The Art of Constructive Self-Criticism

When we fail at something important to us, whether in relationships, at school, or at work, it can be very painful. These experiences can threaten the very core of who we think we are and who we want to be.

To cope with failure, we often turn to self-protective strategies. We rationalize what happened so that it places us in a more positive light, we blame other people, and we discount the importance of the event. These strategies may make us feel better about ourselves in the short term, but they are less likely to help us improve or avoid repeating our mistakes in the future. Research shows that people who have an overly inflated view of their performance on an academic task show decrements in subsequent motivation and performance, compared to people who view themselves more realistically. It makes sense: if you already think you're great, it may feel like there's no need to put the effort into improving yourself.

A Learning Tip from Dancers

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If you watch any of the numerous dance shows on TV, such as Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, or even Dance Moms, you know that dancing at the elite level requires a lot more than strong muscles, a flexible body, and fierce determination. Professional dancers are smart. Not only are their bodies working at a high level, but their minds are as well. When performing, dancers are juggling numerous thoughts as they strive to execute each movement as precisely as possible. “Point my feet, lengthen my neck, drop my shoulders, SMILE!” Somehow, dancers must get their bodies to perform all of these movements with specific qualities, all the while making the dance appear both physically and mentally effortless. As someone who has danced my whole life, I often joke that dance is the only kind of physical exercise I enjoy because dancing well means I don’t have any mental resources left to realize I’m exhausted!

In addition to all the mental effort required of dancers onstage, there is a whole lot of it needed behind the scenes as well. In both rehearsals for performances and in classes honing one’s technique, choreography has to be committed to memory. At the elite level, choreography is taught quickly and in large amounts. Dancers have to be attentive and skilled at learning lots of information in a short amount of time and then putting that information to use immediately. Not only do they need to remember the movements themselves – where each part of the body should be - but they also need to memorize the timing of the movement and the quality with which it should be done. Because so many elements need to be encoded for each moment of a dance routine, learning choreography requires that dancers be completely present mentally.

Living Abroad and Thinking Outside of the Box



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Two weeks ago, I had the exciting opportunity to visit my sister in London where she is studying for the year. As she showed me her new lifestyle and daily routine, we reflected on some of the benefits she has gained from her time abroad thus far, such as greater knowledge about European history and new friends from different countries. We also talked about some less tangible advantages, like changing the way she thinks about the world, learning to interpret behaviors from a new perspective, and improving her ability to solve problems. In other words, we came to the conclusion that living abroad has helped foster her creativity.

The notion that living abroad enhances creativity may be quite familiar to you. There is certainly plenty of anecdotal evidence to support this idea and a long tradition of the “expatriate artist.” For example, while visiting Westminster Abbey, my sister and I saw memorials to George Händel and Henry James – two artists who were not born in England but who produced some of their most famous works while living there. It’s easy to conjure up glamorous ideas of artists living and working abroad, their creativity sparked by new environments and lifestyles, as in the movie Midnight in Paris. But can the rest of us improve our creativity by living abroad? Were my sister and I right to think that her experience abroad has fostered her creativity? In this post, I’ll present some evidence that such a connection does exist and that it occurs not just for artists, but also within the general population.

Kids, school, and play: A look at what today’s youngest students are (and are not) doing in the classroom

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Now that kids across the country are putting away their swimsuits and flip-flops and heading back to school, a new cohort of kids will be stepping into the classroom for the first time. But what will they be doing once they walk into the classroom? As you think back to your preschool or kindergarten years, you may recall having fun with blocks or dolls, running around the yard playing tag, or pretending that you and your friends owned a restaurant. Take a look into many preschools and kindergartens across the country today, though, and you will discover that this type of free and unstructured play is quickly disappearing.

The Difficulties of Scientific Writing (An Update)

Writing is so hard!

When I was a young graduate student, with one publication to my record, I ambitiously wrote a piece for the Association of Psychological Science's (APS) Magazine, the Observer, lamenting the difficulties of scientific writing. Oh, to be a young researcher again!

I look back on this bit of writing with equal parts pride (the Observer goes out to all APS members) and embarrassment (here I was, early in my career, trying to tell people how to write). Anyway, as we are starting the New Year, I thought it might be fitting to take another look at this piece and give my new perspective on scientific writing, now that I've had a bit more experience. Here goes nothing!

Improving memory - (retrieval) practice makes perfect

Today we would like to present you with the another (terrific) guest blogger. Joseph Williams is a graduate student in the cognitive psychology program at UC-Berkeley. Enjoy!

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You’re about to read a 200-word science passage on sea otters so that you can successfully answer questions about it in a week’s time. What strategies would you use to study it? Which of these options would you choose? (a) reading it four times, (b) drawing out a concept map of all the key ideas, or (c) reading it, trying to recall it, reading it one more time, and trying to recall it one more time.

If you smugly chose the alluring quadruple study option or took a gamble on the newfangled concept map, it’s likely that a week from now your memory would be letting you down. A recent paper in Science by Karpicke & Blunt at Purdue University reports an experiment along these lines. Testing oneself or engaging in retrieval practice had the greatest benefit for being able to remember facts from the passage and for drawing inferences that required putting these facts together. But it seems so counterintuitive that testing yourself on information could be better than thoroughly studying material or building elaborate diagrams. Surely students would all be on the honor roll if only they put in that much effort!