Wrote my secrets on a birch bark strip
Today would have been my grandfather's hundredth birthday. I don't tend to think of "About Building" as a ghost poem for him and my grandmother, but I suppose it must be.
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larryhammer linking an article on the potential debunking of the Dunning–Kruger effect, I was reminded of my mother's research in the '70's. It was not a direct forerunner of their study, but it was not totally dissimilar in that she was studying how self-perception interacts with objectively assessed skills, specifically from the perspective of cognitive dissonance. The prevailing assumption had been that when people who believed themselves to be bad at, say, math were shown that they had actually done quite well on a math test, they would accept the new data and do just as well if not better when given the opportunity to re-take the test. Instead, it turned out that in cases where I am bad at math was an essential part of the subject's self-image, they resolved the dissonance by doing worse on the test than they had the first time—failing questions they had originally aced. They couldn't twist reality around to match the inside of their heads, so they sabotaged the inside of their heads to make them match reality. A percentage of subjects did just realize they were better at math than they had believed and did not, effectively, falsify their answers the second time around: there was no dissonance in play. But where there was, it was a whammy.
I was looking for citations when I discovered that my grandfather had actually done some similar work in the '40's, observing the selective recall of completed or unfinished tasks when viewed within a framework of success or failure, i.e., "No sweat, I zipped through that in no time!" vs. "I suck at this! It took forever!"
I am beginning to feel that Tiny Wittgenstein is some kind of family tradition, only expressed, since I am not a psychologist, as a personification rather than a paper.
From
larryhammer linking an article on the potential debunking of the Dunning–Kruger effect, I was reminded of my mother's research in the '70's. It was not a direct forerunner of their study, but it was not totally dissimilar in that she was studying how self-perception interacts with objectively assessed skills, specifically from the perspective of cognitive dissonance. The prevailing assumption had been that when people who believed themselves to be bad at, say, math were shown that they had actually done quite well on a math test, they would accept the new data and do just as well if not better when given the opportunity to re-take the test. Instead, it turned out that in cases where I am bad at math was an essential part of the subject's self-image, they resolved the dissonance by doing worse on the test than they had the first time—failing questions they had originally aced. They couldn't twist reality around to match the inside of their heads, so they sabotaged the inside of their heads to make them match reality. A percentage of subjects did just realize they were better at math than they had believed and did not, effectively, falsify their answers the second time around: there was no dissonance in play. But where there was, it was a whammy.I was looking for citations when I discovered that my grandfather had actually done some similar work in the '40's, observing the selective recall of completed or unfinished tasks when viewed within a framework of success or failure, i.e., "No sweat, I zipped through that in no time!" vs. "I suck at this! It took forever!"
I am beginning to feel that Tiny Wittgenstein is some kind of family tradition, only expressed, since I am not a psychologist, as a personification rather than a paper.
no subject
I always accepted the innate talent thing until I realized (quite late in the game) it was "easy" for me to read music and hear it in an analytical way because I grew up with a musician and ditto writing and reading because both my parents were intensely into that. I have actually witnessed in myself the whole "I can't do X, I suck at it....wait I am doing X and quite well! oh no other people are witnessing it, I am failing at X immediately" thing and just thought it was my own fucked-up psyche, lol.
Probably the worst thing about being a sorta-child prodigy was the crushing weight of absolutely unfulfillable (is that a word?) expectations from my parents, nearly every teacher, myself, &c &c which I don't think I'll ever get out from under. My tendencies to freeze when observed and freeze when anxiety hit and freeze when criticism was expected didn't help. ....IDK, I'm just babbling to myself here.
no subject
No, no, I hear you.