Speaker 1: Hijack. It's a productive of I heart radio. Prodigies are
Speaker 1: children that display rapid skill acquisition in a domain. A
Speaker 1: domain is any specific area of activity or knowledge, like tennis,
Speaker 1: or writing, or psychology or chess. Chess is a domain
Speaker 1: where mastery is associated with a superior intellect. It's incredibly strategic.
Speaker 1: Yet it's simple enough that a child can play. But
Speaker 1: some children do more than just play. My name is
Speaker 1: Lowell Balante, and this is prodigy. If you're like me,
Speaker 1: you believe that a prodigy is a rare combination of
Speaker 1: genetic talent, environment and effort. But some people have made
Speaker 1: a lot of money selling the idea that talent doesn't
Speaker 1: exist and that the driving force behind expert performance is
Speaker 1: just effort. They also call it hard work or practice.
Speaker 1: A common way they introduced this idea is by using
Speaker 1: the example of the Polgar sisters. Here is their story.
Speaker 1: Before his children were even conceived, Laslow Polgar believed they
Speaker 1: would be prodigies. Laslow is a Hungarian educational psychologist born
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty six. As a university student, he studied
Speaker 1: intelligence and came to the conclusion that people who were
Speaker 1: recognized as geniuses had early introduction to their domain. Laslow
Speaker 1: is quoted as saying, it's very interesting because when I
Speaker 1: looked at the life stories of geniuses, I found the
Speaker 1: same thing. They all started at a very young age
Speaker 1: and studied intensively. Mozart is a classic example because his
Speaker 1: father was a music teacher. Mozart began learning to play
Speaker 1: the piano at three years old. He developed perfect pitch
Speaker 1: and became so famous that his name is interchangeable. A genius.
Speaker 1: So Laslow theorized that early specialized education is far more
Speaker 1: important than talent. He concluded that introduction should begin at
Speaker 1: three years old and intensive education should begin at six.
Speaker 1: Laslow was so confident that he became determined to prove
Speaker 1: that he could turn any healthy newborn into a genius,
Speaker 1: and he decided he would do it with his own children.
Speaker 1: Laslo began courting the daughter of a family friend. She
Speaker 1: was a Ukrainian foreign language teacher named Clara. They wrote
Speaker 1: to each other often, and in the letters Blow disclosed
Speaker 1: his plan. Claire thought he was a little strange, but
Speaker 1: became convinced, and after a year and a half he proposed.
Speaker 1: Laslow and Claire married and had a daughter they named Susan.
Speaker 1: They considered various topics for Susan to specialize in, originally
Speaker 1: considering mathematics and language, But one day the toddler found
Speaker 1: a chessboard in a cabinet and became intensely curious. Years later,
Speaker 1: Susan would say he could have put us in any field,
Speaker 1: but it was I who chose chess. I liked the chessmen.
Speaker 1: They were toys for me. Here's a quick introduction to
Speaker 1: the game of chess. The board is a square made
Speaker 1: up of sixty four smaller squares. Each player has sixteen
Speaker 1: pieces which control one fourth of the board. Those pieces
Speaker 1: include six different types, made up of eight pawns, two rooks,
Speaker 1: two nights, to bishops, one queen, and one king. Players
Speaker 1: alternate turns with the goal of apping their opponents king.
Speaker 1: Once the game begins and each player makes their opening move,
Speaker 1: there are now four hundred different possibilities for their next move.
Speaker 1: After their second move, they're over seventy two. After three
Speaker 1: moves there are nine million, and after four moves they're
Speaker 1: over three eighteen billion. To put this in perspective, the
Speaker 1: observable universe is estimated to have approximately ten to the
Speaker 1: eighty atoms. That's a ten with eight zeros after it.
