Progress-focused

  Mindset is about more than learning and performing. A new paper by Seo, et al. (2020) shows how the relationship between a fixed mindset and internalizing symptoms (such as depression) comes about.

Many of the participants in our training programs are especially interested in Carol Dweck's research into mindsets . They see the relevance of mindset and realize that a fixed mindset has many disadvantages while a growth mindset has many advantages. They are interested in learning how they can influence their own mindset and that of other people. Many of them are aware that person praise can evoke a fixed mindset and process praise can evoke a growth mindset. But they look for other way to influence mindsets. Here are several other ways.

Carol Dweck's mindset theory has now been fully tested by Smiley et a. (2016) . To understand how they did this, I'll first try to summarize Dweck's theory (see picture below which is mine but was inspired by Smiley et al.'s paper). What Dweck's theory predicts

A new study by Yeager et al. (2016) tested the effects of preparatory lay theory interventions to reduce racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic achievement gaps when students enter college. Lay theory interventions are interventions aimed at helping students understand that challenges in the transition to college are common and improvable and, thus, that early struggles need not portend a permanent lack of belonging or potential. Often, these interventions are done when students are already at college. Preparatory lay theory interventions are done before students have entered college. As the study suggests they work. The picture on the right shows why. These interventions help people explain struggles and problems in a different and more constructive manner which helps them to respond more effectively to them and to be more successful.

We can often easily influence how other people interpret their failing. By doing this we may make it easier for them to persist.  In psychology we have discovered that people continuously search for explanations for what happens in their lives. This process, which is called attribution , often happens unconsciously. When people think that causes of what happened and of their own behaviors lie outside of themselves, we speak of external attribution. When they think causes lie within themselves we speak of internal attribution. How people attribute influences both how they view themselves and they choices they make and, because of that, how they will develop.