How does talent work

What's important is the total package, not the precise mix of personal characteristics. But how does talent develop? Unfortunately, many people have an overly simplistic understanding of talent. They view talent as innate, ready to spring forth given the right conditions.

But this is not how talent operates. Gareth Bale wasn't born with the ability to score memorable goals. Talents aren't prepackaged at birth, but take time to develop. Yet it's also well known that none of these personal characteristics — from mathematical ability to courage — are completely determined by genes. Genetically influenced doesn't mean genetically determined. Although genes code for proteins, and proteins are the building blocks of everything we do, they are far removed from anything we would recognise as talents.

One of the most important discoveries in recent years is that the environment triggers gene expression. Every step we take alters the configuration of all the cells in our body. As Matt Ridley notes: "Genes are the mechanisms of experience.

Talent and practice are complementary, not at odds. One key to this mystery is recognising that tiny genetic and environmental advantages multiply over the years. The kid who is slightly taller than the others, or who can read just a bit better than others, will get picked first for the basketball team, or put into a slightly more advanced reading group.

Over time, the ability level of the kid who was selected for advanced instruction and the kid who wasn't will widen. Of course, the other side of the coin is also possible, where a slight genetic or environmental disadvantage can lead a person to avoid situations where that difficulty would be revealed.

Yet those are precisely the situations that would allow the person to learn how to compensate, and learn and grow. These "multiplier effects" have been investigated from a number of vantage points, including Urie Bronfenbrenner and Stephen Ceci's bio-ecological model of abilities and chaos models in which tiny differences can lead to large differences at a later state in development.

Also frequently unrecognised, some characteristics may not even appear until a growth spurt in adolescence.

So one characteristic, such as extraversion, can develop early, while another characteristic, such as speech production, may lag — which may appear awkward until the two come into harmony.

The uneven development of personal characteristics ca n delay the onset of a talent, making it eventually appear to come out of nowhere. As an analogy, think of genes like players in an orchestra. There has to be a lot of syncing for the overall symphony to sound beautiful. The players have to be in sync not only with one another in their own instrumental section, but all the different sections have to coordinate with one another.

Not only that, but if the orchestra plays in a totally unresponsive environment — for example, an audience of Justin Bieber fans — the players will be discouraged from further practising and playing. Finally, the conductor is essential to this syncing up process, helping to nurture, support, and coordinate the various sections so that the overall symphony sounds beautiful. Of course, we aren't just passive recipients of our environment.

All of us actively make choices, and these choices add up over the years. According to "experience producing drive theory", genes indirectly influence the development of talent by motivating us to seek out experiences that in turn will develop the neural brain structures and physiology that supports even higher levels of talent. In Wendy Johnson's formulation of the theory, this applies to all areas of individual differences, including motivation, interest, attentional focus, personality, attitude, values and quirky characteristics unique to each person.

Genes indirectly pull our attention in certain directions and take us away from processing other information in the environment. We all differ in what captivates our attention, and that is determined by a lifetime of mutually reinforcing experiences as nature dances with nurture.

This more nuanced understanding of the development of talent has striking implications for our attempts to nurture talent. For one, a much wider range of personal characteristics, including conative and volitional characteristics have to be taken into consideration when judging whether a person will benefit from a particular training regime.

There is no denying the importance of training for becoming an elite athlete, but this evidence which is not discussed in Peak provides compelling evidence that genetic factors matter, too. There is no doubt that training is required to become an expert. Expertise is acquired gradually, often over many years.

However, as science is making increasingly clear, there is more to becoming an expert than training. Moving ahead, the goal for scientific research on expertise is to identify all of the remaining factors that matter. Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology?

And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about? Please send suggestions to Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook. Gareth, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, is the series editor of Best American Infographics and can be reached at garethideas AT gmail. David Z. Hambrick is a professor in the department of psychology at Michigan State University. His research focuses on individual differences in cognition and the development of expertise.

His research focuses on the neuropsychology of expertise and creativity--the various brain mechanisms that allow us to perform at a very high level within a specific field. Miriam Mosing is a postdoctoral fellow at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. Her research focuses on genetic and environmental influences on psychological traits, including well-being and music aptitude.

Mosing completed her Ph. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital. Recent Articles by David Z. Problem-solving scores consistently predict how successful candidates are in training and making effective decisions on the job.

For many jobs, socially intelligent employees represent a competitive advantage. Together, personality, problem-solving, and social intelligence form the foundations of talents. Alternatively, if the assessment found that someone displayed empathy in difficult situations, analyzed information to find the best solution, and examined issues from multiple perspectives, that person would have the talent of conflict resolution.

And accurately quantifying talents will only become more critical in the next few years. IBM recently launched a study that included surveys across executives and found that approximately million professionals need to be reskilled to deal with AI and new digital business environments. In other words, talents. HR and business leaders that are intentional about quantifying the talents of their job candidates now can reap major competitive advantages in the future as the behavioral skills gap grows.

With the right talent assessment in place, businesses can unlock the potential of their people and make better and more predictive hiring decisions.

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