REFRAMING  INTELLIGENCE  AND  ACHIEVEMENT  THROUGH  A  SELF-­‐REG  LENS  Stuart  Shanker  

Reframing    

But  look  at  it  through  a  Self-­‐Reg  lens    

and  an  enErely  new  vein  of  inquiry  is  exposed      

You  can  have  a  topic  that  has  been  mined  so  thoroughly  

 that  you  are  sure  its  resources  must  have  been  exhausted    

Same  point  applies  to  science:  see  a  theory  differently    

and  you  see  a  different  theory    

Our  most  basic  Self-­‐Reg  percept:  see  a  child  differently    

and  you  see  a  different  child    

A  Paradigm-­‐RevoluEonary  Approach  

Difference  between  paradigm-­‐revolu.on  and  paradigm-­‐shi2  (Kuhn)  

We  look  at  the  data  with  different  “lens”  

Reframing  represents  a  fundamentally  different  approach  

Our  natural  insGnct  when  dealing  with  a  theory  whose  consequences  we  dislike  is  to  try  to  refute  it  

The  NegaGve  Consequences  of  Intelligence  TesGng  

Parents  anguish  about  how  smart  their  child  is,  and  how  to  make  them  

smarter  

Poorly-­‐trained  testers  set  back  innumerable  

children:  self-­‐esteem  and  aspiraGons  harmed  by  how  teachers,  parents,  and  peers  treat  them  

Students’  educaGonal  opportuniGes  have  been  narrowed  –  “streamed”  –  

as  a  result  of  tesGng  

Employment  opportuniGes  have  been  

narrowed  

Social  policies  have  been  puniGve  

“There’s  no  such  thing  as  a  bad,  lazy  or  stupid  child.”  –  Shanker,  on  countless  occasions    

But  isn’t  there  a  strong  connecGon  between  all  three:  the  result  of  a  child’s  being  born  with  less  intelligence?  –  Herrnstein  &  Murray,  The  Bell  Curve,  1994  

Jensen  1969:    “How  much  can  we  boost  IQ”  

•  Jensen:  Enrichment  programs  have  only  managed  to  budge  IQ  scores  by  around  5  points  

• Massive  US  programs  like  Head  Start  a  poor  return  on  investment  

• Social  straGficaGon  is  a  natural  reflecGon  of  innate  intellectual  capacity  

Correlations Drive the IQ Story Correlations between sub-

scores

Between WISC vs. Raven Matrices

Parent and Offspring

Identical twins separated at birth

IQ at age 10 and educational

outcomes, future income, social status, health (physical and mental), and

even longevity

Our primary objective in Self-

Reg is not to refute or resist the correlations that have been recorded, but

rather to reframe them

AssumpGons  behind  IQ  TesGng  

IQ  measures  differences  (Binet)  

• QuintessenGal  measurement  of  the  RaGonal  Brain  differences  

Measuring  a  relaGvely  fixed  intellectual  capacity  (Galton)  

•  IQ  tests  establish  a  child’s  place  on  a  normal  distribuGon    • What  underlies  that  normal  distribuGon  (Spearman)?  

Work  Preformed  Against  Time  

Boring:  “Measurable  intelligence  is  like  ‘power’  as  the  physicist  uses  

 the  word:  the  amount  of  work  that  can  be  done  in  a  given  Gme”  

“Brainpower”  (based  on  Wag)  

Different  scores  loading  on  a  common  factor  reflect    

an  individual’s  overall  mental  capacity  (“general  intelligence”)  

Child  with  less  “brainpower”  sGll  gets  to  the  same  finish-­‐line;    

just  slower  

The  Self-­‐Reg  QuesGon  

Standard  view  of  IQ  based  enGrely  on  raGonal  brain  

How  does  Triune  Brain  metaphor  change    

our  view  of  intelligence?  

How  does  Triune  Brain  metaphor  change    

our  view  of  what  the  tests  are  tesGng?  

Ball-and-Bat Problem

If a baseball and bat cost $1.10 together, and the bat costs $1 more than the ball, how much does

the ball cost?

“Mentally Lazy”?

The fact that it’s presented as a puzzle is all the information needed to motivate careful thought

Those who answer 10 cents are said to be “ardent follows of the law of least effort”

“They find cognitive effort at least mildly unpleasant and avoid it as much as possible”

Gervais and Norenzayan ran a study a few years back showing that “mentally lazy” thinkers are more likely to believe in religion

Same results have been observed in voting behaviours

“Laziness”?

