Cognitive Flexibility & Cognitive Self Control

Cognitive Flexibility & Cognitive Self Control

1. Cognitive Flexibility

   • Spiegel also had a method of having students write down every move they made followed by every opponent's move in the game. After their game, if they lost or resigned, Spiegel went through the moves with the student, one move at a time. When a good move was made, the student was praised, but if a bad move was made, the student was encouraged to change that single-move mindset and come up with alternative options for the next move. This encouraged cognitive flexibility.
   • Spiegel followed a method highlighting that in order to improve your skills regarding chess, you have to understand why you may have failed in that situation in order to see the many other choices you could have made. Being flexible in your mindset and understanding that you may not have made the best decision will allow you to fix the mistakes and better your future gameplay.
     • This connects to the idea of metacognition (thinking about thiniking). At work as a tutor, I frequently ask students if the next step they are going to complete in their work is the best choice, or if there is an alternative way to go that makes more sense.
   • Cogitive Flexibility is the ability to see alternative solutions to a problem, to think outside the box, and to negotiate unfamiliar situations.

2. Cognitive Self Control

   • Cognitive Self Control is the ability to inhibit an instinctive or habitual response and substitute a more effective, less obvious one.
   • You have to not automatically see yourself as a failure after a loss. You need to separate self from mistakes because you are not a loser for life after one loss, you are a person who has experienced loss. Loss is something you need to experience in order to improve.
   • In his book, Tough writes how Spiegel told chess players that they need to take their time to think about their next move during a game, as this would allow them more time to really think about the potential moves of death you are ignoring, and moves of success you are not thinking of.

3. The “ability to recognize and utilize your emotions is every bit as important as the way you think” (Tough 113).

   • In chapter three of the book, Jonathan Rowson argues that chess more focuses on psychological and emotional rather than intelligence being the driving factor

4. Maximizing optimism while still remaining pessimistic about certain things can be a very useful strategy.

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