Category Archives: L&B Blog

Humans are social beings, and we need others: Celebrating the good and coping with the bad is hard without friends and family. A loss of interest in social activities can be a sign of depression and mental illness. And social isolation is associated with abnormal behavior in rats¹ as well as in humans.²

But social ties are important beyond being a way to receive support. Research suggests that pro-social behavior—actions that help others, even at a sacrifice—is linked with better academic, social, and mental health outcomes in developing teens (and adults!). In other words, pro-sociality might be protective.

Eudaimonism and pro-social behavior may protect well-being

In my last post, I wrote about Dr. Eva Telzer’s research on family obligations as a potential buffer of the stressors of adolescence. In another study, Telzer and her colleagues explored this idea further. They presented teens (ages 15-17) with choices about giving money to themselves, or to their family, in an MRI scanner.³

Sometimes, the choices were no-brainers; adolescents were asked to choose between the scenario of gaining money for themselves, or not. At other times, the decision was a bit trickier. They asked participants: would you take a small personal loss if your family could gain even more cash?

The researchers described this self-sacrifice as a type of eudaimonic decision. Articulated by Aristotle, eudaimonia translates roughly to “flourishing,” and refers to a kind of happiness worth seeking and having.⁴ These kinds of behavior are often, but not exclusively, pro-social, meaning that they are voluntary social behaviors intended to help others. In contrast, the easy self-gain decision was hedonic—related to engaging in the immediate and easy pleasures of the moment.

Telzer and her colleagues noticed that changes in blood flow to the ventral striatum (suggesting that brain region’s neural activity) during certain decisions were correlated with long-term, real world outcomes for teens.

Adolescents with higher blood flow to the ventral striatum during self-sacrificing decisions were, on average, more likely to experience declines in depressive symptoms one year later. The ventral striatum is thought to be involved in processing the rewards, particularly the size of rewards. One possible explanation for this result is that the more adolescents experience self-sacrifice as rewarding, the more likely they might be to engage in protective eudaimonic activities. Over the course of a year, these activities might promote their well-being through building self-esteem and social relationships.

On the other hand, experiencing higher responses in the ventral striatum to the “easy reward” scenarios was associated with more extreme depressive symptoms one year later. It is possible that these teens were more likely to indulge in momentary pleasures than to invest in socially healthy exchanges.

The idea that pro-social and eudaimonic behaviors are related to happiness isn’t a new one. This self-protective link has been found in other studies, too:

• In middle school students, pro-social behaviors were associated with reduced feelings of loneliness one year later. This was true even when students had been the target of social bullying, like being left out of groups or being the target of gossip.⁵

• In adults, reporting engagement in eudaimonic activities, such as volunteering time, writing out future goals, and expressing gratitude, is associated with better well being and mood, particularly the next day.⁶

• Typically, low motivation and self worth are linked with emotional exhaustion in the workplace. Across two studies of different professions (professional fundraisers and sanitation workers), workers’ perceptions of their own pro-social impact buffered against these links. In other words, workers with low motivation or low self worth were less burnt-out at work if they felt like their work helped others—which has implications for teachers, too.⁷

Eudaimonism and pro-social behavior in schools

Celebrating acts of giving can be embedded in schools in ways big and small. Through extensive community service programming or classroom structures that reinforce helping behaviors, schools may transmit implicit messages about what it means to give.

At a recent conference for the Society for Research in Child Development, Dr. Ronald Dahl of the University of California, Berkeley suggested that one way to help teens and kids might be to figure out how to make giving a truly joyful experience.⁸

So, how can educators inspire the joy of giving?

While there’s no universal recipe, research suggests that certain elements of community service programming might best help teens:

1. Student choice: Meaningful choice can support middle school students’ developing sense of competence. In the Teen Outreach Program study, volunteer programs were more effective at reducing problem behaviors (like failing classes and school suspension rates) when middle school students chose the kinds of activities they participated in.⁹

2. Connecting with mentors: Social connection with adult mentors may enhance the experience of giving, potentially providing a model of giving for students to emulate. In the Teen Outreach Program, volunteer sites were more effective in reducing problem behaviors when middle school students reported a stronger sense of connection with the adult facilitators.⁹

3. It can’t come too easy: In Telzer’s study, there was another kind of “easy” decision teens could engage in: they could choose between giving money to their families, or not. Engagement of the ventral striatum during this decision was not linked with long-term changes in depression symptoms. At the recent Society for Research in Child Development conference, Telzer suggested that self-sacrifice might be a characteristic of the kinds of pro-social experiences that are self-protective.¹⁰ It is possible that adolescents may need to give up something meaningful, like their own time or personally valuable resources, in order to experience protective effects of pro-social behavior.

It’s important to note that the Teen Outreach Program study found no association between the first two elements and problem behaviors in high school students. These elements may have a greater impact in middle school, when student beliefs, like sense of competence, may be more flexible.

I’ve had the joy of seeing these elements play out in my 8th grade students’ yearlong Community Impact Projects. In these projects, students were mentored to develop a community program that spoke to their interests and passions. Carrying responsibility for a project with self-defined goals challenged students in many ways, including developing their meta-cognitive capacity for responding to challenges without spelled-out instructions about how to take next step. I hope that this psychosocial experience may have also been potent at buffering against some of the stressors of high school and beyond.

Currently, Americans are celebrating Thanksgiving weekend—the perfect merger of eudaimonic appreciation and hedonistic feasting. As we reflect on gratitude, let’s also consider the impact we have on others. This reflection, though particularly powerful for adolescents, may have protective value for all ages.

References & Further Reading

1. Kercmar, J., Büdefeld, T., Grgurevic, N., Tobet, S. A., & Majdic, G. (2011). Adolescent social isolation changes social recognition in adult mice. Behavioural Brain Research, 216(2), 647–651. [Paper]
2. Hall-Lande, J. A, Eisenberg, M. E., Christenson, S. L., & Neumark-Sztainer, D. (2007). Social isolation, psychological health, and protective factors in adolescence. Adolescence, 42, 265–286. [Paper]
3. Telzer, E. H., Fuligni, A. J., Lieberman, M. D., & Galvan, A. (2014). Neural sensitivity to eudaimonic and hedonic rewards differentially predict adolescent depressive symptoms over time. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(18), 6600–6605. [Paper]
4. Hursthouse, Rosalind,(2013), Virtue Ethics, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall Edition, Edward N. Zalta (ed.) [Article]
5. Griese, E. R., & Buhs, E. S. (2013). Prosocial Behavior as a Protective Factor for Children’s Peer Victimization. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 43(7), 1052–1065. [Paper]
6. Steger, M. F., Kashdan, T. B., & Oishi, S. (2008). Being good by doing good: Daily eudaimonic activity and well-being. Journal of Research in Personality, 42(1), 22–42. [Paper]
7. Grant, A. M., & Sonnentag, S. (2010). Doing good buffers against feeling bad: Prosocial impact compensates for negative task and self-evaluations. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 111(1), 13–22. [Paper]
8. Dahl, R. (September 16, 2015). Personal communication.
9. Allen, J. P., Philliber, S., & Herre, K. (1994). Programmatic Prevention of Adolescent Problem Behaviors: The Role of Autonomy, Relatedness, and Volunteer Service in the Teen Outreach Program. American Journal of Community Psychology. [Paper]
10. Telzer, E. (September 16, 2015). Personal communication.

• Caprara, G. V., Luengo Kanacri, B. P., Zuffianò, A., Gerbino, M., & Pastorelli, C. (2015). Why and How to Promote Adolescents’ Prosocial Behaviors: Direct, Mediated and Moderated Effects of the CEPIDEA School-Based Program. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, (November). [Paper]

Adolescence is the period between childhood and adulthood that largely coincides with the years of secondary schooling. This stage of life is characterized by many cognitive changes. One such change is in social signal sensitivity. Recent research has provided evidence for adolescence as a time of heightened receptivity and sensitivity to complex social signals in the environment, which are reflected in typical brain development patterns¹.

Developmental tasks

We are faced with certain developmental tasks at different points in our life. This means that we are expected to acquire certain skills or abilities at certain developmental stages. For instance, infants and young children are tasked to develop certain sensory and motor skills. And the human brain at this period of life reflects this, as it produces an excess number of connections between brain cells (called synapses) in sensory and motor cortices in early infancy, which are then pruned (or lost over time) to their adult levels across the first decade of life.

When it comes to the connections in the brain, more does not always mean better.

In fact, ‘synaptic pruning’ often allows the brain to communicate more efficiently.

The human brain also overproduces synapses in other regions of the cortex during infancy, such as the prefrontal cortex. However, unlike the sensory and motor cortices, the connections formed in this part of the brain continue to be pruned across the teenage years and into the twenties^2,3.

This prolonged development of the prefrontal cortex has intrigued developmental neuroscientists for decades. Given that synaptic pruning coincides with an increase in abilities associated with a given cortical area, perhaps the prolonged synaptic pruning of the prefrontal cortex coincides with the increased abilities associated with this part of the brain? This question underlies many developmental neuroscience studies.

In flux: The prefrontal cortex

The prefrontal cortex is often discussed as the hallmark of human cognition. Many complex cognitive abilities, such as inhibiting inappropriate behavior, planning for the future, and inferring the mental states of others, require the prefrontal cortex. It might be intuitive to many educators that an area of the brain involved in these complex behaviors and abilities is still developing throughout the teenage years.

However, the prefrontal cortex is not the neurological root of all behavioral changes between adolescence and adulthood.

The brain operates on a network level, which means that many different brain regions are constantly communicating with each other. While each region might have its own specific role, it is how the networks interact that ultimately matters. You can think of it as kind of like a team. Each member has its own role to play—and if a member gets weaker or stronger then it can change the way the team works—but the end result is a product of the whole team working together.

In flux: The nucleus accumbens

While the prefrontal cortex is often lauded as the seat of rational behavior, the nucleus accumbens is often demeaned as the cause of human hedonism or impulse. This subcortical brain region, hidden deep within the brain, is best known for its involvement in reward processing. Early research in rodents found evidence for dramatic remodeling of dopamine receptors in the nucleus accumbens during puberty⁴. This means that there was a change in how cells process dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter often connected to the experience of pleasure or rewards. Early fMRI studies then found increased recruitment of the nucleus accumbens in adolescence during reward processing⁵. This finding prompted developmental scientists to hypothesize that adolescent behaviors might be more influenced by nucleus accumbens signaling (or the sensitivity of this area to neurotransmitters like dopamine), which could explain why adolescents are drawn to risky or rewarding behaviors⁶. This heralded a change in thinking in developmental neuroscience. Rather than simply attributing adolescent changes to the developing prefrontal cortex, this new model posited that the changing interactions between the prefrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens underlie behavioral differences between adolescence and adulthood.

