POTENTIAL TO ADULT KUBILIUS CREATIVE CENTER FOR TALENT - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

MOVING CHILDHOOD POTENTIAL TO ADULT CREATIVE ACHIEVEMENT: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH PERFORMANCE

PAULA OLSZEWSKI- KUBILIUS CENTER FOR TALENT DEVELOPMENT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, USA

THE PATH OF THIS PRESENTATION

Derivation of the project Important definitions Key questions posed to our contributors Unique insights from the domains Common threads across domains

THE COALITION FOR PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH PERFORMANCE

Interdivisional group focused on:

• To look at how high performance in youth

is manifested, studied, measured and discussed in academic and professional psychology.

• To study how psychology contributes to

high performance.

• To identify the generalizable psychological

principles of high performance that can be applied across domains.

DEFINING HIGH PERFORMANCE IN CONTRAST TO OTHER TERMS

• Potential
• Expertise
• Eminence/Creative

Productivity

• Giftedness
• Talent Development
• High Performance

KEY QUESTIONS FOR OUR CONTRIBUTORS

• What research exists on high

performance in your domain?

• What are some of the critical

dividing lines within the research?

• What are the earliest manifestations
• f talent in the domain?
• Are the essential psychosocial skills

for developing talent?

QUESTIONS FOR OUR CONTRIBUTORS

• What are the benchmarks for

demonstrating readiness to transition to the next stage of talent development?

• What inhibiting factors can derail a

promising trajectory?

• What proportion of the responses

to these questions come from research and what proportion is based on professional judgment?

ACADEMIC DOMAINS

PSYCHOLOGY--DEAN KEITH SIMONTON MATHEMATICS--ROZA LEIKIN

TALENT DEVELOPMENT IN THE DOMAIN OF PSYCHOLOGY

• Focus was on the paths of eminent

psychologists

• “Academic psychology” means psychological

science conducted primarily by assistant, associate, and full professors (or their international equivalents) at major research universities.

• Eminence defined by quantity and quality of

publications, awards, etc.

Excellent student Selective college Fall in love with psychology Prestigious grad program Early publication Beginning independent research program High impact publication by age 30 Secure ladder track academic position Awards and honors Marry later, few children

TRAJECTORY FOR EMINENT PSYCHOLOGISTS

Psychology relatively soft science but sub-disciplines vary across natural/experimental --- human-science dimension--domain specific skills and psychosocial skills may be more relevant within sub disciplines Interest matters--and that is dependent upon “good” exposure Talent emerges later and it may take longer to recognize major adult manifestations although the trajectory is earlier for sub fields closer to natural sciences Openness to experience, persistence, tolerance for ambiguity, move beyond

• ne’s earlier ideas, risk-taking, courage, teamwork, capitalize on

strengths/minimize weaknesses ”Frequent failure of replication", lack of consensus in feedback from reviewers-- may require unique psychosocial skills for psychologists

ACADEMIC DOMAINS

PSYCHOLOGY--SIMONTON

• Later starting--adolescence
• Not strong evidence for specific

cognitive abilities

• Not clear if interventions help--

perhaps earlier exposure, early

• pportunities for engagement in

psychological research

• Mentoring important at higher levels
• Psychosocial skills critical

MATHEMATICS--LEIKIN

• Can start early-talent evident in preschool
• Strong evidence for predictive validity of

“mathematical cast of mind” and mathematical reasoning ability

• Lends itself to many interventions (clubs

enrichment, acceleration, Olympiads, etc.) found to be related to later productivity

• Mentoring important at higher levels
• Psychosocial skills critical

SPORT

GOLF--STEVE PORTENGA GAME SPORTS--JOB FRANSEN AND ARNE GÜLLICH

Golf

• Individual
• Greater need for

support & self- regulation

Team Sports

• Situationally

functional performance solutions

• Elite talent

emerges through process of selection, deselection over stages of development

• -Perceptual motor skills and

athleticism are important

• -Serious investment starts in

adolescence

• -Performance as a juvenile does

not predict senior performance

• -Participation in diverse sport

precedes specialization including peer led sport play--may facilitate later sport-specific rate of progress

• -Early specialization may be

harmful

• -Only 16% have a linear, upward

trajectory; most “descend” at some point

• -Deliberate practice is important
• Psychosocial skills critical

Talent Development in Sport

VALUE OF EARLY SPORT DIVERSIFICATION

• “greater variability of specific and non-specific motor learning

experiences helps youngsters build up a broader and closer- meshed network of motor skills that facilitates subsequent motor learning and the emergence of functional performance solutions”

• “world-class players’ diversified participation consisted of mostly

authentic experiences, multi-year competition-related engagement, that is, long-term dedicated, performance-related learning processes with specialist coaches in broadened ranges of tasks and situations”

• Cross over skills—gymnasts become circus performers, dancers
• Early specialization important for ice skating, gymnastics—high

motivation needed to continue?

