Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

thrown together. Like our graduate students, yesterday they were king of the hill, but today who are they?

Nowhere is the anxiety of being dethroned more palpable than in pre-med classes. In the last chapter, I mentioned our study of tense but hopeful undergraduates taking their first college chemistry course. This is the course that would give them—or deny them—entree to the premed curriculum, and it’s well known that students will go to almost any lengths to do well in this course.

At the beginning of the semester, we measured students’ mindsets, and then we followed them through the course, watching their grades and asking about their study strategies. Once again we found that the students with the growth mindset earned better grades in the course. Even when they did poorly on a particular test, they bounced back on the next ones. When students with the fixed mindset did poorly, they often didn’t make a comeback.

In this course, everybody studied. But there are different ways to study. Many students study like this: They read the textbook and their class notes. If the material is really hard, they read them again. Or they might try to memorize everything they can, like a vacuum cleaner. That’s how the students with the fixed mindset studied. If they did poorly on the test, they concluded that chemistry was not their subject. After all, “I did everything possible, didn’t I?”

Far from it. They would be shocked to find out what students with the growth mindset do. Even I find it remarkable.

The students with growth mindset completely took charge of their learning and motivation. Instead of plunging into unthinking memorization of the course material, they said: “I looked for themes and underlying principles across lectures,” and “I went over mistakes until I was certain I understood them.” They were studying to learn, not just to ace the test. And, actually, this was why they got higher grades—not because they were smarter or had a better background in science.

Instead of losing their motivation when the course got dry or difficult, they said: “I maintained my interest in the material.” “I stayed positive about taking chemistry.” “I kept myself motivated to study.” Even if they thought the textbook was boring or the instructor was a stiff, they didn’t let their motivation evaporate. That just made it all the more important to motivate themselves.

I got an e-mail from one of my undergraduate students shortly after I had taught her the growth mindset. Here’s how she used to study before: “When faced with really tough material I tend[ed] to read the material over and over.” After learning the growth mindset, she started using better strategies—that worked:

div height='1em' align='justify'>

Professor Dweck:

When Heidi [the teaching assistant] told me my exam results today I didn’t know whether to cry or just sit down. Heidi will tell you, I looked like I won the lottery (and I feel that way, too)! I can’t believe I did SO WELL. I expected to “scrape” by. The encouragement you have given me will serve me well in life.…

I feel that I’ve earned a noble grade, but I didn’t earn it alone. Prof. Dweck, you not only teach [your] theory, you SHOW it. Thank you for the lesson. It is a valuable one, perhaps the most valuable I’ve learned at Columbia. And yeah, I’ll be doing THAT [using these strategies] before EVERY exam!

Thank you very, very much (and you TOO Heidi)!

No longer helpless,

June

Because they think in terms of learning, people with the growth mindset are clued in to all the different ways to create learning. It’s odd. Our pre-med students with the fixed mindset would do almost anything for a good grade—except take charge of the process to make sure it happens.

Created Equal?

Does this mean that anyone with the right mindset can do well? Are all children created equal? Let’s take the second question first. No, some children are different. In her book Gifted Children, Ellen Winner offers incredible descriptions of prodigies. These are children who seem to be born with heightened abilities and obsessive interests, and who, through relentless pursuit of these interests, become amazingly accomplished.

Michael was one of the most precocious. He constantly played games involving letters and numbers, made his parents answer endless questions about letters and numbers, and spoke, read, and did math at an unbelievably early age. Michael’s mother reports that at four months old, he said, “Mom, Dad, what’s for dinner?” At ten months, he astounded people in the supermarket by reading words from the signs. Everyone assumed his mother was doing some kind of ventriloquism thing. His father reports that at three, he was not only doing algebra, but discovering and proving algebraic rules. Each day, when his father got home from work, Michael would pull him toward math books and say, “Dad, let’s go do work.”

Michael must have started with a special ability, but, for me, the most outstanding feature is his extreme love of learning and challenge. His parents could not tear him away from his demanding activities. The same is true for every prodigy Winner describes. Most often people believe that the “gift” is the ability itself. Yet what feeds it is that constant, endless curiosity and challenge seeking.

Is it ability or mindset? Was it Mozart’s musical ability or the fact that he worked till his hands were deformed? Was it Darwin’s scientific ability or the fact that he collected specimens nonstop from early childhood?

Prodigies or not, we all have interests that can blossom into abilities. As a child, I was fascinated by people, especially adults. I wondered: What makes them tick? In fact, a few years back, one of my cousins reminded me of an episode that took place when we were five years old. We were at my grandmother’s house, and he’d had a big fight with his mother over when he could eat his candy. Later, we were sitting outse on the front steps and I said to him: “Don’t be so stupid. Adults like to think they’re in charge. Just say yes, and then eat your candy when you want to.”

Were those the words of a budding psychologist? All I know is that my cousin told me this advice served him well. (Interestingly, he became a dentist.)

Can Everyone Do Well?

Now back to the first question. Is everyone capable of great things with the right mindset? Could you march into the worst high school in your state and teach the students college calculus? If you could, then one thing would be clear: With the right mindset and the right teaching, people are capable of a lot more than we think.

Garfield High School was one of the worst schools in Los Angeles. To say that the students were turned off and the teachers burned out is an understatement. But without thinking twice, Jaime Escalante (of Stand and Deliver fame) taught these inner-city Hispanic students college-level calculus. With his growth mindset, he asked “How can I teach them?” not “Can I teach them?” and “How will they learn best?” not “Can they learn?”

But not only did he teach them calculus, he (and his colleague, Benjamin Jimenez) took them to the top of the national charts in math. In 1987, only three other public schools in the country had more students taking the Advanced Placement Calculus test. Those three included Stuyvesant High School and the Bronx High School of Science, both elite math-and-science-oriented schools in New York.

What’s more, most of the Garfield students earned test grades that were high enough to gain them college credits. In the whole country that year, only a few hundred Mexican American students passed the test at this level. This means there’s a lot of intelligence out there being wasted by underestimating students’ potential to develop.

Marva Collins

Most often when kids are behind—say, when they’re repeating a grade—they’re given dumbed-down material on the assumption that they can’t handle more. That idea comes from the fixed mindset: These students are dim- witted, so they need the same simple things drummed into them over and over. Well, the results are depressing. Students repeat the whole grade without learning any more than they knew before.