Not so simple

The model that I just described is more complex than can be described in a short blog post (see Further Reading). However, at its core is the interplay between two systems: one involved in socio-emotional processing and the other in cognitive control⁶. Subcortical regions such as the nucleus accumbens are considered part of the socio-emotional processing system because they are recruited during rewarding social interactions or emotional scenarios. However, we know that cortical regions are also involved in social cognitive processing (see previous blog post), and therefore these systems are starting to be taken into account when considering the neural correlates of adolescent behavior^7,8.

Social brain development

The network of brain regions involved in understanding or inferring the mental states of others (i.e. mentalizing) continues to develop across adolescence. Although they aren’t exclusively involved in mentalizing, these regions—the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, temporal parietal junction, posterior superior temporal sulcus and anterior temporal cortex—are consistently recruited when individuals perform tasks that require understanding or inferring the mental states of others. Longitudinal studies of brain structure have found that these regions undergo substantial changes in structure throughout adolescence⁹.

And as described in my previous post, adolescents utilize the medial prefrontal cortex more than adults in tasks that require understanding the mental states of others¹⁰. Taken together, these changes in structure and function provide evidence for the continued development of a brain network involved in complex socio-cognitive processes that influence how we navigate the social world.

The developmental tasks of adolescence

Now, why would we expect adolescence to be a sensitive period for social brain development? The period of adolescence, which can be defined as beginning around puberty, is typically considered finished when one has reached a relatively stable role in society. Therefore, one of the major developmental tasks of adolescence is to learn how to navigate the complex social world of one’s society. Adolescents are more equipped to do this than children because they have the necessary cognitive abilities as well as the motivational drive to learn from their social environment. Educators can build on these capacities in learning settings if social motivation is used to bolster learning rather than seen as another behavior to inhibit in the classroom.

An aside on the nucleus accumbens and risk-taking

Earlier I described the nucleus accumbens being involved in reward processing. While this is true, it is also true that the nucleus accumbens is involved in learning. In a way, we can think of the nucleus accumbens as a sort of salience detector—it helps us know what to pay attention to in the environment. Therefore, the heightened sensitivity of the nucleus accumbens in adolescence presents a great opportunity for learning. Further, risk-taking is not inherently a bad behavior. In fact, we need to take many risks in order to succeed in the modern educational environment.

Encouraging these educational risks, which can be as minor as raising one’s hand to answer a question in front of one’s peers, or as substantial as spending the time to learn a new programming language, might be one way to take advantage of the natural inclinations of being young and flexible.

 

References

1. Blakemore, S.-J., & Mills, K. L. (2014). Is Adolescence a Sensitive Period for Sociocultural Processing? Annual Review of Psychology, 65(1), 187–207. [Paper]
2. Huttenlocher, P. R. (1979). Synaptic density in human frontal cortex — Developmental changes and effects of aging. Brain Research, 163(2), 195–205. [Paper]
3. Petanjek, Z., Judaš, M., Šimic, G., Rasin, M. R., Uylings, H. B. M., Rakic, P., & Kostovic, I. (2011). Extraordinary neoteny of synaptic spines in the human prefrontal cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108(32), 13281–13286. [Paper]
4. Andersen, S. L., Rutstein, M., Benzo, J. M., Hostetter, J. C., & Teicher, M. H. (1997). Sex differences in dopamine receptor overproduction and elimination. Neuroreport, 8(6), 1495–1498. [Paper].
5. Galvan, A., Hare, T. A., Parra, C. E., Penn, J., Voss, H., Glover, G., & Casey, B. J. (2006). Earlier Development of the Accumbens Relative to Orbitofrontal Cortex Might Underlie Risk-Taking Behavior in Adolescents. The Journal of Neuroscience, 26(25), 6885–6892. [Paper]
6. Steinberg, L. (2008). A Social Neuroscience Perspective on Adolescent Risk-Taking. Developmental Review: DR, 28(1), 78–106. [Paper]
7. Crone, E. A., & Dahl, R. E. (2012). Understanding adolescence as a period of social-affective engagement and goal flexibility. Nature Reviews. Neuroscience, 13(9), 636–650. [Paper]
8. Pfeifer, J. H., & Allen, N. B. (2012). Arrested development? Reconsidering dual-systems models of brain function in adolescence and disorders. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(6), 322–329. [Paper]
9. Mills, K. L., Lalonde, F., Clasen, L. S., Giedd, J. N., & Blakemore, S. J. (2014). Developmental changes in the structure of the social brain in late childhood and adolescence. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9(1), 123–131. [Paper]
10. Blakemore, S.-J. (2008). The social brain in adolescence. Nature Reviews. Neuroscience, 9(4), 267–277. [Paper]

Further Reading

• Casey, B. J., Getz, S., & Galvan, A. (2008). The adolescent brain. Developmental Review: DR, 28(1), 62–77. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2007.08.003
• Gardner, M., & Steinberg, L. (2005). Peer influence on risk taking, risk preference, and risky decision making in adolescence and adulthood: an experimental study. Developmental Psychology, 41(4), 625–635. http://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.41.4.625
• Mills, K. L., Goddings, A.-L., Clasen, L. S., Giedd, J. N., & Blakemore, S.-J. (2014). The developmental mismatch in structural brain maturation during adolescence. Developmental Neuroscience. http://doi.org/10.1159/000362328
• Somerville, L. H., & Casey, B. J. (2010). Developmental neurobiology of cognitive control and motivational systems. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 20(2), 236–241. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2010.01.006
• Somerville, L. H., van den Bulk, B. G., & Skwara, A. C. (2014). Response to: The triadic model perspective for the study of adolescent motivated behavior. Brain and Cognition. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2014.01.003
• Steinberg, L. (2010). A dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking. Developmental Psychobiology, 52(3), 216–224. http://doi.org/10.1002/dev.20445

“It’s OK, some people just aren’t good at math”.

We’ve all heard this before. In fact, some of us have probably even thought it about ourselves (“I’m just not a math person”, “I’ve just never been great at spelling”).

But there’s a problem with this mindset: Not only is it not true, it’s hurting our children.

By believing the myth that talent is hardwired in our brains, and that some of us are naturally better at certain things than others, it keeps kids (and us, as parents and educators) from knowing that with a little hard work, dedication, and self-confidence they can improve.

The idea that math ability, or any ability for that matter, is an immalleable trait perpetuates the harmful myth that intelligence and creativity are mostly genetic. Research has pointed to two orientations of individual’s conceptions of ability: incremental orientation and entity orientation, sometimes also thought of as Fixed and Growth mindset¹. Students who lean towards a more incremental orientation believe that intelligence is malleable and can improve with effort. On the other hand, individuals whose ideas of intelligence align with an entity orientation believe that their abilities are fixed; you are born with a certain level of intelligence and no amount of effort can change this.

In other words, incremental orientation suggests that what you do affects what you know. Entity orientation suggests that who you are affects what you can do.

An entity orientation can lead to students giving up in subjects that they aren’t excelling in, likely because they believe that they are inherently incapable of excelling and any efforts to improve would be wasted energy². Another study found that women who believed their math abilities were fixed and unchangeable showed less interest in math related tasks and were therefore more likely to “fall prey to the gender gap that exists in mathematics fields”³. In this way, an entity orientation may make people more susceptible to “stereotype threat”, or the tendency to believe that you are more or less prone to something because of the innate abilities of the groups that you are a part of.

A recent nationwide, longitudinal study also supports these findings, suggesting that both male and female students who believed that their abilities were fixed genetic traits may keep them from later majoring in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields⁴. One author of the study suggests that “students may need to hear that encountering difficulty during classwork is expected and normal,” and that anyone can be good at math, or any other subjects they’re struggling with. This mentality, what scientists refer to as the “growth mindset”, seems to equally benefit both boys and girls⁵ and suggest that teaching this message in schools will help encourage more girls to pursue careers in STEM fields.

However, there are still a disparagingly low number of women in STEM fields, with men outnumbering women 3 to 1⁶. Recent research is pointing to one possibility: academics that believe in the concept of innate talent may lead to bias. Findings suggest that the more professors thought that innate talent was necessary to succeed within certain fields (namely philosophy, music, economics, and math), the less likely women and African Americans would dominate that field⁷. This mindset may be limiting people’s opportunities before they even get started. In other words, it may be just as important for teachers, professors, and leaders to believe that students have an incremental orientation as it is for the students themselves.

So how can we fix this? For starters, we can focus on teaching people of all ages the science behind a growth mindset. The first step towards incorporating these ideas in the classroom is making sure that teachers themselves believe them. Innate talent is a myth and our brains are constantly developing, even into adulthood⁸. This is evident in the dynamic memories of New York City taxi drivers⁹ or even playing games like Tetris (which research has found may thicken the cortex, or outer layer of the brain, in adolescence¹⁰). And this concept isn’t only relevant to students who are struggling; even students who advance in math can improve their cognitive abilities¹¹.

Teaching students these facts about the brain can actually help them learn. A new study has found that students who struggle in school actually improve once they’ve been taught that intelligence isn’t fixed and can advance with hard work¹². Researchers have called this concept “mindset interventions” – students spend around 45 minutes reading and writing about articles on the brain’s ability to grow and develop. While improvement in grades is only around one-tenth of a letter grade, this is still really impressive considering students spend less than an hour on these ‘interventions’. The key to these interventions is a supportive teacher who “encourages students to take advantage of such opportunities”¹².

Psychologist Carol Dweck and colleagues have shown that experiences as early as elementary school often reinforce mental habits that support the myth that intelligence is a fixed, genetic trait¹³. She has found that children come to an unconscious assumption that tasks given at school (such as quizzes, in-class assignments, or homework) are actually opportunities to measure how smart they are rather than innovative ways to challenge their intelligence. For these children, performing poorly on these assignments shows that they lack intelligence rather than being an indicator of how much more they have to learn¹⁴. Because they believe that the main reason behind these tasks is to measure their competence, these kids try to pick the easiest task to complete, which unfortunately means that they aren’t challenging their intelligence and often lose out on the full benefits of learning.

Dweck and colleagues have also shown ways to improve kids’ outlooks about their intellectual ability. They explained to a group of at-risk junior high school students that intelligence is highly malleable and can be developed with hard work. Most importantly, they explained to these students that they were in charge of their intelligence and with hard work could guide their brain’s improvement during the learning process. What they found was that convincing students that they could make themselves smarter made them work harder and achieve higher scores. This effect was seen even more so in students who initially believed that intelligence was an innate, genetic trait. Dweck reported some very emotional stories of junior high school boys who were “reduced to tears by the news that their intelligence was substantially under their control”¹⁵.