Playful engagement

• ften fueled by

informal coaching by skilled golfing fathers Notice of skill level compared to peers- deliberate play Decision to become elite golfer Seek first coach who provides guidance and emotional support Personal responsibility for training and development Golfing 5 hrs/wk Join golf clubs with better training potential and emotional support Deliberate practice--20 to 30 hrs/wk Friends become

• ther young golfers

Focus on improvement over winning competitions Significant investment of time, energy Networking with elite golfers to acquire tacit knowledge, learn culture of sport Meticulous preparation for competition Managing performance under pressure

Talent Development Trajectory in Golf

THE PROFESSIONS

MEDICINE AND SOFTWARE ENGINEERING-- MELISSA A. MCWILLIAMS, EMILY Z. HOLDING, & STEVEN

• E. KNOTEK

Novice Apprentice

Journeyman

Craftsman Expert Master

Idiosyncratic Discipline Based

Sub-Discipline Specialist Some skills acquired Can do a job without supervision Has a reputation

• H. D. Feldman

Unique: Professions are expected to provide important services while still learning and in training

• Tasteful self

promotion

• time

management

• work/life

balance

• BFLP
• -teamwork
• -application of

knowledge under close supervision

• -leadership
• -increased autonomy,

responsibility

• -mentor others
• -knowing one’s limits--

when to ask for help

• -Leadership positions
• -Training others

Interest in medicine Achievement in school & STEM courses Volunteering MCAT

CORE PSYCHOSOCIAL SKILLS IN MEDICINE

Core characteristics, those which were central at every stage of the medical trajectory, include (1) time-management skills (e.g. efficiency, work-life balance, prioritization) (2) professionalism (e.g. ethical conduct, integrity, maturity, respect for patient) (3) reliability (e.g. trustworthy, dependable) (4) knowing strengths and weaknesses (e.g. risk-taking) (5) growth mindset (e.g. teachability, self-directed learners, inquisitiveness, continuous learning) (6) personality characteristics (e.g. humility, teamwork, empathy, compassion, social skills, persistence, hard work, interest, motivation, self-regulation).

Formal degree not required Programming skills beyond what is taught in degree programs Self motivation

• ability to prioritize projects
• self-regulate
• manage ambiguity
• learn from mistakes
• work autonomously
• balance risk/rewards
• Mentoring for workplace expectations

and judgement

• Further specialization
• -Leadership to manage projects

and guide teams

• -“Deliberately loose” team

management

• -Inspiring a “churn of ideas”

TALENT DEVELOPMENT IN MEDICINE AND SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

Protracted period of learning beyond formal schooling--models of adult learning and professional development (PD) may be helpful and needed here Increasing expectations for training and/or developing others Increasing specialization Teamwork, both leading a team and functioning as a team member are critical

ARTS PRODUCTION

DRAWING--AARON KOZBELT CULINARY-- LAURENT ARON, FERRANDI PARIS, MARION BOTELLA, & TODD LUBART

TALENT DEVELOPMENT IN DRAWING

• Developmental progression of early drawing is well defined
• This can be used to identify children who are precocious in

their drawing

• Biological markers of precocious drawing are well researched

and include non right handedness, linguistic deficits (dyslexia), poor stereopsis, and also visual strengths (visual processing, visual memory, mental rotation)

• Debate—one must forget what one sees to draw vs. “knowledge

enhances perception”

• Artists as experts in visual cognition and flexible processing of

visual information, which may improve with art experience and training

• By adolescence, youth who have not had social support to

continue drawing--either encouragement or instruction--stop in frustration of not being able to depict things realistically. Those who continue have what is called “ideas in the search of forms” (Burton)

Before culinary school

• Explicit interest
• Motivation
• Experience in

restaurant

• Appreciation of

challenges of field

Apprenticeship/Culinary Schl

• Mastery of basic technique/skills (dexterity, coordination, precision, mixing in exact proportions)
• Mastery of one or multiple stations
• “kitchen sense”--respect for

hierarchy of kitchen

• Developing aesthetic sensibility
• Reactivity/problem solving
• Mastery of team participation
• Resilience--accepting errors
• Demonstration of creativity
• Maintain self-affirmation, confidence

