81. Brooke Macnamara: Growth mindset, deliberate practice, and the benefits of diverse experiences

11/17/23 • 66 min

Brooke Macnamara is an associate professor at Case Western Reserve University. In this conversation, we talk about her research on growth mindset and deliberate practice, whether deliberate practice is falsifiable, the benefits of diverse experiences, and much more.
BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.
Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon
Timestamps
0:00:00: How Brooke started working on mindset and deliberate practice
0:02:10: (Growth) mindset: does it matter?
0:21:10: Mindset interventions
0:36:48: Deliberate practice
0:47:06: Benefits of diverse experiences
0:56:20: Is the theory of deliberate practice unfalsifiable?
0:59:36: What can we take practically from the growth mindset and deliberate pratice research?
1:01:06: A book or paper more people should read
1:02:10: Something Brooke wishes she'd learnt sooner
1:04:32: Advice for PhD students and postdocs
Podcast links

Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt

Brooke's links

Website: https://geni.us/macnamara-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/macnamara-scholar
Twitter: https://geni.us/macnamara-twt

Ben's links

Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt

References/links
Brainology mindset intervention: https://www.mindsetworks.com/programs/brainology-for-schools
Trello: https://trello.com
Burgoyne, Hambrick, & Macnamara (2020). How firm are the foundations of mind-set theory? The claims appear stronger than the evidence. Psychol Science.
Dweck (2006). Mindset-Changing the way you think to fulfil your potential.
Epstein (2021). Range: Why generalists triumph in a specialized world.
Ericsson & Harwell (2019). Deliberate practice and proposed limits on the effects of practice on the acquisition of expert performance. Frontiers in Psychol.
Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Römer (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychol Rev.
Gladwell (2008). Outliers: The story of success.
Macnamara & Burgoyne (2023). Do growth mindset interventions impact students’ academic achievement? A systematic review and meta-analysis with recommendations for best practices. Psychol Bull.
Macnamara, Hambrick & Oswald (2014). Deliberate practice and performance in music, games, sports, education, and professions: A meta-analysis. Psychol Science.
Macnamara & Maitra (2019). The role of deliberate practice in expert performance: Revisiting Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Römer (1993). Royal Society Open Science.
Macnamara, Moreau & Hambrick (2016). The relationship between deliberate practice and performance in sports: A meta-analysis. Perspec Psychol Science.
Macnamara, Prather & Burgoyne (2023). Beliefs about success are prone to cognitive fallacies. Nat Rev Psychol.
Sisk, Burgoyne, Sun, Butler & Macnamara (2018). To what extent and under which circumstances are growth mind-sets important to academic achievement? Two meta-analyses. Psychol Science.

Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt

Brooke's links

Website: https://geni.us/macnamara-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/macnamara-scholar
Twitter: https://geni.us/macnamara-twt

Ben's links

Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt

Previous Episode

80. Simine Vazire: Scientific editing, the purpose of journals, and the future of psychological science

Simine Vazire is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Melbourne. In this conversation, we talk about her work on meta-science, the purpose of journals and peer review, Simine's plans for being Editor-in-Chief at Psychological Science, the hidden curriculum of scienitic publishing, and much more.
BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.
Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon
Timestamps
0:00:00: What is SIPS and why did Simine cofound it?
0:05:10: Why Simine resigned from the NASEM Reproducibility & Replicability committee
0:13:07: Do we still need journals and peer review in 2023?
0:28:04: What does an Editor-in-Chief actually do?
0:37:09: Simine will be EiC of Psychological Science
0:59:44: The 'hidden curriculum' of scientific publishing
1:04:03: Why Siminie created a GoFundMe for DataColada
1:15:10: A book or paper more people should read
1:17:10: Something Simine wishes she'd learnt sooner
1:18:44: Advice for PhD students and postdocs
Podcast links

Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt

Simine's links

Website: https://geni.us/vazire-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/vazire-scholar
Twitter: https://geni.us/vazire-twt

