Unconventional Wisdom: February 2013

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Do you have trouble remembering people's names?

If so, you’re not alone. Extensive research supports the notion that people’s names are among the most difficult words to remember. And theories abound. The leading candidate is that names are arbitrary and meaningless, that is, a person’s name is an isolated element with no unique associative qualities (contrast this with, say, a person’s career or hobby). This would explain why it’s easier to remember nicknames, since they often are linked to particular traits or events.

The truth is, a person’s name generally provides few clues about their appearance or their personality. It may hint at their age, or their birthplace, but names typically provide weak semantic hooks. And a 2010 study by Zenzi Griffin supported this notion, saying that “several factors . . . conspire to make personal names particularly difficult to retrieve.”

One study (conducted by Gillian Cohen and Dorothy Faulkner) provided participants with fake names and biographies, then asked them to recall information about those people. Here’s what people remembered most (according to an article written by Maia Szalavitz for healthland.time.com):

     ·         Jobs: 69%
     ·         Hobbies: 68%
     ·         Home towns: 62%
     ·         First names: 31%
     ·         Last names: 30%

Faces are a different matter altogether. They’re just easier to remember. But why? An article in www.oldandsold.com offers these compelling reasons:

1. Our visual memory is stronger than our aural memory;

2. You hear a person’s name just once, but see their face over and over (every glance is a new impression);

3. People often don’t pronounce their name clearly (said the article at www.oldandsold.com: “Don’t blame yourself for forgetting something you never knew”; and

4. Lack of attention.

Remembering names . . . is a “mighty good investment”

Perhaps the most worthwhile advice comes from www.oldandsold.com which reminds us that “attention to new names is a mighty good investment.” The article counsels us to “have a strong and definite purpose in mind to grasp and retain the name of every person you meet.”

How then do we go about improving our skills?

The most popular technique – or at least the one most commonly cited – is memory association, that is, forming an immediate association between the person’s name and a unique characteristic (the person’s appearance, their job, their clothing, etc). And repetition also works – if you repeat someone’s name back after you are introduced, and immediately use it in conversation, you’ll have a better shot at remembering their name.

Additional guidance comes from www.oldandsold.com:

· Mental picture: “Every time you meet a stranger, say to yourself: ‘I’ll know you the next time I see you.’ Then associate the name with the face that goes with it. Use any unusual feature as a peg to hang the name on. . . . Make a mental picture of the person’s face, select some notable features for special attention (anything that’s unique or distinctive). . . .

· Attention and Intention: “Be prepared to make a good, clear mental impression for your mental photograph. . . . When introduced, focus all your attention on the name, hear it, speak it, write it, see it, taste it, smell it, feel it with a grip that never lets go, and ten to one you will never forget it.”

Steve Ferber is author of “21 Rules to Live By,” available at Amazon.com. Reviews at www.21rules.com.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Is there a link between racial stereotyping and creativity?

An international team of researchers, in a rather unique study, has concluded that racial stereotyping (that is, the tendency for some people to stereotype people, based on race) inhibits creativity. Their findings have broad implications, not just for enhancing social tolerance, but for helping people maximize their own creativity.

At the heart of the study is the term “racial essentialism,” defined as “the view that racial groups possess underlying essences that represent deep-rooted, unalterable traits and abilities,” according to an article published on www.latindiscussion.com. In other words, racial essentialism represents a conventional mindset, a mindset not taken to consider alternate possibilities.

But how does this relate to creativity? Researchers found that racial stereotyping and creative stagnation have a common mechanism: categorical thinking. Explained lead researcher Carmit Tadmor of Tel Aviv University (as quoted in an article in Psychological Science): “Although these two concepts concern very different outcomes, they both occur when people fixate on existing category information and conventional mindsets.”

The fundamental conclusion, according to the article in latindiscussion.com: “Together, these studies suggest that essentialism exerts its negative effects on creativity by changing how people think, as opposed to changing what they think.”

