Persistence - Feb 2nd Class

One of the greatest feelings is overcoming, accomplishing, achieving – especially when the journey to accomplishment was long and hard. Today we talked about how to keep going, especially when the going is tough…

According to the research:

Training, social support, and rewards are effective ways of increasing persistence when they foster a sense of competence and self-determination which increase intrinsic motivation.

• ·         Effort Training – effort training can increase subsequent persistence, even at tasks not directly related to the training (Eisenberger et al. 1994)
• ·         Social Support – social support fosters a sense of self-determination, which in turn predicts better academic persistence (Vallerand, Fortier, & Guay, 1997)
• ·         Rewards – salient, anticipated rewards shape the experience of performing the task, so that the person comes to see the self as performing the task only for the sake of the reward, and persistence may drop off sharply after the reward is no longer available. In contrast, if the reward is presented or structured in a way that conveys positive feedback about competence, thereby enhancing the task’s symbolic value for the self, it can increase intrinsic motivation and hence persistence (Harackiewicz, Manderlink, & Sansone, 1984). 

Activity:

In order to persist in the face of a difficult task, a person must both value the goal and believe in his/her ability to eventually achieve it (Carver & Scheier, 2003). Think of something you are currently struggling with and find ways to remind yourself why you value accomplishing your goal and think of how you might be able to increase your competence in at least one helpful way.

Take Home:

Write a book report – yep, that’s what I said, a book report! Find ten people who have persisted in something difficult and found success. Then pick one of them and write about what they accomplished, how they overcame obstacles, etc. Bring your book report to class.

Here is my list:

• ·         Ruby Bridges : Faced anti-desegregation mobs with courage and never gave up
• ·         Greg Mortensen : Promoting peace in Afghanistan and Pakistan by helping local populations build and maintain schools
• ·         Annie Sullivan : Worked through her own disabilities to teach Helen Keller, a child who was both deaf and blind
• ·         Michael Pollan : Helping people think about what they eat
• ·         Theodore Seuss Geisel : And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street was rejected by 27 publishers and was finally published by a friend with only a little success, now Dr. Seuss has had over 200 million copies of his books sold in 15 languages
• ·         Graca Machel : Fighting for freedom, education, and the rights of refugees
• ·         Corrie Ten Boom : Helped Jews escape the horrors of the holocaust and then managed to survive being in a concentration camp herself
• ·         Orville and Wilber Wright : Worked for years to perfect their design for a flying machine
• ·         Temple Grandin : Became a Ph.D. and a professor in spite of having autism
• ·         Chen Shu-chu : Vegetable vendor in backwater Taiwan, just keeps giving to those in need