Is “laziness” is the right term?

If I’m sick and can barely sit up, much less get out of

bed, I am not being lazy: I am sick

We recognize a profound difference between laziness

and illness

Latter cancels out the value-judgements that apply to the

former

Laziness  presupposes  possibility  of  effor6ul  control  

What if the capacity to make an effort is compromised?

The attribution of laziness – mental or otherwise – must always involve the possibility of trying harder: for logical, not physiological reasons

Question of whether someone is capable of trying harder complicated: for physiological and not logical reasons

Measuring  a  Child’s  Intelligence  

“IQ  tests  are  as  much  about  “brain-­‐

resistance”  as  “brainpower”  

When  we  measure  a  child’s  “intelligence,”  the  score  we  arrive  at  is  a  product  of  the  interacGon  between  thinking  processes  and  limbic  brakes  

Intelligence  is  a  Whole-­‐Brain  Phenomenon  

• “Intelligence”  is  a  funcGon  of  both  prefrontal  and  limbic  processes  

• We  reframe  IQ  by  thinking  about  the  dynamic  interplay  between  these  parts  of  brain  

• Between  raGonal  processes  and  limbic  braking  

Reasoning  Behind  IQ  Tests    

The  point  of  an  IQ  test:    

To  compare  where  a  child  stops  vis-­‐à-­‐vis  her  peers    

It’s  that  point  where  the  child  can’t  –  or  won’t  –  go  any  further  that  determines  the  child’s  IQ  score    

What  does  Self-­‐Reg  Suggest?  

Children  stop  when  they  are  under  too  much  

stress  

The  ongoing  stress  of  the  test  becomes  more  than  they  can  bear  

Limbic  brakes  kick  in  to  prevent  going  over  “red  

line”  

Children’s  stress-­‐limits  vis-­‐à-­‐vis  peers  stabilizes  

around  age  10  

Individual  Differences    

Some kids clearly are

not distressed by an IQ

test

We can predict that

top 10% will find similar

cognitive challenges (education)

highly positive

Other children

shut down (to varying degrees)

How can one and the same

test can be a positive stress for

some children and a

negative stress for others?

Self-­‐Reg  PerspecGve    

The  effect  of  incenGves  on  raising  IQ  in  low-­‐scoring  

children  is  not  that  you  are  compensaGng  for  a  

personality  defect  (lack  of  effort)  but  rather,  that  we  can  push  a  child  past  the  

peak  of  an  inverted-­‐V  curve    

We  did  this  ourselves  (unwinngly)  to  children  in  

the  MEHRI  study  

Effect  of  Pushing  Past  a  Peak    

Effort  itself  has  a  history    

Once  a  child  is  pushed  past  his  peak,  this  lowers  the  threshold  for  limbic  braking  for  the  remainder  of  the  test  

The  Khachaturian  metaphor:  for  some  children,  the  test  starts  off  with  a  bang  and  never  lets  up    

For  some,  happens  even  before  they  sit  down  

The  brakes  limit  the  expenditure  of  energy  on  each  successive  phase  of  the  test  

Reframing  the  Bell  Curve  

The  Bell  Curve  starts  to  look  like  an  inverted-­‐U  stress  curve:  

strongly  negaGve  as  you  move  lep  from  the  midline,  increasingly  

posiGve  as  you  move  to  the  right  

That  is,  what  the  normal  distribuGon  is  telling  us  is  that  reasoning  tasks  are  a  negaGve  stress  (to  varying  degrees)  for  as  many  as  two-­‐thirds  of  all  children,  while  around  10%  find  it  posiGve  

CorrelaGon  between  IQ  and  educaGonal  outcome  tells  us,  not  just  that  test  geared  to  schooling,  but  that  limbic  brakes  criGcal  for  

both    

The  Self-­‐Reg  Approach  

The  parameters  need  to  be  broadened  so  as  to  encompass  all  five  domains  of  stress  

Working  memory,  like  thinking,  is  a  whole-­‐body  phenomenon,  and  is  similarly  impacted  by  excessive  stress  

IQ  test  telling  us  that  schooling  a  significant  negaGve  stress  for  large  percentage  of  children  (downstream  correlaGons)