I'm not troubled by this at all. Here's why. First of all, malleability of IQ is true. And the research finding that advocating the malleability of IQ is motivational and thus leads to better performance is a replicated research finding.
In the fall semester of 2009 I participated in the University of Minnesota Department of Psychology Psychology 8935: Readings in Behavioral Genetics and Individual Differences Psychology journal club with leading researchers on human behavioral genetics such as Tom Bouchard, Matt McGue (the chairman of the journal club), Irving Gottesman, Wendy Johnson, and other colleagues and graduate students of theirs. At the end of the semester, Matt McGue asked each participant what their conclusion was about what could be done to boost IQ and academic achievement, and he noted that as a parent he will be speaking more often to his children about their ability to raise their own level. This is from a researcher who has spent years calculating figures for heritability of various behavioral traits from studies of twins and other studies with genetically sensitive designs. After reading the research and discussing it with his colleagues, he is convinced that even though monozygotic twins resemble each other more closely than other siblings as to IQ (this is what heritablity means, and it is ALL that heritability means), it is still possible for a mindset intervention to improve IQ.
Here's another article about Carol Dweck's research, which I think has been submitted to HN before:
http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/marapr/feat...
Do you think IQ is something fixed? That you can't continue learning and getting smarter?
But that is not an issue since there is currently good evidence that it is true that intelligence is malleable. What this shows is that it is very important for children (and indeed, all learners) to actually know this particular true fact.
Whether or not the students are actually getting smarter is another question. But it doesn't look to me like anyone's getting lied to.
(edit: refactoring language)
What isn't suggested by 'many psychological studies' is that IQ can be reliably, long-term, and over general populations by any particular technique. And that's what everyone wants to exist and will read into a statement like that. So, based on the abstract, this study boils down to a good motivation technique.
(I say reliably because with 0.05 significance there will be many false results; long-term because short-term studies will show anything you want them to; and over general populations because there are small deprived groups in which one can easily boost IQ long-term - eg. children in the Balkans with iodine deficiencies.)
EDIT: Also note that the researchers point to increased grades - not increased IQ scores. If they have enough participation, time, and cooperation from these students to do all this teaching & motivating, then it is inexplicable - if they think they're actually boosting IQ - to have not given the students a quick hour-long IQ test; but this omission is quite understandable if they don't think their intervention is actually increasing anyone's IQ but their motivation.
EDIT: Also note that the researchers point to increased grades - not increased IQ scores.
You are quite correct, however one would hope that grades have at least some correalation with intelligence, but more importantly they are the measurable results in school. Being able to increase those measurable results is the primary goal, even if hypothetically intelligence did not go up.
I have been told that in weightlifting the first several stages do not increase the amount of muscles, but they help you call on that strength better so you can lift more and get tired more slowly. This increases your effective abilities even if you do not develop more actual muscle right away.
Similarly, if the ability to use their intelligence is increased hypotethically without actually increasing the intelligence itself, this is still a major improvement.
And why would you think that? I've already criticized the one explicit statement on that.
> You are quite correct, however one would hope that grades have at least some correalation with intelligence, but more importantly they are the measurable results in school. Being able to increase those measurable results is the primary goal, even if hypothetically intelligence did not go up.
They do have correlation. But correlation is not causation. Giving these students a pep talk and seeing their grades go up, and knowing about the correlation between IQ and grades, gives us as much reason to conclude their IQs went up as we had instead hired drill sergeants to stand in their classroom and yell at them in best FMJ fashion for being "slimy fucking walrus-looking pieces of shit", observed their grades go down, and then concluded their IQs went down.
(Another analogy. My dog crossing the road has high correlation with the road being empty. Does my kicking him into the middle of the street clears it of the oncoming SUV?)
> Similarly, if the ability to use their intelligence is increased hypotethically without actually increasing the intelligence itself, this is still a major improvement.
Sure, and it's quite valuable. Self-control and self-discipline are fantastically valuable traits, and to a degree substitutable for IQ. But boosting people's motivation is not the same thing as boosting their IQ. The latter is the historic breakthrough, not the former, interesting and valuable as it is.
http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html
if a study claims that something can't be done (rather than claiming that something hasn't been done).
After further edit: There is recent research showing that learning can actually change brain neural connections,
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09344/1019898-115.stm
so I think this year the burden of proof is on the people who claim lack of malleability, since malleability of human brain function is a replicated research result.
Yes, of course learning changes neural connections. How else would it work? Changing some chemicals won't get a brain very far.
But this is as far away from changing IQ as demonstrating the Casimir effect gets you to a tractor beam sucking in the _Millennium Falcon_. The famous study of the [London taxi](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/677048.stm) drivers shows they have changed connections, alright, even enlarged hippocampi - but nothing about increased brain mass or volume, because it's a zero-sum gain.
Now, as far as my specific assertions go. The 0.05 point is basic statistics which I feel no need to justify. The short-term point flows out of the former (there's simply more noise when you do all your sampling over a few days or minutes, say), and short-term studies are particularly vulnerable to issues like testing effects; the Balkans thing I alluded to in enough detail that you could easily have googled it if you were genuinely curious: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=balkans%20IQ%20io... And iodine deficiency isn't something that's purely long-term either - you can see effects after 24 weeks in this study: http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/83/1/108 (note the high significance).
The burden of proof is not on those who claim lack of malleability - not that there are any such people here - but on those who claim IQ boosts without good long-term IQ testing.
It's not that we think that they can actually do this, we just don't want them to limit themselves to any specific thing.