Master Chef

• Personal approach
• “Culinary signature”
• Charisma
• Managing one’s

reputation

• Finding ways to spark

creativity

• Mastery with respect

to external public

Mini-c Pro-c Big-C Little-c Inhibitors

• -Physical energy
• Non supportive

environments Talent Development in Culinary Field

COMPARISON OF DRAWING AND CULINARY ARTS

DRAWING

• Require creativity
• Exploratory behavior both before and

after completion of artistic task

• Fewer boundaries regarding what is

creative—more divergence

CULINARY ARTS

• Require creativity
• Exploratory behavior both before and

after completion of artistic task

• Boundaries to creativity—must taste

good, look appetizing

ARTS PERFORMANCE

DANCE--JOEY CHUA ACTING--TONY NOICE AND HELGA NOICE

TALENT DEVELOPMENT IN DANCE

• Clearly identified domain specific indicators of dance potential
• Physical memory, body proportions (“right feet, long neck, perfect

turnout”), ability to coordinate to music

• Technique is important -” A strong classical technique gives you the ticket to

become a dancer, a versatile and diverse dancer.”

• An artistic dancer trumps a technically proficient dancer--dancing with

emotions and to touch the audience’s emotions--especially true in contemporary dance

• Many dancers trained in gymnastics prior to choosing to focus on

professional dance

• Type of creativity varies with type of dance
• Ballet dancers “work alongside the choreographer and contribute to

the production process” --little c creativity

• Contemporary dancers need Big C creativity
• Toughness required to succeed--especially for males in ballet
• Role of chance is huge--in getting into a dance company
• Proactively finding/creating the environment that develops one’s motivation

TALENT DEVELOPMENT IN ACTING

• Only domain where it seemed as if “You either have it or your don’t” If

you have it, technique can be taught. The IT is spontaneity.

• MAMET: The talent is to be able to act (pause), as Sandy Meisner used to

say, to be able to act spontaneously and truthfully under imaginary circumstances (Meisner & Longwell, 1987, p. 15).

• Frank Langella, added the notion of rock-solid memory …“You must own

your lines as you own your own toes--you must know what they mean, and you must mean them when you say them”

• Many actors use cognitive strategies like chunking and elaboration to

memorize lines--commit to LTM

• British film star Michael Caine said, "You must be able to stand

there not thinking of that line. You take it off the other actor’s face. Otherwise, for your next line, you’re not listening and not free to respond naturally, to act spontaneously"

• Extraordinary facility, in terms of great vocal projection, perfect diction,

and graceful movement, will rarely save the day if true spontaneity is lacking

DANCE

• VS. ACTING
• Both have well developed training methods to

develop technical skills by a master teacher

• Both involve expressive, spontaneous, aesthetic, and

creative characteristics

• Aesthetic judgment criteria and taste can evolve

considerably over time in both fields

• Individuality and authenticity of personal

expression are highly valued in both dance and acting

• Both involve technique but aesthetics/creativity

trump technique

• Deliberate practice may be more important

in dance than acting

• More decisive role of innate talent in acting

than in dance

Same Different

HOW DOMAINS CHANGE AND AFFECT REQUIRED ABILITIES AND PSYCHOSOCIAL SKILLS

• Historically medical practice tended to be autocratic with the

physician leading the care delivery “team” and the “team” carrying out the leader’s intent.

• Shift to model where all team members contribute to the

upper limits of their capabilities, greater emphasis on expert

• teams. The ability to collaborate with more types of

individuals in a greater number of roles than ever before

• Culinary field, through mass media, has been “artified”
• Master-apprenticeship training may not fit changes in field
• Valuing culinary creativity
• Focus on chef’s individuality, personality
• Mediatization of the chef and presence in the dining room
• Photography of culinary creations--preparation beyond the

kitchen to arts, communication

• Art Education
• Less of an emphasis on drawing skills as essential---focus on

conceptual expression across different media

SHIFT IN ART EDUCATION

• Students coming in with portfolios made up of everything from

computers or cameras, and who have never held a pencil.

• “Just as the clear communication of a written thought assumes a

clear understanding of sentence structure, the compelling communication of a visual thought depends upon an understanding

• f principles of visual structure”
• “Skills untethered to the expression of concept is merely

craftsmanship, while the most sophisticated concept will fail to engage if it is poorly or inappropriately articulated”

• “poetic transferability”, i.e., the notion that one of the most

important but often least conscious value of what you learn in one medium is the transferability of that experience to working in

• another. ….drawing as a gateway to everything else.
• Increasing shift in the market toward conceptual art, i.e., art in

which the work of a particular artist can vary greatly in form and medium based on the expression of an extra-aesthetic concept such as social politics and issues of identity. But that then flies in the face of an art education that still primarily focuses on traditional aesthetic concerns and contributes strongly to a perception that “anything goes.”

