The Myth of the Supertrait
I loved the conclusion of this book, plain and simple. It really tied it all together and, I think, puts it into perspective for those who might have felt challenged by it all. I have debated on how to write this last post because it seemed that it was going to be a very long one in order to cover it all. Then I debated on just keeping it short and sweet. But what I realized is that I just wish everyone would read this book! Then we could have some very interesting conversations! I now understand why my friend, Tara, has actually read and reread this book very soon after buying it. There is so much there! And so many different ways to think about it! So, if you decide to read it at some later date, let me know. I think this will always be a worthy topic!
The eventual conclusion of the book states that we may need to give up a few of our preconceived perceptions about children in order to learn more about them. Bronson and Merryman sum it up as follows:
". . . the goal o f having a deeper understanding of children is not futile. In fact, it's by studying these apparent contradictions very closely that deeper understanding emerges. It's when children are at their most mysterious that we, their caregivers, can learn something new."
Several super interesting studies on gratitude were the main topic of this chapter. I've got to give you some info on each one to see how they build on each other and get us to the conclusion.
Dr. Robert Emmons at UC Davis had his college students keep a gratitude journal once a week for 10 weeks. At the end of the study, these students were 25% more happier, more optimistic about the future, got sick less often and got more exercise. He repeated it with undergrads who wrote daily for 2 weeks, and then he surveyed their friends and got similar results, results that even their friends noticed. His work demonstrated that by paying attention and being grateful, our perceptions can be changed.
This work inspired Dr. Jeffrey Froh, a psychology professor at Hofstra University on Long Island and also a psychologist for a local school district. He had been struck by the sense of entitlement and materialism with the students at his school and so began the first study of gratitude with school children. Eleven classrooms with 221 students (which included a cross-section of the entire school, including gifted and special ed children) participated. Four classes wrote daily in gratitude journals for 2 weeks. Three classes were control groups (meaning that nothing changed for them), and the last four classes were told to list 5 hassles from each day. All classes were given pre- and post-questionnaires that measured the students' life satisfaction, gratitude, and emotions. The results of the research? No change in the class that had written in their gratitude journals, and the control group actually experienced more gratitude. The group that had focused on their hassles was only slightly worse statistically than the rest. Froh then questioned why the results were so different with the school-age children than with his college students and reread the children's diary entries. What he found was that they wrote the same thing everyday. He realized he was going to need to address that in his next study. And he also realized that he needed to change on of his preconceived notions: that middle schoolers should respond the same way as college students to these gratitude journals.
As Froh did some further research, he learned that children will not experience gratitude unless they realize that this nice life isn't accidental, that it is intentional, costly and beneficial. The next question then was whether or not younger children get this. His next study involved 3rd-, 8th- and 12th-graders and a parochial school. Because of the religious background, Froh knew that these kids knew about sacrifice, prayer and gratitude, so he had them do something different. They were to write a letter to someone and let them know how special they were. They then were to read the letters to these people fact-to-face. Supposedly the letters were amazing, but again, the data did not show that the experiment had been successful. As he further studied the data, though, he realized that some children had benefited while others had not, and they were essentially canceling out each other. The children who benefited were the children who were typically low in positive affect, who rarely experienced positive feelings such as hope, excitement and inspiration. Another interesting twist was that the children who were generally more optimistic and grateful felt less happy and grateful. According to the authors, "Froh is considering that his intervention led those children to realize just how much of their lives depended on someone else's whim or sacrifice. They didn't feel happy that people were always there doing things for them. Instead, it made them feel powerless."
Bronson and Merryman included Froh's work in the Conclusion, not to demonstrate that teaching children about gratitude is futile, but "because we think that his entire process is also illustrative of a much larger point. When we looked back at all the enormity of research that this book was built on, an interesting pattern was apparent. Most of the noteworthy insights into child development were revealed when scholars dropped the same two assumptions as Froh had."
Bronson and Merryman coined the first assumption the Fallacy of Similar Effect. Children do not necessarily work the same way as adults. The cite examples from throughout the book:
- Lack of sleep affects children exponentially more than adults
- Measured intelligence in children goes up and down.
- Children need explicit statements about race, not just a diverse environment.
- Children need play for learning whereas adults look at play as a way to let off steam.
- Praise is very effective on adults in the workplace but not so much on children.
The second assumption to drop, according to the authors, is the Fallacy of the Good/Bad Dichotomy. Positive traits, such as gratitude, do not necessarily stave off or "rescue" children from negative behavior. We, as parents, believe that "good" behavior and positive emotions, etc. will protect a child from "bad" things like stealing and peer pressure. Here are a few examples from studies in the book that demonstrated that is not the case:
- A child's dishonesty was shown as a "sign of intelligence and social savvy."
- Deception in a teenager is very necessary part in developing their adolescent identity.
- Sibling relationships can be dramatically affected by a "blind devotion to fairness."
- Children can use empathy to manipulate their friends.
- Imprisoned felons were shown to have higher emotional intelligence than the population as a whole.
Bronson and Merryman say, "It isn't as if we've now abandoned our desire for children to acquire honesty and other virtues. (And we're still telling kids to "play nice" and say thank you.) But we no longer think of them [virtues] as Supertraits--moral Kevlar." (Love that metaphor!) They go on to say that we need to not look at "good" and "bad" as being opposite ends of a spectrum (which then makes it easier to be judgmental about them), but instead to realize that they are each on their own spectrum and therefore, mutually independent. And here we come back to their final words that were at the top of this
post . . .
It's when our children are at their most mysterious that we, their caretakers, can learn something new.
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