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The "Everyone Gets a Trophy" Generation has Grown up...

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posted on Feb, 8 2013 @ 12:07 PM
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Secondly, I did state that if not be the best at a particular thing, a person should figure out what they are good at/ what they enjoy, and work on becoming excellent in that field. So my logic isn't flawed, it's more about a holistic approach to building an inclusive society based upon realistic and achievable goals, according to a unique individual's personal capacity to achieve in-line with what interests them/ what they are good at.
reply to post by FlyInTheOintment
 


Your logic is not flawed....I think Society is.

Your logic seems to be well thought out and very nicely expressed.

Horses for courses? I love it....Racing Horses is my hobby and first love.

So I really understand what that means. Seems to fit perfectly here.



posted on Feb, 8 2013 @ 12:23 PM
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reply to post by whyamIhere
 

What can we take away from this thread? We all perceive the world differently.

Instead of using displacement to shift the blame and point fingers, let us observe and learn.

We are all brought up differently and that poses many different variables to just lump everyone into a category by generation. We all come from different walks of life and were raised with different values and beliefs. For example, I was born in 82 to young parents (18 & 16) who never finished H.S. I was raised to appreciate what you have and if there was something you wanted, well then work hard to attain it (growth mindset, explained later).

You see, the focus should not be on what generation you are labeled as (baby boomer, gen x, etc..), but how you were raised. To break it down further would be to look at how your learning style was reinforced as a kid. This is the area we should focus on, our motivation to learn.

Our motivation to learn can be broken down into two factors according to the Self-Perception Theory:
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

Some vocab to help those reading to follow along.
Intrinsic Motivation: The desire to engage in an activity because we enjoy it or find it interesting, not because of external rewards or pressures.
Extrinsic Motivation: The desire to engage in an activity because of external rewards or pressures, not because we enjoy the task or find it interesting.
Over Justification Effect: The tendency for people to view their behavior as caused by compelling extrinsic reasons, making them underestimate the extent to which it was caused by intrinsic reasons.

Now let us look at the effects of rewards on motivation and learning. A study by Greene, Sternberg, & Lepper, in 1976 can help us shed light on this.

Here is how the experiment was conducted: Fourth and fifth grade teachers introduced 4 new math games to their students, and during a 13-day baseline period they noted how long each child played each math game. The children initially had some intrinsic interest in the math games, in that they played them for several minutes during this baseline period. For the next several days, a reward program was introduced. Now the children could earn credits toward certificates and trophies by playing the math games. The more time they spent playing the math games, the more credits they earned. It looks like the reward program was effective in increasing the amount of time the children spent on the math games, showing that the rewards were an effective motivator.
This sounds logical, but what happens after the program is over and the kids can no longer earn rewards for playing the games?

As predicted by the overjustification hypothesis, the children spent significantly less time on the math games then they had initially, before the rewards were introduced.

The researchers determined, by comparing these results to those of a control condition, that it was rewards that made people like the games less and not the fact that everyone became bored with the games as time went by.

In short, the rewards destroyed the children’s intrinsic interest in the games; by the end of the study, they were hardly playing the games at all.

What can we do to protect intrinsic motivation from the dangers of society’s reward system? According to my 8th edition Social Psychology book, there are conditions under which overjustification effects can be avoided. Rewards will undermine interest only if interest was initially high. If a child has no interest in reading, then getting him or her to read by offering rewards is not a bad idea, because there is no initial interest to undermine.
The type of reward also makes a difference. Reading through this thread I have seen examples of both. A task-contingent reward means that people get them simply for doing a task, regardless of how well they do it. Then we have performance-contingent rewards, whereby the reward depends on how well people perform the task.

Now I refuse to take part of the generational blame game because that is exhibiting a fixed mindset.
A fixed mindset will think that “this is set in stone, I either have what it takes, or I don’t.” Thinking along these lines, people feel they have a fixed amount of intelligence, athletic ability, musical talent, and so on.
Others have what is called a growth mindset, which is the idea that abilities are malleable qualities that they can cultivate and grow.

People with a fixed minset are more likely to give up after setbacks and are less likely to work on and hone their skills; after all, if they fail it must be a sign that they simply do not have what it takes. People with growth mindsets view setbacks as opportunities to improve through hard work. Cont. in next



posted on Feb, 8 2013 @ 12:24 PM
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reply to post by IntrinsicMotivation
 


So now we come back to how you were raised. and how we can better raise our children. The subject here is ”How Should Parents Praise Their Children?”

As a parent I was guilty of this until I realized the harm being done. Many adults assume that it is beneficial to praise their children because it makes them feel good about themselves and enhances their intrinsic motivation. But as I pointed out earlier, sometimes rewards can undermine intrinsic motivation. What can “we” as parents do?

The key is the message that the praise conveys. We do not want children to develop a fixed mindset about their abilities, because if they do they will not react well to setbacks (“I guess this C on my spelling test means I’m a lousy speller”). It is better to focus on the children’s effort (“If you study harder for the next test, I bet you will do better”) to encourage a growth mindset- namely the idea that hard work pays off when the going gets tough. When children do well, we should not go overboard and praise them too much for their effort, however, because they might infer that this means they are low on ability (like the player on basketball team who gets the Best Effort award instead of MVP). Along with praise for effort, it is a good idea to make children feel that they have gained competence in the area (“You worked hard on your science project and really learned a lot; you have become quite an expert on plant pesticides”). *Note that this praise avoids conveying a fixed mindset (that there is a set amount of ability in this area that people have or don’t have). Praise should convey the message that they have gained competence through hard work. We would never have been able to watch Michael Jordan do what he did if he had a fixed mindset. He went from being cut from his H.S. team, to one of the best in the world. What did his mother tell him when he didn’t make the H.S. team? “I told him to go back and discipline himself,” she said- in other words, to work harder, just the right message to foster a growth mindset.

