Self-Theories PDF by Carol Dweck

Brian Johnson’s PhilosophersNotes TM More Wisdom in Less Time THE BIG IDEAS Self-theories Two Frameworks Their Role in M...

Brian Johnson’s PhilosophersNotes TM More Wisdom in Less Time THE BIG IDEAS Self-theories Two Frameworks Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development (Essays in Social Entity vs. incremental theories. Psychology) BY CAROL DWECK · PSYCHOLOGY PRESS © 2000 · 212 PAGES Two Goals Performance vs. learning. Attributional Retraining How do you respond to failure? “I have always been deeply moved by outstanding achievement, especially in the face of adversity, and saddened by wasted potential. I have devoted my career to Contingent Self-Worth Pay attention to your praise. understanding both. For almost 30 years, I have done research on motivation and Wholehearted Self-Esteem achievement. This book presents the findings from my research, and, as you will A brilliant definition. see, many of these findings challenge conventional wisdom.... Strong Commitments My work is built around the idea that people develop beliefs that organize their And earnest efforts. world and give meaning to their experiences. These beliefs may be called ‘meaning systems,’ and different people create different meaning systems. In this book I spell out how people’s beliefs about themselves (their self-theories) can create different psychological worlds, leading them to think, feel, and act differently in identical situations.” ~ Carol Dweck from Self-theories Carol Dweck is one of the world’s leading researchers on the science of motivation. This book is a collection of brief essays on various aspects of “self-theories.” It’s essentially a bridge between her extensive academic research studies and her popular book Mindset. It reminds me of Abraham Maslow’s Motivation and Personality in that we get a peek into the mind of a brilliant, progressive scientist exploring the intellectual edges of their life’s work. My book is nearly completely underlined and marked up and “wow”ed. The book is *densely* packed with wisdom. It’s a great, important read but it is certainly *not* a quick read. Dweck “In the course of examining wastes no words as she offers a thoughtful, precise look at decades of research. I highly this issue, we will come to recommend it if, as a parent, leader and optimizer you’re looking to get a deeper understanding understand better why some of one of the most important subjects we can ever explore. (Get a copy here.) people exceed expectations, I’m really excited to share some of my favorite Big Ideas so let’s jump straight in. while others fail to fulfill ENTITY VS. INCREMENTAL THEORY their potential.” ~ Carol Dweck “Some people believe that their intelligence is a fixed trait. They have a certain amount of it and that’s that. We call this an ‘entity theory’ of intelligence because intelligence is portrayed as an entity that dwells within us and that we can’t change. This view has many repercussions for students. It can make students worry about how much of this fixed intelligence they have, and it can make them interested first and foremost in looking and feeling like they have enough. They must look smart and, at all costs, not look dumb. What makes students with an entity theory feel smart? Easy, low-effort successes, and outperforming other students. Effort, difficulty, setbacks, or higher-performing peers call their intelligence into question—even for those who have high confidence in their intelligence.” Dweck tells us there are two frameworks for understanding intelligence and achievement. 1 PhilosophersNotes | Self-theories  The first: The Entity Theory. In her later work, Dweck describes this as the “Fixed Mindset.” The basic idea is clear: With this “The hallmark of successful perspective, you think intelligence is fixed—you either have it or you don’t. individuals is that they love The ramifications of this are huge. Thinking that your intelligence can’t be improved, you’re learning, they seek challenges, basically always on alert and trying not to look dumb. This leads to focusing on easy stuff and they value effort, and they avoiding the challenges where you can learn and improve. persist in the face of obstacles.” Not a course for mastery. The other framework that DOES lead to mastery? ~ Carol Dweck The Incremental Theory of intelligence. Dweck tells us: “Other people have a very different definition of intelligence. For them intelligence is not a fixed trait that they simply possess, but something they can cultivate through learning. We call this an ‘incremental theory’ of intelligence because intelligence is portrayed as something that can be increased through one’s efforts. It’s not that people holding this theory deny that there are differences among people in how much they know or in how quickly they master certain things at present. It’s just that they focus on the idea that everyone, with effort and guidance, can increase their intellectual abilities. This view, too, has many repercussions for students. It makes them want to learn. After all, if your intelligence can be increased, why not do that? Why waste time worrying about looking smart or dumb, when you could be becoming smarter? And in fact students with this view will readily sacrifice opportunities to look smart in favor of opportunities to learn something new. Even students with an incremental theory and low confidence in their intelligence thrive on challenge, throwing themselves wholeheartedly into difficult tasks—and sticking with them.” So, we have the entity mindset where one believes that intelligence is fixed. Then we have the incremental mindset where one believes that intelligence can be grown. Dweck walks us through *decades* of FASCINATING, rigorous research testing various facets of the impacts of these two different frameworks and just how powerful (/pernicious) they can be. The short story? Entity and incremental theorists are actually very similar when everything is easy and going well. It’s when things get HARD that you see the entity theorists crumble while the incremental theorists rub their hands together and lean into the challenge (and, therefore, get better). One group becomes vulnerable and demonstrates a helpless response while the other is hardy and demonstrates a mastery response. Why? Because, depending on your mindset, you have very different GOALS when you engage in life. For the fixed/entity mindset group, the goal is to look good. Whereas, for the growth/ incremental mindset group, the goal is to LEARN. It’s impossible to overstate the significance of this. Let’s drill in a little more deeply. PERFORMANCE GOALS VS. LEARNING GOALS “A performance goal is about measuring ability. It focuses students on measuring themselves from their performance, and so when they do poorly they may condemn their intelligence and fall into a helpless response. A learning goal is about mastering new things. The attention here is on finding strategies for learning. When things don’t go well, this has nothing to do with the student’s intellect. It simply means that the right strategies have not yet been found. Keep looking.... 2 PhilosophersNotes | Self-theories  The study showed the power of goals. We did not start out by identifying children who were “This means that with a prone to a helpless or mastery-oriented pattern. We simply gave children different goals and learning goal, students don’t showed how these goals could produce the helpless and mastery-oriented responses. When children are focused on measuring themselves from their performance, failure is more likely to have to feel that they’re provoke a helpless response. When children are instead focused on learning, failure is likely to already good at something provoke continued effort.” in order to hang in and keep trying. After all, their goal is So, we’ve established the fact that entity theorists are concerned about their performance to learn, not to prove they’re because they believe their intelligence is fixed and each performance is a measure of their smart.” intelligence while incremental theorists are excited to learn because they believe their intelligence is malleable and each performance gives them an opportunity to get better. ~ Carol Dweck (Yes, I’m deliberately repeating myself. Let’s get this.) Dweck shows that, independent of the students’s default setting, they can be *given* either a performance goal or a learning goal simply by telling them that they will be evaluated on their performance in the upcoming task or that they should use the upcoming task to learn some valuable things. The group that is told they will be judged is vulnerable and demonstrates helpless responses in the face of challenges. The group that is told they have an opportunity to learn cool stuff is hardy and demonstrates hardy responses in the face of challenges.