An article in psypost.org added the following:

“The research also suggests that essentialist beliefs are fairly malleable. While there are many different aspects that still need to be explored, Tadmor and colleagues speculate that it might be possible to use these findings to devise an intervention program that reduces racial essentialist beliefs, thereby leading participants not only to become more socially tolerant but also to unleash their creative potential in the process.”

In their study abstract, Tadmor and colleagues explained their central thesis: “Individuals who believe that racial groups have fixed underlying essences use stereotypes more than do individuals who believe that racial categories are arbitrary and malleable social-political constructions. Would this essentialist mind-set also lead to less creativity?”

To study this, the researchers explored participants’ beliefs about racial essentialism, then had them take a popular test of creativity called the Remote Associates Test. According to the psypost.org story: “The participants were given three distinct words and they had to identify a single target word that linked the three words together. So, for example, given the words ‘manners’, ‘round’, and ‘tennis’, the correct answer would be ‘table’. The researchers found that participants primed with an essentialist viewpoint were less creative, solving significantly fewer of the word problems correctly than participants in the other two groups.”

In the research, Tadmor was joined by colleagues Melody M. Chao of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; Ying-yi Hong of Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University and Beijing Normal University; and Jeffrey T. Polzer of Harvard University.

##

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Success in life: what personality trait shines the brightest?

It might just be grit (and if you want to test yours, try the 12 question grit survey, at the end of this column).

In one study of West Point cadets, as reported by publicradio.org, “a cadet’s grit score was the best predictor of success in the rigorous summer training program known as ‘Beast Barracks’. Grit mattered more than intelligence, leadership ability or physical fitness.” Study authors were quoted as saying: “Grit may be as essential as talent to high accomplishment.”

In related studies (surveys were given to Ivy League undergraduates, teachers, salespeople and National Spelling Bee finalists), the personality trait of grit (perseverance, persistence) demonstrated that grit was as essential as intelligence for human achievement and success. And, surprising to some, there was no link between grit and IQ – in other words, more intelligent people do not necessarily have more grit, and vice versa.

The stirring question now becomes: can grit be taught?

Lead author and chief study architect Angela Duckworth believes that it can, and in a piece published by publicradio.org, Duckworth posed this critical question: “Which experiences do we give kids to get them in the direction of more grit and not less?”

Duckworth, now an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania (she received a BA in Neurobiology from Harvard and a Masters in Neuroscience from Oxford), focuses her research on what often are called “noncognitive skills,” that is, traits other than intelligence that predict academic and professional achievement.

Her current research, according to an article published at mentorcoach.com, “centers on self-control (the ability to regulate emotions, thoughts, and feelings in the service of valued goals) and grit (perseverance and sustained interest in long-term goals).” The article quotes Duckworth as saying: “I am particularly interested in the subjective experience of exerting self-control and grit - and conscious strategies which facilitate adaptive behavior in the face of temptation, frustration, and distraction."

Interestingly, according to this same mentorcoach.com article, Duckworth believes that more free time (not more rigorous study) would improve student concentration and effort. The article quoted Duckworth as saying: “. . . paradoxically and wonderfully, we should free up more time for play, running around and just enjoying childhood.”

Duckworth defines grit as "sticking with things over the very long term until you master them," according to the publicradio.org article, to which Duckworth added: “The gritty individual approaches achievement as a marathon; his or her advantage is stamina." One of Duckworth’s research goals is to “sharpen insights" about the psychological barriers that prevent well-prepared students from completing degrees -- and to test interventions that might help students overcome those barriers.

The Grit Test – 12-item Grit Scale

Directions for taking the Grit Scale: Please respond to the following 12 items. Be honest – there are no right or wrong answers!

1. I have overcome setbacks to conquer an important challenge.
q Very much like me
q Mostly like me
q Somewhat like me
q Not much like me
q Not like me at all

2. New ideas and projects sometimes distract me from previous ones.