I read an interesting developmental psychology paper a while ago (might see if I can dig up the link later) about the hoop-jumping-cleverness motivation. The gist was that according to how children are praised, they become either experience-focused or recognition-focused. This mostly relates to how they tackle problems: the first sees the problem as an opportunity to learn, and the second as an opportunity to demonstrate their natural talent.
For simple problems, both perform roughly the same. For extended, difficult and involved problems, however, they diverge: with greater opportunity to expand their skillset, the experience-focused person will persevere until the problem is solved to their satisfaction, and therefore gain a greater reward in meeting stiffer challenges. The recognition-focused person will quickly get to a point where the reward (the admiration of others) is no longer commensurate with the effort of solving the problem. This leads them to seek out easier challenges and demotivates them from pursuing larger goals.
Unfortunately, the education systems currently in place everywhere are geared to strongly influence people, particularly naturally clever people, toward a recognition-focused mindset. Such people might cruise through school or even an undergraduate degree without having to resort to anything other than raw talent, but eventually they will encounter big, important problems that require genuine effort and perseverance, Einstein's "99% perspiration". Then they are fucked.
Only tangentially related to your post, but I thought it was interesting and rather concerning, both on a personal and societal scale.
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For simple problems, both perform roughly the same. For extended, difficult and involved problems, however, they diverge: with greater opportunity to expand their skillset, the experience-focused person will persevere until the problem is solved to their satisfaction, and therefore gain a greater reward in meeting stiffer challenges. The recognition-focused person will quickly get to a point where the reward (the admiration of others) is no longer commensurate with the effort of solving the problem. This leads them to seek out easier challenges and demotivates them from pursuing larger goals.
Unfortunately, the education systems currently in place everywhere are geared to strongly influence people, particularly naturally clever people, toward a recognition-focused mindset. Such people might cruise through school or even an undergraduate degree without having to resort to anything other than raw talent, but eventually they will encounter big, important problems that require genuine effort and perseverance, Einstein's "99% perspiration". Then they are fucked.
Only tangentially related to your post, but I thought it was interesting and rather concerning, both on a personal and societal scale.