While these kids felt as though they were given a second chance, they actually had the right tools all along. Teachers face many challenges that are outside of their control and that may impede the learning process; but this is one thing every educator can offer their students that may have tremendous impact on their lives. By adopting a growth mindset themselves, educators can model, nurture, and share the value of an incremental orientation. It’s important to start explaining to children while their young that they have full control of their futures, and intellectual abilities.

Just because something doesn’t come easily or naturally doesn’t mean they aren’t smart or can never be good at math – all it really means is that they may have to keep trying.

References & Further Reading

1. Linehan, P. L. (1998). Conceptions of ability: Nature and impact across content areas. Purdue University: PhD Thesis. [Dissertation]
2. Burnette, J.L., O’Boyle, E.H., VanEpps, E.M., Pollack, J.M., Finkel, E.J. (2013). Mind-sets matter: A meta-analytic review of implicit theories and self-regulation. Psychological Bulletin, 139(3), p. 655-701. [Meta-Analysis]
3. Burkley, M., Parker, J., Stermer, S.P., & Burkley, E. (2010). Trait beliefs that make women vulnerable to math disengagement. Personality and Individual Differences, 48(2), p. 234-238. [Journal Article]
4. Nix, S., Perez-Felkner, L., & Thomas, K. (2015). Perceived Mathematical Ability under Challenge: A Longitudinal Perspective on Sex Segregation among STEM Degree Fields. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(530). [Journal Article]
5. Good, C., Rattan, A., & Dweck, C. (2012). Why do women opt out? Sense of belonging and women’s representation in mathematics. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(4), p. 700-717. [Journal Article]
6. Miller, D. & Wai, J. (2015). The bachelor’s to Ph.D. STEM pipeline no longer leaks more women than men: a 30 year analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(37). [Journal Article]
7. Leslie, S., Cimpian, A., Meyer, M., & Freeland, E. (2015). Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines. Science, 347 (6219), p. 262-265. [Journal Article]
8. May, A. (2011). Experience-dependent structural plasticity in the adult human brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(10), p. 475-482. [Journal Article]
9. Maguire, E.A., Woollett, K., & Spiers, H. J. (2006). London Taxi Drivers and Bus Drivers: A Structural MRI and Neuropsychological Analysis. Hippocampus 16, p. 1091–1101. [Journal Article]
10. Haier, R., Karama, S., Leyba, L., & Jung, R. (2009). MRI Assessment Of Cortical Thickness And Functional Activity Changes In Adolescent Girls Following Three Months Of Practice On A Visual-spatial Task. BMC Research Notes, 174. [Report]
11. Miller, D. & Halpern, D.F. (2013). Can spatial training improve long-term outcomes for gifted STEM undergraduates? Learning and Individual Differences, 26, p.141-152. [Journal Article]
12. Yeager, D., & Walton, G. (2011). Social-Psychological Interventions in Education: They’re Not Magic. Review of Educational Research, 267-301. [Journal Article]
13. Dweck, C. (2007). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Ballantine Books: Random House, NY. [Book]
14. Edmondson, A. C. (2008). The Competitive Imperative of Learning. Harvard Business Review. [Web Article]
15. Nisbett, R. (2009). Intelligence and how to get it: Why schools and cultures count.W. Norton & Co: New York, NY. [Book]

 

At first glance, metaphor and science might seem to inhabit opposite ends of the things-we-learn-in-school continuum. We usually learn about metaphor through lessons on works like Langston Hughes’s Life ain’t been no crystal stair, and we associate science with topics like crystallization, the process of transferring a liquid to a solid. But metaphor is a mischief that doesn’t like to stay confined to the language arts classroom. It lurks in political discourse (the wealth gap), in music (you ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog), and – you guessed it – in education.

Analogies link two topics in order to bring attention to some of their commonalities, and metaphors are one way of using analogy in language. In most cases, metaphors describe a more novel target, an abstract concept that we can’t see, touch, or experience physically, by linking it to a familiar source concept, something more concrete that we do have experience with. For that reason, it might not be surprising that we often draw on real-world experiences to describe complex scientific concepts. The domain we’re drawing from is often called the source, while the domain we’re trying to explain or understand is the target. We describe molecules as excited when they have a lot of energy, and we learn that when they’re attracted to other molecules, they often form bonds. Whether these descriptions were intentionally metaphorical or not, our language to describe electron dynamics borrows heavily from the language we use to talk about human interactions, a context we’re much more familiar with than subatomic particle behavior. Once you start paying attention, metaphors seem to be everywhere: People who have diabetes are often told that insulin is the key that unlocks their cell doors. And the ozone layer is often described as a blanket that protects the earth. And DNA is often referred to as a blueprint or a recipe. Are these just convenient ways of talking? Or do the linguistic metaphors we use shape the way we think about the complex topics they describe?

Metaphor shapes thought
A growing body of research suggests that we don’t just use metaphors to talk; we use them to think as well. In a series of experiments by Paul Thibodeau and Lera Boroditsky¹, people read either that crime is a “wild beast preying on” or “virus infecting” the city of Addison (a fictional city). They then read some fake statistics, like “In 2004, there were 330 murders in the city, in 2007, there were over 500,” and they were asked what they thought Addison should do about the crime. People’s proposed solutions differed systematically depending on the metaphor they read earlier to describe the crime. Those who read that crime was a beast tended to make suggestions related to containing it and enforcing penalties, things people would probably suggest if an actual beast were loose in the town. The virus readers, on the other hand, were more likely than the beast readers to suggest that the city find the root causes of the crime problem and remedy those, in line with how they would likely eliminate a literal virus. People were still swayed by the metaphor even when they were given options to choose from instead of generating their own solutions. This work shows that the metaphor people encounter for a topic as complex as crime can influence the way they reason about it.

Metaphors in the classroom
How might metaphors affect students learning about complex topics? Since metaphors usually describe intangible ideas or processes by referring to things we actually have experience with, teachers often feel that they are an effective way to teach. In 1983, Dedre and Donald Gentner investigated this intuition more closely². They noticed that there are two common analogies for teaching electricity. The first is the water-flow analogy: just as water flows through pipes, electricity flows through the wires of an electrical system. The second is a moving-crowds analogy: the flow of electricity through the wires can be seen as similar to a crowd of mice running along an enclosed track.

Although both analogies demonstrate the gist of electricity flow, there are other features of electricity that they make less obvious. For example, what happens when multiple resistors are introduced in an electrical circuit? If it’s a series circuit (meaning that each component is connected in a series), the result will be different than if it’s a parallel circuit (meaning that the current divides in at least two paths before completing the circuit). The image below gives an example of each type of circuit.

If a student is thinking about the circuit as similar to water pipes, every blockage (created by a resistor) might seem to affect the circuit in the same way since all blockages slow flowing water down. However, this is not the case with electricity; in the case of a parallel circuit, more resistors actually create more current. Consistent with this idea, people who used the water-flow model to think about electricity were less likely to understand resistors than those who thought about electricity as moving crowds. The moving-crowds analogy was not a conceptual panacea, however: people using that mental metaphor had more trouble with questions about the effects of including multiple batteries in the circuit. This is likely because it’s not clear what the batteries in the circuit are analogous to in the moving mice model. In the water model, however, the battery’s analog is much clearer – it corresponds to a reservoir. This work shows that the metaphors used to teach complex concepts have consequences, both helpful and misleading, for how students understand the phenomena they describe.

Metaphor abounds in education about the brain as well. Because we can’t see or touch the brain and definitely can’t see or touch the many dynamic processes occurring within it, metaphors make neuroscience more tangible. The brain is frequently compared to a computer when we want to emphasize its ability to take in information from the world, “process” it, and behave accordingly. It’s a muscle when we want to emphasize our ability to change what we know and how we think. Metaphors are used to talk about the different parts of the brain, too. Neurons are often described and diagrammed as tree-like (which is the meaning of the Greek root in dendrite!), and neurons’ dynamics are almost inevitably talked about in terms of human communication. Neurons are seen as messengers that send and receive the messages underlying all cognition. And once those messages arrive at the frontal lobe – the area most known for its involvement in higher-level thinking like decision-making, inhibition, and rational thinking – we often say that they have reached the brain’s control center. In many cases, these metaphors shed light on the complexities of the brain that are far from our direct experience, but it’s important that we also keep in mind the hidden inferences each might contain about how the brain really works.

Effective metaphor use
Although metaphors can open doors to many useful insights, they can also encourage misunderstandings if students make unintended links between the source and target domains. The solution for avoiding these misleading inferences is not to abolish metaphor from the classroom completely. Not only would that be nearly impossible, but it would also bar us from the helpful insights that metaphors do foster. In addition, some research shows that metaphors can evoke more emotional responses in the brain (specifically, more amygdala and anterior hippocampus activation) than literal sentences containing the same content³. Since emotional stimuli tend to be remembered better than unemotional stimuli⁴, it’s an open question as to whether metaphor can help students learn by tapping into emotional cognitive resources.

Although it is difficult to provide advice for metaphors that will hold for all students, subjects, and topics, Benjamin Jee and colleagues have articulated some general guidelines that educators can follow to ensure that their analogies are as effective as possible⁵:

● Make sure that students can explicitly map the features of the analogy (a blueprint, for example) to the new concept (DNA). Instructors may first need to explicitly point out the mappings in order for the students to make the connections
● Acknowledge the incorrect inferences that students might make. Point out the ways in which DNA is not like a blueprint, in addition to the ways that it is.
● Keep the metaphorical source available. While explaining the ways that the analogy extends from one domain to another, keeping the source present helps students focus their mental energy on connecting the topics, instead of working to recall the example at hand.
● Introduce more similar source-target pairs before expanding to metaphors that have fewer surface similarities. The more similar the features are of the two concepts being compared, the easier it will be for students to extrapolate the conceptual similarities that the metaphor aims to highlight.

Instead, we might be better off adopting an everything in moderation mentality, a mentality that we strive to apply to many of the great things in our lives. When we indulge in a piece of chocolate cake, we savor it as something rich and satisfying. But we know that a diet consisting only, or even primarily, of chocolate cake would be harmful, so we try to balance our cake consumption with other foods. We can think of our metaphors in the same way: they’re worth savoring, but if consumed with reckless abandon, they may clog up our figurative arteries and prevent us from deep understandings.