Ben's links

Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt

References/links
Episode of Black Goat Podcast I mentioned: https://blackgoat.podbean.com/e/simine-flips-out/
Mini-interview with Simine in Science: https://www.science.org/content/article/how-reform-minded-new-editor-psychology-s-flagship-journal-will-shake-things
My 2nd interview w/ Adam Mastroianni, and his blog post on peer review:
https://geni.us/bjks-mastroianni_2
Interview w/ Chris Chambers and Peer community in RR
https://geni.us/bjks-chambers
Simine's vision statement for Psychological Science
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mozmB2m5kxOoPvQSqDSguRrP5OobutU6/view
GOFUNDME for Data Colada's legal fees
https://www.gofundme.com/f/uhbka-support-data-coladas-legal-defense
Francesca Gino's response
https://www.francesca-v-harvard.org/
NYT Magazine article about Amy Cuddy (and Joe Simmons)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/magazine/when-the-revolution-came-for-amy-cuddy.html
Streisand effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Holcombe (during dogwalk). On peer review. Personal communication to Simine.
Open Science Collaboration (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science.
Reich (2009): Plastic fantastic: How the Biggest Fraud in Physics Shook the Scientific

Next Episode

82. Geoff Cumming: p-values, estimation, and meta-analytic thinking

Geoff Cumming is an Emeritus Professor at La Trobe University. In this conversation, we discuss his work on New Statistics: estimation instead of hypothesis testing, meta-analytic thinking, and many related topics.
Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon
Timestamps
0:00:00: A brief history of statistics, p-values, and confidence intervals
0:32:02: Meta-analytic thinking
0:42:56: Why do p-values seem so random?
0:45:59: Are p-values and estimation complementary?
0:47:09: How do I know how many participants I need (without a power calculation)?
0:50:27: Problems of the estimation approach (big data)
1:00:08: A book or paper more people should read
1:02:50: Something Geoff wishes he'd learnt sooner
1:04:52: Advice for PhD students and postdocs
Podcast links

Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt

Geoff's links

Website: https://geni.us/cumming-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/cumming-scholar
Mastodon: https://nerdculture.de/@thenewstats

Ben's links

Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt

References/links
Dance of the p-values: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OL1RqHrZQ8
Significance roulette: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcJImS16jR4
Episode with Simine Vazire (SIPS): https://geni.us/bjks-vazire
Coulson, ...(2010). Confidence intervals permit, but don't guarantee, better inference than statistical significance testing. Front in Psychol.
Cumming & Calin-Jageman (2016/2024). Introduction to the new statistics: Estimation, open science, and beyond.
Cumming (2014). The new statistics: Why and how. Psychol Sci.
Cumming & Finch (2005). Inference by eye: confidence intervals and how to read pictures of data. American Psychol.
Errington, ... (2021) Reproducibility in Cancer Biology: Challpenges for assessing replicability in preclinical cancer biology. eLife.
Errington, ... (2021) Investigating the replicability of preclinical cancer biology. eLife.
Finch & Cumming (2009). Putting research in context: Understanding confidence intervals from one or more studies. J of Pediatric Psychol.
Hedges (1987). How hard is hard science, how soft is soft science? The empirical cumulativeness of research. American Psychologist.
Hunt (1997). How science takes stock: The story of meta-analysis.
Ioannidis (2005). Why most published research findings are false. PLoS Medicine.
Loftus (1996). Psychology will be a much better science when we change the way we analyze data. Curr direct psychol sci.
Maxwell, ... (2008). Sample size planning for statistical power and accuracy in parameter estimation. Annu Rev Psychol.
Oakes (1986). Statistical inference: A commentary for the social and behavioural sciences.
Pennington (2023). A Student's Guide to Open Science: Using the Replication Crisis Reform Psychology.
Rothman (1986). Significance questing. Annals of Int Med.
Schmidt (1996). Statistical significance testing and cumulative knowledge in psychology: Implications for training of researchers. Psychol Methods.

BJKS Podcast - 81. Brooke Macnamara: Growth mindset, deliberate practice, and the benefits of diverse experiences

Transcript

[This is an automated transcript with many errors]
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: [00:00:00] It's funny, this is in a way, like, I guess, quite a typical episode for me, but also kind of quite different, um, because, you know, I'm talking about science to a scientist, that's, that's pretty normal, I'm, I'm used to that, but in terms of topics, I'm talking, talking about, we'll be talking about two topics that I encountered, I know them basically from Pop Sci, or kind of from g