Excessive Achievers in Training: What does it Take for Younger Girls to Overcome the ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’?
December 17, 2024 by Paul W. Bennett
‘Tall poppies’ have a tendency to face out in training in addition to the enterprise world. It’s a type of fields the place standing out evokes quite a lot of responses. A so-called Tall Poppy Syndrome (TPS) comes into play, right here in Canada, when it’s considered as unseemly to flaunt or draw consideration to your achievements. It’s notably pronounced amongst younger girls on the rise. Many reply by minimizing or maybe even concealing their very own accomplishments.
A survey {of professional} Canadian girls, highlighted March 2023 in The Globe and Mail “Girls of Affect” sequence, discovered it was alive and properly in profession ranks. Of 4,710 girls surveyed, practically 90 per cent reported experiencing TPS sooner or later throughout their careers. Overt and oblique slights or indicators of resentment tended to make them reluctant to share, or have a good time, their very own accomplishments.
Two Tall Poppies within the N.B. College Sector
Two younger girls primarily based in New Brunswick not too long ago have been acknowledged as ‘tall poppies’ within the college world and have been acknowledged, to various levels, for his or her vital accomplishments. Fourth-year honours scholar, Claire Wilbur, was one among eleven Canadian college students awarded a prestigious 2025 Rhodes Scholarship to check on the College of Oxford within the U.Ok. Graduate scholar Amy MacQuarrie, a PhD candidate in Experimental Psychology at UNB Saint John, simply had her PhD Thesis proposal accredited, clearing a key hurdle after 5 years of postgraduate research.
Lavish reward was heaped upon Claire Wilbur on November 19 when the 2025 Rhodes Students have been introduced and heralded in a CTV Atlantic Information at Six report. She was singled-out on the information alongside along with her childhood pal Alyssa Xu, as the one two Rhodes scholar from the Maritimes, each of whom attended Rothesay Netherwood College. Whereas Wilbur attended RNS for 5 years and was Head Prefect for the Class of 2021, Xu of Bayside, N.B., went on to attend Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and is now finishing a level in Neuroscience at Amherst School in Massachusetts.
With out a lot in the way in which of fanfare, UNBSJ researcher and educating assistant Amy MacQuarrie is making her personal mark within the subject of experimental psychology. Her thesis on “Web Gaming Dysfunction” has catapulted her into the forefront of analysis into one among our most severe up to date points, web sport habit, and its dangers for teenagers and younger adults. As one among a dozen graduate UNB college students in her subject, she is engaged in innovative analysis and regularly the one Canadian researcher addressing the subject at latest conferences.
Glittering Achievements
Mount Allison scholar Wilbur expressed shock when she obtained the information in mid-November. “I’m so flattered,” she instructed CTV Information. “ I’m simply tickled pink in regards to the alternative” to reconnect with a girlhood pal and “to carry out analysis alongside knowledgeable scientists, leaders within the subject and to work together with so many various individuals at Oxford and within the Rhodes group.”
Profitable awards just isn’t precisely new for Wilbur, one of many most evident excessive flyers of her era. Whereas at Mount Allison College, she obtained a Bell Scholarship for educational excellence and citizenship and a Killiam Fellowship from the Fulbright Canada Basis. She maintains an ideal 4.3 GPA, is captain of the college cross-country workforce, volunteers with the Soldier On program, and is a analysis assistant on the New Brunswick Coronary heart Centre, learning high-risk cardiac interventions. Her purpose is to earn an MSc in physiology, anatomy and genetics, and her most passionate curiosity is in healthcare fairness. That form of glittering report is what tends to win worldwide award recognition.
Analysis Breakthroughs
UNBSJ PhD candidate MacQuarrie is attracting consideration for her probing analysis into teen addictions to gaming, playing and medicines and her educating of Psychology programs in associated fields. Hailing from Canoe Cove, P.E.I., and a UNB graduate scholar with a number of educational displays to her credit score, she retains a sure modesty and that and that was confirmed in a latest interview.
What attracted Amy to learning web sport habit? It was really her personal expertise as a teen rising up within the web age. “I’ve performed video video games most of my life,” she confided to me, “and my favourites have been World of Warcraft and different MMOs of that style.” Alongside along with her closest mates, she even joined the Guild, a North American players community, and performed usually till 2018 or so.
What Amy noticed upset her and explains her selection of thesis subject. “Whereas energetic within the Guild,” she instructed me, “I met individuals who have been in severe issue and utterly hooked on video video games.” One, specifically, performed video video games 16 hours a day and virtually died, ending up in hospital with pneumonia in each lungs. That did it for me.”
Her analysis has already produced some startling findings. Some 40 per cent of younger North People are usually energetic in video gaming and her 2024 research with 738 individuals confirmed total that 2 per cent suffered with IGD (Web Gaming Dependancy), however the determine was 9 per cent for 18-to-25 12 months olds. No tips in any respect exist and that’s the prime focus of her work.
Making a Distinction
‘Tall poppies’ thrive by rising above the gang. New Brunswick Rhodes Scholar Claire Wilbur is solely one of the vital latest examples. It goes with out saying that success breeds confidence as a result of being chosen as a Rhodes Scholar can itself be daunting until you’re possessed with an abundance of expertise and self-confidence to match. Up-and-coming researchers like Amy MacQuarrie are likely to fly beneath the radar though their discoveries and findings are likely to form public coverage, notably within the medical and psychological well being subject. Severe analysis into web gaming and display screen habit is rising because the important public well being problem of our time. What does it take? Intestinal fortitude and a way of ardour.
What makes Canadian training so inclined to “tall poppy syndrome”? Is fitting-in and going with the circulate merely simpler, particularly in highschool and undergraduate research? What’s the IT FACTOR that makes excessive achievers try and stay so self-directed in a world that makes it so snug to evolve along with your friends?