References

1. Thibodeau PH, Boroditsky L (2011). Metaphors We Think With: The Role of Metaphor in Reasoning. PLoS ONE 6(2): e16782. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0016782 [Paper]
2. Gentner, D. & Gentner, D. (1983). Flowing waters or teeming crowds: Mental models of electricity. In D. Gentner & A. L. Stevens (Eds.), Mental models (pp. 99-129). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. [Chapter]
3. Citron, F.M. & Goldberg, A.E. (2014). Metaphorical sentences are more emotionally engaging than their literal counterparts. J Cogn Neurosci, 26(11), 2585-95. [Paper]
4. Hamann, S. (2001). Cognitive and neural mechanisms of emotional memory. TRENDS in Cognitive Science, 5(9), 394-400. [Paper]
5. Jee, B. D., Uttal, D. H., Gentner, D., Manduca, C., Shipley, T., Sageman, B., Ormand, C. J., & Tikoff, B. (2010). Analogical thinking in geoscience education. Journal of Geoscience Education, 58 (1), 2-13. [Paper]

Further reading:

1. Richland, LE, Zur, O., & Holyoak, KJ. (2007). Cognitive supports for analogies in the mathematics classroom. Science, 316(5828), 1128-1129. DOI:10.1126/science.1142103. [Paper]
2. Hendricks, R. (2015) A metaphorical tour of the brain. [Article]

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn”¹ 

The Issue

When we think about what we teach our students, the first thing that comes to mind is knowledge; the curriculum and standards are full of concepts students should learn and understand. As we think about it further, we realize it’s important that their knowledge does not remain inert: students should be able to apply what they know through skills like critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration. We also realize that our students should embody certain character qualities in how they engage with the world: grit, perseverance, mindfulness, etc.

We may think that sounds like a complete, multi-dimensional education.

But there is one more dimension we are missing: the “meta” dimension. “Meta” is a term that means “referring to itself”. In other words, students must learn how to learn. They must be reflective about their growth. They must learn to set goals, select strategies, and evaluate their progress. They must internalize a growth mindset, believing effort matters and approaching challenges with excitement.

The Research

Metacognition (the process of thinking about thinking) has been shown to enhance learning,²  and to transfer across disciplines.³ To illustrate how this works on the level of student behavior, we can look to mathematics education research.

In one study, students were compared to seasoned mathematicians. The students consistently selected a seemingly useful strategy and continued to apply it without checking to see if it was actually working. They wasted a significant amount of time on fruitless pursuits. The more experienced mathematicians on the other hand, exercised metacognition, monitoring their approach all along the way to see if it was actually leading to a solution or a dead end. Rather than just using what they had learned, they thought about how they were using what they had learned – and that made a huge difference.

Of course, with such an abstract learning goal, it is important for us to be precise with how to teach it. Traditional methods of improving students’ learning strategies often focus on prescribed procedures such as note-taking, self-testing, and scheduling. These typically result in initial motivation and some short-term improvement, but ultimately a reversion to old habits.⁴ While these tactics may work in the short term (e.g. to cram for an exam), they don’t actually result in a deep, lasting change.

In The Classroom – Generally

There are four general aspects to teaching metacognition:
1. Promoting general awareness of the importance of metacognition
2. Improving awareness of cognition through modeling
3. Improving regulation and applications of cognition
4. Fostering environments that promote meta-learning.

First of all, it is important to explicitly talk about metacognition. Since the challenge is to teach students to consciously monitor and regulate their cognition, they should first consciously think about it, and choose to set it as a goal. We can remind students that learning isn’t something that just happens, and it doesn’t happen the same way for all of us all of the time. By watching how we’re learning, making note of our struggles, strengths, and patterns, we can actually become better learners. If a student fails at a math problem, for example, it may be valuable to talk about how thinking processes, attitudes, motivation, and context may have played a role in how they chose their method of solving the problem; not just the correct but mechanical application of a mathematical procedure.

Next, although metacognition is largely a student-centric practice, teachers play an important role in fostering it by modeling appropriate metacognitive practices explicitly as they teach, so that students can follow the thought process of an expert, and eventually internalize it for themselves. That means saying how you’re thinking about your own thinking, and reminding students why that’s important. As you’re teaching a class on grammar, for example, you might start a dialogue about how you put the lesson together: “Why do you think I decided to teach it this way?” Students can also model good metacognitive practices for each other. This can sometimes be even more effective, as students are often closer to peers’ levels of metacognitive development.

Third, it is important to move beyond simple “awareness,” to regulation and application. You can imagine being aware you are procrastinating, or not studying in the most efficient way, and yet not taking action in accordance with your awareness. This step seems like a given, and yet it is important to highlight it separately, because it is often the biggest roadblock to improvement. Mapping out a plan to make improvements based on self-awareness can be a challenging and cognitively demanding undertaking. By carving out classroom time dedicated to developing these skills, we send the message that it’s normal for these changes to not happen automatically. They take dedicated thought, practice, and reflection. Students can work alone or in groups to reflect on common obstacles like procrastination or test anxiety, and how they’ve been working to overcome them. This shows students that strategies are possible, they take time to find, and ultimately, they’re worth it.

Finally, as described above, it is important to foster a classroom climate that promotes a view of intelligence as malleable with hard work (a growth mindset) and the goal of learning as mastery, (rather than performance). This way, students can focus on internalizing skills and competencies rather than achieving a high but short-term, superficial and non-transferable level of performance. This means talking about these things. It might sound like a lot of talking, but if we can spend a semester teaching biology, we can interweave conversations about how to learn biology, too.

You might be thinking something along the lines of: “This may be hard to grasp for many students. Sure, I can introduce it to the students who are already excelling, but those who are struggling already have so much on their plates!” Metacognition can always be developed in students in the context of their current goals and can enhance their learning⁵ as well as transfer of learning,⁶  no matter their starting achievement level. In fact, it may be most useful for lower-achieving students, as the higher-achieving students are most likely already employing strategies that have proven successful for them.⁷ 

Research has shown that for learning disabled and low achieving students, metacognitive training can improve behavior more effectively than traditional attention control training.⁸  It has even been shown to increase academic self-confidence of non-Caucasian students in the STEM disciplines,⁹ counteracting the effects of stereotype threat.

Action Items

When students get back an exam, how often do they glance at the grade, and never look at it again? Exams can be very useful teaching tools. Many teachers offer students incentives for correcting their mistakes, hoping this will encourage them to fill in their gaps. Going one step further, Marsha C. Lovett at Carnegie Mellon has developed “exam wrappers” to scaffold students in digging deeply into their meta-cognitive process, reflect on their strengths and weaknesses, and adapt their strategies. These wrappers are basically tools for reflecting on and enhancing learning post-exam, reminding students that the grade is not the end goal. Below is an example wrapper from a physics test.

Exam wrappers help students to spend time thinking carefully about their strategies, and learn from understanding their performance on a test. Of course, this doesn’t have to apply only to exams. Wrappers can be developed for and activity, including homework assignments, in-class exercises, projects, and so on. For some more examples, check out the Eberly Center website.

Metacognitive scaffolding can enhance all parts of the learning experience, not just exams. Wrappers can be designed for homework assignments, in-class exercises, projects, etc. Discussing the learning goals and rationale behind assignments before students begin assignments has been shown to help students master the content.

So What?

When we teach our students, we hope they will apply what they learn to their lives. In teaching ethics, for example, we believe that we are helping them to become more ethical people. But the evidence suggests that ethicists “are no likelier to donate to charity, to choose a vegetarian diet, to reply to student emails, to pay conference registration fees they owe, to return their library books, to vote in public elections, to stay in regular contact with their mothers, to be blood or organ donors, or to behave politely at conferences.”¹⁰ 

It turns out that we have been skipping a step: meta-learning is crucial for the translation of understanding into action.

Meta-learning helps within subjects, and it helps to reach outside of them. It makes us more likely to transfer what we know from one sphere of life to another, to figure out a more optimal way of achieving our goals, and to live according to our principles. And it is not only achievable in our classrooms, it can enhance learning at every stage.

 

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To learn more, check out Maya Bialik’s new book Four-Dimensional Education. [Hint: Meta-Learning is the fourth dimension; the first three are knowledge, skills, and character].

References & Further Reading

1. Psychologist Herbert Gerjuoy as quoted by Alvin Toffler, Futurist, in “Future Shock” (1970) [Book]

2. Schmidt, A. M., & Ford, J. K. (2003). Learning Within a Learner Control Training Environment: the Interactive Effects of Goal Orientation and Metacognitive Instruction on Learning Outcomes. Personnel Psychology, 56(2), 405–429. [Paper]

3. Ford, J. K., Smith, E. M., Weissbein, D. a., Gully, S. M., & Salas, E. (1998). Relationships of goal orientation, metacognitive activity, and practice strategies with learning outcomes and transfer. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(2), 218–233. [Paper]

4. E. Martin and P. Ramsden, “Learning Skills and Skill in Learning,” in J.T.E. Richardson, M. Eysenck, and D. Warren-Piper (Eds.), Student Learning: Research in Education and Cognitive Psychology (Guildford, Surrey: Society for Research into Higher Education and NFER-Nelson, 1986) as cited in J. Biggs, “The Role of Metacognition in Enhancing Learning,” Australian Journal of Education 32, no. 2, (1988): 127–138 [Paper]

5. Schmidt, A. M., & Ford, J. K. (2003). Learning Within a Learner Control Training Environment: the Interactive Effects of Goal Orientation and Metacognitive Instruction on Learning Outcomes. Personnel Psychology, 56(2), 405–429. [Paper]

6. Ford, J. K., Smith, E. M., Weissbein, D. a., Gully, S. M., & Salas, E. (1998). Relationships of goal orientation, metacognitive activity, and practice strategies with learning outcomes and transfer. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(2), 218–233. [Paper]

7. McKeachie, W. J. (1988). The need for study strategy training. In C. E. Weinstein, E. T. Goetz, & P. A. Alexander (Eds.), Learning and study strategies: Issues in assessment, instruction, and evaluation (pp. 3-9). New York: Academic Press. [Chapter]

8. Larson, K. a., & Gerber, M. M. (1987). Effects of Social Metacognitive Training of Enhanced Overt Behavior in Learning Disabled and Low Achieving Delinquents. Exceptional Children. [Paper]

9. Winkelmes, M (2013), “Transparency in teaching: Faculty share data and improve students’ learning” Liberal Education 99/2 (Spring 2013), 48-55. [Article] See also Illinois Initiative on Transparency in Learning and Teaching, for http://go.illinois.edu/transparentmethods

10. Schwitzgebel, E. (2013). The Moral Behavior of Ethicists and the Role of the Philosopher. [Paper]

The teenage years have long been described as a period of “storm and stress.” It’s a time for parental clashes, moodiness, risky behaviors, and a lot of cringe-worthy confessional songwriting.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Teen angst isn’t universal or inevitable, as these “storm and stress” behaviors are less pronounced in more traditional non-Western cultures¹.

