PSYC 471 Chapter Notes -Child Prodigy, Motivation, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
9 Dec 2011
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Document Summary
Motivation article #9: the origins and ends of giftedness. Gifted children and prodigies display near-adult level skills and interests. Winner argues that the indirect evidence suggests that many gifted children and savants have enhanced right-hemisphere development, concomitant language- related difficulties and autoimmune disorders: origins and causes of giftedness, the disputed role of training. Most people in our culture subscribe to the nativist view of giftedness, in which giftedness is believed to be a product of inborn high ability. Psychologists argue that giftedness is entirely a product of what is referred to as goal-directed hard work, or deliberate practice. Ericsson et al showed that levels of expertise relate directly with the amount of deliberate practice. They discounted as unreliable anecdotal reports about the childhood feats of prodigies. Csikszentmihalyi, gardner and gruber show that all great achievement is associated with years of deep and prolonged work.
