New Study Contradicts Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 Rule

http://www.businessinsider.com/new-study-destroys-malcolm-gladwells-10000-rule-2014-7?utm_source=hootsuite&utm_campaign=hootsuite

by jamesbritt • 12 years ago

92 98 12 years ago

businessinsider.com

Oculus• 12 years ago

I never took his rule too literally. I always thought of it as an explanation for how people become the best at something: practice. I still believe it is true. Though you can't study entrepreneurship, practicing (i.e. gaining experience) makes you better at running companies. The same can be applied to other activities which don't involve rigid structure which can be learned.

x1798DE2• 12 years ago

The article is about the degree to which deliberate practice helps you in various fields, it's not actually about the specific 10,000 hour rule. The thesis of the article is that, essentially, deliberate practice does not have a large effect on your effectiveness in fields which do not have unchanging, rigid structures (like games whose rules don't change).

As a rule, I reserve judgement about any "new study", but also as a rule I think that anything Malcolm Gladwell says is bullshit, so I'm torn on this one.

pjscott2• 12 years ago

I had the same torn reaction, but upon reading the full text (thanks, Gwern!) I'm no longer conflicted: it's not really a new study, so much as it is a systematic review of roughly a decade of relevant literature. Malcolm Gladwell seems to have based his claims mainly on a widely-cited Hot New Study from 1993, which has since turned out to have been overblown: later studies on the importance of deliberate practice have almost all come up with lower values for the correlation between deliberate practice hours and performance.

So, it looks like ignoring Malcolm Gladwell was the right answer here. It usually is.

Hasknewbie• 12 years ago

I believe he goes by the name Explaino The Clown these days.

PM_Tech26• 12 years ago

I am wary of anyone who makes blanket statements like "anything Malcolm Gladwell says is bullshit."

You simulataneously discount his entire canon of work and also every single underlying scientific paper he has quoted, cited or referenced. That is a lot of work to label bullshit.

mathattack2• 12 years ago

False versus False?

Gladwell's paper was so explicit that I thought it couldn't possibly be true, despite the niceties of "We'd like practice to be important"

The best programmers (and martial artists, and runners, and basketball players) I personally know are the ones who practiced the most, but I've struggled with causation and correlation. They generally got early head starts, and kept plowing ahead.

mtdewcmu• 12 years ago

Malcolm Gladwell's articles can be very enjoyable reading[1]. I suppose you have to bear in mind that he's not an expert on anything besides writing.

[1] http://gladwell.com/category/the-new-yorker-archive/

a_bonobo• 12 years ago

Your definition of 'practicing' is different from the publication's - the publication specifically looks only at deliberate practice:

This view holds that expert performance largely reflects accumulated amount of deliberate practice, which Ericsson et al. defined as engagement in structured activities created specifically to improve performance in a domain.

As an entrepreneur or programmer, I think that it's very hard to do deliberate practice - there are few structured activities you can do to improve your skills, as both fields, even in their more basic tasks, incorporate various skills and approaches.

For example, you wouldn't say 'today I practice for-loops' and then do nothing but write for-loops all day. You can say 'today I write a program that uses while loops instead of for-loops', but I think that wouldn't count as deliberate practice anymore - the structure of the task changes with the focus and task of your program (you'd also have to do more like de-bugging, tests etc.)

As a tennis player, however, you can say 'today I practice serves' and then do nothing but serve balls all day, that's a structured task that doesn't change. Apparently it just doesn't help that much.

sousousou• 12 years ago

I'm coming from music as a profession to programming as a profession.

In music you can craft repetitive exercises to improve small aspects of your skillset, but in computer science you can't do that exactly (or sanely). However, I do find myself directing my study in a similar way. I have various high-level goals and I try to find some way to get at them on a daily basis. I use concrete projects like reading a book, doing exercises, or taking on a hobby project. It feels very similar to practicing music, but I wouldn't call it practicing. It's my practice!

gwern4• 12 years ago

Fulltext: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/182368464/2014-macnamara...

zmjones• 12 years ago

Meta-analysis is usually suspect.

scribu• 12 years ago

Why?

pjscott2• 12 years ago

I can think of three main suspicions to keep in mind when evaluating the credibility of a meta-analysis:

1. Are the studies it analyzes picked with a bias? For example, if you're looking for meta-analyses of the effects of gun control on crime, and one was published by the National Rifle Association and the other came from the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, then you might as well just throw up your hands and go home, because each will probably have suspiciously convenient criteria for what constitutes a reasonable study worthy of inclusion in their meta-analysis.

2. Do the studies themselves suffer from publication bias? A meta-analysis purporting to show a positive effect should arouse some suspicion, because negative results often simply don't get published, and can not be included in the meta-analysis due to their nonexistence.

3. Are the methods of analysis reasonable? There are a horrifying number of ways to pull positive results out of random noise through poor application of statistics.