COMMONALITIES ACROSS TALENT DEVELOPMENT DOMAINS

ARE THERE KEY PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES THAT INFORM OUR UNDERSTANDING OF HOW INDIVIDUALS BECOME OUTSTANDING PERFORMERS AND PRODUCERS?

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF GENERAL COGNITIVE ABILITY IN ACADEMIC AND NON-ACADEMIC DOMAINS?

GENERAL ABILITY

• Intelligence or g
• “the ability to reason, plan, solve

problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly, and learn from experience.”

• Gottfredson (1997)
• Definitions in our chapters
• the ability to learn quickly, and

learn from experience (many domains)

• the ability to make good

decisions in the moment (team sports, dance)

• the ability to adapt to

unexpected circumstances (team sports, culinary arts

LEARNING QUICKLY

ACADEMIC

• Mathematics
• Psychology

ARTS PRODUCTION

• Drawing
• Culinary Arts

ARTS PERFORMANCE

• Dance

PROFESSIONS

• Medicine
• Expert Teams

SPORT

• Gymnastics
• Team Sport

CAN ONE MAKE BIG-C CREATIVITY CONTRIBUTIONS IN A DOMAIN WITHOUT SUBSTANTIAL EXPERTISE IN THE DOMAIN?

CREATIVITY

 Coming up with novel ideas.  Looking at the domain in a way that is novel.  Willingness to take risks

• Mathematics
• Posing good problems
• Psychology
• Distinguishing more important

problems from less important ones.

• Culinary Arts
• Advent of Nouvelle Cuisine resulted

in creativity becoming more important

• Dance
• More important in some types of

dance (contemporary vs ballet)

ARE THERE PSYCHOSOCIAL FACTORS THAT GENERALIZE ACROSS DOMAINS?

PSYCHOSOCIAL SKILLS

• Passion
• Drawing: Rage to master… working

compulsively

• Dance: Hungry to learn; I’m never good

enough.

• Curiosity
• Mathematics
• Psychology
• Culinary Arts
• Dance
• Persistence--ubiquitous

Are there psychosocial skills specific to individual domains?

• Tolerance for ambiguity--psychology and software engineering
• Risk taking--psychology, software engineering, culinary arts, game sports
• Learning from mistakes--acting, game sports
• Interpersonal skills--dance
• Adaptability and self-reflection--golf
• Awareness of strengths and weaknesses--medicine, psychology
• Self-regulation--golf, game sport, gymnastics, software engineering

WHAT FACTORS DERAIL INDIVIDUALS WITH PROMISE IN A DOMAIN?

• Not persisting in the face of obstacles, difficulty, or

failure.

• Loss of passion for the domain.
• Lack of appropriate education or coaching.
• Not enough financial resources to pursue the

domain.

• Lack of a supportive family, environment, or peer

group.

IS DELIBERATE PRACTICE IMPORTANT?

DELIBERATE PRACTICE IMPORTANT DELIBERATE PRACTICE NOT AS IMPORTANT

• Dance
• Drawing
• Golf
• (Medicine)
• Software Engineering
• Team Sport
• Acting
• (Medicine)
• Psychology

HOW MUCH OF THE LITERATURE IS THEORETICAL

• VS. EMPIRICAL

DOMAINS WITH MORE RESEARCH EVIDENCE DOMAINS WITH LESS RESEARCH EVIDENCE

• Dance
• Drawing
• Golf
• Mathematics
• Medicine
• Psychology
• Acting
• Culinary Arts
• Software Engineering

QUESTIONS FOR THE FIELD?

• How can society identify the domains in which a youth has
• utstanding potential early enough to allow for appropriate

development and training in the domain? What role do interest and special abilities play? How can we promote interest?

• How can we increase equitable access to talent promoting
• pportunities?
• How do we get the field to recognized the importance of

psychosocial skills and work actively to promote them?

THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION. QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS?

SUBOTNIK, R. F., OLSZEWSKI-KUBILIUS, P., & WORRELL, F. C. (EDS.). (IN PRESS). THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH PERFORMANCE: DEVELOPING HUMAN POTENTIAL INTO DOMAIN- SPECIFIC TALENT. WASHINGTON, DC: AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION.