Learn the science behind personal growth, and how to start your growth journey despite the pandemic lockdown. This is Part 1 of two articles.
In the movie The Martian, astronaut Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, experienced a most extreme form of lock-down. He was on another planet by himself and lacked communication with mother Earth. He had minimal resources, no ready water and even had to grow his own food. His response to the challenge: science his way out of it.
Our own lock-down in the current pandemic is no way as extreme. Despite not being able to do a lot of things we used to be able to do, there are still plenty of ways to learn and grow. I distil my readings to date into 6 steps to help science your way to personal growth.
1. Adopt beliefs conducing to personal growth
Growth Mindset
Carol Dweck is a Stanford professor of psychology. Her work showed that people’s beliefs can have profound effects on what they want and whether they succeed in getting it. These findings are made popular by her book “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success“. She distinguishes between people with a “fixed mindset” and those with a “growth mindset”. People with a fixed mindset believe that success is based on innate abilities. People with a growth mindset believe that success is based on personal endeavours. Dweck advocated for a growth mindset.
Critics argue that her research findings could not be replicated independently. These seem to focus on academic performance in the areas of numeracy and literacy. I find it curious to reject a general approach to life simply because it has a dubious impact on one particular aspect (numeracy and literacy scores).
I think about Dweck’s theory alongside the locus of control theory developed by Julian B. Rotter in 1954. In this theory, people with a strong internal locus of control believe life outcomes derive primarily from their actions. In contrast, people with an external locus of control attribute life outcomes to external parties or events. Studies found that people with an internal locus of control had better life outcomes (e.g. better health, less gambling) than those with an external locus of control.
If developing a growth mindset enhances an individual’s internal locus of control, hence resulting in better outcomes in other areas of life, surely it is worth adopting!
Pronoia
I first learnt of the word “pronoia” from Kevin Kelly’s 68 bits of unsolicited advice on turning 68 years old. It describes a state of mind in which a person thinks the world around them conspires to do them good. This chimes with the bible:
“God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God”.
~ Romans 8:28
In the 2020 March edition of Psychology Today, the leading article, Coming to Terms with Coincidence, advocated a middle-of-the-road view between pronoia and paranoia. The article put forward the idea that the world is fundamentally random, and that coming to terms with it can be liberating and empowering. Importantly, the article also acknowledged that:
“The universe may not be purposeful, but humans are. Purpose and meaning emerged in the universe with life itself.”
~ Coming to Terms with Coincidence, Psychology Today, 2020 Mar
As a human being, I seek purpose and meaning. I find a belief system essential in guiding me on this journey in a messy world. Hence, I choose pronoia.
2. Frame life-changing questions
The second of 6 steps to science your way to personal growth has to do with framing questions.
In medicine, PICO (patient/intervention/comparator/outcome) is a well-accepted methodology associated with the framing of questions addressing alternative management strategies in systematic reviews. It mandates carefully specifying the patient population, the intervention of interest, the comparator, and the outcomes of interest. Guideline developers and systematic review authors increasingly recognize the value of the methodology in helping achieve focused recommendations.
The psychologist and economist Daniel Kahneman spent a large part of his career devising questions to suss out behavioural biases in people. In the book Thinking Fast and Slow, he described two types of framing: narrow and broad. In the context of betting, students adopting narrow framing approach monetary decisions as if it were the only one. Broad framers approach similar decisions treating these as part of a portfolio of decisions. Broad framers showed an increased willingness to take risks.
Tim Ferris helpfully put out a list of “17-Questions-That-Changed-My-Life” that helped him. The first question is “#1 What if I did the opposite for 48 hours?”. This reminds me of one of my favourite Seinfeld episodes, in which George experimented with doing the exact opposite of what he would normally do as an unemployed bald man living with his parents. He ended up winning the heart of an attractive woman and a much-desired job with the Yankees.
Unfortunately for the character, George reverted to his usual neurotic and lazy self soon after, most likely to keep the show going. For the rest of us, asking and framing the right questions would be instrumental in not just keeping our life going, but making it great.
3. Develop your capacity to act
Direct approach
In many cases, figuring out our responses to the above questions would involve a direct approach. To learn more about a specific topic, there are always books and articles you can read, courses you can attend, YouTube videos you could watch, and audiobooks and podcasts you could listen to. You could also reach out to experts in many fields: they are never more than six degrees of separation away.
Indirect approach – Serendipity
A different approach, an indirect one, involves serendipity. Horace Walpole coined this word ̳in 1754, based on the tale of The Three Princes of Serendip and a lame, one-eyed, toothless camel. It refers to the chance finding of something valuable or interesting. People attribute many groundbreaking discoveries to serendipity: Fleming and penicillin, Rontgen and X-rays, and Ruth Wilhelm and chocolate chip cookies.
In their paper Discovery Is Never by Chance: Designing for (Un)Serendipity (2009), computer scientist Paul Andre and Microsoft engineers Jaime Teevan and Susan T. Dumais suggests two components of serendipity: chance in identifying of serendipitous content, and sagacity in connecting these content. For the authors, serendipity is:
- the finding of unexpected information (relevant to the goal or not) while engaged in any information activity,
- the making of an intellectual leap of understanding with that information to arrive at an insight.
The authors also considered ways to “… enhance the likelihood and potential for serendipity and insight: for example, through surfacing connections, play, enhancing domain expertise, and mechanisms to share discoveries.”
Serendipity – preparation of the mind
In particular, the authors cited research that points to the importance of the preparation of the mind:
- Simonton (1995) and Seifert (1995) both suggest that creativity originates in a preparation of mind that allows subsequent recognition of the serendipitous when it is encountered.
- In Csikszentmihalyi and Sawyer‘s (1995) model of creative insight, the preparation stage involves hard work and research to accumulate raw information, before periods of incubation and insight, with domain expertise vital in creative insight.
Helpfully, Lennart Björneborn from the University of Copenhagen proposed an approach to operationalize the concept of serendipity (2017). This involves various building blocks to enhance the capacities of physical and digital environments to be diversified, traversed, and sensed. The three corresponding personal factors are curiosity, mobility, and sensitivity.
For me, the podcasts I listened to during my runs are a constant source of ideas to deepen my capacity and widen my range of responses.
As Paul Andre and his co-authors concluded,
… success of serendipitous discovery is not just the find itself, but being able or willing to do something with it.
This leads us to the next step – Act.
Please join me again next week for Part 2 of “Science your way to personal growth in 6 steps”.