We can see this throughout all generations and is why we should not blame one generation to the next. What we can do is to foster the right mindset in our children today for the best outcome down the road. But before this can happen, we (all generations) must accept responsibility for our actions/ inactions and then change them.



posted on Feb, 8 2013 @ 12:57 PM
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Originally posted by ollncasino
reply to post by whyamIhere
 


It's just a shame that there are no jobs for them.

I pity young people today who don't have the opportunities their parents had, never mind the opportunities enjoyed by their baby boomer grandparents.



edit on 6-2-2013 by ollncasino because: (no reason given)


Are you trying to be IRONIC? Your apathetic response about "opportunity not being what is once was" IS THE PROBLEM! There is opportunity ABOUND! ...For those that aren't so "connected" that they are debilitated, but that's a CHOICE. Learn who Red Foxx was and what it means to live on Green Acres so you can CONNECT with real people and secure REAL jobs that are everywhere. Become culturally litterate and move up in the world by being sociable and therefore trust-worthy. The GD millenial zombie, retards of the Earth have no clue how to use people skills and broad senses of culture and trivial knowledge to their benefit. Instead they use what little crap they've Googled to try and be "know it alls" and obnoxious "kiosks" of information no one cares about.

The opportunity is EVERYWHERE. THEY just suck at identifying it and working hard to achieve it.
edit on 8-2-2013 by Eldensword because: typing error



posted on Feb, 8 2013 @ 01:11 PM
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reply to post by IntrinsicMotivation
 




Now I refuse to take part of the generational blame game because that is exhibiting a fixed mindset.


Fascinating Reply...


I guess someday we are going to run out of trophies.

I really wasn't trying to add a new acronym to our lexicon (EGAT).

Labeling people in general is a bad idea.

Thank you for your reply.....The "Old Fogee" might of learned something today...



posted on Feb, 8 2013 @ 02:36 PM
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reply to post by whyamIhere
 


Or maybe, in time, we will learn how to better use trophies.

The whole purpose of the post I made was to get people in general (young and old) to take a second look at this. If you learned something today, it was of your own effort. The cliché “You cannot teach an old dog new tricks” has been refuted.

P.S. if that doesn’t work, there is always classical and operant conditioning


Thank you for the op that got the ball rolling.



posted on Feb, 9 2013 @ 01:06 PM
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Originally posted by Plotus
With no need to compete, it becomes a bountiful world of non-achievers.


That's not true at all, for two reasons. 1, Just because you don't strive to be better than someone doesn't mean you don't strive to achieve great things. There is enough room for both Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo to be great in this world, we don't need to choose which one is better. Appreciating both equally doesn't make them non-achievers.

2, many of the things that depend on competition are just so... I'm sorry, but pointless. So someone can kick a ball and past a goalie and into a net more than someone else. So what? Maybe I might see more value in it if we gave a trophy to the person who saved the most lives, or who performed the most successful surgeries or something.



posted on Feb, 9 2013 @ 01:29 PM
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Competition is natural, its just the way that it is used that can make all the difference in the world.

Our society implores individuals to win at all costs. It encourages people to go after the weakest link in the competition and win in the "easiest" way possible. Essentially, the idea is to have the weakest competition solely for the purpose of winning. The main goal is to win.

If we were to approach it from a different standpoint, it would be a different story. When I compete, I do so to learn and to become better. In this way, I will seek out the strongest opposition I possibly can. Even if it means experienced the dreaded "loss," it may end up allowing me to become better in many different aspects. Everything from strategy to individual skills, etc.

When we focus solely on winning at all costs, it is destructive. When we encourage our competition to grow and implement new skills, both competitors will be able to reach new heights.



posted on Feb, 9 2013 @ 01:35 PM
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Originally posted by Serdgiam
Competition is natural, its just the way that it is used that can make all the difference in the world.

Our society implores individuals to win at all costs. It encourages people to go after the weakest link in the competition and win in the "easiest" way possible. Essentially, the idea is to have the weakest competition solely for the purpose of winning. The main goal is to win.

If we were to approach it from a different standpoint, it would be a different story. When I compete, I do so to learn and to become better. In this way, I will seek out the strongest opposition I possibly can. Even if it means experienced the dreaded "loss," it may end up allowing me to become better in many different aspects. Everything from strategy to individual skills, etc.

When we focus solely on winning at all costs, it is destructive. When we encourage our competition to grow and implement new skills, both competitors will be able to reach new heights.


All great points...

The "Dreaded Loss" is where I have learned most of my life lessons.

Winning is does not teach you near as much. Except it's good to win.



posted on Feb, 9 2013 @ 01:40 PM
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Originally posted by whyamIhere
All great points...

The "Dreaded Loss" is where I have learned most of my life lessons.

Winning is does not teach you near as much. Except it's good to win.


Same here my friend. While I try to learn as much as I can from "winning," it just doesnt lead to the amount of introspection and advancement as when I lose. When we lose we get clear demarcations of exactly what we need to improve. Why improve and better ourselves if everyone is always winning, every time?

I suppose thats where the blame game comes in. "Well, I always win, so the problem must not have anything to do with me." Shortsighted, obviously, but I believe that type of thinking has been encouraged for far too long and it only seems to get worse as the decades go on.

Perhaps we should just call everyone currently alive part of the "No, You!" generation.
Obvious exceptions to the rule (like always), but seems to work for the majority!




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