Speaker 1: The number of possible permutations of chess is estimated to
Speaker 1: be ten to the one twenty three, so the quantity
Speaker 1: of possible games is nearly unlimited. This is why chess,
Speaker 1: while easy to learn the basics, has infinite layers. Chess,
Speaker 1: Clara said, is objective and easy to measure. Chess is
Speaker 1: what's known as a zero sum game, which means the
Speaker 1: winner takes rating points from the loser. Those points out
Speaker 1: up to your rating in what's known as an Elo
Speaker 1: rating system. In an Elo rating system, two equally rated
Speaker 1: players facing off should win an equal number of times,
Speaker 1: thus winning and losing an equal amount of points. But
Speaker 1: if a lower rated player defeats a higher rated player,
Speaker 1: then they're awarded more points than if a higher rated
Speaker 1: player defeats a lower rated player over the course of
Speaker 1: many games. This system is designed to give players a
Speaker 1: rating consistent with their skill level. Laslow only had an
Speaker 1: amateur understanding of the game, so how would he turn
Speaker 1: his children into grand master level players. He published a
Speaker 1: book in nine titled Raise a Genius, where he discusses
Speaker 1: his method. The first thing he states is that there
Speaker 1: is no secret to his system. It's based on the
Speaker 1: following standard educational concepts. You can't achieve results through coercion.
Speaker 1: Too much severity will diminish the child's interest. Allow the
Speaker 1: child to win sometimes so they are given the feeling
Speaker 1: of success. Play with a handicap, then gradually reduce it
Speaker 1: as the student becomes better. The training must be age appropriate.
Speaker 1: Use games to awaken interest, because students master subjects much
Speaker 1: more quickly when they are interested. So he gradually taught
Speaker 1: Susan the basics of chess one concept at a time,
Speaker 1: and kept her interested by making smaller games out of it.
Speaker 1: The first thing he did was teacher the names of
Speaker 1: the squares using pieces of graph paper. Since chess consists
Speaker 1: of an eight by eight square grid, the row of
Speaker 1: squares facing the player are labeled alphabetically A through H,
Speaker 1: and the perpendicular squares are numbered one through eight. Laslow
Speaker 1: gives Susan a location B three, for example, and she
Speaker 1: would have to mark it with an X. Next, he
Speaker 1: taught her the colors of the squares, which alternate between
Speaker 1: black and white. After Susan learned the layout of the board,
Speaker 1: he introduced the simplest piece, the pawn. They would play
Speaker 1: pawn wars with the goal of reaching their opponents baseline.
Speaker 1: Then he introduced the next piece, and so on and
Speaker 1: so forth. Mastering the basics is a critical concept where
Speaker 1: Laslow believes standard education fail students. Without it, you cannot
Speaker 1: master more complicated subjects. My father believes that innate talent
Speaker 1: is nothing, that success is hard work. I agree with him.
Speaker 1: Susan Polgar. Susan is the firstborn child of Laslow and
Speaker 1: Clara Polgar. She played her first major tournament in an
Speaker 1: eleven and under Championship at only four years old and
Speaker 1: dominated with a perfect ten and no score. The media
Speaker 1: labeled her a prodigy, but there were many who were critical.
Speaker 1: They believed little girls should play with dolls, not chessboards
Speaker 1: and wooden pieces. At six years old, it was time
Speaker 1: for her to go to school. Her parents decided that
Speaker 1: formal education would be more harmful than helpful and decided
Speaker 1: to apply for a permit to homeschool Susan. It was
Speaker 1: a very difficult process, but they did eventually receive permission.
Speaker 1: The following five years were spent studying chess to improve
Speaker 1: tactical and calculation skills. She read books, studied famous grandmaster games,
Speaker 1: learned to play blindfolded and practiced her endgame. When Susan
Speaker 1: was twelve, she won the sixteen and Underworld Championship. By
Speaker 1: age fifteen, she was the number one ranked female chess
Speaker 1: player in the world and remained in the top three
Speaker 1: for the next twenty three years. She became the first
Speaker 1: woman in history to qualify for the men's World Championship.
Speaker 1: In nights one, she became the first woman in history
Speaker 1: to achieve the men's Grand Master title. In two thousand three,
Speaker 1: she became the first woman to win the USO and
Speaker 1: Blitz Championship. She went on to win it again in
Speaker 1: two thousand five and two thousand six. She became the
Speaker 1: first World champion in history to win the Triple Crown,
Speaker 1: which consists of rapid, blitz, A and classical chess all total.
