"Believing You Can Get Smarter Makes You Smarter"

[RT Wolf]

Really illustrates the power of belief, doesn't it:

Believing You Can Get Smarter Makes You Smarter

Brings a new meaning to."Personal development for Smart People"

I've heard of other, similar, studies as well. Such as two groups of girls, one of them were told that girls were naturally gifted at math, while the other was told that they weren't before taking a math test. The ones who were told they were naturally gifted did much better. In another study, one group of people was asked to imagine themselves as a professor, while another weren't. The professor group did better.

Another, slightly more racial, study I read about in Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. It's about two groups of black students before they took a test. One of them was asked to identify their race before the test, while the other was not. The ones who primed (unconsciously) their brains with all the negative unconscious stereotypes did much worse on the test.

[Phil Newton]

"Fake it 'til you make it", as they say. I've used this kind of "trick" in the past, and it's surprising how well it works.

I used a similar idea in university, which really helped. I would imagine that I had to give a lecture on the contents of a course, and would design slides and practice speaking what I'd learnt. Instead of seeing myself as a student, I put myself into the role of a lecturer. This shift in thinking made the material "stick "much better, and it was a major factor in getting my degree.

I've also experimented with positive affirmations in the past, which I found to be quite effective. There's always a certain degree of self-talk, so it's worth putting the effort into making it positive.

[RT Wolf]

^ That's great advice. Thanks.

[Cron]

Self esteem boosting in education has come under a lot of criticism for failing to produce more acheivements from students.

Perhaps the missing ingredient is encouraging people to put the time in, in addition to feeling better about their abilities.

[Phil Newton]

Originally Posted by Cron

Perhaps the missing ingredient is encouraging people to put the time in, in addition to feeling better about their abilities.

Exactly, it still needs to be backed up with work. Believing yourself to be smarter should compliment your existing learning setup, not replace it.

I think one of the reasons this method helps is that it removes some of the self-limiting brakes we can apply to ourselves. I can't speak for anyone else, but I know that my productivity takes a real kicking when I'm in a low mood.

[DmitryDavydov]

Originally Posted by Phil Newton

"Fake it 'til you make it", as they say. I've used this kind of "trick" in the past, and it's surprising how well it works.

... when it works. The entire dot com fiasco proved that faking alone doesn't work.

[RT Wolf]

I highly recommend Influence: The Psychology of Persausion. I think it has a satisfactory explanation for this phenomenon in the second chapter about Committement and Consistancy. In it, he talks about how people take cues from their actions (and imagining themselves vividly as professors would be a good way to make your mind believe you are in fact takign those actions), and that will will tend to want to be consistant with their actions and their commitments. More info here:

Robert Cialdini - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The bottom link is a summary of the book, hopefully that'll help to understand this phenomenon better.