企源知识库

A person may have an idea about himself that will prevent him from doing good work. He may believe that he is not capable of accomplishing something even though there is no reason for it. A child may think he is stupid because he does not understand how to make use of the most of his mental abilities, or he may accept another person's mistaken estimate of his ability. People advanced in years may be handicapped by the mistaken belief that they are incapable of learning anything new because of their age.
A person who believes that he is incapable will not make a real effort, because he feels that it would be futile. He won't go at a job (尽全力工作) with the confidence necessary for success, and he won't work hard, even though he may think he is doing so. He is, therefore, likely to fail, and the failure will strengthen his belief in his incompetence.
Alfred Adler, a famous psychiatrist (精神病医生) , had an experience that illustrates this. When he was a small boy he got off to a poor start in arithmetic (算术) . His teacher got the idea that he had no ability in arithmetic, and told his parents what she thought so that they would not expect too much of him. In this way, they, too, developed the idea, "Isn't it too bad that Alfred can't do arithmetic?" He accepted their mistaken estimate of his ability, felt that it was useless to try, and ended up very poor at arithmetic, just as was expected.
One day, however, he became very angry at the teacher and other students because they laughed when he said he knew how to do a problem, which none of the other students had been able to work out.
Alfred succeeded in solving the problem. This gave him confidence. He rejected the idea that he couldn't do arithmetic and was determined to show others that he could. His anger and his newly found confidence stimulated him to be at arithmetic problems with a new vigor. He worked with interest, determination, and purpose. Before long he became extraordinarily good at arithmetic. He not only proved that he could do arithmetic, but he learned early in life from his own experience that if a person goes at a job with all his heart he may astonish himself as well as others with his ability.
This experience made him realize that many people have more ability than they think they have. Lack of success is as often the result of lack of knowledge of how to apply one's ability, lack of confidence, and lack of determination as it is the result of lack of ability.

The word "futile" in Paragraph 2 probably means（）.

unnecessary

useless

unimportant

aimless

根据原文可知，一个人认为自己做不到的时候是不会付出真正的努力的，因为它觉得是没用的。