Dr. Heidi Grant

It’s Not How Often You Test – It’s What You Think Tests Tell You

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From my Psychology Today blog:

“What makes a test feel like an interesting challenge rather than an anxiety-provoking assault?”

This is the question posed by Elisabeth Rosenthal, in “Testing, The Chinese Way,” an article in this week’s New York Times (Week in Review).  In the piece, she writes about the experiences of her young children as students at the International School of Beijing.  Beginning as early as kindergarten, children in China (Rosenthal’s included) take frequent quizzes and exams, and she notes that by and large her children did not find this constant testing anxiety-provoking, even when they performed poorly.

Americans, on the other hand, have traditionally been philosophically opposed to too much testing, particularly of very young children, on the grounds that it adds unnecessary pressure to the educational environment. Many fear that testing can create debilitating failure experiences that permanently shape a young child’s view of learning.  But the tide of opinion in the U.S. may be changing.

Increasingly, some American education experts, including members of the Obama administration, are advocating for more testing, on the grounds that more frequent assessments will give teachers and students a better sense of how they are progressing.  Research shows that this kind of low-stakes, age-appropriate testing provides feedback that can in fact help students learn more effectively.

There are still plenty of good reasons to be concerned when it comes to increased testing, which Rosenthal acknowledges, but despite these concerns, there is little doubt that assessment is on the rise in the American classroom.

So, given the direction we seem to be going in, back to Rosenthal’s question – how do we make sure that testing is perceived as informative and challenging, rather than as a series of anxiety-filled experiences that disrupt real learning?

I think we’ve been missing something important in our national discussion of testing – something that will help us find the answer to that question.  We rarely talk about what testing means to a child and to their teachers.  We don’t consider the kinds of conclusions we tend to draw when a child does poorly.

Different cultures tend to rely on somewhat different explanations for why a child underperforms, and this difference is essential to understanding why testing may work so well in China and be so troublesome here in the U.S.   You see, Americans tend to believe that test scores are a reflection of ability, while in China, they are perceived to be, more than anything else, a function of effort.

Most East Asian educational systems are founded on a bedrock of Confucian doctrine that heavily emphasizes the importance of effort (e.g., “Being diligent in study means devoting one’s effort to it for a long time. “- Confucius, Zi Zhang chapter )

One of my fellow graduate students at Columbia, who had been born and educated in Korea, once told me that Koreans have an expression, sugo haseyo, that is used to congratulate someone on a job well done.  It literally means “work hard.”  The message it conveys is that no matter how well you have done, you can always try to do better.  (To which a typical American response would be “Gee, thanks a lot.”)

Not surprisingly, Asian students are much more likely to blame their poor performance on a test (as well as their successes) on the effort they put in to it.

For example, in one study, Japanese college students who were led to believe that they had failed on an anagram task were most likely to choose “lack of effort” rather than “lack of ability,” “task difficulty,” or “luck” as the most important cause.  In another, researchers found that Chinese mothers cited “lack of effort” as the predominant cause of their child’s failure in mathematics, while American mothers tended to blame failure on ability, training, luck, and effort equally.

Asian children are explicitly taught that hard work and persistence are the keys to success.  It makes sense, therefore, that they would respond to poor test performance with increased effort (and over time come to excel in subjects like math and science, which require determination and long hours to master.)

Too often, American students (even very young ones) labor under the (mistaken) belief that doing well on tests is a matter of possessing some innate ability – as if some people are just born capable of spelling and long division.  When they test poorly, they jump to the (mistaken) conclusion that they don’t have what it takes to do well.

If we want our children to see tests as informative and challenging, we need to emphasize the importance of effort, persistence, and strategy use over ability.   We need to explain to them how tests can help them see what they need to improve, and express confidence that they will improve if they don’t give up.  We need to learn to praise our children for their effort and hard work, rather than (or at least in addition to) always telling them how “smart” they are.

American children can probably benefit from more testing, but only if they come to see assessment as a tool of learning, rather than a measurement of fixed ability.  In other words, only when we teach them that testing is about getting smarter, rather than being smart.

For reference:

R. D. Hess, C. Chih-Mei, and T. M. McDevitt, “Cultural Variations in Family Beliefs about Children’s Performance in Mathematics: Comparisons among People’s Republic of China, Chinese-American, and Caucasian-American Families,” Journal of Educational Psychology 79, no. 2 (1982): 179–188.