Speaker 1: She is a five time Olympic champion. Susan was not
Speaker 1: an only child, and when Sophia was born in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four, chess was already taken seriously at home. When
Speaker 1: Sophia was five years old, she won the Hungarian Girls
Speaker 1: eleven and Under Championship. She won the gold medal in
Speaker 1: the Under fourteen Girls World Chess Championship at age eleven,
Speaker 1: when Sophia was fourteen, while playing in an open tournament
Speaker 1: in Rome, she delivered one of the strongest chess performances
Speaker 1: ever recorded, defeating four grand master level opponents and scoring
Speaker 1: an ELO rating of two thousand, eight hundred and seventy nine.
Speaker 1: It has since become known as the Sack of Rome.
Speaker 1: She finished second at the Rapid Women's World Chess Championship
Speaker 1: and s get in the World Junior Chess Championship. Although
Speaker 1: she never reached the level of grand master and hasn't
Speaker 1: played competitive ranked chess since two thousand ten, she was
Speaker 1: at one point ranked six amongst all female chess players
Speaker 1: in the world by chess standards. Sophia is the least
Speaker 1: accomplished of the three sisters, but Susan considered Sophia the
Speaker 1: most naturally gifted of them. Susan wrote in her book
Speaker 1: Breaking Through that Sophia would give up fights easier, and
Speaker 1: rather than focusing on one thing entirely, she diversified her interests.
Speaker 1: Two years after Sophia, Judah was born. By the time
Speaker 1: Juda turned three, both Susan and Sophia were playing competitive chess.
Speaker 1: They lived in a small apartment and her older sisters
Speaker 1: were training in the living room behind closed doors. Judah
Speaker 1: was forbidden to go into the room, and as you
Speaker 1: can imagine, she very much wanted to. Her parents told
Speaker 1: her she could enter. Once she learned to play chess.
Speaker 1: From an early age, Judah loved challenges. She would take
Speaker 1: the stairs when everyone else took the elevator, So the
Speaker 1: challenge of chess suited her. Judah would become the strongest
Speaker 1: female chess player of all time. She was the youngest
Speaker 1: player to break into the top on international chess ranking
Speaker 1: at only twelve years old. She achieved the title of
Speaker 1: grand Master at age fifteen, several months younger than even
Speaker 1: Bobby Fisher. Gary Kasparov, considered by many to be the
Speaker 1: greatest chess player of all time, once said she has
Speaker 1: fantastic chess talent, but she is, after all, a woman.
Speaker 1: It all comes down to the imperfections of the feminine psyche.
Speaker 1: No woman can sustain a prolonged battle. Judah defeated him
Speaker 1: in two thousand two. After the loss, he has quoted
Speaker 1: as saying the pulgar showed that there are no inherent
Speaker 1: limitations to their aptitude, an idea that many male players
Speaker 1: refused to accept. Until they had unceremoniously been crushed by
Speaker 1: a twelve year old with a ponytail. Jude was the
Speaker 1: number one ranked female player in the world for twenty
Speaker 1: one years. She's the only woman to have ever won
Speaker 1: a game against a world number one ranked player. All total,
Speaker 1: she has defeated eleven current or former world champions. Although
Speaker 1: none of the sisters accomplished Laslow's goal of becoming the
Speaker 1: world champion for both women and men, Judah did reach
Speaker 1: the overall rank of eight, which was an unimaginable achievement.
Speaker 1: Chess had been completely dominated by men until the Polgar
Speaker 1: sisters broke the gender barrier and proved that women can
Speaker 1: compete with men at the highest levels of chess. Laslow's
Speaker 1: educational experiment was incredibly successful, but as with any experiment,
Speaker 1: it has to be repeatable. We'll get into that after
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Prodigy. So I'm interested in the pollgars
Speaker 1: actually were suited for chess or if this method could
Speaker 1: be repeated with any child. I contacted a child psychologist
Speaker 1: who has worked with gifted children for decades, Dr Spamanka Newman.
Speaker 1: I began by asking her to define what a prodigy is.
Speaker 1: We have extraordinarily advanced and very early domain specific skill,
Speaker 1: and then we have a child who exhibits ability to
Speaker 1: perform in the domain as he is a talented adult.
