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Intelligence: Set for Life?
13 Plays13 hours ago
This Neuroblast episode explores whether intelligence is purely genetic or shaped by experience. Athena and Tracey debunk the myth that mental capacity is fixed at birth, highlighting the role of environment, education, and brain plasticity in lifelong learning. They reveal how intelligence is a dynamic blend of nature and nurture.
Original music by: Julian Starr
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Transcript
Introduction to Neuroblast Hosts
00:00:13
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Neuroblast. I am Athena Stevens, proud - owner and - operator of a brain. And I'm Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa. I teach a course at Harvard University called the Neuroscience of Learning, and I'm an international educational consultant.
Is Mental Capacity Innate or Developed?
00:00:34
Speaker
Today, we're tackling a question that has been debated for centuries, I would say millennia. Is your mental capacity set at birth or can you shape it through life?
Growth vs Fixed Mindset
00:00:50
Speaker
Are you born smart or does your experience make you that way? This is a huge question because here's the big idea from a psychological perspective. If you think that you're either born smart or not,
00:01:07
Speaker
then what's the point? What's the point? I mean, you just, you know, you either just, you know, you will do well in school and it's nothing that you can do about it. Now, now we know that people with a growth mindset who think that they are in charge of their own learning and their own brains and that they can grow, um do better.
00:01:26
Speaker
Just actually having a growth mindset actually helps you do better in school because you think that you're capable of change. And so this idea of whether or not mental capacity is innate, yes, there's tons of
Genes and Environment: A Dual Influence
00:01:39
Speaker
studies. There's some wonderful research by Plomin that really points out a lot of twin studies that shows that there's um you know highly hereditable, heritable traits, including things like intelligence, are definitely passed on from your parents.
00:01:55
Speaker
But there's also a lot of wonderful information about the strong impacts that things like, for example, high quality, you know, preschool and kindergarten experiences, what that can do to change your learning trajectory in life. And so we know it's not just your genes and we know it's elements of your environment.
00:02:14
Speaker
These things together are really what sets up your mental capacity. - So people actually thought that your mental capacity, your genes really, was simply the world's worst lottery.
00:02:33
Speaker
It That what I'm hearing? That's right, to win the genetic lottery and to be born smart. That's definitely, you know, it's on the books. You can definitely say, yes, you have a genetic tendency towards X, Y, or Z.
Environment's Role in Intelligence
00:02:46
Speaker
Um, and intelligence, you know, it's ah it's a huge one. It's a very controversial. People really balk at that because they're of the other camp where they think it's 100% environment. And it's not 100% environment or 100% genes. What we see, which is really fascinating, um think his name was Matt Ridley, wrote a book.
00:03:06
Speaker
It was called Nature via Nurture, which came out in the late 90s, which helped explain how people are born with the genes their parents give them. Yes. And so maybe they're you're inheriting something there.
00:03:19
Speaker
but only a fraction of those genes. This is Pamela Cantor's work who points out that only a fraction of the genes you're inherited with are actually potentiated by the environment you live in. And so that becomes who you are. And so it's nature via nurture.
Overcoming Genetics with Resilience
00:03:36
Speaker
And on top of all that- something that I find fascinating- in the studies that we have on resilience, on where you know kids who come, maybe they have lousy nature and lousy nurture. They have terrible genes and they grow up in a terrible neighborhood and yet they're okay.
00:03:56
Speaker
What happens there? They make good decisions. They have good choices. They were nudged in the right direction. So is that nature, is it nurture, or is it free will? They made choices that were different and that helped them get out of that situation. And so we're not talking about nature via nurture plus free will possibly that really makes up for what you were able to do in
Carol Dweck's Growth Mindset Theory
00:04:18
Speaker
life. And so, as we mentioned last week,
00:04:20
Speaker
You know, it's really interesting that attitude is really much more important than aptitude when it comes to learning outcomes. If you decide that you can do something, if you buckle down and have the self-regulation, it accounts for almost twice what innate intelligence counts for as far as learning outcomes in school. So, you know, it's a mixture. It's a mixture. It's not just genes. It's not just environment. It's the mix.
00:04:46
Speaker
So how do you define this term that you mentioned a few minutes ago, growth - mindset? What is that exactly? Well, Carol Dweck had this very, very clever idea inspired by neuroplasticity that, you know, well, some people actually understand that their brains cannot not learn. You're always learning and that you could leverage that, that you could say, instead of saying, I I can't do that, you say, I can't do that yet because the potential is there. You can always learn something. So having a growth mindset,
00:05:24
Speaker
rather than a fixed mindset means that you believe in your own potential to grow your brain, to be able to make new connections, to learn throughout the lifespan. And so um having a growth mindset is an extremely positive trait.