K. Shikanai, “Effects of Self-esteem on Attribution of Success-Failure,” Japanese Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 18 (1978): 47–55.

Permission to Make Mistakes Usually Means Fewer of Them

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From my Fast Company blog:

If you have ever had to assign an employee a new project or task, you are no doubt familiar with the look of discomfort and anxiety such assignments often provoke.

While some people may be eager to tackle a new challenge, hoping it will help them to climb the corporate ladder, many workers are really just trying to survive without committing any major screw-ups.    Becoming responsible for something new and unfamiliar is understandably frightening.  The odds of making a mistake increase dramatically when you are inexperienced.  Small wonder that a “new” assignment is greeted with so little enthusiasm.

So how can we motivate employees to approach new responsibilities with confidence and energy?  The answer is simple, though perhaps a little surprising:  Give them permission to screw-up.

I know this may not be something you are thrilled to hear, because immediately you’re probably thinking, “If my employee screws up, I’m going to be the one who pays for it.”  But you needn’t worry about that, because studies show that when people feel they are allowed to make mistakes, they are significantly less likely to actually make them!  Let me explain.

People approach any task with one of two types of goals: what I call be-good goals, where the focus is on proving that you have a lot of ability and already know what you’re doing, and get-better goals, where the focus is on developing ability and learning to master a new skill.

The problem with be-good goals is that they tend to backfire when we are faced with something unfamiliar or difficult.  We quickly start feeling that we don’t actually know what we are doing, that we lack ability, and this creates a lot of anxiety.  Countless studies have shown that nothing interferes with performance quite like anxiety does – it is the productivity-killer.

Get-better goals, on the other hand, are practically bullet-proof.  When we think about what we are doing in terms of learning and mastering, accepting that we may make some mistakes along the way, we stay motivated despite the setbacks that might occur.

Just to give you an example, in one study I conducted a few years ago, I found that people in pursuit of be-good goals (i.e., trying to show how smart they already were) performed very poorly on a test of problem-solving when I made the test more difficult (either by interrupting them frequently, or by throwing in a few additional unsolvable problems).

The amazing thing was, the people who were pursuing get-better goals (i.e., who saw the test as an opportunity to learn a new problem-solving skill) were completely unaffected by any of my dirty tricks.  No matter how hard I made it, these participants stayed motivated and did well.

Usually, when managers assign a new task, they emphasize how important it is for the work to be done flawlessly, no matter how challenging it might be.  They make the focus all about being good, and the prospect becomes terrifying.

The irony is that the pressure from managers to be-good results in many more mistakes, and far inferior performance, than would a focus on getting-better.

How can you assign projects in a way that conveys the goal of getting-better?  It’s easy, actually. Here are the 3 steps:

Step 1: Acknowledge that the project is difficult and unfamiliar, and that you expect your employee will need some time to really get a handle on it.  They may make some mistakes, and that’s ok.

Step 2:  Remind your employee that you are there as a resource, to help them when they run into trouble.

Step 3: Let them know that you are confident they have what it takes to eventually master this new responsibility.

Remember, by giving your employee permission to not do everything perfectly from the start, and by acknowledging that there is a learning curve and that improvement takes time, you are taking the anxiety out of the situation.  And in so doing, you are not only increasing their motivation to succeed, but also dramatically reducing the chances that any mistakes will be made at all.

Yesterday Influences Your Performance Today in Surprising Ways

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It probably won’t surprise you if I tell you that thinking about your past successes and failures can influence your performance in the here and now.  There’s nothing like a winning season to give a player confidence going into that last game, and nothing like a string of awkward dates to make you nervous about how the next one is going to turn out.  But thanks to new research, it’s become clear that the relationship between our past and present isn’t as obvious as you might think.

Imagine you are about to take a difficult test, or undergo a grueling interview.  Before you begin, you take a few moments to reflect on some of your past successes – moments where you really shined.  This turns out to be a really good idea, because when you think about the many times in the past when you reached your goals, you start feeling like you’ve really got something that makes you a successful person.

In other words, reflecting on past successes (plural) leads your brain to unconsciously, and quite naturally, assume that since you are the common denominator in all of those successes, your traits (e.g., your intelligence, creativity, charm) are the reason for your success.

Believing that you’ve got it, whatever it is, makes you more confident, and provides a very real boost to your performance.

Of course the same kind of process occurs when you reflect on many past failures before embarking on a new task – you unconsciously assume that something about you is to blame for your bad track record, and as a consequence your performance in the here and now suffers.