Speaker 1: In popular media, sometimes people refer to very smart children
Speaker 1: as geniuses, But genius is an adult. That adult doesn't
Speaker 1: just have a skill in a domain, but transforms a
Speaker 1: domain in a way that is irreversible. As a result
Speaker 1: of a genius, we start thinking differently about something that
Speaker 1: is very important and it has a lasting value. Children
Speaker 1: prodigies have early promise and they have early performance, but
Speaker 1: they might not transform the field. They just perform in
Speaker 1: the field as though they are talented adults. I know
Speaker 1: this may be a different definition of genius than you're
Speaker 1: used to. The word has evolved over time, and psychologists
Speaker 1: seem to prefer not to base the word on an
Speaker 1: IQ test result. Last lous ability to initiate and retain
Speaker 1: interest in his children. It seems rather critical. What was
Speaker 1: the significance of his method. We are having extraordinary talent here,
Speaker 1: but we are also having a child. You may have
Speaker 1: potential to achieve in learning chess as an adult, but
Speaker 1: you are three year old. Three year olds play. Unless
Speaker 1: learning is a play, it might not be sustained for
Speaker 1: a long time. Plays rewarding place, exhilarating, place, energizing. Like
Speaker 1: in every development of mastery in any field, there is
Speaker 1: a point later where there is going to be transitioned
Speaker 1: from play to discipline. Mastery cannot be achieved without disciplined practice,
Speaker 1: but that comes later. If that is introduced to early,
Speaker 1: it may kill the joy and so the child might
Speaker 1: lose interest. Regardless of what I think, Laslow did state
Speaker 1: what his plan was, and it worked, could it not
Speaker 1: be reproduced with other children? There is that intersection of
Speaker 1: a parent who is already having a child with exceptional potential,
Speaker 1: drive and interest. That can lead that potential into realization.
Speaker 1: But I don't think it can create a prodigy. Most
Speaker 1: parents would try that if they don't have the child
Speaker 1: with a potential and interest, create very angry, resentful children
Speaker 1: who actually at the end don't love what they are
Speaker 1: exposed to. So Dr Newman believes that loudslow success was
Speaker 1: a coincidence and would not be as effective with the
Speaker 1: average child. And she's not alone. Here's Dr Scott Barry Kaufman.
Speaker 1: Feldman noted, there's usually a lucky coinciding of lots of
Speaker 1: different factors. You know, they usually do find a parent
Speaker 1: who accelerates the process in some way. And here's Dr
Speaker 1: Feldman himself. I asked him about the belief that any
Speaker 1: healthy child is a potential prodigy. That's the behavior of belief,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people bought it and still do
Speaker 1: that you can make any child into anything, and it's
Speaker 1: not true. So that they got to just is maybe
Speaker 1: fortunate in their case. If they had tried something else,
Speaker 1: the probabilities are not in their favor. They probably would
Speaker 1: not be known to us as the Polgar family, they
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't be known to us at all. Laslow believed
Speaker 1: that genetic predisposition was irrelevant. However, if that were true,
Speaker 1: wouldn't his daughters either have the exact same skill or
Speaker 1: increasing skill As he refined his method. While the youngest sister,
Speaker 1: jude It, was the most successful, the middle sister, Sophia,
Speaker 1: was the least. To me, this shows the influence of genetics.
Speaker 1: Genetics can indirectly influence our attention and influence our drives
Speaker 1: to want to create experiences for ourselves. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: all throughout the course of the day. We have a
Speaker 1: million little micro decisions we have to make. These things
Speaker 1: add up starting at a very very young age. I
Speaker 1: think genes can help direct our attention to features of
Speaker 1: the environment that we find interesting and help us ignore
Speaker 1: features of our environment that we don't find interesting. Based
Speaker 1: on my research of Susan Paulgar, I think she might disagree,
Speaker 1: so I reached out to her. I was very curious
Speaker 1: whether she applied the same strategy to her own children.
