Cherry Picking: Why We Must Not Let Negativity Dominance AffectOur Interactions with StudentsMelanie M. Cooper*

Department of Chemistry, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29634, United States

ABSTRACT: This editorial discusses why we must not let negativity dominance affect our interactions with students.

KEYWORDS: Continuing Education, Elementary/Middle School Science, First-Year Undergraduate/General, General Public,Graduate Education/Research, High School/Introductory Chemistry, Second-Year Undergraduate, Upper-Division Undergraduate

In his recent book Thinking, Fast and Slow,1 Nobel LaureateDaniel Kahneman writes about “negativity dominance”,

specifically the observation from Paul Rozin that “onecockroach will spoil a bowl of cherries, while a cherry will donothing for a bowl of cockroaches”. Evolutionary forces havehardwired us to pay more attention to the bad over the good.1

While this tendency enables us to identify and respond quicklyto threats (the negative effects of a pack of wolfs orapproaching lions), unfortunately, it can also produceinappropriate and counterproductive responses. For example,many of us pay more attention to negative reviews of ourpapers or bad student evaluations of our teaching, discountingthe good oneseven if the positive greatly outweighs thenegative. For those of us engaged in educational activities,negativity dominance can have profound consequences; weneed to recognize it when it occurs and take measures tocounteract it.This “negativity dominance” was highlighted by a talk in a

chemical education session at a recent ACS meeting. The topicappeared to be timely and relevant, and apparently wellreceived by the audience. However, as the talk progressed, theoverwhelmingly negative tone of the talk and the presenter’sworking assumptions that students are poorly prepared withlittle or no work ethic or morals was greeted with knowing nodsand even guffaws from the audience. The picture that emergedwas one of students, or rather “students these days”, who haveclearly degenerated badly since the speaker’s time. To addressthese problems, the presenter proposed a learning environmentthat left nothing to chance: knowledge was apportioned out indiscrete chunks and assignments were developed based on theassumption that all students would cheat if given a chance.Assessments used randomized quiz questions and collaborationwas not allowed. The design of the materials seemeduninformed by research on teaching and learning, and noevidence of efficacy was provided (or apparently considerednecessary).It is sad that the negative effects of such a regimented,

implicitly hostile, and condescending curricular design onlearning are ignored, and even more problematic is the fact thatmany conventional and proposed pedagogical strategies arepromulgated with no basis in objective evidence. While it iseasy to complain about and blame the students, this is abehavior at odds with a scientific perspective. We would not“blame the molecules” for chemical reactions that fail to work

as expected: we would take a more careful look at ourtechnique and working assumptions. It is clear that students canlearn; if they do not, perhaps we should examine our ownassumptions rather than placing all the blame on them. Sendingthe message that learning is not valued (or the goal of a course)and that students are not trusted is likely to alienate rather thanmotivate them. It is true that all students are not paragons ofvirtue: some students do very little work, and some do cheat,but to design instructional environments based on theseoutliers cannot be productive.It is also true that some students are poorly prepared, but is

that really all their fault? If we look at the data it turns out that“students these days” are no worse (and maybe a little better)than students in “our day”, whenever that was. Contrary to thetypical press reports of doom and gloom on the educationscene, IQ and test scores are rising (slightly) for mostpopulations.2,3 Although U.S. students do not compare wellin international tests, it turns out that for as long asinternational comparisons have been made (as far back as the1960s) they have never compared well. As a side note: it is asad fact that the most powerful indicator of school success isthe number of students in the school who live in poverty. In themost recent PISA reports,4 students who attend schools whereless than 10% of the population is poor compare very well ininternational rankings (above Japan, Finland, and Korea).Poverty, which is on the rise, is the biggest threat to studentperformance in K−12 education, and consequently also at thecollege level.For those of us who teach in selective institutions, the

students who come to our classes are better prepared (byalmost all measures) than the students who were in our classes20 years ago. For those in open-enrollment institutions, we areproviding an opportunity to a wider range of students than everbefore. Either way, those students don’t deserve our disdain;blame for failure needs to be allotted all the way around theeducational system. In my experience, most students are highlymotivated and do want to excel (although it may certainly betrue that some of them do not know how to excel; againperhaps this is not their fault).Students these days are not that differentthey don’t learn

differently than we did because there simply hasn’t been

Published: February 7, 2012

Editorial

pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc

© 2012 American Chemical Society andDivision of Chemical Education, Inc. 423 dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed3000217 | J. Chem. Educ. 2012, 89, 423−424

enough time for evolution to act on our brains’ learningmechanisms. Sure, we know that brains are plastic and respondto stimuli, but we also know that the neural connections thatare strengthened by playing World of Warcraft don’t(necessarily) improve learning chemical structure−functionrelationships. (In fact, according to a recent National ResearchCouncil report, there is no evidence that playing computergameseven games designed to promote learninghelps orhurts learning.5)Poor preparation and performance of students (whether real

or imagined) is often a cause for complaint, but whom shouldwe blame? The teachers? The parents? The students? All of theabove? Perhaps it is also time to take some responsibilityourselves. We must teach the students we have, not thestudents we want (or the students we imagine we were back inthe mists of time). While there are real problems associatedwith the STEM education system, let us not forget that ourstudents are real people, who come to us to learn. While theremay be a few “cockroaches” in our midst, we should not letnegativity dominance sometimes override the majority of ourinteractions with students.

■ AUTHOR INFORMATIONCorresponding Author

*E-mail: cmelani@clemson.edu.

■ REFERENCES(1) Kahneman, D. Thinking, Fast and Slow; Farrar, Straus and Giroux:New York, 2011.(2) Flynn, J. R. Massive IQ Gains in 14 Nations: What IQ TestsReally Measure. Psychol. Bull. 1987, 101, 171−191.(3) Ronnlund, M.; Nilsson, L.-G. Flynn Effects on Subfactors ofEpisodic and Semantic Memory: Parallel Gains over Time and theSame Set of Determining Factors. Neuropsychologia 2009, 47 (11),2174−2180.(4) OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).http://www.pisa.oecd.org/pages/0,2987,en_32252351_32235731_1_1_1_1_1,00.html (accessed Feb 2012).(5) National Research Council, Committee on Science Learning:Computer Games, Simulations, and Education. Learning Sciencethrough Computer Games and Simulations; Honey, M. A., Hilton, M.L., Eds.; National Academies Press: Washington, DC, 2011. http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13078#toc (accessed Feb 2012).

Journal of Chemical Education Editorial

dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed3000217 | J. Chem. Educ. 2012, 89, 423−424424