There's a psychological consequence that I've had to deal with most of my
professional life (as a physicist). While in a heterogeneous population,
I learned to excel. I was (in grades) ranked number 1 out of a class
of 2000+ in college. When I hit the professional world, I was working
within a group of people who had all had outstanding academic careers,
and it was hard to even be "above average"! It was psychologically
difficult to adapt to the changed circumstances.
Now, if one extrapolates (dangerous, I know) the experiences of the
students who were all cruising along at GPA's of 3.75, it seems
reasonable to suppose that many of them encounter similar
"renormalizations" as they arrive in the working world. The
population one finds in the "real" (successful) world will often
be the collection of 20 years' worth of cream-of-the-crop from prior
years' student populations. The ("horizontal") competition one has
experienced throughout school changes into a ("vertical") competition
within a specialty, where the stakes are higher and the knocks
are harder!
The issue of doing one's best, and feeling rewarded and fulfilled
in doing so is a complex one that contributes (I suspect) to much of
the stress-related illness experienced in modern societies.
This would be a good area for research on educational psychology...
Does anyone know if anything significant is known in this area?
If anything is known from research, is it applied in the educational
system?
Regards,
William C. Mead
wcm@ansr.com
Visit "Adaptive Network Solutions Research, Inc." on the web
at http://www.ansr.com !