Summary

The article discusses the psychological factors influencing smartness and resilience, emphasizing the impact of negative thinking and the power of the brain to overcome it.

Abstract

The article delves into the psychological journey of an individual grappling with the concept of smartness and the influence of negative experiences on cognitive abilities. It recounts the author's personal struggle with self-perceived below-average intelligence and the advice received from parents to persist through hard work. The narrative transitions into an exploration of why despite our best efforts, we sometimes face continuous failure, attributing it to the brain's tendency to dwell on negative information. To illustrate this, the article references two psychological experiments: "Wheel of Fortune" by Kahneman and Tversky, which demonstrates how external factors can skew our judgments, and "The Blue dot experiment" by Dr. Gilbert, which shows our propensity to overlook changes and maintain negative perceptions. The article suggests that by training our brains to filter out negativity, we can harness immense cognitive potential. It concludes by advocating for resilience during tough times, focusing on processes over results, and recommending practices like Vipassana meditation to counteract negative thought patterns.

Opinions

The author believes in the power of resilience and hard work, influenced by parental advice, to overcome intellectual limitations.
There is a critique of the desire for instant gratification, with a nod to the importance of destiny and effort.
The article conveys that our brains are naturally inclined to focus on negative outcomes, which can become a detrimental habit.
Positive change may go unnoticed if we are conditioned to expect negative outcomes, as shown by "The Blue dot experiment."
The author suggests that we are inherently cynical, allowing negative life events to overshadow positive possibilities.
The article promotes the idea that continuous effort during difficult times builds resilience.
It emphasizes the significance of focusing on the process rather than obsessing over results.
The author encourages readers to engage with cognitive psychology research, citing Daniel Kahneman's work as particularly influential.
Vipassana meditation is recommended as a tool to help manage negative thought patterns and foster a more positive cognitive framework.

When Will Smartness Come To Me?

Even the brightest make the worst mistakes

I had bugged my parents during my entire childhood with this one question — “When will smartness come to me?” I was a below-average kid growing up. My IQ levels were below ground level, and my school days were nothing but horrible. The only answer my helpless parents could come up with was — Keep working as hard as you can and leave the rest to destiny.

I belonged to the generation who believed in instant gratification, and words like destiny and hard work were tedious and complex for me. The good news was that I believed in their belief in me and my parent’s advice helped me sail through my adult life.

Objective

Despite all the hard work, negative results will not leave our way. Why is it? One failure follows another until we give up and accept our destiny. The problem is that our brain, by design, sticks to negative news, which makes failure a habit.

This article aims to understand this in detail with the help of two experiments, i.e., “Wheel of Fortune” and ‘The Blue dot experiment.”

It's not all depressing, though. There is hope, after all. If we tame our wild brain to filter out negative information, its power is beyond imagination, but we need to understand how our brain reacts to negative news.

Wheel of Fortune

Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahenman & Amos Tversky conducted this research. They asked the Oregon students to spin a wheel of fortune and write down the number when the wheel stops. The duo rigged the wheel of fortune, and it will either display 10 or 65.

The students had to answer a question — What is your best guess of the proportion of African countries in the UN?

The average estimate was 45% for students who saw 65 on the wheel of fortune, whereas it had a lower average of 25% for students who saw ten on the wheel of fortune. The number on the wheel of fortune determined their answers.

The experiments tell us that information around us influences our cognitive skills. When we go through a tough phase, our life circumstances rig the facts we accumulate around our incompetencies, like how the rigged wheel of fortune colored our understanding of the questions.

The Blue dot experiment

Psychology professor Dr. Gilbert, conducted this experiment where the participants saw a range of blue to purple dots. The organizers paid the participants to focus on the blue dots. After some time, the researchers gradually replaced blue dots with purple. Surprisingly this change went unnoticed by most of the participants.

The following experiment expected participants to categorize scary and pleasant faces. Initially, the organizers displayed frightening faces, but the organizers showed peaceful faces as time passed. Surprisingly, most participants formed a perception from looking at the intimidating faces and wrongly identified calm faces as threatening.

Next, the participants had to differentiate between unethical research proposals from constructive ones. After looking at poorly documented proposals initially, they form perceptions for all the submissions. Even though the proposals were productive, the participants could not gauge the difference.

These experiments showed that we are inherently a cynical bunch of nerds. We cling to negative things in life as they are lottery tickets. Each adverse life event destroys our capability to look into the positives, and this creates a never-ending cycle of negative thoughts, eventually leading us into a state of rumination.

I have written extensively on the ‘The blue dot experiment’ and the effect of a meditation technique known as Vipassana here.

Conclusion

What happens when we continue to fight during the touch times? We build resilience despite all the rigged information detailing our incompetencies. The trick of the trade is to continue moving forward. No matter how lame this may sound, this is the only way to get out of tough times. Focus on the process rather than results. Tame your brain to filter out rigged information.

Resilience has been a topic of personal interest of late, and this article has been an extension of one I wrote last week.

Without writing a little more on Daniel Kahenman, the man behind ‘The wheel of fortune’ experiment, I can not finish this article. His ground-breaking work in the book Thinking Fast and slow is a must-read. This book used a two-brain theory, i.e., Fast and Slow brain, to describe our cognitive skills. It helped me the significance of FEAR and Self-Control in my life.

Thanks

Tarun

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