Motivational Constraint
A premise of our theoretical framework is that deliberate practice is not inherently enjoyable and that individuals are motivated to engage in it by its instrumental value in improving performance. Hence, interested individuals need to be engaging in the activity and motivated to improve performance before they begin deliberate practice. Bloom (1985b) found evidence supporting this implication. His interviews with international-level performers showed that parents typically initiated deliberate practice after allowing their children several months of playful engagement in the domain and after noticing that their children expressed interest and …show more content…
Activities in many domains, especially sports, are seasonal because most scheduled competitions occur during a single season of the year. If individuals enjoyed deliberate practice, they ought to practice at a uniformly high level all year. Instead, athletes train much harder during the preseason period and during the season itself; during the off season they often reduce the level of training dramatically (Reilly, 1990a; Reilly & Secher, 1990). Many individuals who have practiced for a long period of time give up their aspirations to compete and excel in an activity. Without the goal of improving performance, the motivation to engage in practice vanishes. Kaminski, Mayer, and Ruoff (1984) found that many elite adolescents who decided to stop competing remained active in the domain but virtually stopped engaging in …show more content…
Fink, A. & Woschnjak, S. (2011). Creativity and personality in professional dancers. Personality and Individual Differences, 51 (6), 754-758.
Abstract
In this study three different groups of professional dancers (ballet, modern/contemporary and jazz/musical), which considerably vary with respect to the creativity-related demands involved in the respective dancing style, are compared with respect to psychometrically determined creativity, general mental ability and different facets of personality. Results indicate that modern/contemporary dancers, who are often required to freely improvise on stage, exhibited relatively high levels of verbal and figural creativity (as it was measured by means of psychometric creativity tests), followed by jazz/musical and finally by ballet dancers. With respect to personality, modern/contemporary dancers can be characterized as being less conscientious, higher on psychoticism and more open to experiences than the remaining experimental groups. In line with relevant research in this field, this study reveals some central personality characteristics of highly creative individuals which may be considered as important ingredients in the acquisition or actualization of exceptional creative