No real surprises there, right?  But what if instead of reflecting on your past successes and failures plural, you just thought about a single success or failure?  What does your brain do with just one particular memory?  The answer:  it unconsciously draws the opposite conclusion!  That’s right – remembering a single episode of success can make you doubt yourself, just as the memory of a single instance of failure can leave you feeling more confident.  But why?

General memories, or memories about a group of similar behaviors (like many games won, or many dates gone wrong) lead you to make unconscious inferences about your own traits, because they seem to reflect what you typically do.

Specific memories, on the other hand, are about a single event (e.g., that one win against Central High, that one bad date with Brad).  When you focus on a single event, you are less likely to see yourself as responsible for whatever happened, and more likely to unconsciously conclude that it was all due to the situation you were in.  (You beat Central High because their team isn’t that strong.  Your date with Brad was awkward because Brad isn’t really your type.)

In other words, memories of a single occurrence in our lives can easily feel like the exception, rather than the rule.

This was nicely illustrated in a set of recent studies.  Some of the participants were asked to reflect on a number of their past successes or failures by completing the sentence: “In general, I’m successful (I fail) when….”

The other participants were focused instead on a single episode of success or failure, by completing the sentence: “I succeeded (failed) once when I had to….”

The results were remarkable.  People who were asked to reflect on their many past successes or a specific failure scored roughly 10% better on tests of mathematical ability, as well as verbal, spatial, and abstract reasoning, than those who reflected on either many past failures or a single specific success.

Let that sink in for a second.  You get the same boost of confidence from thinking about a single time you screwed up that you do from reflecting on the many times you really shined.  And you fall victim to the same nagging self-doubt from thinking about that one time you did something right, that you do from dwelling on all the times you did everything wrong.

So if you’re looking to bolster your confidence and really motivate yourself before your next test, or your next blind date, or maybe the next meeting you have to run, remember that it’s a good idea to draw on your memories of success, so long as you have a string of successes in mind.  That way, your unconscious mind (which is so often the maker or breaker of a great performance) will clearly understand that your awesomeness is not the exception – it’s the rule.

How You Are Sabotaging Your Self-Control

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Why thought suppression is a bad way to deal with temptation.

Have you ever tried to lose weight by just not thinking about food?  How about trying to play it cool and stop yourself from calling (or emailing, or texting) your love interest by blocking out all thoughts about that person?  Ever try to quit smoking by trying not to think about smoking?  Did it work?  I’ll bet it didn’t.  And it’s really not your fault that it didn’t.

Thought suppression is a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, it is a very commonly used strategy – people often try to block out or put the lid on unwanted thoughts and feelings, in order to control their influence.  Dieters try to suppress thoughts of tempting snacks, alcoholics suppress their desire to drink, stressed-out workers suppress their feelings of anxiety, and smokers suppress the thought of cigarettes when trying to quit.

On the other hand, thought suppression is not only very, very difficult, but it works only very briefly, and has some very nasty unintended consequences.  Suppression has often been shown to increase the frequency of the unwanted thoughts you were trying to rid yourself of, once the period of active suppression is over.  Suppress thoughts of smoking, and the thoughts come rushing back with even greater force once you let your guard down.  But does this unintended consequence actually lead to more smoking?  Are you actually worse off in terms of quitting than when you started?

Yes, you are.  In a new study, undergrads who smoked at least a half-pack a day on average were asked to keep track of their smoking for several weeks.  For all of Week 2, some of the students were asked to try to suppress any and all thoughts about smoking.  Not surprisingly, they smoked significantly fewer cigarettes during Week 2 than non-suppressers.  But during Week 3, when these students were no longer required to suppress thoughts of smoking, they smoked significantly more cigarettes than non-suppressors!

While they were at it, the researchers who conducted this study looked at students’ stress levels across all three weeks.  Not surprisingly, suppressors reported a dramatic rise in stress during the week they were suppressing (while non-suppressors stress levels remained unchanged).  So not only does the thought-suppression strategy backfire, it feels terrible while you are doing it.

So how can we deal with unwanted thoughts more successfully, in ways that don’t end up actually diminishing our willpower?  I’ve written about this in previous posts, but here are two suggestions:

  1. Don’t suppress, replace.   Decide in advance what you will think about when a thought about smoking, snacking, or hitting “redial” pops into your mind.  When you find yourself thinking about how yummy a candy bar would be right now, try replacing that thought with one that focuses on your health and weight-loss goals (e.g., “It feels better to fit into my skinny jeans than it does to wolf down chocolate-covered nougat.”)

