Metadata
- Author: David Robson
- Full Title:: Why people reward innate talent over hard work
- Category:: 🗞️Articles
- Document Tags:: Grit, Grit,
- URL:: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230517-why-people-reward-innate-talent-over-hard-work
- Finished date:: 2023-05-27
Highlights
But your grit may also be an innate ability (or from your socio-economic background)
recent psychological research shows overemphasising the importance of hard work could backfire in many professional situations – thanks to a phenomenon known as the “naturalness bias”. These studies suggest people have greater respect for those with an innate gift than for those who have had to strive for their success. (View Highlight)
The author Malcolm Gladwell (View Highlight)
By that logic, he proposed, someone who had to work hard to achieve success has essentially gone against their “nature”, and their achievements would be respected less. (View Highlight)
Surprisingly, these judgements directly contradicted the performers’ overtly expressed beliefs about the makings of musical success. When they were directly questioned on what factor was more important for musical achievement, most chose effort over talent. Given this result, Tsay suspects the naturalness bias may be a result of the brain’s non-conscious processing (View Highlight)
When asked to directly compare various candidates, Tsay’s participants were willing to invest in entrepreneurs with poorer intelligence test scores (by 30 IQ points), fewer years of leadership experience, and $31,000 (£24,865) less in accrued capital – simply because they were said to have reached their current success through their natural talent (View Highlight)
Leaders, she suspects, may pay lip service to the growth mindset while still showing an unconscious preference for people who appear to be innate talents (View Highlight)
While people may prefer natural geniuses for jobs that require a single star performer to shine, Brown found that people tend to prefer strivers for tasks that require cooperation (View Highlight)