Role models (榜样) are important for inspiring (鼓舞) scientists, but new research suggests that scientists who are known for their hard work are more motivating (激励人的) than scientists who are viewed as naturally brilliant.
In a series of studies, researchers found that young people were more motivated by scientists whose success was connected with effort than those whose success was because of born intelligence, even if that scientist was Albert Einstein.
Danfei Hu, a doctoral student at Penn State, and Janet N. Ann, an assistant professor of psychology at William Paterson University, said the findings — recently published in Basic and Applied Social Psychology — will help deal with certain secret about what it takes to succeed in science.
According to the researchers, there is concern in the science community with the number of students who run after careers in science during school only to drop out from those career paths once they graduate from college. To help solve the problem, Hu and Ahn wanted to research role modeling (行为榜样), which gives the students specific goals, behaviors or strategies (策略) they can follow.
The researchers performed studies with 176, and 162 participants (参与者) in each, respectively. In the first study, all participants read the same story about common struggles a scientist met in their science career. However, half were told the story was about Einstein, while half were told it was about Thomas Edison. Although the stories are the same, participants were more likely to believe natural brilliance (才华) was the reason for Einstein's success. In addition, the participants who believed the story was about Edison were more motivated to complete a series of math problems.
"This proved that people generally seem to view Einstein as a genius, with his success commonly linked to extraordinary talent," Hu said. "Edison, on the other hand, is known for failing more than 1,000 times when trying to create the light bulb, and his success is usually linked to his effort." Hu added, "Knowing that something great can be achieved through hard work and effort, more students will step into science confidently."
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