Mindset is a simple idea that a Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck discovered after decades of research on achievement and success. It is a simple idea, but one that can make a huge difference in a person’s life.
There are two mindsets; one fixed where people believe that their basic qualities, like intelligence or talent are simply fixed. They believe that talent alone creates success without any effort. The other mindset is the growth mindset. People believe that their abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. Brains and talents are a starting point but through hard work and dedication success is created. Thus developing a love of learning and resilience, both of which are essential for success. The majority of great people have had these qualities.
For some time, it has been noted that a large percentage of gifted students (those who score in the top ten percent on aptitude test) severely underestimate their own abilities. Those with this perception adopt lower standards for success and expect less of themselves. They underrate the importance of effort, and they overrate how much help they need from a parent.
When parents praise their children’s intelligence, they believe they are providing the solution to this problem. Eighty-five percent (Columbia University) of parents tell their children that they are smart and they believe it is important to tell their children that they’re smart. But research is showing that it might be the other way around. Giving children the label of “smart” might actually be causing them to underperform.
Dweck and her colleagues studied the effect of praise on students in a dozen New York schools. Her work paints a very clear picture. Dweck sent female research assistants to fifth-grade classrooms in New York and had the child do a nonverbal IQ test consisting of puzzles (easy ones that everyone could do well). Once the children finished the tests the researchers told each student their score and gave them a single line of praise. Some were praised for their intelligence (“you must be smart at this”) while others were praised for their effort (“you must have worked really hard”).
Then for the second round the students were given a choice of which test they would like to do. One test would be more difficult than the first, but the researchers would tell the children that they would learn a lot from attempting the puzzles. The other test was an easy one, just like the first. Of those who were praised for their effort, ninety percent chose the harder puzzles. Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy test or took the cop-out.
So why did this happen? Dweck surmised that when children are praised for their intelligence, we are telling them that this is the name of the game. Look smart, don’t risk making mistakes and that is what the fifth-graders had done. They chose to ensure that they looked smart and avoid the possibility of being embarrassed.
In another round of tests, the fifth-graders had no choice as to which test they would do. The test was designed to be difficult even for children two years ahead of their grade level. Predictably, everyone failed. But once again, the two groups of children responded differently. The children praised for their effort on the first test assumed that they simply had not focused hard enough on this test. Whereas those praised for their smarts assumed that their failure was evidence of that they really weren’t smart at all.
Dweck continued to complete test and found that praise could backfire. By emphasizing effort you can give a child a variable that they can control. They can see themselves as being in control of their successes. By emphasizing natural intelligence it takes it out of the child’s control and gives them no way to responding to failure.
In follow up interviews, Dweck found that the child who thought that innate intelligence is the key to success begin to discount the importance of effort. The smart children reasoned, that if I am smart, I don’t need to put out an effort. By putting out an effort I become stigmatized, it becomes proof that my natural gifts are not enough.
Dweck repeated her experiments and found that the effect of praise on performance held true for students of every socioeconomic class. Both boys and girls—the very brightest girls especially collapsed the most following failure. Even preschoolers weren’t immune to the power of praise. Cognitive scientist Daniel T. Willingham concluded that a teacher who praises a child may be unwittingly sending the message that the student reached the limit of his innate ability, while a teacher who criticizes a pupil conveys the message that he can improve his performance even further. Dweck’s research on overpraised children strongly suggests that image maintenance becomes their primary concern—they are more competitive and more interested in tearing others down.
In 1969 publication of The Psychology of Self-Esteem, Nathaniel Branden pronounced that self-esteem was the single most important facet of a person, the belief that one must do whatever he can to achieve positive self-esteem has become a movement with broad societal effects. Anything that could potentially damage child’s self-esteem was eliminated. Competition was frowned upon. Soccer coaches stopped counting goals and handed out trophies to everyone. Teachers threw out their red pencils. Criticism was replaced with abundant and at times, undeserved, praise.
But in 2003, The Association for Psychological Science asked Dr. Roy Baumeister (a researcher into self-esteem) to review his studies on self-esteem. His team concluded that having high self-esteem did not improve grades or career achievement, nor did it reduce alcohol usage. And it especially did not lower violence of any sort. (Highly aggressive, violent people happen to think very highly of themselves, debunking the theory that people are aggressive to make up for low self-esteem.)
New York University professor of psychiatry Judith Brook explains that the issue for parents is one of credibility. “Praise is important, but not vacuous praise,” she says. “It has to be based on a real thing—some skill or talent they have.” Once children hear praise they interpret as meritless, they discount not just the insincere praise, but sincere praise as well. Only young children—under the age of 7—take praise at face value: Older children are just as suspicious of it as adults.
Psychologist Wulf-Uwe Meyer, a pioneer in the field, conducted a series of studies where children watched other students receive praise. According to Meyer’s findings, by the age of 12, children believe that earning praise from a teacher is not a sign you did well—it’s actually a sign you lack ability and the teacher thinks you need extra encouragement. And teens, Meyer found, discounted praise to such an extent that they believed it’s a teacher’s criticism—not praise at all—that really conveys a positive belief in a student’s aptitude.
Cognitive scientist Daniel T. Willingham, believes a teacher who praises a child may be unwittingly sending the message that the student reached the limit of his innate ability, while a teacher who criticizes a pupil sends the message that he can improve his performance even further.
When students transition into junior high, some who have done well in elementary school inevitably struggle in the larger and more demanding environment. Those who equated their earlier success with their innate ability surmise they’ve been dumb all along. Their grades never recover because the likely key to their recovery—increasing effort—they view as just further proof of their failure. In interviews many confess they would “seriously consider cheating.”
Students turn to cheating because they haven’t developed a strategy for handling failure. The problem is compounded when a parent ignores a child’s failures and insists he’ll do better next time. Michigan scholar Jennifer Crocker studies this exact scenario and explains that the child may come to believe failure is something so terrible, the family can’t acknowledge its existence. A child deprived of the opportunity to discuss mistakes can’t learn from them.
When children are given the opportunity to struggle and sometimes fail, you allow them to develop important social and emotional skills. It is important not to risk their safety or deny them reassurance. A parent’s role should be to support and guide, rather than doing it for them. What children need is to learn for themselves. This also encourages them to develop coping and resilience skills. In addition, children that don’t have opportunities to fail or struggle and recover have lower self-confidence and a less developed self-concept. They tend to be more fearful of failure and less willing to try new things because they don’t know how they will handle it. Coping and resilience skills like our brains can grow and develop. We don’t know how strong our skills are until we use them.
Providing opportunities to develop skills of resilience and coping that promote the growth mindset within a safe, loving, and supportive environment are the best ways to prepare children for life’s challenges. “It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings” (Anne Landers).
