In her top-selling book Mindset, renowned psychologist Carol Dweck shares her insights into how changing the way you think helps you fulfil your potential. More specifically, Carol outlines how adopting what she refers to as a growth mindset can help you thrive in all aspects of life. These aspects include:
School
Work
Relationships
Parenting
Coaching
Teaching
In this review, I will be focussing on the link between a growth mindset and success at school.
What is a Growth Mindset?
In a nutshell, a growth mindset is a belief that intelligence and other abilities are malleable. Put another way, intelligence is like a muscle that can be increased with effort over time.
Fixed Mindset
The growth mindset is quite different to a fixed mindset, which is a belief that abilities such as intelligence are set in stone. You have the abilities you were born with and those abilities don’t change.
For more, see:
The Reality
Psychologists agree that intelligence is a complex mix of both nature and nurture1.
Does this mean that a belief in the growth mindset is naive, wishful thinking? In short, no it doesn’t. While a growth mindset focuses on the idea that intelligence can be developed, it does not deny that genetic endowment also plays a role. Carol Dweck makes this clear in her book.
Today most experts agree that it’s not either–or. It’s not nature or nurture, genes or environment. From conception on, there’s a constant give-and-take between the two.
Carol dweck – mindset
So What? Why Do Mindsets Matter?
Carol Dweck explains that our mindset matter, because they influence our perceptions and behaviours related to:
Challenges
Effort
It’s not just that some people happen to recognize the value of challenging themselves and the importance of effort. Our research has shown that this comes directly from the growth mindset. When we teach people the growth mindset, with its focus on development, these ideas about challenge and effort follow.
carol dweck – mindset
Put another way, Dweck claims that when people believe that their abilities (e.g. intelligence) can be developed, people automatically start stretching and challenging themselves while putting in the effort needed to succeed. In the second edition of her book Mindset, Carol adds problem-solving and help-seeking to her claimed list of flow-on effects.
This is a bold claim!
Conversely, Carol Dweck claims that people who believe their abilities are fixed are motivated to avoid failure.
See how these claims stack up against the evidence in my related article, Growth Mindset Explained.
