Thinking Sociologically

Every elite athlete makes it look easy. Splashing through the water or striding gracefully down the track making it look effortless. Some people assume they are “naturals,” that their perfect DNA sequence is what has brought them to this level. Others argue that hard work and drive is what has made the difference, separating the elite from the average. These thoughts are the ones that give rise to the age-old nature vs. nurture debate. Countless hours of studies and research has concluded: it’s both. High performance sports consultant Ross Tucker puts it this way, “The science of success is about the coming together of dozens, perhaps hundreds of factors” (1). The relationship of such factors, including genetics, types and lengths of

The author only looked at two athletes in one sport to make his argument which could mean that in other sports the same kind of genetics beats practice would not work.

Early specialization is characterized by year-round training in a single activity, beginning at a young age, apart from other activities with the goal of developing expertise (Ericsson et al., 1993). Ericsson and his colleagues studied pianists and violinists of varying skill levels and discovered that the expert musicians typically began training between ages four and five while the non-experts started training later in life. Moreover, a pattern emerged indicating that the level of performance attained related to the amount of deliberate practice. By age 20 the best performers had spent over 10,000 hours, an intermediate group had put in 8,000 hours, and the least accomplished group only 5,000 hours. In their theory of deliberate practice, Ericsson et al. (1993) suggest that talent plays no role in the development of expertise, rather it is an effortful activity motivated by the goal of improving performance. Typically, deliberate practice requires a high amount of concentration and must be carried out over time. The obligation to significant amounts of deliberate practice in one sport from a young age has been demonstrated as one approach to developing elite athletes (Helsen et al., 1998).

Divided into parts on “Opportunity” and “Legacy” the writings of Gladwell focus on shattering the myth that “success is exclusively a matter of merit” (67). As Gladwell exhibits, through the example of Hockey, the common belief is that “Success…is based on individual merit” (17). However, after a thoughtful analysis of precursory, and undeserved opportunities, such as, birth month, time spent practicing due to being selected because of age grouping, and “accumulative advantage[s],” all of the opportunities were critical to the success of the all-star hockey player; not just talent (30). Moreover, due to the arbitrary access to more practice, an individual (like the hockey player example) is allowed more of a chance to develop their skills.

He sees the validity of this claim, however, declares that this only gives limited knowledge, in that there is much more to this. There are many other factors factoring into athletic performance, not simply genetics. With this, he shows how these athletes followed the 10,000-hour rule, demonstrating that deliberate practice was needed to perform as well as they did. These athletes dedicated large amounts of training and dedication in order to reach the success they did. This success was not simply achieved due to their genetics, it was rather nurtured through their practice. While Gladwell believes in the idea that blacks are generally better athletes than whites, he also believes that hard work is the most important thing for someone who wants to be good at a sport. His theory is that hard work and drive are more important than someone’s race when it comes to being good at a sport, in that athletic ability does not always come down to physical ability. There is no clear explanation of why and if certain races perform better than others. Ultimately, Gladwell believes there is more than one factor that contributes to

Growing up, almost every parent will tell you, “you can be anything you set your mind to!” or “the possibilities are endless”. But from an early childhood my parents were creating an opportunity structure for my life. Through my 20 years, how I was taught, the places I went to, the people I interacted with and the implications of society and societal norms followed me. As with many other families, my parents focused on setting me up for the best possible future. But little did they know, they were contributing to a society where some people are allotted more privileges and opportunities than others. I will attempt to deconstruct this complex social construction by looking at gender, social class, family influences, race, and socialization; which will be discussed in greater detail further along. When analyzing sociological concepts like gender, social class, and race sociologists use a “sociological lens”. Using a sociological lens will allow me to take the experiences I had and look at them on a broader cultural level. Ultimately sociologists use sociological lenses to better understand how personal experiences not only impact 1 person but how they can be applied in a broader context, allowing individuals to relate to others in society who may have had similar experiences.

many young athletes’ perceptions that their parents expect them to be extraordinary and would criticize them if they failed to deliver. The added pressure from coaches to be perfect can also deter young athletes’ focus on doing what is right or doing what will allow them to succeed and ultimately satisfy their parents and coaches desires (Madigan, Stoeber & Passfield, 2016).

