Role models are great in any walk of life, not least in the scientific domain.  New research from William Paterson University explores whether scientific role models are more beneficial if they’re the perspiration type rather than the inspiration type.

“There’s a misleading message out there that says you have to be a genius in order to be a scientist,” the researchers explain. “This just isn’t true and may be a big factor in deterring people from pursuing science and missing out on a great career. Struggling is a normal part of doing science and exceptional talent is not the sole prerequisite for succeeding in science. It’s important we help spread this message in science education.”

The authors express concern among the science community around the high drop out rate among students, and they wanted to test the influence role models play in this leaky talent pipeline.

Role models

They build upon previous work that has explored the kind of qualities that can make role models effective, and look to explore specifically how aspiring scientists beliefs about role models influences their motivation levels.

“The attributions people make of others’ success are important because those views could significantly impact whether they believe they, too, can succeed,” the researchers say. “We were curious about whether aspiring scientists’ beliefs about what contributed to the success of established scientists would influence their own motivation.”

They conducted three experiments that required participants to read stories about scientists encountering an obstacle in their work.  Some of the volunteers read a version of this story where the scientist was Einstein, whereas others read a story where the scientist was Edison.

Interestingly, despite the facts of the story being identical, those reading the Einstein version were more likely to believe that natural brilliance was the key to overcoming the hurdle, whereas those with Edison as the hero believed hard work was key.  What’s more, those who read the Edison story were then more inspired to complete a range of maths problems themselves.

“This confirmed that people generally seem to view Einstein as a genius, with his success commonly linked to extraordinary talent,” the researchers say. “Edison, on the other hand, is known for failing more than 1,000 times when trying to create the light bulb, and his success is usually linked to his persistence and diligence.”

Overcoming challenges

A second experiment repeated the trick, but this time replaced Edison with a made up scientist, called Mark Johnson.  As before, those who read the story containing him were less likely to think that exceptional talent was the key to his success, and they too were more inclined to complete the maths tasks afterwards.

Last, but not least, they repeated the same procedure as before, but this time randomly assigned participants to read a story about either an unknown scientist, Edison or Einstein.  Compared to the story about the unknown scientist, Edison was more motivational than Einstein, who actually motivated less than the unknown scientist.

“The combined results suggest that when you assume that someone’s success is linked to effort, that is more motivating than hearing about a genius’s predestined success story,” the authors suggest. “Knowing that something great can be achieved through hard work and effort, that message is much more inspiring.”

It should perhaps be said that the study only measured motivation in terms of a task performed immediately after reading about science, where they were exploring drop out rates after a much longer period of time, so it remains unknown whether the motivation from the Edison group would be sustained over a longer timeframe.  Nonetheless, the researchers believe their findings are valuable.

“This information can help shape the language we use in textbooks and lesson plans and the public discourse regarding what it takes to succeed in science,” they conclude. “Young people are always trying to find inspiration from and mimic the people around them. If we can send the message that struggling for success is normal, that could be incredibly beneficial.”