mindset

Growth vs. Fixed Mindset

Popularized by the work of Carol Dweck, who wrote:

In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them.

They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort. In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.

As both nature and nurture have a part to play in the acquisition and development of abilities like intelligence and creativity, both the fixed and growth mindsets are to some extent “true”. Dweck’s point is that we have a choice whether to focus on what we can change (growth mindset) or what we can’t (fixed) and that there are real and practical consequences to which we choose.

A Fixed Mindset Makes Children More Likely to Lie

In one experiment, students were primed with either a growth mindset (by being praised for their hard work) or a fixed mindset (by being praised for their inherent smarts) and given the option to share their results on a test with a third party. Of students with a fixed mindset, almost 40% lied and inflated their grades. A fixed mindset holds that test results are not a reflection of what we’ve learned or how hard we studied, but how inherently smart we are, so the stakes are much higher to lie and cheat in order to prove our worth.

In the fixed mindset imperfections are shameful, especially if you’re talented, so they lied them away. What’s so alarming is that we took ordinary children and made them into liars simply by telling them they were smart.

The obvious implication for Parenting is to focus on praising children for what they can control (level of effort) rather than their inherent qualities.

Fixed Mindsets Are Often Institutionalized and Systemic

While reading this book, I was reminded how after taking a test in one of the very early grades of school I was put into the “gifted and talented“ program (a name a now cringe at for what it must have signified to the students not in the program), and not only praised but given access to enhanced creative and learning opportunities. This program is an example of an institutional fixed mindset, in which a human being’s potential is assumed to be fixed and measurable from a single test at a young age.

I’m sure the creators of this program felt vindicated when so many of the students given access to these special resources went on to succeed academically, but how much of that was because of the additional resources, rather than their inherent potential? Almost all of it, I expect. This is an example of the Success to the Successful system archetype.