Why is this the case? One hypothesis is that it has to do with Western culture’s focus on individualism. This focus might set the stage for conflict by putting a premium on exploration and risk as teens figure out how to be independent from their families.

What can families and educators do to help kids weather the storm of adolescence? Here, we’ll explore one potential buffer identified by developmental science: having meaningful familial obligations.

The “Terrible Teens”

Before we continue, it’s worth thinking about whether “storm and stress” is necessarily a bad thing. Some aspects of the underlying neurobiology may be related to teens’ interests in new learning experiences, especially those involving their peers. These experiences might teach valuable skills for navigating complex social decisions. Similarly, the “Terrible Twos” are as much about social, cognitive, and motor milestones as they are about moodiness and tantrums.

On the other hand, while risks taken by two year-olds are largely managed by their caregivers, risk in the teenage years may have more profound, adult consequences. Adolescence may also be a vulnerable period for developing mental health disorders, including addiction, depression, and psychosis². It’s important to keep this balance in mind: how do we support the benefits of the teenage experience while minimizing potential long-term damage?

Risk & Reward

Some researchers have theorized that teen behavior is influenced by two brain systems: a sensitive “acceleration” system and a developing “braking” system. The acceleration system is thought to be well-developed and sometimes hypersensitive during adolescence. It is related to teens’ penchant for rewards, like positive social feedback or financial gain³. The braking system is thought to still be developing during adolescence, such that it may be more difficult for them to control their impulses in rewarding situations. These theories suggest that the different rates of development for these systems may inform our understanding of adolescent risk-taking behavior.

Of course, this research is still new and many researchers believe this explanation does not capture the full complexity of adolescent development. Some think that the evidence connecting changes in the brain systems to real world behavior is not strong enough⁴. Others believe that adolescent risk taking might be more calculated or planned than we give them credit for.⁵

Despite ongoing questions in the field, we know that in some situations, teenagers tend to take on more risk in their decisions than other ages. We know that’s not true for all teenagers, or all of the time. So this led researchers to ask the question: why do some teenagers decide to play it safe?

Resisting Temptation

One 2013 study led by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign scientist Eva Telzer asked teens to complete risk-taking and inhibition activities in an MRI scanner.⁶

In the risk-taking activity, teens saw a series of red balloons with a dollar amount written on them. For each balloon, they were faced with two options:

Choice A: They could press a button to “cash out,” and win the dollar amount that they saw.

Choice B. They could press a button to inflate the balloon, in which case the balloon might increase in size/value. However, this could also lead the balloon to explode, in which case they would win nothing.

So, choosing to inflate the balloon was the risky option, but it came with the chance of a greater reward. In this case, researchers were interested in how this risky decision related to the value teens place on family obligations. In a survey, they asked teens how much time they felt they should spend helping out with household responsibilities and participating in family life, like attending meals and weekend activities.

The adolescents in the study that more strongly valued family obligation tended to cash out with lower balloon pumps. In other words, they were willing to give up a chance at a greater reward to avoid the risk of winning nothing. On average, these teens were more “risk-averse”.

Using fMRI, the scientists also found increases in blood flow to one region of the brain called the ventral striatum (suggesting that area was more active) as teens claimed bigger rewards while “cashing out” in the balloon game. The ventral striatum is a part of the brain often found to be sensitive to the size of rewards and highly involved in processing rewards.

Interestingly, teens that placed a higher value on family obligations had, on average, lower ventral striatum activity during the “cashing out” part of the balloon experiment. This suggests that those teens might have taken fewer risks because they weren’t as sensitive to the reward in the first place.

Learning When to Push the Brakes

With the same participants, researchers also studied teens’ regulatory abilities.

In the scanner, teens were presented with single letters in rapid succession. They were told to press a button to all of the letters, except for the letter X, which appeared 25% of the time. Participants got used to mostly pressing the button. But when the X appeared, they needed to quickly resist the impulse to respond.

Performance on this task wasn’t related to how teens thought of their family obligations. Teens that placed lower value their family obligations did just as well as those who thought that family obligations were really important.

However, Telzer and her colleagues saw differences in the dorsal-lateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), the upper portions of the prefrontal cortex that are more to the sides of the head than in the center. During inhibition, the dlPFC was more active, on average, for teens that more strongly valued family obligations.

What does this brain data mean?

While we can’t say for sure, generally, the prefrontal cortex is involved in regulation and cognitive control. In this study, there was a positive correlation between dlPFC activation during inhibition and how much teens reported they thought through their every day life decisions.

Taken together, this might suggest that for adolescents, valuing family relationships and obligations can be related to better self-regulation.

We know that families can be an important resource for developing kids of all ages. Could it be that these results are just related to some teens having better family support?

Researchers asked this question, and it turns out the answer is “no”. It seems that having a warmer, more supportive family isn’t related to risk taking or inhibition. Instead, how much teens valued their family obligations made the difference in these behaviors and related neural processes.

The researchers suggest that adolescents who value family obligations may have more practice prioritizing others’ needs and regulating their own. They might also be more motivated to stay out of trouble, as one kind of obligation to their family.

This may also help explain why teens tend to express lower levels of “storm and stress” behaviors in more traditional, family-obligation oriented cultures.

Implications for Education

How teens deal with the often-rocky transition to adulthood depends, in large part, on their social worlds. An aspect of this, the value that adolescents place on giving back to their families, may be related to less risky decision-making and better regulation.

Though challenging, one way to put this research into action is for educators to plan creative ways, like projects or community discussions of research, to encourage caregivers and teens to see the value in meaningful household responsibilities and family time. It might also be that these findings go beyond family obligations. Though more research needs to be done in this area, it’s plausible that having meaningful responsibilities in the classroom, school, and community may help teens’ well-being and the development of valuable regulatory skills.

What We Don’t Know

However, before considering sweeping changes, you may have noticed that the study we’ve been discussing doesn’t address causality. Causality is a way to describe the relationship between two things – namely that one thing caused the other. In this case, it’s the question of whether valuing family obligations causes what we see in the lab. Having meaningful family obligations might be protective for developing teens, but it could also be that teens who are risk averse and better at regulation just happen to also like structured, safe activities like family time and household chores.

Another caveat to this study is that its participants were Mexican-American teens, who are part of a culture that tends to value family obligations. These teens were also of low socioeconomic status. It’s not clear how well these particular results generalize to other cultures and groups.

Of course, limitations don’t mean these studies aren’t useful. Thankfully, in science, we can turn to a larger body of work to get more answers (and more questions!). In my next post, I’ll talk about a few studies in different groups looking at changes over time. This kind of long-term research is one way of disentangling the issue of causality by asking “Which came first?” I’ll also introduce the concept of “protective pro-sociality,” or the ways that doing things for others may benefit personal well-being. I’ll explore what this might mean for classroom structures and community service programming.

So far, we’ve examined one example of “protective prosociality”: Beyond being an affordable babysitting option, having teens care about giving back to their families might benefit their abilities to resist temptation and self-regulate.

 

References & Further Reading

1. Arnett, J. J. (1999). Adolescent storm and stress, reconsidered. The American Psychologist, 54(5), 317–326. [Paper]
2. Paus, T., Keshavan, M., & Giedd, J. N. (2008). Why do many psychiatric disorders emerge during adolescence? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9 (December), 947–957. [Paper]
3. Casey, B. J., Jones, R. M., & Somerville, L. H. (2011). Braking and accelerating of the adolescent brain. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21(1), 21–33. [Paper]
4. Pfeifer, J. H., & Allen, N. B. (2012). Arrested development? Reconsidering dual-systems models of brain function in adolescence and disorders. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(6), 322–329. [Paper]
5. Willoughby, T., Good, M., Adachi, P. J. C., Hamza, C., & Tavernier, R. (2013). Examining the link between adolescent brain development and risk taking from a social–developmental perspective. Brain and Cognition, 83(3), 315–323. [Paper]
6. Telzer, E. H., Fuligni, A. J., Lieberman, M. D., & Galván, A. (2013). Meaningful family relationships: neurocognitive buffers of adolescent risk taking. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 25(3), 374–87. [Paper]

• Steinberg, L. (2008). A Social Neuroscience Perspective on Adolescent Risk Taking. Developmental Review, 28(1), 1–27. [Paper]

 

“Mindfulness” is a buzzword popping up everywhere from the New York Times, prestigious science and education journals, to grade school and university curriculum. Headlines offer intriguing statements like, “Mindfulness meditation may have positive effects on stress, anxiety, and reshape the brain!” If you’re curious about the bold claims of mindfulness but are not quite sure what mindfulness is, you’ve come to the right place.

Like the start of a fresh classroom unit, our first post in this mindfulness series begins at the root of Bloom’s Taxonomy: defining what mindfulness actually is. What is its goal? We’ll start in digestible terms and even try out a brief practice before introducing scientific definitions and research application in the classroom.

As we explore deeper questions in meditation and education research, see this post as a way to reground in common understanding of mindful practices.

What mindfulness is not:

One of my favorite teaching strategies is to offer learning by way of contrast. In other words, first identifying what mindfulness isn’t. Thich Nhat Hanh, world-renowned peace leader and poet, reminds us of the simple opposite of mindfulness: forgetfulness.

“Most people are forgetful; they are not really there a lot of the time. Their mind is caught in their worries, their fears, their anger, and their regrets, and they are not mindful of being there. That state of being is called forgetfulness—you are there but you are not there.”¹

If you’re now laughing to yourself thinking about when you forgot where you placed your keys earlier this week, I mindfully invite you to come back to the present moment. Let’s now draw attention to what mindfulness is.

What mindfulness is:

Mindfulness, put simply, is being aware of and allowing yourself to be in the present moment. In the words of Thich Nhat Hanh:

“The opposite of forgetfulness is mindfulness. Mindfulness is when you are truly there, mind and body together. You breathe in and out mindfully, you bring your mind back to your body, and you are there. When your mind is there with your body, you are established in the present moment. Then you can recognize the many conditions of happiness that are in you and around you, and happiness just comes naturally.”¹

Right now, take a moment to observe yourself where you are. You may notice yourself sitting with your chin resting on your wrist in a chair, breath long and slow. You might be standing on a subway platform scrolling through this article on a phone, breathing in and out quickly, the strap of your bag tugging at your shoulder.

