Sample Research Notes from Arrival

The notes below are 4 out of 51 such notes from ch4 of Arrival. This chapter is summarized on the current website under the topics of "MainStory" and also in relevant "SideStories". However virtually none of the book's research or reference materials are available online. Hence these 4 notes are included here as examples of what is available in the book itself.

The last note included here (6) is re Einstein's early years.

Four Notes from Chapter 4 of Arrival © 2004

(2)In my 10+ years of analyzing about 300 'greats’ (in field and/or society) with my students (ranging from LBJ to Dylan to Che, from Nabokov to Madonna to Lennon, from Van Gogh to Ali to Brando, from Orson Welles to Malcolm to Warhol, from J Edgar to Hendrix to Orwell), we discovered that once you identify the major works (physical and/or symbolic creations) for which the person became famous, it was always possible to identify five key characteristics which were essential to these achievements. While the key characteristics involved were unique to each individual, overall they inevitably sorted themselves into two primarily related to intelligence (eg Woody's flat picking or Hitch's ability to visualize drama), two primarily related to personality (eg Woody's terror of intimacy or Norma Jeane's hunger for love) and one primarily related to self or identity (eg Woody's total identification with the Okies or Norma Jeane's perfect self doubt).

Perhaps the clearest illustration of key characteristics being critical (and unique) to the individual is provided by Paisley’s use of a “computer to determine the most common two-note transitions for the first four notes of a sample of 3,335 themes by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Brahms”. These “two-note transition probabilties” – just this minimal sample of variation – were sufficient “to identify the melodic style of the composers”. With reference to the question of key characteristics, you could say that variations in at least one key characteristic showed up right down to "the first four notes".

(quotes from Simonton, 1987, p88)

See also note (19)below, re repeated matching of individual's characteristics with organizations' problems.

(3) For theoretical accounts re the development of intelligence see, e.g., Feldman & Fowler (1997) re “change mechanisms” involved in cognitive development within a continuum of “nonuniversal domains”; Granott & Gardner (1994) re how the ongoing “coincidence” between “domain related interactions” in the home and those in wider environment results in the individual’s “genetic proclivity” towards the domain being “promoted”, ie in a continuous evolution of the relevant domain related intelligence; Bronfenbrenner & Ceci (1994, pp568, 570-79) re “mechanisms of organism-environment interaction” – “proximal processes” - by which “genotypes are transformed into phenotypes” & how enhancing both environments and proximal processes can increase the extent of this transformation; Elman et al (1996) for related, much more elaborated, "connectionist" account of this developmental process; Horowitz (1987, esp pp141-45, 149-159) re role of person’s “vulnerability” and environmental “facilitation” in the development of “nonuniversal behaviors”.

Re the characteristics of problem solving activities relevant to development of intelligence see, e.g., Resnick (1987, pp13-16, 18-19) re common features; Csikszentmihalyi et al (1997, pp12-16, 155-8+, 177-95) re role of "complex" families and teacher relationships; Sloboda (1990, p174, 1994, pp160-63) re jazz musicians; Feldman with Goldsmith (1986) re prodigies; Sosniak (1990, pp 158-161) & Bloom (1985, various chapters) re concert pianists, sculptors, swimmers, tennis players, mathematicians; Starkes et al (1996, pp82-3, 94-6, 99-105) re wrestling, figure skating, & golf; Koch (1971) re writing poetry; Gardner (1991) re writing fiction; Tangherlini & Durden (1993, pp430-439) re verbal talents; Gardner (1973, pp242-292) re egs from lives of famous artists. Re a conceptual model for analyzing the ‘complexity and multiplicity’ of ‘types of interactions’ that ‘promote cognitive changes’ see Granott & Gardner (1994).

(4)Individuals are born with genetic biases toward various aspects of human functioning (‘strengths’) that have traditionally been studied under the separate headings of ‘intelligence’ and ‘personality’ (cf, Thompson & Plomin, 1993, re “cognitive ability”; Gardner, 1985, re “multiple intelligences”; Halverson et al , 1994, re the “big five model of personality”; Feldman w/ Goldsmith, 1986; Winner, 1996, pp 36-42, 55-74, re extreme egs of genetic bias; Winner, 2000, pp 154-55, re a concise summary of research on the "role of innate talent" and "uneven cognitive profiles" in "gifted individuals" ). Likewise it is clear that both maturation and experience contribute to developing these biases into powerful & enduring ways of perceiving, analyzing, & responding to the world, including one’s own self (see Plomin et al, 2001, pp 225,228-9, 231-2, re recent research on role of nonshared environments, genetic bias, and chance in contributing to differences in psychological development, inc. intelligence, personality, & self-concept. See also Gardner , 1985, pp296-8, & Pervin, 1996, pp245-49, re self; Rosser, 1994, pp312-14; Pervin, 1996, pp 142-56; and Gardner , 1985, pp 79-83, 108-115, etc, re role of nature/nurture in cognitive development).

