Debunking people pseudoscience

I came across this meme on twitter the other day. These kind of tweets are shared and liked without really stopping and thinking. My first reaction was that this is plain wrong and these people have no clue about human behavior. Let's bust this alpha-males shoutout for you, because believing this kind of BS will not make you a better colleague, manager or spouse.

Let’s talk talent.

Behavioral and genetics studies suggest that both talent and motivation along with almost every other human characteristic that varies in the population are influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. In other words, it makes no sense to assume that talent is inborn but instead the inclination that talent is learned is more correct. All talents are developed through a complex interaction of nature and nurture. Rather than asking whether expertise can be explained by nature or by nurture, it makes more sense to think about expertise acquisition (talent) as a function of the rate at which we learn separately from the cumulative, high-quality effort we spend learning. A good definition for talent is the rate at which a person learns, not as any sort of innate, fixed quality. In other words, what it means to be talented in a given domain is to progress more quickly up the skill curve than others who have invested equal effort.

There are identified talent-related traits that influence the rate of expertise acquisition. Other than IQ the researchers have identified i.e. imagination, creativity, emotional intelligence, rationality, bodily kinesthetic, musical, artistic, and practical life skills. Less well charted, is the terrain of traits that influence cumulative effort over time. This list includes (but is not limited to) domains such as optimism, passion, inspiration, curiosity, goal commitment, need for achievement, self-efficacy, growth mindset, self-regulation, self-discipline, self-control, conscientiousness, and grit. Many of these domains are actually so called meta-skills that can be learned. People become more talented in these skills with deliberate and focused training.

Let’s do engineer logic: If you can train something [x] and become better at it, is that not a talent then? If [x] is required to do most of what is mentioned in this meme-list, then talent is actually necessary for most of it?

The meme contains complex structures of the human psyche, all tangled into a list of testosterone smelling admiration for relentless execution.

What strikes me as the shortcoming of this meme is exactly this; the meta-skills, so important in today’s work life, are not identified as talent, but instead, the suggestion is that any person can express this behavior.

Being on time: requires blocking out immediate short-term rewards, keeping longer-term goals in mind. ("I am not going to do x now, because I need to do a, b and c in order to be on time. Being on time is good because y"). This requires activation of parts of the brain (i.e. vmPFC, ACC) that handle conflicting interests, self-regulation (brain’s braking system), and emotion regulation. This is energy consuming and this talent is negatively impaired when fatigued or under stress. All of this is requiring a lot of the meta-skills, which are trainable. (=talent)

Work ethic: Ethics should be considered in the context of the social system, and “work ethic” requires understanding of that system. If work ethics means working with full speed and performing on the top constantly, (which clearly is not very brain friendly), it requires both talent in energy expenditure, resilience (self-regulation) and managing expectations of counterparts at work, which requires social skills (=talent). If it means keeping your promises, it again requires long-term thinking, self-regulation, ability to plan and execute your work, meaning PFC- and working memory-rich cognition and self-regulation (=talent). Without going into a broad discussion about what the word ethic means, this meme requires a person to play according to the rules of the social system and culture in mind, adhering to these expectations simultaneously as being aware of his own limitations concerning energy and cognition. The more talented you are in social and emotional intelligence, the better you understand the social setting, and the better you can navigate around expectations of work, collaboration practices, communication etc. Social and emotional intelligence is a skill that one can develop (=talent). Thus, my take on work ethics, is that it requires a certain amount talent.

Body Language: Body language is dominantly an unconscious product of the state of your nervous system. Body language, facial micro expressions, palm sweating, breathing frequency, pupil size are mostly automatic, but can be impacted by consciously regulating (=a talent) your nervous system activation levels (from  sympathetic to parasympathetic activation). This is a skill that can be learned, i.e. by breathing exercises, mindfulness, meditation, reappraisal techniques, training under pressure (e.g. sports competitions), public speaking practice etc. We all have body language. So saying “body language does not need talent” is like saying “having a bellybutton does not need talent”, which is accurate. Controlling your body language in a way that creates social trust, persuasion or sense of control requires talent, and reading other people's body language interpreting their emotional state requires even more talent and practice.