Now try taking a full inhalation deep into the belly and into the chest, feeling the ribs comfortably expand. What does it feel like to inhale fully? Now exhale slowly and completely, lungs and belly hollowing comfortably. What does it feel like to exhale fully? Continue this practice of fully inhaling and fully exhaling for a few more cycles of breath. How does your body feel? Where are your thoughts focused? Allow yourself to observe your own thinking without judgment and come back to your breathing.

Perhaps just now from focusing attention on the in-breath and out-breath you feel a little different. Scan your body and mind. Perhaps you find yourself feeling less tense and a little less caught up in the future or past. The changes may be subtle or distinct.

In mindfulness, the breath often serves as a physical tool to help bring the mind and body back to the moment at hand. Breathing awareness – observing the length and sensations of your breath – is one way of practicing being mindful. Body awareness – noticing the physical position of and sensations within your body – is another way. Awareness of emotions and thinking as well as different forms of meditation such as guided visualization, insight meditation or tuning “inward,” are also forms of mindfulness practice.

Mindfulness is historically rooted in Buddhist practices and Indian yoga, though evidence of mindful practices exists across cultures, religions, and even in acts of creating music, art, cooking, knitting, and exercise. As aptly suggested by Kabat-Zinn in framing mindfulness in the West, we are all inherently mindful as humans.

The scope of “mindfulness practices” is far-reaching and varied to meet the needs of children and adults, but the fundamental experience of all is similar: to practice being attentive to the present moment.

What is the goal mindfulness?

The intent of mindfulness is to relieve the natural human suffering that often occurs from maladaptive habits of which we’re unaware². In other words, the more we do something with or without our awareness, the more connected the underlying neural pathways become, making it more automatic even if the habit doesn’t make us feel good. For example, we might unknowingly rehearse self-critical thoughts that lead to negative emotions. Mindfulness is meant to help relieve us of those patterns by building awareness and practicing change.

Much of today’s neuroscience and psychology research seeks to relieve the same symptoms of human suffering – anxiety, depression, indecision, stress, lack of focus, and memory loss. Mindfulness has therefore been adapted for scientific study as possible treatment for wellbeing in children and adults. Growing data is promising, allowing mindful practice to begin making its way into more schools than ever before.

Overview of Mindfulness Research 

Researchers in mindfulness have adapted research-friendly definitions from Eastern practice. Ellen Langer, social psychologist and founding mindfulness researcher at Harvard University, defines mindfulness as “a process that cultivates sensitivity to subtle variations in context and perspective about the observed subject rather than relying on entrenched categorizations from the past.”³ The operating definition used by Jon Kabat-Zinn, professor of medicine, student of Thich Nhat Hanh, and originator of the renowned Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, is “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment.”⁴

The last four decades have featured numerous neurological and psychological studies that support mindfulness practices in adult populations. In healthy adults, mindfulness meditation has been associated with increased attention and reduction of stress.⁵ In physically, mentally, and emotionally-demanding professions like teaching, such practices like breath awareness and meditation may help teachers sustain their own well-being as leaders in the classroom.

More inquiry is under way on the benefits of mindful practice for adolescents and children. One pilot study of note by Karen Bluth and colleagues assessed the effectiveness of the BREATHE mindfulness program as compared to a substance-abuse control program in ethnically diverse, including at-risk adolescents. Students in the mindfulness program showed more reduction in symptoms of depression and stress as compared to students in the control group.⁶ Such results suggest that mindfulness may support adolescents in psychological wellbeing, making more room for academic and social success.

More studies in mindfulness are emerging in elementary and early childhood settings as well. Lisa Flook and colleagues recently found that second and third graders who were less self-regulated showed more improvement in executive functioning after participating in an 8-week long mindful awareness program (MAP) as compared with those in the control group.⁷ Flook since teamed with Richard Davidson, known for his brain meditation research with monks, to develop a mindfulness-based Kindness Curriculum (KC) to evaluate prosocial and self-regulatory behaviors in preschool children. The mindful kindness group showed greater gains in socio-emotional development and social competence as measured on report card grades by the teacher as compared to the control group, which demonstrated more selfish behaviors over time.⁸ Such findings suggest that mindfulness practice may developmentally appropriate not only for adults and adolescents, but for young children as well.

The present challenge in evaluating mindfulness research in academic settings is that most existing studies rely on teacher or parent observation of change in young students. As unbiased as we like to be as caregivers, our perceptions may be unintentionally skewed. Bias may also exist in adolescent reports of their own wellbeing.

With initial promise of mindfulness in children and young adults, however, more rigorous inquiry will likely involve magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and functional imagining to observe structural and functional changes in the brain. Given the jam-packed days we already face as teachers, corroborating or clarifying results from brain research could help inform time and type of mindful practice that is both reasonable and still beneficial for academic settings.

The journey of mindfulness in Western science and education may be just beginning, but its roots are deep and its practices simple. As research starts to stabilize in a crisper understanding and evaluation of mindfulness, implementation in the classroom will become clearer. For now, let’s mindfully navigate the bumps together and trust in its unfolding.

 

References & Further Reading

1. Hanh, T. N. (2010). Thich Nhat Hanh on the Practice of Mindfulness. [Web Article]
2. Vago, D. R. (2014). Mapping modalities of self-awareness in mindfulness practice: a potential mechanism for clarifying habits of mind. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1307: 28–42. [Paper].
3. Langer, E., Cohen, M., & Djikic, M. (2012). Mindfulness as a Psychological Attractor: The Effect on Children.Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 42(5), 1114-1122. [Paper]
4. Kabat-Zinn, J. (2003). Mindfulness-based interventions in context: Past, present, and future.Clinical Psychology-Science And Practice, 10(2), 144-156. [Paper]
5. Lazar, S. W., Bush, G. L., Gollub, R., Fricchione, G., Khalsa, G., & Benson, H. (2000). Functional brain mapping of the relaxation response and meditation. NeuroReport,11(7), 1581-1585. [Paper]
6. Bluth, K., Campo, R. A., Pruteanu-Malinici, S., Reams, A., Mullarkey, M., & Broderick, P. C. (2015). A school-based mindfulness pilot study for ethnically diverse at-risk adolescents. Advance online publication. [Paper]
7. Flook, L., et al. (2010). Effects of mindful awareness practices on executive functions in elementary school children. Journal of Applied School Psychology, 26(1), 70-95. [Paper]
8. Flook, L., Goldberg, S. B., Pinger, L., & Davidson, R. J. (2015). Promoting prosocial behavior and self-regulatory skills in preschool children through a mindfulness-based kindness curriculum. Developmental Psychology, 51(1), 44-51. [Paper]

I recently watched a Ted Talk¹ by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris where she addressed the effects of childhood trauma on health. Her 16 minute talk discussed how trauma leads to higher risks of heart disease, early death, and even lung cancer. At the heart of her talk was the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study², a groundbreaking research project that examined the relationship between the exposure to different types of trauma during childhood, and adult health outcomes. Listening to the passionate doctor speak about the life long implications of childhood trauma caused me to immediately think of the students I serve on a daily basis. If the exposure to childhood trauma had such dire implications for health later in life, what kind of effects were these experiences having on my students right now?

Urban Youth and Trauma

It’s no secret that urban youth, particularly minority urban youth, are exposed to higher rates of violence than in other areas³. One study found that 80% of “inner-city kids” has experienced one or more traumatic life events⁴. Recent studies done in urban hospitals have found that as many as 4 in 10 victims of violent crimes displayed many of the same symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as Vietnam War veterans. When put into perspective, this makes sense. War veterans are put into areas where their lives are constantly in danger. They may see their comrades killed right before their eyes, and then, once the war is over, they are sent home, where they are seemingly safe but they can’t immediately put their defense down. In the same way, young people who are repeatedly exposed to traumatic events may feel like they are in a warzone since, like soldiers, they are in a state where their safety is a constantly questioned. Like soldiers, even when put into seemingly safe environments, their defenses are up.

Different Types of Stress

As an educator, I’m often stressed. I always have more papers than I have time to grade, more parents to call than I can manage, lessons that need to be planned, data that needs to be analyzed and the list goes on. While I’ve become numb to the stress that my job entails, the everyday stress of being a teacher does not produce the kind of stress that a traumatic event does. Depending on the situation, your brain produces positive, tolerable or toxic stress responses. There are several different types of stress and how your brain and body reacts to each of them is different. Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child⁵ defines three types of stress responses as follows:

• Positive stress responses are a necessary part of development. They are characterized by brief increases in heart rate and elevations of hormone levels. Some situations that might trigger a positive stress response are the first day of school or getting a shot at the doctor’s office.
• Tolerable stress responses cause the body to react a bit stronger, the heart rate increases even more and hormone levels are higher. Events such as losing a loved one, or a natural disaster can cause this response in children. The severity of this stress response is directly correlated to the presence of supportive adults to help the child adapt.
• Toxic stress responses can occur with the experience of prolonged traumatic events, such as abuse (physical and emotional), neglect, or the exposure to violence without the support of an adult. Toxic stress responses cause the most severe reactions. This kind of prolonged activation of the stress response system can disrupt the development of brain functioning.

The stress that most people deal with on a daily basis most likely causes positive or tolerable stress responses. While sometimes uncomfortable, you are physiologically able to deal with this kind of stress. Traumatic events such as divorce, can cause a toxic stress response in children if they don’t have the support of a caring adult to help them navigate the situation. Neglect, abuse and household dysfunction are all types of traumatic experiences that can cause the body’s stress management system to be in overdrive. It’s important to note that the key factor that results in a toxic stress response is time. The dangers are greatest when children are faced with theses traumatic situations over extended periods of time, without a strong support system to help them get through it.

Implications for Educators

Not every student experiencing traumatic events will experience a toxic stress response, but it’s important for educators to be aware of this risk. One possible manifestation of such exposure is PTSD. Students suffering from PTSD are at risk for a plethora of health concerns as noted in Dr. Burke-Harris’ TED Talk, but aside from their health, PTSD has other implications. Children suffering from PTSD often have lower grade point averages and reading abilities, more missed days of school, and decreased high school graduation rates⁶. As educators, this is where we can make a difference. Knowing the signs and having strategies to help our students be successful can make a huge difference. Certain behaviors in a classroom setting may signify that a student is suffering from PTSD. Students should be referred to the school’s social worker if you suspect he/she is suffering from PTSD. While not all teachers are equipped to help students dealing with PTSD, there are steps that we can all take to help our students be successful in school.