Speaker 1: I began by asking her if inherent talent was important. Well,
Speaker 1: it definitely, how although I think it's very much overrated
Speaker 1: in many people's minds. I think hard work definitely is
Speaker 1: a much more important ingredient in someone's success. So I
Speaker 1: I certainly agree with my father's theory that success is
Speaker 1: mostly hard work and sweat rather than the innate talent.
Speaker 1: I wasn't necessarily an extraordinarily talented chess player when I
Speaker 1: was born, but rather that it took years of persistant
Speaker 1: practice and devotion that resulted in my success. Do you
Speaker 1: believe that you might have been born with genetic traits
Speaker 1: that were suited for chess. Well, it's obviously hard to tell,
Speaker 1: but I don't think I had a very special talent
Speaker 1: for chess. There are other types of talents that are
Speaker 1: more generic, like having the patients to focus on a
Speaker 1: particular subject for a lengthy amount of times and having
Speaker 1: the perseverance or this type of more generic human Well,
Speaker 1: it is I think I'm more important than than the
Speaker 1: specific talent for a certain activity. Why do you think
Speaker 1: early specialization is so important. I think that children rest
Speaker 1: certain concept and dynamic of the various activities. It becomes
Speaker 1: second nature as you grow up. You don't think of
Speaker 1: it as a study or work or anything like that.
Speaker 1: It just kind of becomes normal and natural for you.
Speaker 1: And that's something I think it is hard to teach,
Speaker 1: and I think that's a very important component of my
Speaker 1: father's theories. The brain is like a sponge. You grasps
Speaker 1: the knowledge the dynamics of of the certain field just
Speaker 1: so much clicker and naturally then than it would later.
Speaker 1: Often you find prodigies and families where a parent was
Speaker 1: talented in the domain and accelerated the process. Was your
Speaker 1: father a skuillt chess player, as well. He was not
Speaker 1: a professional chess player ever, or even a competitive as players.
Speaker 1: He had very limited skills as a chess player. However,
Speaker 1: he was a teacher and a psychologist by education and profession,
Speaker 1: so he had amazing skills patients and asking the right questions.
Speaker 1: And initially we were learning together. I mean he was
Speaker 1: ahead of me a bit, but we were learning together
Speaker 1: from books. The mark of a good teacher is to
Speaker 1: a having the patience keeping the interest of the students,
Speaker 1: and then not less importantly, keep asking stimulating questions and
Speaker 1: the right type of questions. And he was really really
Speaker 1: good at that, in creating my interests and then keeping
Speaker 1: my interests, which is not easy. I can tell you
Speaker 1: as a as a mother and as well as a
Speaker 1: coach that, especially of young children who are four or
Speaker 1: five six years old, it's not easy to keep the
Speaker 1: interest for an extended period of time. But he was
Speaker 1: really good at it's making it's fun. I remember I
Speaker 1: couldn't eight for for the next lesson, for the next discoveries.
Speaker 1: How exactly was he able to first get you interested
Speaker 1: in chess? Well, he he made it sound like a
Speaker 1: fairy tale story, you know, like the King and the
Speaker 1: queen in the castle and the fortress, and it's not competitive.
Speaker 1: And I think the fact that he did not emphasize
Speaker 1: the competitive aspect of chess in the beginning was important.
Speaker 1: Susan was monumental in breaking the gender barrier that existed
Speaker 1: in chess. She was the first woman to become a
Speaker 1: men's grand master. But I was curious if she resented
Speaker 1: missing out on a typical childhood. Well, at some point, obviously,
Speaker 1: I realized that my life is somewhat different than of
Speaker 1: my peers. I certainly missed out on something. But I
Speaker 1: understood also at the same time, even back then in
Speaker 1: my teenage years, that while I am giving up on
Speaker 1: some things, I'm getting a lot of other things that
Speaker 1: they miss out on and may never get those opportunities.
