved in practice competitions.
What happens when the parent down not withdraw?
Example of Michelle Wie and her dad, who was overly involved. However, parents still need to force the kid to say NO to things that are in the way of the expert sport.
ellen winner
Believed that if you are going to be academically gifted, you’ll have the other things plus an intellectual household.
Brooke and Rock-Climning
- Could be problematic to have the mom as a coach especially when there’s a team involved.
- Little girl is in a flow state when she climbing.
- Koestner is worried about this girl because of the singular focus from such a young age.
Study: Csikszentmihalyi and Gifted Youth
- Students in grade 9 with abilities in sports, music and languages.
- Experience sampling for 2 weeks and then again in grade 12.
- Only 1/4 pursued talent - those who had flow while practising this talent.
Flow and Talent Development
A talent will be developed if it produces optimal experiences. Brooke is experiencing FLOW when she climbs. High challenge meets high skill.
Ericsson and Flow
He thinks there’s no flow needed. However, he wrongly links this. Flow is challenge and skill and reaching a level just beyond your current level.
C versis Ericsson
For C, it’s about playing and mastery focus. For Ericsson, it’s about suffering and that the flow current doesn’t last very long.
Koestner on Flow
The best way to do deliberate practice in our lives is if we can make it a FLOW ACTIVITY.
