A belief that I think is not supported by evidence, but will trigger automatic stream of rationalizations is this: that innate talent (or lack thereof) places constraints on what one can achieve. Especially regarding intelligence. I’m not saying that there are no differences in, say, intelligence. There are, of course. But it doesn’t follow that these traits are fixed and constrain what you can achieve.
I think you can see this world-view in the general attitude of many of the posters and commenters here or even in EY’s posts:
For so long as I have not yet achieved that level, I must acknowledge
the possibility that I can never achieve it, that my native talent is not sufficient.
My claim is that there is little evidence supporting this sort of view and in fact the evidence points in the other direction.
There are the studies of K. Anders Ericsson (et al) on expertise, which have shown that the only factor that reliably predicts expertise (in any of the studied fields) is the amount of time the individual has spent practicing deliberately.
But there are also studies popularized by Carol Dweck, which indicate that the self-view one adopts has a significant impact on the effort we will dedicate into hard problems. That is, if we believe that talent (and especially intelligence) is innate and fixed, then we’re much more likely to give up when we face hard problems. But if we believe the opposite, that innate characteristics are not fixed but can be improved, we are much more likely to sustain effort with hard problems and thus much more likely to eventually succeed.
Neither of these prove that some sort of innate talent is definitely not a significant factor in one’s performance. But to me they suggest that adopting the world-view that one’s characteristics aren’t fixed is a) probably true anyhow and b) a useful mindset to have regardless.
A belief that I think is not supported by evidence, but will trigger automatic stream of rationalizations is this: that innate talent (or lack thereof) places constraints on what one can achieve. Especially regarding intelligence. I’m not saying that there are no differences in, say, intelligence. There are, of course. But it doesn’t follow that these traits are fixed and constrain what you can achieve.
I think you can see this world-view in the general attitude of many of the posters and commenters here or even in EY’s posts:
My claim is that there is little evidence supporting this sort of view and in fact the evidence points in the other direction.
There are the studies of K. Anders Ericsson (et al) on expertise, which have shown that the only factor that reliably predicts expertise (in any of the studied fields) is the amount of time the individual has spent practicing deliberately.
But there are also studies popularized by Carol Dweck, which indicate that the self-view one adopts has a significant impact on the effort we will dedicate into hard problems. That is, if we believe that talent (and especially intelligence) is innate and fixed, then we’re much more likely to give up when we face hard problems. But if we believe the opposite, that innate characteristics are not fixed but can be improved, we are much more likely to sustain effort with hard problems and thus much more likely to eventually succeed.
Neither of these prove that some sort of innate talent is definitely not a significant factor in one’s performance. But to me they suggest that adopting the world-view that one’s characteristics aren’t fixed is a) probably true anyhow and b) a useful mindset to have regardless.