Speaker 1: Your parents dedication to your training must have been an
Speaker 1: incredible amount of work. Did you use the same educational
Speaker 1: method on your own children. I definitely did, consider it
Speaker 1: did not exactly happen right like that for a number
Speaker 1: of reasons, partly because I got divorced pretty early on
Speaker 1: from their father. Also, it takes a lot of sacrifice
Speaker 1: from the parents perspective. I had to focus on my
Speaker 1: career at the time, and wasn't in the position to
Speaker 1: fully focus on them. You were obviously born from some
Speaker 1: really intelligent parents. Do you think your father could have
Speaker 1: reproduced the success with adopted children. I think it could have,
Speaker 1: and I know that he was approached by some people
Speaker 1: in trying to see if he can, and he was
Speaker 1: ready and willing to do it, but he did not
Speaker 1: want to do it with two children unless he was
Speaker 1: able to actually legally adopt them. That was a little
Speaker 1: bit complicated, and eventually it never happened. But he does
Speaker 1: And if I believed that he could have done it,
Speaker 1: it's obviously a very long term experiment or project. It's
Speaker 1: like a fifteen twenty year project, and it's a matter
Speaker 1: of having the energy to to do it all over again.
Speaker 1: In fact, he believed that he would have been even
Speaker 1: more successful because he had the experience, and he he
Speaker 1: would have not had made some of the mistakes that
Speaker 1: he made back with us, but he could have improved
Speaker 1: on them. Also, we were growing up very poor, you know,
Speaker 1: years later, and this was in question. He would have
Speaker 1: had much more resources to make it easier. Since your
Speaker 1: sister Sophia displayed such a strong aptitude. I was really
Speaker 1: curious as to why she never reached the rank of
Speaker 1: grand Master. Sophia has a different personality and she always
Speaker 1: had a lot of interest in art. She's quite a
Speaker 1: good artist. She basically gave up relatively early and chose
Speaker 1: a very different lifestyle, mostly to support her husband and
Speaker 1: the raised the family and and all that. But it's
Speaker 1: also that she has skipped at one point a month
Speaker 1: or month and a half from just away from home.
Speaker 1: By the time she came back from that trip, her
Speaker 1: younger sister Judd kind of made a Humongo's jump and
Speaker 1: it was kind of difficult for her, I think, to
Speaker 1: handle that she is older, and before she left on
Speaker 1: the trip she was clearly ahead of Judy as she
Speaker 1: was expected to beg than that she is older, and
Speaker 1: basically the month month and a half or so that
Speaker 1: she was away and didn't practice at all, it just
Speaker 1: made a world of a difference. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: Judy it was fitting her and the whole dynamics changed
Speaker 1: and her motivation level dropped. And on one hand, of course,
Speaker 1: she was very happy for Judy's but at the same
Speaker 1: time for her own motivation it was white life changing,
Speaker 1: I think. And then after that she never really why
Speaker 1: it got back, even though she showed some brilliants and
Speaker 1: she had some amazing results even years later. But nevertheless,
Speaker 1: I think she lost the belief that she will be
Speaker 1: as good as student, even if the goal is not
Speaker 1: to create a grand master. Do you think it's beneficial
Speaker 1: to teach your child to play chess? Chess with your
Speaker 1: children is definitely a verse, while endeavor, if for nothing else,
Speaker 1: to develop the mind, to develop good habits that can
Speaker 1: are transferable for any other field. Susan has retired from
Speaker 1: competitive chess. She's currently the head coach of the number
Speaker 1: one rated collegiate chess team in the United States. She's
Speaker 1: led them to five Final Four championships along with dozens
Speaker 1: of national, World, and Pan American titles. Remember those people
Speaker 1: I mentioned in the beginning that sell the idea that
Speaker 1: talent is unimportant. Well, the reason why they used the
Speaker 1: Pulgar Sisters as an example is because when you first
Speaker 1: look at their success, they seem like genetically talented prodigies.
Speaker 1: Once you dig into their story, you realize the massive
Speaker 1: amount of training and practice they accrued by starting so young.
Speaker 1: This reinforces their argument that the most important predictor of
Speaker 1: performance is practice. The first issue I see here is
Speaker 1: that the example uses the demand of chess, but as
Speaker 1: chess an accurate representation for other domains. We'll get into that.
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Speaker 1: location restrictions supply, welcome back. If you want to learn
Speaker 1: more about my guests, the research, my dog, or get
Speaker 1: in touch with me, visit Prodigy podcast dot com. All
Speaker 1: right back to the show. To me, competitive games like
Speaker 1: chess are fun, But what I'm really interested in is
Speaker 1: do these lessons actually apply to other areas like your career.
