{"id":435,"date":"2014-10-02T21:04:20","date_gmt":"2014-10-02T21:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=435"},"modified":"2015-10-13T19:03:43","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T19:03:43","slug":"growing-and-granting-genius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2014\/10\/02\/growing-and-granting-genius\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing and Granting Genius"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Every year, the MacArthur Foundation releases a list of fellows recognized\u00a0for &#8220;originality and dedication&#8221; in their respective fields.\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.macfound.org\/fellows\/class\/class-2014\/\">2014&#8217;s list honors<\/a> social psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt, whose work on implicit biases <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2014\/09\/26\/think-fast-policing-race-and-implicit-bias\/\">showed up<\/a> on TROT last week. Known informally as the \u201cgenius grant,\u201d the MacArthur fellowship offers funds for a wide range of scholars, artists, and entrepreneurs to pursue new directions in their work. But what exactly is a genius? How do we decide who has that special something? Social science suggests we should not only look at geniuses themselves, but also at how socialization and networks among\u00a0people craft innovation.<\/p>\n<h5 class=\"p2\">Biographical studies show that genius and other talents are not born, but rather cultivated through an extraordinary amount of practice, habit-forming, and parenting.<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/soc.qc.cuny.edu\/faculty\/tang\/\">Joyce Tang<\/a>. 2005. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/j.1475-682X.2005.00115.x\/abstract\">Manufacturing Great Scientists.<\/a>&#8221;\u00a0<i>Sociological Inquiry <\/i>75(1):129-150<\/li>\n<li>Michael J. A. Howe. 2001 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/us\/academic\/subjects\/psychology\/personality-psychology-and-individual-differences\/genius-explained-1\"><i>Genius Explained. <\/i><\/a>Cambridge: Cambridge University Press<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hamilton.edu\/academics\/departments\/Faculty?dept=Sociology\">Daniel F. Chambliss<\/a>. 1989. &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/lillyfellows.org\/Portals\/0\/Chambliss-Mundanity%20of%20Excellence.pdf\">The Mundanity of Excellence: An Ethnographic Report on Stratification and Olympic Swimmers.<\/a>&#8221;\u00a0<em>Sociological Theory\u00a0<\/em>7(1):70-86.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5 class=\"p2\">Institutions and social networks also play a big role. \u201cGenius\u201d level work\u00a0in the arts and sciences must be recognized by peers and labeled as such.<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sociology.ucla.edu\/professors\/GABRIEL%20ROSSMAN\/?id=51\">Gabriel Rossman<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/priceschool.usc.edu\/nicole-e-esparza\/\">Nicole Esparza<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sociology.ucla.edu\/professors\/PHILLIP%20BONACICH\/?id=4\">Phillip Bonacich<\/a>. 2010. \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/escholarship.org\/uc\/item\/3f51g5ww#page-2\">I\u2019d Like to Thank the Academy, Team Spillovers, and Network Centrality.<\/a>\u201d <i>American Sociological Review. <\/i>75(1) 31-51.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sociology.northwestern.edu\/people\/faculty\/gary-alan-fine.html\">Gary Alan Fine<\/a>. 2004. <a href=\"http:\/\/press.uchicago.edu\/ucp\/books\/book\/chicago\/E\/bo3621838.html\"><i>Everyday Genius: Self-Taught Art and the Culture of Authenticity<\/i>.<\/a>\u00a0Chicago: University of Chicago Press.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/howardsbecker.com\/\">Howard S. Becker<\/a>. 1982.\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ucpress.edu\/book.php?isbn=9780520256361\">Art Worlds<\/a>. <\/em>Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.<\/li>\n<li>Robert K. Merton. 1965.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.press.uchicago.edu\/ucp\/books\/book\/chicago\/O\/bo3641858.html\"><em>On the Shoulders of Giants: A Shandean Postscript.\u00a0<\/em><\/a>Chicago: University of Chicago Press<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every year, the MacArthur Foundation releases a list of fellows recognized\u00a0for &#8220;originality and dedication&#8221; in their respective fields.\u00a02014&#8217;s list honors social psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt, whose work on implicit biases showed up on TROT last week. Known informally as the \u201cgenius grant,\u201d the MacArthur fellowship offers funds for a wide range of scholars, artists, and entrepreneurs [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1893,"featured_media":595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[38543,347,886,129,116],"class_list":["post-435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-culture","tag-identity","tag-innovation","tag-media","tag-networks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2014\/10\/7610134160_a0a99dcd61_z.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":443,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions\/443"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}