57 pages • 1 hour read
Carol S. DweckMindset: The New Psychology of Success
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Psychological Context: Cognitive Theory of Motivation
Dweck’s mindset theory builds on and develops the cognitive theory of motivation in psychology. Proponents of this theory of motivation view human behaviors as products of the way humans process and interpret the information they collect from the world around them. Cognitive theory directly challenges the notion of human behaviors as automated responses that are hardwired to fulfill basic needs. Instead, cognitive theorists assume that behaviors arise from deliberative thought processes that quickly weigh new information against past knowledge, core beliefs, and expectations to determine an appropriate response to a given situation. Cognitive theorists argue that because behaviors are not hardwired, they can be changed, often through cognitive behavior therapy, which seeks to help patients become aware of their internal thought processes and then adjust their beliefs and expectations to move themselves toward more desirable behaviors. For example, a person with a fear of spiders may have an underlying assumption that spiders wish them harm. By recognizing that their fear arises from this belief, not from the spider itself, they can actively disrupt their distorted expectations and overcome their fear.
Mindset theory stems from observing how constant social messaging regarding failure, challenges, and setbacks sets up core beliefs and expectations from childhood that motivate people to have either reactive responses or proactive responses to new failures, setbacks, and challenges. Those with reactive responses, who have what Dweck calls a “fixed mindset,” are often demotivated by the prospect of failure and challenges because they believe that their abilities are fixed and unchangeable. In turn, they view failure as permanent, which leads them to avoid challenge to avoid failure. Those who have proactive responses—a “growth mindset”—believe they can improve their base abilities. Thus, they are motivated by challenges, even in the face of failure, because they view them as a means to grow. Dweck argues that deliberately shifting individuals’ internal beliefs and expectations regarding failure away from the fixed mindset toward the growth mindset can motivate people to embrace challenges and bounce back after a setback. This will ultimately lead to higher achievement and deeper satisfaction.
Neuroscientific Context: Neuroplasticity
Though Dweck’s mindset theory is rooted in psychology, neuroscience supports her basic assertion that talent, ability, and intellect are not fixed but are qualities people can grow and develop with effort and experience. Advances in brain imaging and mapping in the field of neuroscience contribute to a deeper understanding of how and why humans can learn. These developments led scientists away from outmoded concepts of the brain as a fixed organ that is preset from birth and toward neuroplasticity, or the concept of a dynamic brain that changes in structure and composition in response to stimulation.
Though much remains unexplained, neuroscientists now understand that neural networks in the brain gather sensory input, process it, and transmit it to the areas of the brain that need the information to respond. The more a network is stimulated, the more it grows and even reorganizes itself to incorporate new information. This explains why practice leads to increasingly greater finesse and skill over time. Damaged networks even display the ability to regrow, as is the case for stroke survivors who undergo physical therapy to regain mobility. In contrast, the brain prunes networks that go unused to make room for the growth of other networks, though those networks do not disappear completely. Regardless of initial aptitude at a given task, neuroscience says the brain can grow, though numerous factors—including age, injuries, and congenital disruptions in networks—can speed or slow its growth, sometimes significantly.
Dweck asserts that the fixed mindset leads to avoidant behaviors, particularly where failure might occur. From a neuroscientific lens, those with fixed mindsets stop performing tasks that grow their neural networks. Over time, this creates a self-fulfilling prophecy; lack of progress is perceived as proof of a deficit, reinforcing the initial fixed belief and creating more avoidance. The growth mindset, by contrast, intuits neuroplasticity in its belief that abilities can grow with effort. This increases motivation for tasks that enable learning, thus creating conditions that grow neural networks. Throughout her research into mindsets, Dweck found that teaching people about neuroplasticity and the ability of the brain to grow networks was often enough to dispel fixed-mindset beliefs and motivate them to embrace challenge and effort.
Critical Context: Responses to Mindset
Since the publication of Mindset, colleagues in the field have raised questions regarding the efficacy of mindset theory. A common critique of the theory is her use of studies conducted in the 1970s and 1980s, which no longer meet the standards of peer review in the professional community. To be accepted today, studies must be replicable and scaled. Critics point to studies in the UK and Argentina that failed to replicate Dweck’s findings as proof of their flaws. Another potential sign of flaws in Dweck’s methodology, say critics, is the large statistical impact the data in her early studies shows. By comparison, most psychological studies show small effects that researchers struggle to prove are statistically relevant. Timothy Bates and his student Yue Li at Edinburgh University have released multiple papers detailing their attempts to replicate Dweck’s studies and findings. Not only were they unable to replicate the findings in similar studies, they argue that their own data shows no correlation between growth mindset and cognitive ability, achievement and response to failure, or grades. See, for example, “Does Mindset Affect Children’s Ability, School Achievement, or Response to Challenge? Three Failures to Replicate” (2018) and “Testing the Association of Growth Mindset and Grades Across a Challenging Transition” (2019). A final critique is that Dweck’s earlier studies were used to promote mindset-intervention products, including her own Brainology program, without the data to justify their grandiose claims.
Dweck acknowledges the critiques. In addition to providing educators more resources, often without charge, she undertook new studies, such as her 2019 study with University of Texas professor David Yeager and others in her Mindset Scholars Network, that met peer review standards and showed statistically modest—but positive—data (Yeager, David, et al. “A National Experiment Reveals Where a Growth Mindset Improves Achievement.” Nature, vol. 573, 2019, pp. 364-369). Dweck suggests that misconceptions regarding her work, her own initial oversimplification of a complex and nuanced topic, and the potential for promoting a “false growth mindset” contribute to difficulties in replicating effects.
Dweck and her colleagues in the Mindset Scholar’s Network continue to fine-tune studies and develop the right kinds of interventions for teachers to produce results. Only one year after publishing Mindset, she released an updated version that attempted to address and mitigate misconceptions about her work, particularly among teachers and coaches attempting to use mindset theory with young people. Currently, mindset theory may not live up to its initial hype, but opinions in the field of psychology remain divided between those who are optimistic about Dweck’s findings and those who do not see its merits.
