Analysing the roles of nature and nurture in a chess prodigy

The term chess prodigy conjures images of children with exceptional talents effortlessly defeating professional players. For parents and families thinking about supporting their children in adopting new skills, Dr Nemanja Vaci's findings can help them to seek the best approaches.

Off

On 30 June 2021, Abhimanyu Mishra from the US was awarded the Grandmaster title, the highest title a chess player can attain, at the Vezerkepzo Grand Master Mix tournament in Hungary.

At the age of 12 years, 4 months and 25 days, he defeated 19 year old world record holder Leon Luke Mandonca and became the youngest grandmaster in history.

But Abhimanyu also surprised the chess world with his record on the Elo rating data, a rating system used to measure and quantify the skills of chess players. Although Abhi is not the youngest player, he ranks amongst the best players.

Abhi’s case is rare but not unique. The chess world has witnessed the success of several young talents with extraordinary abilities and remarkable achievements. Some research relates this to skill development at a young age, whereas other research highlights the importance of practice.

Psychologist and applied statistician Dr Nemanja Vaci from the School of Psychology at the University of Sheffield explores the duality of the interplay of nature and nurture. As a member of the Neuroscience Institute, his research primarily focuses on understanding and describing changes in performance across a lifetime.

With a curiosity into what gave rise to the youngest chess grandmaster, Dr Vaci and his team collaborated with Chessable, a chess learning platform, to investigate Abhi’s chess journey and evaluate ways to improve chess learning and skill acquisition.

The early makings of a prodigy

To understand how children at this age acquire chess skills, researchers gathered information from Abhi and his peers through questionnaires, calculating the time they spent on chess-related activities. Dr. Vaci then conducted in-depth interviews with Abhi, his family and his chess coach.

Through these interviews, Dr Vaci discovered several interesting facts and characteristics that contributed to the news coverage of the legendary figure, drawing Abhi’s path toward unprecedented achievement.

Based in New Jersey, the Mishra family always had a passion for chess and started to tell stories on a chess board to their son when he was 3 years old, cultivating an early interest. His parents encouraged him to solve a puzzle before receiving a gift, making problem-solving an enjoyable and rewarding challenge.

“The family network supports Abhi well and plays a key part in nurturing some valuable traits throughout his childhood, which provides immense help in developing his chess-playing skills” says Dr. Vaci.

Little Abhi began his chess career early on, dedicating huge amounts of time to his practice. By age 6, he was frequently having 2-hour-long lessons, doubling that of his peers.

Dr Vaci’s questionnaire showed a large gap between Abhi and his peers regarding training time, with Abhi currently spending 8 to 12 hours every day on practice, an amount typically unusual for a child.

Deliberate practice is a focused type of learning process. It identifies and concentrates on the knowledge or skills the student has missed, with immediate and detailed feedback from an expert. The student’s performance in the practice reflects how well they have done in learning the omitted aspect.

In the interview, coaching staff Grand Master Prasad said that Abhi ‘excelled at long-period concentration from a very young age, and would ask for more materials after finishing the chess homework’. Driven by intrinsic motivation and family encouragement, Abhi dedicated almost all his extracurricular life to chess activities. Playing strategies on a chess board was more engaging and meaningful for him than leisure games or other entertainment typical for a child his age.

How natural talents fuelled Abhi’s mastery

To better understand factors leading to Abhi’s mastery, Dr Vaci and his team led a mixed research study. Their approach used a blend of questionnaires aimed at gauging the types and frequency of practice, deliberate practice activities, the progression of ratings (indicative of performance levels) over time, motivation, personality traits, and numerical and figural abilities.

Beyond an impressive amount of practice, Dr. Vaci found some natural factors in Abhi that benefitted his mastering skills. Abhi’s conscientious trait is especially high, indicating strong ability to organise activities and reach goals, as well as to divide tasks into steps. These traits combined a diligent approach of focused training, maximising the gains from deliberate practice.

At the early stage of training, every player gains similar amounts of knowledge from practice and can reach a related level of expertise. But those chess players with relatively high numerical capabilities or perhaps other factors of interest can gain more knowledge over time. The skills they acquired continue to grow over their career, and they retain a high level of capability even in their old age.

Dr Nemanja Vaci

Lecturer in the School of Psychology

Personality also plays an important role in the highly competitive field, and Abhi’s impressive emotional resilience allowed him to deal with setbacks. Abhi’s father and the coach recalled his potential for quick recovery from losses through his determination to win.

These properties were reflected in Abhi’s negative emotionality score. This indicator measures the extent an individual experiences negative emotions, such as anxiety and depression, when under stress. Abhi ranked low in the measurement, showing resilience and emotional stability.

“With the understanding of the interaction between nature and nurture, we can personalise the learning approaches by combining these factors to accomplish the best results" explains Dr Vaci.

The next move…

Expanding the research, Dr. Vaci and his team are building a model by collecting data from more than 200 players. Based on efforts to define factors affecting chess careers, they will be focusing on the relative importance of these elements and their relationship in the learning process.

“We have general samples that include average and below-average chess players, but we will also consider masters and grand masters. As a case study, Abhi’s data will be compared with the general samples and masters in terms of skill acquisition over time. We are trying to formulate theoretical assumptions and test them with data. Upon completion, we will pinpoint Abhi’s data to see where he falls, and figure out how these factors interact with each other to influence the expertise levels" adds Dr Vaci.

The findings can be applied in other domains, or inspire research on skill acquisition in sports, maths and languages, extending to the educational or medical sector and supporting people in better knowledge distribution and life-span learning.