mental attribution error, a tendency to attribute the behaviors of others to
internal, stable causes (Ross, 1977), and it has been suggested that such ten-
dencies may be further exaggerated during attributions of skill in domains
like chess where most domain-relevant practice is unlikely to be observed
(Charness et al., 1996).
Some researchers have speculated on the potential social and psychologi-
cal consequences of falsely attributed talent. One radical but plausible sug-
gestion is that successful talent selection and development is essentially a self-
fulfilling prophecy rather than a calculated response to genuinely innate gifts
(Bloom, 1982; Howe et al., 1998). That is, if parents, teachers, or other influ-
ential people believe strongly enough that a given child is gifted or talented
and capable of exceptional achievements, and they consequently provide the
emotional, motivational, and pedagogical support that they feel is warranted
by the perceived talent, then perhaps it matters little whether or not the gift
actually existed, because the resulting boost to the child’s confidence will en-
courage the kind of persistence that is critical to the attainment of success. On
the other hand, if a parent says to a child that he or she does not have talent,
either because a teacher does not see it or a test does not show it, then that
child may be deprived of the opportunity to engage in an educational regimen
that might very well lead to exceptional levels of performance.
Critics may respond that misattributions of ability are relatively benign,
and that the negative social implications of disregarding talent or giftedness
in the educational process far outweigh the ramifications of inaccurate rejec-
tions. However, there is growing empirical evidence that false talent attribu-
tions may have immediate and potentially chronic negative psychological
consequences for their recipients. First, the giftedness or talent label is not al-
ways received in a positive manner. For example, many accomplished musi-
cians do not like being called prodigies or naturally talented because these la-
bels imply skill without effort (Bastian, 1992). Having spent thousands of
hours in the practice room, they are all too familiar with the immense quan-
tity of hard work required to prepare for a public performance. Conse-
quently, they may feel slighted by the notion that they had it easy simply be-
cause they were born into the right family. Moreover, merely being labeled as
gifted or precocious may result in parents or teachers imposing expectations
far beyond what is reasonable for a given age, thus causing long-term emo-
tional problems that may overshadow the attainment of meaningful goals
later in life (Freeman, 2001; Holahan & Holahan, 1999). In some cases, the
individual who is the predominant source of the talent attribution (usually a
parent) may form such extremely irrational expectations and beliefs about a
child’s abilities as to constitute a clinically significant psychological condition
known as achievement by proxy, characterized by extreme financial or psy-
chological sacrifice, objectification of the target child, and increased potential
for emotional or physical abuse (Tofler, Knapp, & Drell, 1999). Perhaps only
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