What to look for and what to do about it⁷

1. Student is overly aggressive with other students.
If a student has an overly unexpected response to a situation in the classroom, (e.g. getting very angry in a situation that does not seem to warrant such a reaction), it’s important to remain calm. Modeling calm behavior in your tone and body language can make a huge difference in how a student reacts. When a student is in “defense mode” it is best to not engage with the student in a way that could cause more aggression. Give the student time to cool off and then address the situation later to prevent escalation.
2. Student seems withdrawn, sad or distracted in class.
Following a traumatic experience, it is very common for people to experience emotional and social isolation. This is something that can occur subconsciously without the student even realizing they are doing it. Simply checking in on the student and asking how he/she is doing is an important step. The student will need to rebuild his/her support system. Encourage the student to work with friends on group projects and to take responsibility in the classroom. These kinds of activities allow students to feel they have the support of consistent adults, in this case teachers, in their lives; a key to coping with traumatic events for children.
3. Student is engaging in self-destructive behaviors or showing signs of depression.
If you ever suspect a student is hurting him/herself, you should contact your school social worker immediately. Students who are suffering from depression should also be referred to a social worker. While wanting to help our students is natural, it’s just as important to know when something is too big for us to handle.

The Power of Resilience

While the topic of trauma and young people can seem disheartening, it’s important to remember that you do not have to be a psychologist to be a positive support system in your students’ lives. While trauma does have adverse effects on our youth, they can overcome, and we can help. As educators, it’s important that we educate ourselves on topics that affect the lives of our students. Teachers especially can play an important role in helping their students prevail through tough situations. We may not be able to control what happens to our students outside of our classrooms, but we can control how we react to the consequences; and for some students, that could make all the difference.

 

References & Further Reading

1. Burke-Harris, Nadine. (2015). How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime. Ted Conferences. [Ted Talk]
2. Felitti, V. J., & Anda, R. F., et al. (1997) The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [Study Report].
3. Roberts, A. L., Gilman, S.E., Breslau, J., Breslau, N., and Koenen, K.C. (2011). Race/ethnic differences in exposure to traumatic events, development of post-traumatic stress disorder, and treatment-seeking for post-traumatic stress disorder in the United States. Psychological Medicine, 41, pp 71-83. [Paper]
4. Collins, K., Connors, K., Donohue, A., Gardner, S., Goldblatt, E., Hayward, A., Kiser, L., Strieder, F. Thompson, E. (2010). Understanding the impact of trauma and urban poverty on family systems: Risks, resilience, and interventions. Baltimore, MD: Family Informed Trauma Treatment Center. [White Paper]
5. Center for the Developing Child (2015). Key Concepts: Toxic Stress. [Article]
6. Kataoka, S., Langley, A., Wong, M., Baweja, S., & Stein, B. (2012). Responding to Students with PTSD in Schools.Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 21(1), 119–x. [Paper]
7. Minnesota’s Association for Children’s Mental Health. (n.d.) Children’s Mental Health Fact Sheet for the Classroom: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. [Classroom Resource]

From the moment a child is born (and in some cases even before), their environment and experiences will have an impact on his or her brain. Equipped with our many senses and associated sensory organs, our dynamic perceptual systems help to shape and direct the constant changes that take place in our brains. From the molecular to the electrophysiological to the cortical, limited only by our developmental constraints, the human brain is constantly refining to better suit its context. “Neuroplasticity” is the umbrella term that refers to this incredible capacity to reorganize and adapt in response to our experiences. You may also have heard the term “plasticity”, which basically refers to the ability to change. Once thought to occur primarily during early childhood, we now know that this is an inherent quality of the brain that is maintained throughout the lifespan¹.

The Rise of Neuroplasticity

In the past decade, neuroplasticity has been a hallmark of an insurgence of neuro-franchises, engulfing the brain-training and “brain education” market with remarkable tenacity. Everywhere we turn we are assured that our so-called “self-directed” plasticity will make us smarter, happier, better. Sometimes referred to as “neuroessentialism”, this strategic adoption of neuroscientific concepts to enhance psychological or sociological claims has flooded the educational market².

The good news is that the power of these frameworks has effectively combatted once-held conceptualizations of the brain as a static, unchanging machine. Albeit an old concept dating as far back as the late 1800s, the notion of a plastic brain has only recently permeated the public sphere (reassuring those in an endless battle to learn Mandarin or “boost their IQ” that their efforts may not be in vain). Perhaps unsurprisingly, informing students of their ability to “change their own brain” can be a source of empowerment for disillusioned pupils with less-than-desirable test scores. However, to avoid misconceptions and exploitation, this type of information must be communicated carefully — and in a manner that is compliant with current scientific literature.

The Difference between “Science-Sounding” and Science

Over the past several years, teachers around the world have been on the receiving end of a number of brain-based learning packages that all too often contain startling levels of misinformation. What on the surface appear to be credible evidence-driven solutions are often comprised of sensationalized, distorted, or entirely fabricated concepts spun to sound like neuroscience. Pertinent examples include detailed diagrams on the categorization of students into “left-brain” or “right-brain” learners, as well as reports of encouragement for classroom instructors to teach skills in sync with their respective “periods of synaptogenesis” in order to effectively alter neural networks³. In both cases, the ideas sound like science, with one major problem – they aren’t.

These frameworks are a misattribution of funds at best, and damaging at worst. If a young girl is labeled “right-brained”, but develops a love for mathematics, who’s to say her trajectory won’t be shaped by the fact that she believes she has the wrong sort of brain for numbers? And how does the blanket claim that students need to sit in silence to form a new connection affect the child with ADD who already struggled to stay still through class? Without any real scientific basis for their effectiveness, such products were packaged to sell, not to serve.

These products can also obscure how important it is for good teaching practice to be responsive to factors such as attention deficits, learning disabilities and testing anxiety. Many children are affected by developmental and learning disabilities, which many brain training programs claim to “make smarter”. Such programs claim to “identify and attack the root problems of disability”, using mental exercises to train “cognitive skills”. For example, one training task from a popular program was designed to improve visual perception and alter neural growth by requiring students to match patterns under timed conditions⁴. The reality is that we don’t know much about what these tasks are doing, if anything. One reason is simply because the exact mechanisms of neuroplasticity and neural reorganization are still the subject of intense investigation. The other is that, in all likelihood, it’s not going to be the same for every student. Making unsupported promises to struggling students doesn’t always end well: they may not see progress, and may attribute such failure to themselves rather than the program.

Neuroplasticity is just one example of a concept from neuroscience that has been irresponsibly translated by unregulated organizations for financial gain. It’s equally important to note that not all brain-based programs lack evidence. Some are excellent applications of carefully researched phenomena. The problem is, of course, figuring out how to tell the difference. There’s no easy answer or foolproof method to this, but a good starting point is getting to know how the concept in question (in this case neuroplasticity) does work, so that we’re less susceptible to products that pitch us on ways that it doesn’t.

So, What Do We Know? Neuroplasticity through the Lens of Sensory Impairment

Neuroplasticity has been studied in many ways. One of the most interesting and fruitful is through the lens of sensory deprivation or impairment (e.g. blindness, deafness). Indeed, children born without one or more senses have historically been viewed as “impoverished” by developmental theory. The focus has often been on the devastating effects that their disabilities may have on their learning, academic performance and quality of life.

Fortunately, considerable research from the past decade has shown that is possible for children living with sensory impairment to adapt remarkably well, often superseding learners with intact sensory function. In fact, behavioral work stretching back to the early 1990s has revealed blind participants outperforming their normally sighted counterparts on a wide range of tasks including (but not limited to) tactile identification and discrimination, sound localization and identification, as well as enhanced olfactory abilities⁵. Such enhancements include executive functions (e.g. memory) and navigational skills. For example, one study that used a route-learning wayfinding task to compare blind (including congenital blindness as well as individuals who went blind later in life) and normally sighted participants found that blind participants made fewer errors in following a pre-memorized path compared to the normally sighted wayfinders⁶. This suggests that increased memory use and navigational skill are employed to compensate for their lack of sight, not only in the case of those who are blind at birth, but also for those who lose their vision later in life.

Thanks to functional neuroimaging methodologies, we have learned about the occurrence of crossmodal plasticity, which means that one or more physical brain structures are recruited to perform the function of a different sense. When we say “recruit”, we mean that there is an area or network in the brain that tends to be involved with that behavior. In the blind, evidence of crossmodal reorganization is evident during tactile (tasks that involve touch) or auditory tasks. Structures of the brain that are typically responsible for vision and visual processing are instead recruited to relay the necessary and accessible sensory information from the tactile or auditory stimuli^{7, 8}. In other words, no areas of the brain go to waste – they are just used in different ways to make sensory processing as efficient as possible for that individual. This kind of evidence makes it apparent that the brain’s ability to reorganize itself is not only striking from a research perspective, but can also provide remarkable benefits to atypically developing brains.

Sensory impairment research has also shed light on the “dark side” of neuroplasticity; namely the maladaptive consequences of neuroplastic changes. For example, adult deaf patients with newly implanted cochlear devices struggle to use their newfound hearing to learn and use language, often choosing to continue with sophisticated communication skills such as ASL or lip-reading instead⁹. Similar struggles have been observed in blind participants in vision rehabilitation programs whose diagnoses were due to curable conditions (e.g. congenital cataracts). Furthermore, it has been suggested that –in some cases — areas of the brain most susceptible to neuroplastic changes may be the same areas considered most vulnerable in individuals at risk for developmental or learning disabilities. For example, one study comparing the ability of deaf and dyslexic individuals to process motion showed deaf participants were indeed better at processing motion than their dyslexic counterparts. In other words, brain processes that are most modifiable by experience may be most vulnerable in developmental disorders and the most compensatory enhancement following sensory deprivation¹⁰.

What this tells us about Science-Sounding Products

These types of findings highlight the need to not take neuroscientific concepts like neuroplasticity at face value. Not only can it be misleading, but given the great deal of scientific inquiry still to be done, the implementation of such concepts into a training or education paradigm is often meaningless without a strong scientific basis for their effectiveness within the context of the product in question. Indeed, according to the “synaptogenesis” theory mentioned previously by a popular training program, those who go blind later in life would be unlikely to regain necessary behavioral skills in light of them having surpassed the so-called “window of opportunity”. Finally, the chorus that neuroplasticity is an invariably positive manifestation is inaccurate and misrepresentative.