What remains unresolved are the questions of precisely how genetic biases develop and how they operate (cf. Rosser, 1994, pp1-26; Eysenck & Barrett, 1993; Gardner, 1985, pp279-295; Winner, 1996, pp153-69; various chapters in Johnson, 1993; Obler & Fein, 1988; Halverson et al, 1994). One aspect which is clear is the crucial role of focussed, intensive, on-going, problem solving experience -- what Ericsson and his colleagues, eg 1993, term "deliberate practice" -- in enhancing the development of genetic bias (cf. Gardner, 1993, pp 51-54, 90-95, etc; Bloom, 1985; Fowler, 1986, re great mathematicians; Feldman, 1993, p190-1, re prodigies; Ericsson & Faivre, 1988; Howe, 1992, pp 62-96; various chapters in Heller, Monks, & Passow, 1993; Ericsson & Smith, 1994; Ericsson, 1996). At a neurological level such experiences create synaptic and dendritic changes, ie altering the ‘wiring diagram’ of the brain, so as to, eg, make the relevant neural networks larger and more complex. in short, such experiences ‘stretch’ the genetic biases (cf. Rosser, 1994, pp16-18; Greenough, 1993, pp 319-322; Rosenzweig, et al, 1996, esp, pp 646-54; Elman et al 1996).

(6) Einstein, like Mozart, was blessed with the right kind of problems practically from the day he was old enough to tackle them. Imagine the kind of problems 6 year old Albert got when his family moved in with Uncle Jakob to share that house in Adelreiterstrasse. When his family moved in for 4 years with Uncle Jakob, 4 years with Uncle Jakob and his “merry little science” of algebra. (not to mention the kind of problems which were happily extended when Max Talmud showed up right afterwards to take a room as a boarder in the Einstein household, toting his handy collection of science and geometry books).

The evidence from Einstein’s childhood, scanty though it is, consistently points to 2 strong genetic biases -- logical-mathematical intelligence (Gardner, 1985, pp128-69) and acute sensitivity to (and hence desire to avoid, control, at least be able to predict) stimuli (Pervin, 1996, p44; Kagan & Snidman, 1991). In short, the evidence is of a “shy, taciturn, introspective” child who disliked running and jumping, was inclined to separate himself from other children, preferring solitary games of “patience and perseverance”. A child who “shuddered” at the sight and sound of soldiers synchstepping down the streets of Munich to the roll of drums and shrill of fifes, who dreaded the “sergeants” and “lieutenants” of teachers mechanically drilling him through Greek and Latin grammars. A child riveted by the “wonder” of a compass needle “isolated and unreachable, totally enclosed yet caught in the grip of an invisible urge that made it strive determinedly toward the North”. A child who “derived great pleasure” from the “ritual precepts of traditional religion”, despite being the son of “entirely irreligious parents”. The kind of genetic biases which, given proper development, might lead to an adult view of the world as containing “on one side the totality of sense-experiences, and on the other, the totality of conceptual systems”, logical systems whose aim is to “permit the most nearly possible certain and complete co-ordination with the totality of sense-experience”.

Imagine a 6 year old with such genetic biases getting 4 years of regular, daily contact with an energetic engineer of an uncle, living in same house, an uncle who ran the technical side of family’s factory just down the road, producing dynamos & arc lamps & electrometers, at height of the German electrochemical boom -- electric garters & curling combs, power stations, transatlantic cables, street lights & luminous neckties -- when the whole world seemed to be running on electricity.

4 years with an uncle who would have known all about Faraday’s lines of force and what they’d do to sheet covered with iron filings, all about batteries and wires and switches and how Oersted would have hooked them up right next to his compass. Hooked them up and watched the needle jump back and forth with the switch. An uncle who would have posed endless problems – sensory experiences which defied any visible logic, logical formulations just aching for sensory demonstration -- to show that 3 altitudes of triangle must intersect at a point, that squaring the 2 short sides of a right triangle will cover exactly the same space as the square of the long side. The sort of problems young Albert’s logical-mathematical bent, his intolerance for chaotic stimuli, would drive him to solve. The sort of problems that would conflict “hard and intensively” with his “world of concepts”, that would cause him to “wonder”, cause him to work and rework his concepts til he eliminated that “wonder”. The kind of problems whose solution would give him that “deep feeling of happiness”. The kind of problems he would seek out over and over, ever developing his “thought world”, ever causing that “side of his nature” to “grow more and more pronounced”, in his “continuous flight from ‘wonder’”.

Information and quotes re Einstein above come from Clark (1973), pp24-31; Einstein (1957), pp5-13; Frank (1948), pp15-25; Highfield & Carter (1993), pp 16-18; Hoffman &Dukas (1975), pp9, 18, 20-24; Pais (1983), pp35-39; Reiser (1931), pp26-31, 33-35, 37; Schwartz & McGuinness (1992), pp 10-23, 50, 57, 60-63; Storr (1983), pp85-93.

Re references cited above, see Sources.