The Sports Gene, written by David Epstein, supports the argument that natural ability controls our lives. Malcolm Butler, author of Outliers: The Story of Success, argues that preparation and work ethic are more important than innate talent. With great examples and reasoning, Butler builds a more convincing argument by presenting evidence and reasoning from the text, making Butlers position better for answering the question How much of what happens in our lives do we control?

Part one discusses the opportunities given to some that are determined strictly by chance and although at first are not indicative in any way of ability, but over time are compounded to create one with exceptional talent in their respective field. “The small initial advantage that the child born in the early part of the year has over the child born at the end of the year persists” (Gladwell 28). Gladwell discusses this with the american education system, and junior hockey in Canada, among many other examples with cutoff dates that lead to advantages in older children. The second part of the story depicts the effects of your heritage, specifically race and income, play in your ability to inherit the traits of the most successful. Cultures that value relentless work ethic and correlation to higher testing scores, parents level of education and relation to intellectual curiosity and development of their children, and many other benefits of having the right legacy are

Sociology and sociological thinking are a vital part of society, and through examining both society and individuals, sociology is able to make changes to areas such as policies, and attitudes that may have usually negatively affected them, and instead gained a positive result through the careful research, and applied knowledge.

Success is a very sought after aspect in our society. Everyone strives for the nicest car, the largest home, or the most exciting job. However, Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, discusses how the path to success is not simple and it has a lot of factors that play into it. Being on a sports team throughout school or being a “student-athlete” may be one of them. Student athletes learn concepts like teamwork, hard work, and persistence—all of which are critical parts of the average adult career. The sports that these children and teens participate in fuel their competitive drive that can only help them in the workplace.

Famed Brazilian football player Pele (full name Edson Arantes do Nascimento) once said that “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” In a related topic, Geoff Colvin — a senior editor of Fortune Magazine — published an article titled What It Takes to be Great on October 30th, 2006. Here, Colvin wrote about how the most talented people got into their position, which was not by talent. Instead, they had gotten there through deliberate practice, a form of practice where one improves themselves by going beyond what their abilities are at to get better. On a similar note, Colvin had written the article likely to disprove the concept of natural talent and to encourage his readers to go forth and chase their dreams of greatness as evidenced by paragraph 24: “The critical reality is that we are not hostage to some naturally given level of talent… the striking, liberating news is that greatness [is not] reserved for a small few who — gifted with natural talent — were born

What makes a good athlete? What separates a person on the 1st line up from a bench warmer? Where does athleticism come from? Is it from our genes, or is it a product of the environment we live in? These are the types of questions that arise in the nature vs. nurture debate pertaining about athletic ability. In 1582, British educator, Richard Mulcaster wrote that
''Nature makes the boy toward, nurture sees him forward,'' he gave the world
a euphonious name for an opposition that has been debated ever since; Nature and Nurture. People's
beliefs about the roles of heredity and environment affect their opinions on an
astonishing range of topics including sports. The nature versus nurture debate not only exists in the sporting community but also in many others. It is a very controversial topic that has puzzled researchers for centuries. There are two sides to the debate; Nature and Nurture. To be on the side on nature one believes that DNA and heredity make us who we are. In the case of sports, an athlete is born with genes that give them the ability to excel in a certain sport. On the other hand, many people believe that we become who we are because of the environment and people around us; Nurture. A nurtured athlete is an individual that has developed elite skills over time caused by rigorous training and their surroundings. Nature or nurture, which contributes more to the creation of professional athletes?

People don’t realize that culture and ethnicity are usually first in a human being, before their talents or dreams. How a person is raised and the things they experience form what they become. (Facci,”Socialization”) Being a talented athlete in India, does not necessarily make one a gifted athlete in another country. But the reality talent search show has continued each year in India since that first debut in 2008. No one has won the million dollar jack pot yet, but Dinesh has gone back to India and helps young kids get ready for the contest each year.

What makes champions in sport? At the end of the day, it is the moment when one stands at the top of the podium, holding up their well-deserved medals and trophies that all elite athletes strive for. Thus, experts have studied this question extensively to see which programs, or by what means, are elite athletes developed to achieve this goal. One of the many aspects to athlete development is the controversial topic of deliberate practice versus deliberate play. Deliberate practice can be defined as “any training activity (a) undertaken with the specific purpose of increasing performance, (b) requiring cognitive and/or physical effort, and (c) relevant to promoting positive skill development” (Cote et al., 2007, p. 185) On the