A Dynamic Network Model to Explain the Development of Excellent Human Performance

Abstract

Across different domains, from sports to science, some individuals accomplish excellent levels of performance. For over 150 years, researchers have debated the roles of specific nature and nurture components to develop excellence. In this article, we argue that the key to excellence does not reside in specific underlying components, but rather in the ongoing interactions among the components. We propose that excellence emerges out of dynamic networks consisting of idiosyncratic mixtures of interacting components such as genetic endowment, motivation, practice, and coaching. Using computer simulations we demonstrate that the dynamic network model accurately predicts typical properties of excellence reported in the literature, such as the idiosyncratic developmental trajectories leading to excellence and the highly skewed distributions of productivity present in virtually any achievement domain. Based on this novel theoretical perspective on excellent human performance, this article concludes by suggesting policy implications and directions for future research.

Resilience in sports from a dynamical perspective.

“…The property of iterativity implies that a given state of the system develops out of the system's previous state, and hence that any future state depends on the system's history of preceding states (e.g., Den Hartigh, Van Dijk, Steenbeek, & Van Geert, 2016;Gernigon, Vallacher, Conroy, & Nowak, 2015;Nowak & Vallacher, 1998;Vallacher, Van Geert, & Nowak, 2015;Van Geert, 1991). Therefore, a given variable can act as an effect in the one moment and as a cause in the next (Vallacher & Nowak, 1997).…”

A Complex Network Framework to Model Cognition: Unveiling Correlation Structures from Connectivity

“…Two models are addressed in this work: a networked dynamical model to explain the development of excellent human performance [43] and a dynamical model of general intelligence [36], both sharing great resemblance (Section 4).…”

“…Den Hartigh et al [43] were interested in the excellent level of performance of some individuals across different domains. They argued that the key to excellence does not reside in specific underlying components but rather in the ongoing interactions among them and hence leading to the emergence of excellence out of the network integrated by genetic endowment, motivation, practice, and coaching inter alia.…”

“…Examples of previous works on a dynamic systems approach to social and developmental psychology are the modeling of language acquisition and growth, the dynamics of scaffolding, dyadic interaction in children, teaching and learning processes, and coconstruction of scientific understanding among many others [34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43].…”

Complex Dynamical Systems in Human Development

“…Advancements are made in developing and applying techniques such as recurrence quantification analyses and longitudinal network modeling. The application of such techniques has led to insights in human developmental processes, which would not come to the fore with more "traditional" techniques [10][11][12][13].…”