00:05:37
Speaker
It can be nurtured in kids. Um, and it's also just true. It's the way human humans are. You are born with genes, for sure, that might influence your intelligence. But it's even more important how you actually live in the world, interact, decide to learn, be proactive, have self-regulation. All of these things influence your learning outcomes in the end.
Limitations of Intelligence Tests
00:06:01
Speaker
That sounds to me like intelligence is in no way fixed. Um, and I find this particularly interesting given the IQ test that we know, I think. Watch, Tracy will tell me I'm wrong and so be it.
00:06:24
Speaker
Isn't it true that IQ can go down during periods of trauma? Of course. Oh, yeah. But that's access to... Okay. So all learning is based on memory and attention.
00:06:36
Speaker
And trauma disturbs... normal networks related to both memory and attention. You're hypervigilant and you don't have access to a lot of different types of memories during when you have traumatic events. And so, yes, definitely it can go down.
00:06:52
Speaker
And then it can go back up. - Exactly. So if you're, it depends on what you how how we're defining intelligence. And that is the big criticism of intelligence tests.
00:07:05
Speaker
Intelligence tests measure what they measure. They don't measure necessarily all - aspects of intelligence. And so you'll find that some intelligence tests, you know even the best of them, you know you have Wechsler's, have some of these other tests that are incredibly broad and have multiple, multiple measures. It's not just reasoning and logic and then some domain specific things like related to math or language and other things and words and it, it's much broader than that, but it's still nothing compared to human capacity. It's nothing compared to all of the different ways that humans can display their intelligence.
00:07:42
Speaker
It tries to exhaust those things, you know. How can you problem solve? So if we can execute problem solving, is that a a demonstration of intelligence? Yes, it's one demonstration of intelligence.
00:07:54
Speaker
But how about creativity? Yes, that's another demonstration of of intelligence. But no single intelligence test covers all of the ways that humans can be intelligent. And so it's a very hard thing to say that intelligence tests really do measure all of intelligence.
00:08:13
Speaker
They measure some facets of intelligence and they're very useful and they can be great indicators, but that's not the whole story. So they measure what they measure because I know there's also a camp of people out there that are just wanting to throw away all intelligence tests. Yes.
00:08:33
Speaker
Yes. And so there's, I mean, there can be some benefits because I think that, you know, the more information we have about ourselves, ah the better we are at, you know, diagnosing, you know, different types of of gaps we might have or ways to to to um improve our own, you know, general potential and things.
00:08:50
Speaker
So the more information, the better, which means, you know, all yeah all different kinds of tests are welcome. The main thing that we need to understand is none of them are complete. And so using any single measure is not going to be a reflection of the intelligence that we have.
Fostering Adult Intelligence and Growth
00:09:08
Speaker
So what do you do? I know lots of people, but particularly here in Britain, it seems not to bash the British school system, but here we go.
00:09:20
Speaker
um whom - in their educational careers were taught to believe that they were stupid. And so they missed out on those early years, which we now know from previous episodes are -
00:09:38
Speaker
Quote- un- quote, critical. They're important. They would be really nice to have, but they're not do die. Um, and now they come to find out that they have an IQ that is two standard deviations above normal.
00:09:59
Speaker
How do you now create that environment as an adult to foster - not just your intelligence, but your emotional capacity, your full being as a human - to its greatest potential?
00:10:19
Speaker
That is a huge question. And you're absolutely right. I wouldn't just limit it to one society or another. I mean, for example, there's a lot of... um , really concrete data that shows the French and the Germans, for example, they make a decision in schooling that in the fifth grade, it's decided whether or not you are going to go to university or not, or whether or not you're going to have a typical profession or if you're just going to basically, you know, slide through - adolescence is a time of a little bit of craziness there. And so you may have a lot of people um who don't shine through by the time they're 11 or 12 years old and get pigeonholed into a career track or or into a level of, of,
00:11:05
Speaker
intelligence or a self-perception of whether or not they're smart enough um by certain structures. So hopefully we could avoid those kinds of things. That early, I am all for early diagnosis of any kind of learning difficulty and all the rest of that, but I am against any kind of labeling. I think it just really... people live up or down to the labels that are put on them. And so um it's really difficult when you make those um those judgments within school systems earlier on. So how do you avoid that?
00:11:39
Speaker
I think that teachers as a whole, parents as well, have to be advocates for kids who might not know this, but to understand that your brain is continually developing and growing and you do have so much more control over your brain than you think you do.
00:11:54
Speaker
That's one of the things that's... um pretty fascinating.
Control Over Brain Development
00:11:57
Speaker
In the book that I wrote, What Do Kids Want to Know About Their Own Brains? - It was fascinating that so many kids would ask questions as if their brain was a separate entity.