Speaker 1: Professor Robin Hogarth came up with the reason we should
Speaker 1: differentiate domains like chess compared to others. He refers to
Speaker 1: skill games and sports as kind learning environments. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: here is the following. When is an intuition going to
Speaker 1: be successful? Where will an intuition be accurate? An intuition
Speaker 1: will be accurate if, in fact, it's based on the
Speaker 1: right information. So if you've learned learned about the situation
Speaker 1: you're involved with in the past, in an environment is
Speaker 1: what I call kind where you've got good feedback, You'll
Speaker 1: be able to see all the data. Everything's been clear
Speaker 1: to you and it's well laid out. The environments are
Speaker 1: going to change. That's what's what we call kind running environment.
Speaker 1: So in a kind learning environment, the rules don't change,
Speaker 1: feedback is immediate and all the data is clear to you.
Speaker 1: Chess is a kind learning environment, so time accrued memorizing
Speaker 1: patterns is valuable, and early specialization is an advantage. The
Speaker 1: opposite learning environment he refers to as wicked. But on
Speaker 1: the other hand, you can also be in a wicked
Speaker 1: learning environment where are you getting the wrong information, where
Speaker 1: there's a lot of noise in the system, and perhaps
Speaker 1: even where data is missing. So that's the difference in
Speaker 1: your kind in a wicked learning environment, And we think
Speaker 1: it's very important to understand where you're forming your opinions,
Speaker 1: whether you're in a kind environment or wicked environment. In
Speaker 1: wicked environments, feedback is delayed, inadequate, or simply doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: Data can be ambiguous and even misleading. Hogarth used the
Speaker 1: following example. An early twentieth century physician working in a
Speaker 1: New York hospital developed a reputation for being able to
Speaker 1: accurately diagnose typhoid before symptoms manifested simply by feeling a
Speaker 1: patient's tongue. It turned out that the doctor was actually
Speaker 1: infected and giving the patients typhoid. It's an extreme example,
Speaker 1: but it shows how in a wicked environment, feedback can
Speaker 1: teach the wrong lessons. So if you want to improve
Speaker 1: your performance in a wicked environment, should you try and
Speaker 1: turn it into a kind one. Absolutely. One of the
Speaker 1: interesting things about experience and learning is that we learned automatically.
Speaker 1: We can't help it. We were just tuned to picking
Speaker 1: up information so that we're exposed to and because of that,
Speaker 1: if the environment is kind to learn the right thing,
Speaker 1: environment is wicked. Rule in their own things, quick, accurate,
Speaker 1: and abundant feedback is critically important. Chess is a very
Speaker 1: kind environment. The rules don't change, the games are easily recorded,
Speaker 1: and you can try cur rating as a measure of performance.
Speaker 1: The pollgars had the benefit of grand master level coaches
Speaker 1: throughout their training, so early specialization can definitely be an advantage,
Speaker 1: but the major value in it might just exist in
Speaker 1: kind learning environments. Also, early specialization might not actually be
Speaker 1: much of an advantage at all. Professor Gulick, director of
Speaker 1: the Institute of Applied Sports Science in Germany, published a
Speaker 1: study in the Journal of Sports Sciences that compared the
Speaker 1: training history of eighty three Olympic medalists to eight three
Speaker 1: Olympic non metalists. The results showed that the medalists actually
Speaker 1: started training in their main sport later than the non metalists. Additionally,
Speaker 1: the medalists accrued more time training in other sports. This
Speaker 1: is really interesting and I asked Professor Gulik what the
Speaker 1: reason was, and the answer was, we don't know because
Speaker 1: it's really difficult to study. But he does have a
Speaker 1: couple of hypotheses. The first one is that early specializers
Speaker 1: become mentally fatigued a k A. Burnout, were succumbed to
Speaker 1: the increased risk of injury. The other is something known
Speaker 1: as the gene environment correlation. We'll get into this in
Speaker 1: a later episode, but briefly, the idea is that our
Speaker 1: genetic traits have an influence on what environments we seek out.