  2. Don’t suppress, plan.   Creating an if-then plan is an easy and effective way to deal with temptations.  You don’t need to block out the thoughts – what you really need is to learn how not to act on them.  By planning on exactly what you will do, in advance, when the tempting thought occurs, it becomes far easier to stick to your goals.  For instance, when thoughts about smoking occur, plan to chew gum, or step outside for several long deep breaths of fresh air.  Whatever you plan to do, it will disrupt the connection between the thought and giving in to the temptation, and over time, the thoughts will fade all on their own.

It’s almost never a good idea to put a lid on your thoughts and feelings.  It may feel like it’s working in the short term, but soon you’ll find yourself right back where you started – surrounded by candy wrappers, and wondering why he hasn’t returned your three dozen phone calls.

Are Satin Underpants the Secret to Success?

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When you are deciding who to hire for a job, or who to go out on date with, what kinds of information influence your decision?  Do you consider his or her education and background?  Sure I do.  What about friendliness and social skill?  Of course.  And physical appearance?  You bet.

What about the kind of chair you happen to be sitting in while making your decision?  Or perhaps the kind of object you happen to be holding in your hand?   My chair? No – nothing like that could possibly be affecting my judgments, right?

Wrong.  Your sense of touch is influencing you a lot more than you realize.

Most of us have grown accustomed to the idea that our mood, and even our judgments, can be influenced by unrelated experiences of sight and sound – we feel happier on sunny days, more relaxed when listening to certain kinds of music, and more likely to lose our tempers when it’s hot and humid.  But very few of us have even considered the possibility that our tactile experience – the sensations associated with the things we touch, might have this same power.

New research shows that the weight, texture, and hardness of the things we touch are, in fact, unconsciously factored into our decisions about things that have nothing to do with what we are touching.   Potentially, every decision we make.

Let’s start with weight.  Heaviness is something that we usually associate with seriousness and importance.  Consider expressions like the “gravity of the situation,” the trouble “weighs heavily upon him,” or she is  “carefree and light-hearted.”  So what happens when we make a decision while we are holding something heavy?

In one study, people who held a clipboard that was nearly 10 times heavier than their peers rated a job candidate they were reviewing as much better overall, and as having displayed more serious interest in the position.  In a second study, heavy clipboard holders recommended allocating significantly more government funding to serious social issues (like pollution) than lighter clipboard holders.  So when we are holding something heavy, we see seriousness and importance in people and issues that we might not otherwise.

(Tip:  Perhaps if you want to make the best impression at an interview, you should start by asking your potential employer to please hang on to your set of encyclopedias, that you just happen to bring along, while you use the restroom.)

Next, the researchers examined the effects of texture.  We associate smoothness and roughness with ease and difficulty, respectively, as in expressions like “smooth sailing,” and “rough road ahead.”   Once again, the studies show that people unconsciously transfer their tactile experience of roughness to their interpersonal decisions.  For instance, people who completed a puzzle with pieces that had been covered in sandpaper later described an interaction between two other individuals as more difficult and awkward than those whose puzzles had been smooth.  In another study, feeling roughness led participants to negotiate poorly, offering their opponent a better deal than the smoothness-feelers offered, because they saw the bargaining task as more difficult.

(Tip:  Never try to buy a car or negotiate a raise while wearing a wool sweater.  Consider satin underpants instead.  Everything seems easy in satin underpants.)

Lastly, the researchers studied the effects of experiences of hardness and softness.  We often associate hardness with qualities like stability, rigidness, and strictness, and softness with flexibility and yielding.  Consider expressions like “an iron will” and she “melted like butter.”

As with weight and texture, hardness exerts an influence on our perceptions and behavior.  People who had earlier examined a hard piece of wood judged an employee interacting with his boss as more rigid and strict than did people who had examined a soft blanket instead.

The tactile experience doesn’t always have to come through your hands, either.  In a second study, the researchers found that sitting in a hard wooden chair (instead of a soft cushioned one) made participants adopt more rigid, less cooperative negotiation strategies.  Each person was told to make an initial offer for a new car (worth $16,000).  After their first offer was rejected, they were told to make a another.  Hard chair sitters’ second offer was, on average, $350 closer to their first offer than soft chair sitters – in other words, the hard chair sitters didn’t want to budge from what they had originally said the car was worth.  They had a feeling they should stick to their guns, completely unaware that this feeling was coming from their backside.  (Perhaps this is the origin of the expression “hardass”?)

