Worrier or Warrior?

I recently read a very interesting article in The New York Times entitled  Why Can Some Kids Handle Pressure

The article focused on the pressure kids feel taking standardized tests, especially tests like the SAT and ACT that, to some, impact a child's academic future, i.e., the quality of school they attend.

While we all deal with competition and pressure in different ways, this article focuses on a specific gene (COMT) that influences why some of us when it comes to competition are warriors and while others are worriers.

The COMT gene regulates dopamine in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain "where we plan, make decisions, anticipate future consequences, and resolve conflicts."

Dopamine is like a shot of adrenaline for the brain: to function well, the prefrontal cortex, like Goldilocks, needs not too much or too little but just the right amount of dopamine.

There a two variants of the COMT gene: one slowly removes dopamine and the other quickly removes it from the prefrontal cortex.

In general, those who have a slow-removing gene function best in normal day-to-day situations that are predictable and rarely involve much stress. (The article states that people with the slow-removing gene on average have higher IQs than those with the fast-removing gene.)

However, in a stressful situation, your body injects a lot of dopamine into your brain. But, because the slow-removing gene cannot in a timely manner remove the dopamine from your brain, your prefrontal cortex does not work optimally--hence, you panic and can't think straight.

Conversely, those with the fast-removing gene love challenge, competition, and stress: they thrive on stress; however, "to them, the everyday can be underwhelming."

According to the article, about 50% of us have both genes, 25% have just the slow-removing gene, and 25% have only the fast-removing gene.

If we in America think tests like the SAT and ACT are high-stakes in terms of a child's future, be glad your child does not attend school in Taiwan, where 9th graders take the Basic Competency Test that largely determines which high school they will attend. Only 40% of 9th graders pass the test; the others head to vocational school.

COMT gene researchers used this test in Taiwan as an opportunity to study the effects of high-stakes testing competition. Sure enough, those with the slow-removing gene performed worse on the test than those with the fast-removing gene.

Does this mean the COMT gene is the key to the explaining why you either did or didn't do well on the SATs (or hit the game-winning shot in a high school basketball game)?

No: the article explains that worriers can learn to handle stress with practice. By gaining experience of stressful situations (which could include even talking about how to handle oneself when confronted with stress), worriers can learn to become more comfortable in stressful situations.

While there is the danger of relying too heavily on any one explanation of how we learn and deal with stress and competition, this article did make me think about reasons why some of us embrace competition and others don't. In my case I think I am in the 50% group that has both COMT genes. I prefer routine and predicability, but I do not melt down is stressful situations. I have benefited and learned from experience: when in a stressful situation, I do try to think about what I felt like and how I dealt with it before.

Earlier I referenced having the pressure of taking an end-of-game shot in a high school basketball game. Why did I choose this example? Because I experienced it.  I won't tell you whether I made or missed an end-of-game free throw to win a game in high school, but that was a stressful situation--and regardless of the outcome (I'll keep you in suspense), I learned from the experience!