In this particular case, the authors don't seem to have an axe to grind, their result is negative, and their analysis is very straightforward.

DanBC2• 12 years ago

Would you say that's true of the Cochrane collaboration?

jqm4• 12 years ago

I always thought this "rule" sounded like something pulled completely out of thin air.

Of course practice is necessary to become proficient, and lots of practice is necessary to achieve mastery. But, the amount needed has to vary depending on the person, and some people will never achieve mastery in some areas. There is such a thing as native skill. And the inverse.

PM_Tech26• 12 years ago

Native skill is largely a myth.

According to Matthew Syed in Bounce (a very good read) there are numerous fields in which native or genetic skill is considered the norm (sports, chess, math) but no studies support that hypothesis.

Conversely a number of studies actively disprove that native skill exists. Ultimately, barring true genetic freaks (Michael Phelps wingspan for instance) anyone could achieve any level of any pursuit with enought focussed practice and a degree of luck.

Yunk• 12 years ago

When I look at a field like sports, I assume the genetic advantages are not so direct to the routine tasks.

For example, significant genetic factors may be: healing or failing to heal without permanent damage or being flexible in a way that causes or prevents a frequent injury.

For many star players the fact that they can keep playing at all may be the freak of genetics or initial behavior that allowed them to get to their level.

For example, football helmet impact data seems to support the direction that many should be dropping out due to traumatic brain injury. Yet some players deteriorate remarkably slower than medical science previously predicted.

Someone3• 12 years ago

"Ultimately, barring true genetic freaks (Michael Phelps wingspan for instance) anyone could achieve any level of any pursuit with enought focussed practice and a degree of luck."

So, why do you think there are so few top basketball players under five feet nine (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shortest_players_in_N...)? So few rowers average lung volume?

I doubt that is self-selection/cultural (you're too short for the NBA, so it isn't worth trying) or correlation vs causation (your lung volume is high because you trained so much)

Marazan5• 12 years ago

Matthew Syed's thesis is fundamentally challenged by reality. Certain activities/sports have a clear bias towards certain body types (as a reductive but clear example who would you favour to get an item off a high shelf unaided, the 6 foot 4 inch tall person or the 5 foot 6 inch person?).

It is true that training dominates 'talent'/'genetic biomechanics'. But, at similar levels of training some other factor will play a part in determinnig who is best, and at the elite end everyone is basically at the same levels of training so 'talent'/'genetics' will be the deciding factor. There is a reason why each discipline in pro-athletics seems to attract such a homogeneous collection of body shapes and why the people who 'break the mould' are often the most successful at the sport.

meowface3• 12 years ago

While practice still plays a huge role, I don't think you can compare physical/atheletic skills to more mental or abstract ones in this case.

audeyisaacs• 12 years ago

God I hate how people parrot that 10,000 hours rule.

I doubt this study will do anything to stop those people though.

PM_Tech26• 12 years ago

It's hardly Gladwell's rule. He just happened to be a writer who popularised it.

xname• 12 years ago

This article is total bullshit.

"practice accounted for just a 12% difference in performance in various domains" is not contrary to "10,000 hours of deliberate practice are needed to become world-class in any field".

For example, A) 10,000 hours of deliberate practice are needed to become a professional chess player, B) practice accounted for just a 12% difference in performance in professional chess. A and B can both be true at the same time.

gwern4• 12 years ago

And yet, (A) is simply not true, see the other mentioned study of chess players in the fulltext, a previous study involving Hambrick which found many top players falling short of 10k and many inferior players exceeding 10k, for a net explained variance of not-that-much.

mckeygeeky• 12 years ago

I believe that Gladwell was merely suggesting that talent is not innate and the difference is somebody's ability was due to the amount of time they put into it.

The top players might have spent several hours on a related field, like what futsal is for football.

p1esk• 12 years ago

12% difference in performance can be huge. For example, in 100m sprint race, Usain Bolt is 'only' 12% faster than me.

MrBuddyCasino2• 12 years ago

The 10000 hours rule might be bogus, but the examples given are unconvincing. Sid Vicious not being able to play bass well means just that - hes not good at it, probably because he didn't practise. That it didn't matter for him to become successful is a different story.

Slash of G'n R fame practised very hard to get to his level by literally doing nothing else from morning to evening.

spacec0wb0y• 12 years ago

Yes. This. Sid Vicious was nowhere near world-class at the bass. He may be world-class at playing up to the media and managing social situations. But after seeing that example, I feel it made me believe more in the 10,000 hours!

MrBuddyCasino2• 12 years ago

Ironically, he may well have put in the 10,000 hours practicing those skills - fashion, looks and charisma certainly take time to master.

