Is EF the New IQ? | Hacker News Reader

Is EF the New IQ?

newsweek.com

28 pointsedw51926 comments

Like IQ, EF is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy with regard to success and failure. IQ was used to justify the failure of some students relative to others--so the students with a reason why they were allowed to fail did so, and the teachers paid more attention to the students expected to succeed, so that they did so.

EF, being a measure of "mental discipline" (read: obedience + creativity) separates the students that teachers typically like to teach from those that teachers typically do not. But the students that teachers like to teach are the ones that they focus on, so those students do well academically. Presto--instant self-fulfilling prediction.

Of course, this implies no correlation at all with what it takes to do well outside of these sorts of environments.

I don't think that's what the article is saying at all. EF is not some supposedly innate ability, such as IQ. It's rather a skill that can be taught, and the actuall measured EF is just a way of examining how well the teaching of the skill is going. This gives teachers another tool in the toolbox, to work with those students that are difficult to teach - specifically, give them extra training to improve their EF.

Of course, my fad detectors were going off big time reading the article. I think I'd like to see some data on whether this produces longterm benefits before jumping on the bandwagon. Otherwise it might just be nothing more than showing that kids that get extra attention - such as those in a research study - do better in the short term, something that we know already.

I think perhaps the most interesting aspect of the article is that this potentially gives preschool teachers something actually useful that they can teach to their students, something that could aid the students when "big school" begins :-)

"Most people can recall a kid from grade school who couldn't stay seated, who talked out of turn and fidgeted constantly, whose backpack overflowed with crumpled handouts and who always had to ask other kids what the homework assignment was. Those kids weren't bad kids, but they seemed to have absolutely no self-control, no internal disciplinarian to put a brake on their impulses, to keep their attention focused. Not surprisingly, they were almost always lousy students as well."

Heh, I think I was that kid - but a pretty good student as well. My grades were relatively poor (because I forgot or didn't want to do the homework), but it wasn't uncommon for me to have the class high on exams.

Fortunately, I had one of the highest set of test scores (SAT/ACT/AP) of my class and that more or less made up for the poor GPA and class rank.

I used to be exactly that kid, until school got challenging (university)... Then I had less time to fuck around in class...

I was that kid. When school got more challenging, I spaced out and did worse.

It's a source of frustration for me. I know, and always knew that I had the intellectual acumen to to better, but I never had the self discipline to do so. I tried every day to just buckle down and finish my work, but it is easier said than done.

On the other hand, it was always those mandatory literature classes that hurt me the worst.I always did better in the courses that required more thinking than reading.

I'm much the same way. For me it was the classes I didn't like that I did poorly in, like marketing. The less interesting it is going in the worse I do.

So, it's settled, then? Entrepreneurs are smart people with ADD who learn to channel their energies toward interesting enough ends? Seems like I've been hearing pretty much that message for most of my life.

After all, if you excel at working within established institutions throughout your life, you'll probably continue to follow whatever career path is expected of you as an adult.

I was that kid too. I got top grades from a leading British school, a Master's degree in Physics from Oxford University, worked 4 years in a top consulting firm, and started 2 startups.

Article: FAIL.

I'd suggest to the author that perhaps being bored at primary school is a sign of higher EF - you're making the decision for yourself that all that stuff they're "teaching" you isn't worth paying attention. But having good enough EF now, I realise that's a waste of my time, since the author doesn't know what he's talking about.

Funny. The research seems to show that an ability to quiet one's mind, listen to others even if you're not interested, and follow arbitrary orders is helpful in school. To me, this is obvious, and once again reinforces the fact that school is a harmful institution based on conformity and obedience. To the school researchers, this shows the fundamental importance of this "new cognitive skill".

I think AS is the new IQ: Academic Success has been shown to be the best predictor of Academic Success so far...

Tell that to college admissions...

While executive functions are crucial in controlling primal urges, some of which arguably trigger uncooperative behavior in group settings and blind them from competing perspectives, I really dislike this buzzwordification of something that isn't surprising nor new.

The whole principle of Diamond's education method seems to be teaching kids how to inhibit their urges, or "think before your act" (I'm sure there's an elegant quote/prophrase for this in English. Anyone know?). Big deal. I bet you can achieve similar results or even better via dialectics a la Plato. Once they have the patience, teach them and all their best friends Go/chess.

> or "think before your act" (I'm sure there's an elegant quote/prophrase for this in English. Anyone know?)

"Look before you leap" comes to mind.

"New research shows that EF, more than IQ, leads to success in basic academics like arithmetic and grammar."

This research is from the 60s. It isn't new, and plus we've already had better stories about this same concept on news.yc before.

We've already had better comments about that same complaint in this thread before.

Looked like an interesting article, but the phone rang so I never read it.

The corollary is also true. From what I saw in school, academic success didn't really require or didn't often encourage high IQ.

Focusing is good, but if you don't have any good ideas, it doesn't matter whether or not you can focus on them.

I think ADD tendencies can be good. Having a lot of open ideas to switch between is a good way to avoid getting burned out.

Q. How many ADD kids does it take to write good code?

A. Let's go ride bikes!

Wrong.

The correct answer was "Code is hard! Lets go shopping!"

Bleh, I couldn't resist that, but now I feel like I have to go wash the troll off me. Sorry.

Here's a study on the heritability of EF:

http://scienceblogs.com/developingintelligence/2008/05/99_ge...

The printer-friendly version is much easier to read without all those annoying ads: http://www.newsweek.com/id/139885/output/print

Yes. I tried to change the link to OP, but it wouldn't let me. Sorry about that.

The state of mind required to execute on thoughts of course is different than the state of mind required to abstract thoughts.

Maybe all the article is saying is that we still have not figured out how to correlate creativity with academic success.

Me, bored HS student, good college student. Success as an entrepreneur has been the ability to control how I switch between the two mindsets.

It would be better to develop the personality of the child rather than judge them by their IQ (or EF). Moulding children to become "practical" thinkers would benefit them for life.

I think they're just talking about ADD (which I suspect is highly prevalent in HN users. It doesn't mean you're stupid, it just means you could get a lot better at everything if you got it treated (ie got ritalin)...just a thought).

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