00:12:07
Speaker
They would say things like, why does my brain want me to be friends with the people who are mean to me? Or why is my brain so angry ah early in the morning when I don't sleep well or whatever, but they don't, they didn't own it. They didn't know that they had control of their brains. They were the only ones who could actually do, you know, do something about it. And so understanding, owning,
00:12:31
Speaker
your brain and understanding your influence over its outcomes is a huge piece in all of this. And I hope the teachers would help and parents would help kids understand, you know what, maybe you can't do it yet.
00:12:45
Speaker
Maybe, you know, this is the growth mindset thing. Maybe you can't do this math problem yet, but maybe next week you'll be the top in the math class. So have this fluid situation rather than boxing people in with labels.
Influence of Teachers and Parents
00:12:58
Speaker
I really appreciate this, as you put it, fluid situation and understanding that you're not one test, you're not one in grade, you're not even an entire term of grades.
00:13:15
Speaker
Mhmm. And, there's so many stories of people that hated math or didn't get on in science - until they found the right teacher they found the right way in.
00:13:32
Speaker
The children's author Madeline Lingle talks about not liking algebra, not liking geometry, but when she became an adult loving complicated calculus and physics.
00:13:48
Speaker
Yep. And that , that happens to so many of us, doesn't it? This has so much to do, and I don't know if teachers realize they have this superpower. Social contagion is real.
00:14:00
Speaker
Um, and a teacher's love and enthusiasm for their topic can be infectious, it's contagious. And so, you know, I've heard story after story and I've watched it in my own kids. When you had a great teacher, that just changes everything. It makes you believe in yourself, believe in, and make give you a desire to learn more about the information.
00:14:22
Speaker
Um, and it can be infectious and it's, it's a contagious and sensation or of affect that you have about um different subject matters, but also just that general curiosity.
00:14:34
Speaker
You know, if teachers would just help encourage kids' imaginations and natural curiosity, that would go a long way. And if parents, um instead of being quick to judge or comparing children or or saying that, the well, I guess you're not made for math because I was never made for math either, you know, and planting these ideas in the kids that it's the genes that they got that are going to determine whether or not they're going to do well or not,
00:14:59
Speaker
if the parents could just be more open and understanding to the influence um that they have on that, and that if the kids perceive themselves as not being learners, they're not going to, know, they're going to just live up to that low expectation. So understanding that there is the potential, it's nature via nurture, plus free will, those kids can become, um you know, grow into their own potential.
Attitude's Impact on Learning Potential
00:15:23
Speaker
Learning is not a straight line. It's not you do A and B happens, and then there's the synapse and, you know, magic occurs and you learn. There's definitely this experiential element that um fits in here in which you are interacting with the environment and you are there are times when you are more set to learn and times when you are not set to learn.
00:15:44
Speaker
I wouldn't say that this goes so, you know I wouldn't talk about this as over courses of years, but I would say that this is definitely things that happen over courses of days um in which your brain actually does need to re-consolidate information in order to actually determine if you have learned something or not. Have you made that connection that you can retrieve ah in the future. So, yeah. And this is why certain teaching methods are so brilliant, right? Spaced versus masked practice. When you space out your learning over time, over weeks or months or years, when you space it out and reinforce and space it out and reinforce, then you're able to retrieve the information and therefore transfer it, which is really the definition of all learning.
00:16:25
Speaker
But what I'm hearing also is if you maybe are in a season where it feels like your brain is teflon, I have definitely been in those seasons.
00:16:37
Speaker
That's not the end of your mental capacity either. No. And this goes back again to the whole, you know, this whole idea of this attitudinal shift. A lot, a lot of learning potential is in attitude. It's not in necessarily the innate ability, but, you know, how you approach things and taking hard times, you know, in the right way, you know, rolling with the punches and being able to think, okay,
00:17:03
Speaker
I can't do that yet. But seeing, you know, that silver lining of potential in yourself is something that a lot of it has to do with that self-talk we've mentioned many times, that earworm that's, you know, telling you, yes, I think I can, I think I can, I think can, or that thing that's ruminating and dragging you down.
00:17:19
Speaker
How do you break those cycles and how do you get yourself into the right place to learn? Definitely, those are so those are really normal cycles in human life. But getting yourself out of that is huge. It's a big, big lift.
00:17:32
Speaker
I feel like we need you to have an episode at the end which is just you and me saying, I think I can. I think I can. Our listeners who are having a day, and it is only one day, where they think they can.
00:17:48
Speaker
I love it. I would love that too. Let's make that happen. - - Episode 22, I think I can. Or we think you can. I love it. Because we do.
00:17:59
Speaker
All right, guys. Thank you for joining us on Neuro blast! Keep those neurons - Keep - No. No.
00:18:12
Speaker
but thank you for joining us on Neuroblast. - Keep those neurons firing. I am struggling through today.
00:18:24
Speaker
Keep - - growing those brains and we'll see you next time if I can remember how to record a podcast. See you then. Thank you!