To say these findings are but the tip of the iceberg is an understatement. Not only in terms of our somewhat limited understanding of the underlying mechanisms of the brain’s plasticity, but also for the potential implications for teaching, education research and rehabilitation. The surplus of neuroscience-sounding misinformation dominating education is not only dangerous and nonsensical, but also takes away from the much more consequential strides actually made by cognitive neuroscience. The exact mechanisms of plasticity remain a source of ongoing investigation, but the current evidence in both normal and atypically developing brains is a crucial starting point for evaluating the merits of neuroplasticity-wrapped educational products.

Unfortunately, these products are unlikely to go away any time soon, and any attempts to regulate them are not yet reliable. It’s impossible to know everything, but by arming ourselves with knowledge of the science, we can begin to vet product quality and promote appropriate application within classroom settings; and perhaps most importantly, take steps towards eradicating the misuse of neuroscientific concepts and perpetuation of neuromyths inside and outside of the classroom.

 

References & Further Reading

1. Greenwood, P.M. (2007). Functional plasticity in cognitive aging: review and hypothesis. Neuropsychology. 16, 657-673. [Paper]

2. D Hanson. (2014, January 23). Neuroessentialism: The “Dark Side” of Focus on Brain Plasticity? [Web blog].

3. Goswami, U. (2006). Neuroscience and education: From research to practice? Nature Reviews Neuroscience Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 406-413. [Paper]

4. Schultz, M. (2015, July 5th). Brain Training center treats learning disabilities. WUFT.org. [Web Article]

5. Hirsch, G.V., Bauer C.M. and Merabet, L.B. (2015). Using structural and functional brain imaging to uncover how the brain adapts to blindness. Annals of Neuroscience and Psychology, 2, 5. [Paper]

6. Fortin, M., et al. (2008). Wayfinding in the blind: larger hippocampal volume and supranormal spatial navigation. Brain, 131(11), 2995-3005. [Paper]

7. Sadato N., et al. (1996). Activation of the primary visual cortex by Braille reading in blind subjects. Nature. 380, 526–528. [Paper]

8. Merabet, L. B. and Pascual-Leone, A. (2010). Neural reorganization following sensory loss: the opportunity of change. Nature Reviews Neuroscience ,11, 44-52. [Paper]

9. Giraud A.L., Lee H.J. (2007). Predicting cochlear implant outcome from brain organization in the deaf. Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience, 25, 381–390. [Paper]

10. Stevens, C., Neville, H. (2006). Neuroplasticity as a double-edged sword: deaf enhancements and dyslexic deficits in motion processing. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18(5), 701-14. [Paper]

 

Science seems to always challenge our intuitive understanding of the world. Even as an adult, I am constantly confronted with new scientific advancements and discoveries that don’t always line up with my preconceived notions. These ideas, be it physics or biology, can be considered counterintuitive in that they often present themselves in ways that are counter to one’s intuitive notions¹).

One of the most challenging and powerful of these concepts, the theory of evolution by natural selection, also happens to be one of the most rewarding; its ability to explain the complexity of life on earth, and even (to a certain extent) human nature, is unprecedented. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most controversial, especially in the United States. Reports suggest that only 60% of American’s believe in evolution, and even some of those who claim to don’t seem to fully grasp its implications ².

Why is the concept of evolution so hard to understand and accept?

Recent research lead by Deborah Kelemen^3,4 and Will Gervais ⁵ is helping to explain this. Previous research has shown that belief in evolution can be predicted by many demographic and cultural factors, such as religious ideology ⁶, political affiliation ⁷, and even what country you live in ⁸. However, research within the fields of psychology and the cognitive science of religion are beginning to uncover the cognitive mechanisms that underlie this phenomena. This new research also hints at some important strategies: we should begin teaching children how to grasp concepts like evolution while they are young, rather than waiting until they are teenagers.

Regardless of their religious beliefs, adults, and especially children, are inclined to see design and purpose everywhere^9,10. This tendency may be one of the main contributors as to why individuals who favor intelligent design or creationism are reluctant to incorporate evidence for evolution into their worldview. Kelemen has documented this way of thinking, termed “promiscuous teleology”, in children as young as preschool, though it is an inclination we all share throughout the lifespan. She has found in previous research that when children were asked what the purpose of a sharp rock was, they responded with purposeful statements like “Rocks are jagged so animals can scratch themselves”¹¹. By elementary school (ages 6-10), kids begin to develop their own “folk biology” theories (that is, how people classify and reason about the organic world) about the world around them, giving explanations for biological facts in terms of intention and design.

This can be seen in children’s design-driven descriptions for the purpose for a giraffe’s long neck – so they can reach the leaves at the top of the trees. This suggests that believing in creationism may be a very natural tendency, and that introducing evolutionary frameworks in childhood may help lay the groundwork for balancing promiscuous teleology with analytical thinking.

To see whether young children could understand the mechanism of natural selection before the alternative intentional-design ideas had fully set in, Dr. Kelemen and colleagues presented 5- to 8-year-olds with a 10-page picture book that illustrated an example of natural selection with a fictional character (the “pilosas”). In the book, the pilosas are described as insect eating mammals, with some of them having thick trunks and some with thin. The children are then told about a sudden shift in climate that drives all of the insects into narrow underground tunnels. Because of this, the thin-trunked pilosas were the only ones to be able to reach the insects, causing those with thick trunks to die off. Therefore, the next generation of pilosas all had thin trunks.

Before they heard this story, the children were asked to explain why a different group of fictional animals had a particular trait. Most of them, consistent with previous research, gave explanations based on intentional design. However, after they heard the “pilosas” story, the answers they gave were very different. They began to understand the basic tenants of the theory of evolution by natural selection. Even three months later, their understanding and analytical explanations persisted.
While Dr. Kelemen’s research sheds light on our natural tendencies to think of evolution as a counterintuitive concept, there are still questions as to how the differences between individuals (such as religiosity, political orientation, or other demographic factors) produce different beliefs about evolution, and how these individual differences interact with culture and environment.

New research by Will Gervais has found an association between cognitive style and beliefs about evolution. Cognitive style refers to two distinct mental systems that everyone uses for processing information: one system provides quick and effortless intuitive responses, where as the other system relies on more effortful and analytical processing.

In an experiment with hundreds of Kentucky undergraduates, Gervais presented participants with a common task to measure the extent to which they would engage in immediate, intuitive judgments or more explicit, analytical deliberations (which can sometimes override the initial intuitive response). He found a significant relationship between the degree to which individuals would engage in more analytical styles of thinking and their endorsement of evolution. These results still held significant even after controlling for religious beliefs and political conservatism.

Gervais’ research presents three possibilities: (1) the more an individual engages in reflective, analytical thinking, the more likely it is that they will essentially ‘override’ their natural intuitive responses when presented with evidence, thus making concepts like evolution easier to grasp, (2) some individuals may naturally have stronger intuitive responses than others, which, though beneficial in some situations, may make it particularly challenging to successfully override these teleological thoughts, and (3) an individual’s cognitive style (analytical or intuitive) may be affected by cultural input. Within this third possibility, for individuals who grow up in an environment where intellectual design and creationism are more widely accepted, overriding these natural intuitions isn’t just about implementing more analytical, reflective thinking, it also involves overriding the norms of one’s community and upbringing.

This research helps to explain why counterintuitive concepts like evolution aren’t just controversial for social or scientific reasons, but are also controversial for cognitive ones. It also helps us understand the most recent Gallup poll results, which found that nearly half of the US population rejects evolution, with creationism remaining stable for the past 30 years¹²*.

There seems to be a constant struggle over teaching evolution in U.S. schools¹³, which makes it even harder for educators in anti-evolution policy states to take action. However, the above research suggests that educators and parents should start to introduce these ideas to children when they are young, rather waiting until high school, and organizations, like the National Center for Science Education, are working to support communities in this endeavor.

Deborah Keleman has shown that children as young as 5 can grasp these concepts (and retain the information); they just need to be taught through innovative ways like storytelling. Over the past few years some excellent evolutionary children’s books have come out on the market, such as Great Adaptations, Grandmother Fish, and Our Family Tree to name a few. These can be excellent tools for teaching these concepts, second only to applying some imagination and having children create their own species and animals like Dr. Keleman’s “pilosas”. These practices should be written into the curriculum for each grade, allowing the concepts to be reinforced each year.

Counterintuitive concepts like evolution can be challenging to grasp for anyone. By taking a deeper look at the underlying cognitive reasons for this, we can improve our future approaches to science education and policy, and work towards better understanding how our social and cultural environments affect our minds — and more importantly, our children’s minds.

*It is important to note that science deals with evidence and makes no claims on the existence of God, and while many people believe evolution to be consistent with their religious beliefs¹², it is still essential for public schools to focus on and implement only those theories and concepts that are supported by evidence and analytical thinking structures. Personal beliefs such as religion can then be handled and discussed outside of the classroom.

References & Further Reading

1. Champagne, A. B., Gunstone, R. F., & Klopfer, L. E. (1985). Instructional consequences of students’ knowledge about physical phenomena. In L. H. T. West & A. L. Pines (Eds.),Cognitive structure and conceptual change(pp. 61-90). New York: Academic Press. [Book]
2. Pew Research Center. (2013). Public Views on Evolution. [Survey Report]
3. Kelemen, et al. (2014) Young Children Can Be Taught Basic Natural Selection Using a Picture Storybook Intervention. Psychological Science, p.1-10 [Paper]
4. Kelemen, D. (2012). Teleological minds: How natural intuitions about agency and purpose influence learning about evolution. In K. S. Rosengren, Brem, Evans & Sinatra (Eds.), Evolution challenges: Integrating research and practice in teaching and learning about evolution. Oxford: Oxford University  [Book Chapter]
5. Gervais, W. (2015) Override the controversy: Analytic thinking predicts endorsement of evolution, Cognition, 142, p.312-321 [Paper]
6. Pew Research Center. (2009). Religious Differences on the Question of Evolution. [Survey Report]
7. Pew Research Center. (2013). Public Views on Evolution. [Survey Report]
8. Miller, J.D., Scott, E.C., & Okamoto, S., (2006) Public Acceptance of Evolution, Science, 313 (5788), 765-766. [Paper]
9. Kelemen, D. & Rosset, E. (2009). The human function compunction: Teleological explanation in adults. Cognition, 111(1), 138–143. [Paper]
10. Kelemen, D. (2004). Are children ‘intuitive theists’? Reasoning about purpose and design in nature. Psychological Science, 15(5), 295–301. [Paper]
11. Kelemen, D. (1999). Why are rocks pointy? children’s preference for teleological explanations of the natural world. Developmental Psychology, 35(6), 1440-1452. [Paper]
12. (2014). Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design. [Report]
13. Kopplin, Z. (2014). Bill Nye the Science Guy is trying to reason with America’s creationists. The Guardian. [Web Article]