(Tip:  When you want someone to grant your request, start out by making sure they are seated on something soft.  Or, perhaps, stroking a cat.)

In all seriousness, we are more strongly influenced by all of our senses in ways most of us fail to realize.  It’s worth taking the time to think not only about the sights and sounds and smells, but also the things you touch most frequently – the furniture in your home and workspace, your clothing, your bedding.   Would work seem easier with a lighter laptop?  Would your coworkers get along better with plush seats in the conference room?  You can make whatever you’re touching work to your best advantage.   Trust me, folks – this is hard science.

Can you be too good-looking for your own good? Yes.

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When attractiveness can actually undermine your chances for success.

I remember one year, when I was still in graduate school, a particularly beautiful young woman applied to our program.   She was extremely well-qualified, and had a strong background in neuroscience from a top university, but she looked like she had just stepped out of an issue of Marie Claire.   Frankly, she was the kind of girl I was loathe to stand next to, for fear of not faring well by comparison.  I’ll admit that I wasn’t totally thrilled at the prospect of having her around, competing for the attention of the few male graduate students who actually remembered to bathe, shave, and wash their clothes regularly.

But pretty or not, she was a top candidate, and I was certain she’d be accepted to the program.  So I was stunned when a senior professor in our department told me, quite causally in the hallway, that she had decided not to offer this young woman a position.  “I don’t think we want her here, do you?  I think she’d make the rest of us feel like we aren’t pretty enough.”

Her statement, coming from a respected and well-known psychologist nearly twice my age, seemed to me so ludicrous and appalling that I waited for her to start laughing or winking, but she never did.  And the pretty girl never did get the offer.  I doubt very much that when she later tried to figure out what went wrong, she ever considered the possibility that her good looks had been held against her.

Most of us assume that the beautiful people have it made – that being attractive gives you advantages across the board.  Much of the time, we are right.  Decades of psychological research has shown that when someone is attractive, we often unconsciously assume that they have lots of other good qualities too.  We perceive them to be warmer, kinder, smarter, funnier, and more honest, simply because they are easier on the eyes.

But recent research has shown how the advantages of being beautiful don’t always translate into greater successes. In fact, being good-looking can cost you opportunities – jobs, scholarships, promotions – depending on the gender and attractiveness of your evaluator.

Psychologist Maria Agthe found that attractive applicants for a graduate scholarship received more favorable ratings from opposite-sex raters, but not from same-sex raters.  Men were unimpressed by a male applicant’s handsomeness, and women actually penalized female applicants for beauty.

In a second study, Agthe found that the effect of an applicant’s attractiveness on their ratings also depended on the beauty of the beholder.  Good-looking raters didn’t seem to care one way or the other how handsome or beautiful an applicant was, but average-looking raters did – they penalized better-looking same-sex applicants.

In the end, we tend to think about the attractiveness of the person we are evaluating in terms of opportunities and threats.  Attractive members of the opposite sex (obviously, assuming you are heterosexual) are generally good to have around.  Their presence is an opportunity – if not for an actual relationship, then at least for some innocent flirting and wishful thinking.    Attractive members of our own sex, on the other hand, are The Competition.  Their presence is a threat – they “make the rest of us feel like we aren’t pretty enough.”   So, given the choice between a candidate with average looks, and one who is gorgeous, why choose the latter and end up feeling inadequate?  Ugly Betty wins every time.

We’d all like to think that decisions like these are objective and that the best man or woman wins, but bias is real and everywhere, and there’s no use pretending otherwise. So, what to do?

First, just to be practical, you might want think carefully about your appearance when you interview for a position, depending on who is doing the interviewing.  When your potential boss is a member of your own sex, consider a more conservative, professional look.  You want your interviewer focused on your credentials, not your good looks.

More importantly, I think each of us needs to try to be aware of our own biases when we are in the position to hire, promote, or bestow an award on someone.  Research suggests that probing your thoughts for potential bias can remove its influence.  Stop and ask yourself – is my decision being influenced by the candidate’s looks?  Am I being fair?  Would I want to be judged this way?

You can make better, bias-free decisions if you take the time to examine and question your reasoning.  If the best-looking same-sex candidate is truly the best-qualified and most deserving, hire them.  You can always avoid standing next to them at the office Christmas party.