I just heard from my friend (see earlier post: "A Moment To Breathe") who called to let me know he passed his make-up anatomy exam, and thus the class. I'm so very happy for him, but the emails I got from him through the night last night as he was cramming were incredibly despondent--he was convinced he was stupid, incapable of learning anatomy, and destined to fail. This, after he took me aside after our last scheduled anatomy exam to tell me that my "attitude is everything" pep talks made all the difference for him while he was taking the test.
I always acknowledged that attitude was a fairly important part of my own performance under pressure. However, before watching my friend almost psych himself into failing anatomy, I never before understood just how powerful an effect one's "self-talk" could have on previously successful, experienced students. Just for fun, I did a (very) quick literature search on [academic performance AND attitude AND "self-talk"] just to see what would come up, and I was surprised by the results: about 4300 papers came up (maybe 3,000 more than I was expecting), and a few based on title alone seem to address aspects of my specific question going back as far as 1979*. (As I've moved more extensively into the biomedical realm, I seem to have picked up that nasty bias that any research done before 1995 is obsolete. Shame on me and my poor representation of my degree in psychology. ;) Not surprisingly, I've had yet another shockingly unoriginal observation. =)
I'm not sure when I became such a proponent of the "attitude as a determinant of outcome" theory of high-pressure academic/professional situations, but I know I owe any such beliefs to my mother. My conversion certainly wasn't in high school, when my mom "encouraged" me to listen to these guided imagery tapes made by a colleague...maybe it was in college when a few of us had a tradition of listening to a particular song--for most, it was "Eye of the Tiger"--and reciting "this test is my bit&#" while we walked to our exam. In any case, in those instances it was always difficult to determine how much of anyone's given success or failure was due to the psychological readiness factor. I grant you that my friend's situation is at best a case-report, and certainly not a randomized controlled trial, but I've been with him when he studies--he's not at all "disabled" in his learning of anatomy--and have watched the change in his attitudes and beliefs during the class. I'm more convinced than ever that his mind, and not his brain, almost failed him. Luckily, he managed to pull himself out of his downward spiral before impact, and I think he's learned a lot about himself. A happy ending, with lessons learned and everything. What a happy way to start the New Year!
*For example, see:
Fulkerson and Galassi. Relation between cognitions and performance in math anxious students: A failure of cognitive theory. Journal of Counseling Psychology (1984)
Neck and Manz. Thought self-leadership: the influence of self-talk and mental imagery on performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior (1992)
Schutz and Davis. Emotions and self-regulation during test taking. Educational Psychologist (2000)
Wachelka and Katz. Reducing test anxiety and improving academic self-esteem in high school and college students with learning disabilities. Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry (1999)
Wolters and Rosenthal. The relation between students' motivational beliefs and their use of motivational …. International Journal of Educational Research (2000)
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