Idiosyncratically Brilliant
I have recently finished reading Outliers by Malcom Gladwell and I personally consider the book to be a piece of idiosyncratic brilliance. As I read chapter after chapter I have put some thought into the idea of intelligence and what it is that makes some more successful than others. Though I will have to say that success is subjective, not only measured by the amount of dollars in a bank account, the number of assets, or degrees, yet these are measures generally use as indicators of success given the correlation between them. Gladwell’s explanation of what makes an individual an outlier is sensitive to those of us who inquire a comprehensive explanation of the aforementioned topic of discussion.
Outliers begins by discussing the importance of IQ and the concept of accumulated advantage. What has been found is that IQ is not necessarily a predictor of success, but surely one must posses a high enough IQ to be successful, and no this is not a contradiction. This might sound like a paradox, but let us dissect and get to the facts. Studies have shown that IQ is a good predictor of analytical intelligence and that this kind of intelligence is in part genetic (must experts agree that heritability dictates about 50% of our analytical intelligence). Gladwell points that all successful people have a high IQ in common but not all who posses a high IQ end up being successful (for an example, see the study of “The Termites” of Stanford University psychologist Lewis Terman). In short, it was found that having an IQ of around 120 is what’s needed to excel in the world and that any points above that do not “translate into any measurable real-world advantage.” Must of us know that people who exhibit an IQ below 70 are considered mentally disabled and that the average IQ is 100, meanwhile a 115 is thought to be the IQ of those who can successfully complete a competitive graduate program. In summary, “…the higher your score, the more education you’ll get, the more money you’re likely to make, and – believe it or not – the longer you’ll live.” But this is not the complete story. As you will soon see meritocracy, at least in this country, is almost nonexistent.
Practical intelligence has a place in this discussion. According to psychologist Robert Sternberg, practical intelligence is “knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for maximum effect.” It is procedural and practical in nature, it is not knowledge for its own sake but the ability to read situations and get what you want from them. It is important to mention that practical intelligence and analytical intelligence (IQ) are independent of each other, that is, orthogonal. One can have both or possess one without the other. But where does practical intelligence come from and why is it important? To answer these questions, we must turn to the experiment of the Sociologist Annette Lareau.
Some years ago Lareau decided to follow twelve families of different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds to understand different parenting styles. At the conclusion of such an experiment one would expect multiple parenting styles with some similarities among them, but what Lareau found involved only two “philosophies” and these were almost entirely separated by class lines. In other words, the wealthier parents raised their kids one way and the poor parents another way. Lareau found that wealthier parents are heavily involved in their kids free time, taking them from one activity to another, constantly quizzing them about their day. This type of scheduling was completely absent from the lives of poor children whose activities consisted primarily of playing outside with their neighbors. Lareau writes of a working class mother of a girl named Katie Brindle, who sign up and walked herself to choir practice:
What Mrs. Brindle doesn’t do that is routine for middle class mothers is view her daughter’s interest in singing as a signal to look for other ways to help her develop that interest into a formal talent…Mrs. Brindle does not discuss katie’s interest in drama or express regret that she cannot afford to cultivate her daughter’s talent. Instead, she frames katie’s skills and interests as character traits
Another pronounce difference between the parenting styles was that middle class parents often reason things through with their children and expect them to respond, negotiate, and question adults in positions of authority. Poor parents, by contrast, are intimidated by individuals in positions of authority; she writes of a low-income parent:
At a parent-teacher conference Ms. McAllister (who is a high school graduate) seems subdued…she is very quiet. When the teacher reports that [her son] Harold has not been turning in his homework Ms. McAllister is flabbergasted, but all she says is, “he did it at home.” She does not follow up with the teacher or intervene on Harold’s behalf. In her view, it is up to the teachers to manage her son’s education. That is their job, not hers
Lareau calls the middle-class parenting style concerted cultivation, this style involves fostering and assessing a child’s talents, opinions, and skills. by contrast, the poor parents’ style is called accomplishment of natural growth, this involves allowing children to grow and develop on their own. Important to mention that one style is not morally better than the other, but in practicality concerted cultivation has “enormous” advantages as these children learn teamwork, how to interact with figures of authority and speak up when necessary. These children learn a sense of entitlement (in the best sense of the term), the sense of entitlement that is perfectly suited to succeeding in the modern world. She writes:
They acted as though they had a right to peruse their own individual preferences and to actively manage interactions in institutional settings. They appeared comfortable in those settings; they were open to sharing information and asking for attention…It was common practice among middle-class children to shift interactions to suit their preferences
These children overtime had an “accumulated advantage” over the poor children in what regards practical intelligence, in simpler terms they knew how to navigate the world more effectively. Earlier I had made a reference to Lewis Terman, a psychologist at Stanford. Terman took upon himself to investigate the life of gifted children from different socioeconomic backgrounds starting in 1921, what he found was that those more likely to succeed were from middle-class families and those less likely to succeed came from poor families. In Outliers the stories of Christopher Langan and Robert Oppenheimer are highlighted. Langan a man with an incredibly high IQ, but no practical intelligence, also a college dropout, is compared to Oppenheimer a man that played a key role in the creation of the atomic bomb during WWII who possessed an incredibly high IQ and good practical intelligence, and who also held a professional degree in theoretical physics. By now one can speculate that by looking at their background, we will find that, even though both individuals exhibit a high IQ, one comes from a poor family while the other comes from a wealthy family, and anyone would be correct in doing so. In fact, during my entry level sociology class we discussed the fact that African American, and I would like to go to the extend of saying that Latino and Hispanic families as well, are more likely to regress after a time of vertical mobility when compared to other groups.
The saying practice makes perfect is true, in fact, to reach the level of expertise at something one must practice for about 10,000 hours. Generally to get that kind of practice and accumulate advantages over those who are not able to do so one must be in a privilege position from the start (e.g., no need to work a part-time job). The fact that we live in a class system is an advantage over a caste system, but let us not forget that “…Not rock stars, professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses – ever makes it alone.”
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MC