“Overstating the Role of Environmental Factors in Success: A Cautionary Note”, David Moreau, Brooke N. Macnamara, David Z. Hambrick2018-11-19 (DNB, IQ, bilingualism; backlinks)⁠:

Several currently popular areas of research—brain training, growth mind-set, grit, deliberate practice, and the bilingual advantage—are premised on the idea that environmental factors are the overwhelming determinants of success in real-world pursuits.

Here, we describe the major claims from each of these areas of research and discuss evidence for these claims, particularly focusing on meta-analyses.

We suggest that overemphasizing the malleability of abilities and other traits can have negative consequences for individuals, science, and society. We conclude with a call for balanced appraisals of the available evidence concerning this issue, to reflect current scientific discrepancies and thereby enable informed individual decisions and collective policies.

[Keywords: abilities, skills, interventions, environment, genetics]

See Also:

• Working memory training in typically developing children: A multilevel meta-analysis

• Do the benefits of chess instruction transfer to academic and cognitive skills? A meta-analysis

• The cognitive and academic benefits of Cogmed: A meta-analysis

• Still no evidence that exergames improve cognitive ability: A commentary on Stanmore et al 2017

• Chess Instruction Improves Cognitive Abilities and Academic Performance: Real Effects or Wishful Thinking?

• A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence on the near-transfer and far-transfer effects among children’s executive function skills

Backlinks: