Talent: Are Some Just Born with It?

By Darla Sitton, Gailon Totheroh

CBN News

October 13, 2006

CBNNews.com - At this Florida State University lab, a nursing student is tested on her ability to care for a patient in a life and death situation. her professor sets up the circumstances.

"I can't breathe," the professor says.

The simulated emergency separates the experienced nurses from the those who can't perform as well.

"I really don't know what to do," the nursing student says.

Psychologists Paul Ward and Anders Ericsson have studied thousands of experts in various fields -- from medicine to law enforcement -- trying to figure out why some people excel and others don't.

"We're looking at how people think, and how that thinking affects how they perform.," Ward said. They analyzed how well people performed in critical situations, and then asked why.

"That's when we uncover the experts' superiority, their ability to perceive more information, and also, after the fact, actually remember more of their thought processes than the novices," Ericsson said.

The conclusion? Researchers report in Scientific American magazine, that there's no evidence that experts are born with any more "natural talent," than other people. Practice makes the difference.

But not just any practice. It has to be deliberate.

"A lot of people like to do things that they're already good at," Ericsson said. " But what deliberate practice says is you need to find those things that you are weak at and that there's room for improvement. And that's what you should focus on."

Scientists say even novices can become experts if they have the motivation and committment to challenge themselves.

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