Research psychologist Carol Dweck describes how many of her scholars at Stanford University transitioned from a known situation to a new way of engaging.

Many of her students seemed to shift between two types of personal orientation – a helpless orientation and a mastery one. In a freshman seminar with students, she acknowledged how daunting the beginning of college can be so she offered her students a growth perspective on the challenge.

“I say ‘today you’re quitting your old job and you’re starting your new job,” Dweck recounts.

Dweck described the shift in values:

  • Their old job was getting as many A’s as possible and acing the achievement test to get into college.

  • Now, their job is to use university’s resources to become the people they want to be— who will make their contributions to the world.

The second is a more outwardly directed goal than individual “purpose” or “passion,” Dweck said. She asked students to identify what triggers them to shift into a fixed mindset, and then what prompts them to go outside their comfort zone in studies and personal things. Next, they were asked to share this awareness with an important person in their lives and mentor them from being held back by a fixed mindset. (Our collaboratives game do this.)

Research by Psychologist Carol Dweck suggests that we function from one of two mindsets:

  • Fixed (we resist change and defend our current positing or understanding)

  • or Growth (where we learn and grow from a change in perspective or new knowledge or skill).

“Those with a fixed mindset tend to think that if you have to work hard at something, you’re not good at it. … When you have a growth mindset, you’re not fearful about your abilities all the time; setbacks promote challenge-seeking and greater learning.”


 
 
 

Further reading

Learning from errors: a mastery mindset

  • Carol Dweck on How Growth Mindsets Can Bear Fruit in the Classroom: APS-David Myers Distinguished Lecture on the Science and Craft of Teaching Psychological Science.

  • Canning, E. A., Muenks, K., Green, D. J., & Murphy, M. C. (2019). STEM faculty who believe ability is fixed have larger racial achievement gaps and inspire less student motivation in their classes. Science Advances, 5(2), Article eaau4734

  • Moser, J. S., Schroder, H. S., Heeter, C., Moran, T. P., & Lee, Y.-H. (2011). Mind your errors: Evidence for a neural mechanism linking growth mind-set to adaptive post-error adjustments. Psychological Science, 22, 1484–1489.
    https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611419520

  • Paunesku, D., Walton, G. M., Romero, C., Smith, E. N., Yeager, D. S., & Dweck, C. S. (2015). Mind-set interventions are a scalable treatment for academic underachievement. Psychological Science, 26, 784–793.
    https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615571017

  • Yeager, D. S., Hanselman, P., Walton, G. M., Murray, J. S., Crosnoe, R., Muller, C., … Dweck, C. S. (2019). A national experiment reveals where a growth mindset improves achievement. Nature, 573, 364–369.
    https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1466-y