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Were Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci born brilliant or did they acquire their intelligence through effort? No one knows for sure, but telling people the latter – that hard work trumps genes – causes instant changes in the brain and may make them more willing to strive for success, indicates a new study from Michigan State University.
The findings suggest the human brain is more receptive to the message that intelligence comes from the environment, regardless of whether it’s true. And this simple message, said lead investigator Hans Schroder, may ultimately prompt us to work harder.
http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2014/nature-or-nurture-its-all-about-the-message/
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Now KEN and BARBIE are PERMANENTLY ADDICTED to MIND-ALTERING DRUGS ...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TGV on Monday September 08 2014, @11:47AM
There are problems with such studies, as has been seen in the so-called "embodied cognition" studies. These studies also claimed cognitive effects from unlikely or previously unconsidered sources, but many studies turned out to be irreproducible. There might be all kind of other explanations for this effect too, especially in the case of the Schroder study. Perhaps there was a smaller memory load for one condition than the other, perhaps it was a fluke, perhaps a side effect of the particular EEG analyis. But it is unlikely that memorizing a simplistic message can hold sway over our performance on simple tasks, and we would never have noticed before. So until this has been replicated in different settings, it cannot be considered sufficiently supported.