Effort: Effort is connected to our rewarding mechanisms, all humans do what is called effort discounting. “Is it too much work to get this reward?” is the basic question our brain automatically asks us. We are driven by rewarding mechanisms, our learning and development, our actions and decision making are driven largely by this mechanism. Going the extra mile (doing extra, number 9 on the list) or putting in effort requires, again, long-term goal setting, ignoring distractions, and motivation in the form of external or intrinsic motivators. The previously mentioned trainable meta-skills are connected to putting in effort or doing extra. (=talent). Additionally there are individual differences (personality, neurochemical and even genetic!) in responding to incentives, impacting if you are putting in extra effort or not. E.g. socially anxious individuals may be “blind” to possible rewards, and individuals with different coping styles exhibited different stress responses and decision-making patterns. Again, “effort” requires talent in the meta-skills.

Energy, attitude and passion are such vague popular words describing a person’s emotional and physiological state. They are all constructs of something more complex, such as physical fitness or health (requires meta-skills and long term thinking), self-reflection (meta-skill), working with something you find rewarding but challenging enough (working with so called “flow” usually requires talent and persistent learning) etc. Possibly debunking these requires a long dinner with a couple of glasses of good red wine and an accepting atmosphere.

Being coachable requires a hell of a lot of talent. Interoception, self-reflection skills, listening skills, emotion regulation skills, associative thinking skills. All meta-skills, which one can practice and become better at. (=talent)

Being prepared. If you have read this post with thought, you can bust this yourself.

People expressing all the behaviors in this meme certainly possess talent and have worked to develop that talent. Expertise is high-level mastery of the declarative and procedural knowledge of a field or practice. The declarative knowledge base has been estimated to be 100.000 or more units of information and well-honed convergent and creative cognitive skills. Further, it is estimated that on average it takes about 10 years of study and/or practice to achieve such an immense knowledge base or skill. The more practice, the faster learning curve, the more talent and even faster learning curve...

This meme sounds like the ultimate alpha-male self-assuring way to search for justification for their goal focused, “full steam ahead” -expectation of behavior. Just look at the picture. This guy, who clearly has been working out in the gym at late hours, still in his workout clothes, takes out his laptop to work on something very important, maybe preparing for tomorrow’s executive meeting. Because he is doing extra? Because he is preparing? Because he has work ethic, passion, attitude and energy? Or because he is just ridiculously bad at planning his life? Or maybe he is working under a whip-swinging boss, who set expectations on working night shifts and always-on? The point is : who knows!? All of the behaviors in this meme-list depend on situational and individual things, but surely require talent if performed according to the social norms (well).

If this guy had meta-skills such as self-awareness, and self-regulation experience, he might know that his best thinking is not done in the middle of the night, tired. He might know that stopping might be the best thing to do if you are busy. If he had social and emotional intelligence he might go home to put his kids to bed, because social connectedness and the quality of your social ties dramatically impacts your health.

OK, he might just be instagramming pics of his muscular toned body, too.

So what?

What worries me is that if people believe the behavior in the meme-list requires no talent, they don’t recognize the underlying trainable meta-skills. It seems like so many leaders lack the understanding that people are complex, different and people do not work like machines. It is evident that many people lack the knowledge about the meta-skills, so important for performance and health in the contemporary fast-paced-always-online-society.

It is not a coincidence that i.e. Google’s “Search inside yourself” meditation and mindfulness program is spreading around the globe currently. It’s not a surprise that mindfulness techniques are taught in the US Navy SEALs, both for the marines and their spouses. It is not a wonder that the great place to work companies care for the practices and procedures that create a healthy social constructs including implicit and subtle rewarding mechanisms for working.

This development is not happening “by itself”, without talent. Creating opportunities and environments where people can develop these meta-skills and get to another level of awareness, health and performance is deliberate, focused, measurable (!), and difficult work. Developing the meta-skills personally requires conscious, deliberate and frequent practice for a long period of time (habit change).

As the Mythbusters do, I would dare to say:

BUSTED!

Thanks for reading.

Riina

P.S. Because of my meta-skills, I need to say, I might have misunderstood this meme fully. So, any dissenting interpretations will actually teach me something more and refine my thinking.

Riina is a people & business professional, working with developing modern, agile and brain-friendy high performing and well-being organizations and leadership. Combining her vast experience of social people systems and networks, with agile and lean thinking, applied neuroscience, technical understanding and 15 years of HR experience she stretches her customers to really move and act.