Speaker 1: A basic example is, if you are a very tall
Speaker 1: and lean you may be drawn to the high jump. However,
Speaker 1: a person who specializes early in basketball due to these
Speaker 1: same physical characteristics may not realize they are actually better
Speaker 1: suited for the high jump. So late bloomers have more
Speaker 1: time and opportunity to find the domain best suited for them.
Speaker 1: I think it's worth noting that Laslow didn't actually choose
Speaker 1: the domain, Susan did, so the claim that they could
Speaker 1: have chosen any domain doesn't really hold much weight. Here's
Speaker 1: Dr Feldman, one of the few people who was actually
Speaker 1: directly studied prodigies, And there is a whole movement making
Speaker 1: this claim that talent is irrelevant, and I and others
Speaker 1: school have actually done the work have tried to show
Speaker 1: that the evidence does not support that claim, and it does.
Speaker 1: It's a reasonable claim if you're arguing that effort and
Speaker 1: sustained effort and teaching are essential to high level performance,
Speaker 1: and that is absolutely true that it's part of what
Speaker 1: I learned from my prodigies research. It's not something that
Speaker 1: happens easily even with the most gifted, the most extraordinarily
Speaker 1: talented kids. But to ignore the fact that they are
Speaker 1: extraordinarily naturally talented kids, it's just ignoring the evidence. The
Speaker 1: evidence is very clear, and anybody within any of the
Speaker 1: fields that we've studied, people who actually do it, knows
Speaker 1: that that's true and will assert it. Everybody knows that
Speaker 1: that's true. Dr Kaufman has some really good advice about
Speaker 1: finding your calling, finding a service from outside of yourself,
Speaker 1: not just that you can do, but that also makes
Speaker 1: you feel intrinsic sense of joy and satisfaction when you
Speaker 1: are engaging in it. That's enough. You don't have to
Speaker 1: be go go on the TV circuit for your amazing
Speaker 1: ability to do one narrow thing in order to feel
Speaker 1: like you've lived a meaningful life. The behaviorists who champion
Speaker 1: the power of practice don't just use sensationalized examples like
Speaker 1: the pollgars to make their argument. Another thing they do
Speaker 1: is cite a particular study that is at the very
Speaker 1: core of their argument. It was published by a researcher
Speaker 1: that would come to be known as the father of
Speaker 1: expert performance, Dr Carl anders Ericsson. We're going to dig
Speaker 1: into the details of that as well as how we
Speaker 1: learn and what is physically happening in the brain when
Speaker 1: we do. I have so many questions to answer and
Speaker 1: a ton of really interesting topics to cover. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening, and please subscribe to the show
Speaker 1: because I'll be back next week with another episode of Prodigy.
Speaker 1: Prodigy was created and produced by me Lowell Berlante. Tyler
Speaker 1: Klang is the executive producer. Without him, this show would
Speaker 1: not have been made. If you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about my guests, the show, my dog, or get in
Speaker 1: touch with me, visit Prodigy podcast dot com. Dr Spomanka
Speaker 1: Newman performs psychological assessments and therapy in Tucker, Georgia. You
Speaker 1: can find more information at Psychologist for Kids dot com.
Speaker 1: Robin Hogarth released a book titled The Myth of Experience,
Speaker 1: Why we learn the wrong lessons and Ways to correct them.
Speaker 1: Susan Polgar Foundation TACs chess and gives opportunities to young people.
Speaker 1: You could find more information at Susan Polgar dot com.
Speaker 1: Dr Scott Berry Kaufman is host of the Psychology podcast
Speaker 1: and has a new book out. Visit Scott Berry Kaufman
Speaker 1: dot com for details. Dr Feldman is a brilliant psychologist.
Speaker 1: He's currently retiring but hopes that more people will take
Speaker 1: the initiative to study the prodigy phenomenon. If you like
Speaker 1: the show's artwork, checkout Pam Peacock on Instagram at The
Speaker 1: Voyager Peacock Spell Show. Thanks to ban Kybrick, Tristan McNeil,
Speaker 1: Michael Meyer, Dave Kuston, Alison Canter, and Alex Cardinelli. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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