I found this quite interesting. I have seen this in action in the classroom. It appears that the opinion people ( and children) have of themselves is important in maintaining and growing their intelligence. I spend a lot of time building my children's self esteem. A part of this I encourage them to take a broader view of life. This means that in the playground when a kids says " if you don't I won't be your friend" my kids can think it through and decide for themselves what to respond. I am pleased to say it's usually something like " ok I don't want to do it so I am going to play with someone else today" my children have managed to avoid many playground power battles with this knowledge and it appears the same training helps them in the class room too. Basically if they think they are high achievers they will continue to achieve high results! Pretty easy programming to install if you start early.
Just incase any one is interested here is a resource I used as a kid and I still use with my kiddies, they love it it's a simple music collection to build self image and a positive spin on life. I use the " as special as I can be" one.
http://www.acceleratedLearningMethods.com/learning-products-self-esteem.html
Digg