Dewie4• 12 years ago

Being an exceptionally good instrumentalist is not how you get to become a world famous rock band (or band in general). If that were true, people like Steve Vai would be more famous than Slash and Guns and Roses.

coldtea• 12 years ago

Yes, but Vai is a bad artist -- no cultural sensitivity, no sense of melody, restrain, etc.

Now, technique is great for classical music, because the pieces are given and are masterpieces in themselves. Beethoven is there, and you just play it as best as you can.

But when you write our own stuff yourself based on your advanced guitar hero skills, you end up only interesting people impressed with flashy technique.

prostoalex• 12 years ago

The critique of the 10,000 rule is not new and here's what the author himself posted in 2013

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/2013/08/...

"I think that it is also a mistake to assume that the ten-thousand-hour idea applies to every domain.

...

The point of Simon and Chase’s paper years ago was that cognitively complex activities take many years to master because they require that a very long list of situations and possibilities and scenarios be experienced and processed. There’s a reason the Beatles didn’t give us “The White Album” when they were teen-agers. And if the surgeon who wants to fuse your spinal cord did some newfangled online accelerated residency, you should probably tell him no. It does not invalidate the ten-thousand-hour principle, however, to point out that in instances where there are not a long list of situations and scenarios and possibilities to master—like jumping really high, running as fast as you can in a straight line, or directing a sharp object at a large, round piece of cork—expertise can be attained a whole lot more quickly."

Dewie4• 12 years ago

It's asinine to write about and promote such a result as "10,000 hours"[1] when the result was really that it varies a lot from skill to skill. Using some constant number like 10,000 gives exactly the idea that there is some hard-and-fast rule to the amount of time needed to practice in order to attain some skill in some endeavour.

[1] Whether that was the author himself or the various people that that wrote second/third hand articles about it.

PM_Tech26• 12 years ago

Does employment in a CS career mean that you must be prescriptive in every aspect of your life?

The 10,000 hours is a rough guide to a general consensus of sporting and professional pursuits.

It is not appplicable to all people in all walks of life.

Sometimes I fear for the sanity of coders; how do you people function without technical specifications telling you what to do??

PM_Tech26• 12 years ago

Don't try and bring reason to the Gladwell-bashing. Great post though.

stevesunderland• 12 years ago

does anyone still take Gladwell seriously?

cpayne2• 12 years ago

He's a writer, and his business is to write books that people want.

I love his work! Similar to Dilbert's Scott Adam's books. After reading them, I don't walk away thinking "you weren't 100% correct, therefore I am going to ignore everything else you've said".

I find both authors highly entertaining. I think both would happily bend the truth if it helped the spirit of the work sound better.

bshimmin• 12 years ago

I've been somewhat interestedly following the guy who is very literally putting this to the test by attempting to become a professional golfer after 10,000 hours of practice, having never played a round of golf before he started. He's about halfway through his hours now and has shot a round of 70.

See here: http://thedanplan.com/

abrkn• 12 years ago

Now that's dedication.

thret• 12 years ago

Thanks for the reminder, I was interested when he started but hadn't checked up on him since. Golf, what a frustrating game :)

UweSchmidt• 12 years ago

Thanks for the link, I love checking up on his progress from time to time.

Small note, he seems to have downgraded his goals though from "winning a PGA tournament" [1] to "obtaining PGA tour card" [2]. Understandably, since the former would be incredible hard, but still...

[1] http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/dan-mclaughlins-10000ho... [2] http://thedanplan.com/about/

calinet6• 12 years ago

The idea is not the 10,000 hours; it is the mastery they represent.

frobozz• 12 years ago

This article suggests that Johansson is confusing commercial success with mastery of a skill.

Mastery of a skill does not guarantee commercial or financial success, nor does a lack of mastery guarantee failure. We see this in our own trade - just because you're a mega awesome super-ninja rockstar software developer, it doesn't mean the software you develop is actually worth billions. Summly, when it was acquired by Yahoo, came in for a lot of criticism for being equivalent to a crappy weekend project, but it made Nick D’Aloisio a heap of cash. I doubt that he was master of his craft at the time.

Similarly, the number of beautiful autotuned popstars who, without their army of producers and songwriters wouldn't even be fit to grace the stage in the back room of a pub, vs the number of highly skilled musicians whose genre or instrument lacks popular appeal or whose appearance makes them more suited to the radio era, and whose biggest gig is a crowd of 50 in a provincial arts centre.

Sid Vicious was in no way a master of the bass guitar, but his band enjoyed success all the same, due to the intersection of their music and the zeitgeist, and some good publicity work by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood.

Richard Branson may now be a master of business, but he's also definitely had his 10K hours. Had he already been masterful in the early days of Virgin Records, perhaps Virgin Group would number 4000 companies by now and Virgin Galactic would already be planning trips to Mars from their well-established moon base. Who knows?

New Study Contradicts Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 Rule

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