Growth and Fixed Mindsets

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It was found that students with different mindsets cared about different things. Those with a growth mindset were much more interested in learning than in just looking smart in school. However, many of the students with fixed mindsets were found to care so much about how smart they appear to be, they often reject learning opportunities that were critical to their success. It was also found that students with the two different mindsets had extremely different beliefs about effort. Those with a growth mindset had a very straightforward idea of effort, the idea that the harder you work, the more your ability will grow. In contrast, students with a fixed mindset believed that if you worked hard it meant that you didn’t have ability, and that things would just come naturally to you if you did, assuming that every time something was challenging enough that it required effort, it’s both a threat and a bind.

Her most remarkable research, which has informed present theories of why presence is more important than praise in teaching children to cultivate a healthy relationship with achievement, explores how these mindsets are born — they form, it turns out, very early in life. In one seminal study, Dweck and her colleagues gave two groups of children problems from an IQ test, then praised them, complimenting one group for their intelligence, and the other for their effort. It was found that “the children praised for their intelligence lost their confidence as soon as the problem got more difficult. Now, as a group, they thought they weren’t smart. They also lost their enjoyment, and, as a result, their performance plummeted. On the other hand, those praised for their effort maintained their confidence, their motivation, and their performance. Actually, their performance improved over time such that, by the end, they were performing substantially better than the intelligence-praised children on this IQ test.” (Dweck, 2) Intelligence praise, compared to effort praise, put children into a fixed mindset. Instead of giving them confidence, it made them fragile, so much so that a brush with difficulty erased their confidence, their enjoyment, and their good performance, causing them to be ashamed of their work.

After reading this article, I have finally understood the importance of developing children’s character through praising from a young age on. Dweck advocates multiple unique studies about children, whether they are praised for their intelligence or their effort, different psychological mindsets are developed, effecting them for the rest of their life.