Growth Mindset—Reaching for the Possible Dream?
For the last in this series on mindset (for now at least), I want to continue thinking differently about mindset—when mindset makes a difference in your behavior, in your results, and when it doesn’t.
We’ve seen the incredible power of mindset on physiology, but we’ve also talked about how mindset can be determined by situations, social settings, leadership, outcomes, and more, and why we shouldn’t be all cheerleading for growth mindsets and castigate those who with a more fixed perspective.
And before we move to a new sphere, we should recognize that some researchers are skeptical, doubting if mindset interventions have all that much impact, since results in studies have been inconsistent.
My personal take is that those studies reaffirm that mindsets are complex.
For example, a recently published study tracking Fortune 500 employees’ beliefs about their personal mindset and their job mindset (e.g., they believed they could change their job’s responsibilities), mindset predicted one’s happiness over a six-month period, but only if they felt control over both personal growth and their job.
These researchers suggested that being able to sustain mindset-related improvement depends on someone’s belief that they can change their environment and change themselves.
If it’s possible to change one, but not the other, a fixed reality may win over feeling the possibility of growth.
I like that because it helps reconcile some of the mixed results seen in studies, while, on a more practical level, it is a reminder how we’re often dealing with competing mindsets and environments. Rarely are we dealing with things in isolation. And we often have competing beliefs, perspectives, and goals.
I also like that study because it’s also a nice entry into (yet) another way to think about mindset—is in terms of the possible and the impossible.
Having a growth mindset means you believe that improvement, change, surprise even, are possible. A fixed mindset is a presumption of impossibility.
In a lab study, those higher in growth mindset—and those taught to adopt one—persisted longer at impossible tasks (e.g., unsolvable trick math questions).
And when they started to get mentally tired, rather than thinking their fatigue was a sign they had done all they could do and it was time to give up, they thought that mental fatigue was an encouraging signal. It meant that they were asking their brains to come up with a new approach, to go beyond what’s easy and what they’d done before.
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star
This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far
Quick Shots:
“The mindset that one’s work is adequate physical activity can improve physiological health in the absence of behavior change.” —Zahrt & Crum
In one study, people were more likely to adopt a fixed mindset approach when it came to creativity—i.e., creativity was something you had or you didn’t—after they were reminded of Einstein or other famous geniuses/innovators.
An estimated 50-75% of managers derail before reaching their full potential.
Growth is to Fixed as to Process is Outcome
With apologies to those flashing back on the SAT analogies….
Since growth mindset is about personal improvement and fixed mindset is a focus on innate ability, there’s a connection between those holding fixed/growth mindsets and the types of goals they pursue.
Those with fixed mindsets seem more likely to adopt outcome goals—which are future-oriented and at some point are beyond someone’s control.
Those with more of a growth mindset are focused on process goals, i.e., require concentration on the short-term and what is within someone’s control.
In sport, process goals have predicted people’s increased persistence and resilience compared to outcome goals, because people are motivated by a sense of their control over what they are doing. Additionally, they are encouraged by more immediate improvement that they can see.
Still other researchers have observed that process orientation helps people overcome setbacks because they can reorient attention to different mechanical issues as they go along.
An outcome focus doesn’t lead to such adaptability.
Outcome goals are also harder to sustain because it’s difficult to see meaningful progress in the moment. And, ironically, achieving a small short-term outcome goal might be rewarding, but it can reduce persistence and pursuit of related long-term goals.
Researchers recently saw all of this when they studied 400 people who used a self-tracker to monitor health behaviors (e.g., used an Apple watch to count daily steps).
Compared to those higher in a fixed mindset, those with a growth mindset were more persistent and resilient in the face of setbacks, higher in self-kindness, and lower in self-judgment and over-identification. They were more accepting of their failings, seeing them as just being part of the normal human experience. And they were more likely to have been tracking their progress longer and they were twice as likely to set goals for improving health rather than work to meet a specific weight loss goal.
In Your Sight:
Growth mindset may be somewhat protective for perfectionists. Perfectionists fall largely into two camps: Those who are more focused on striving to be perfect and those concerned with being perceived as perfect. While that may seem to be a subtle difference, perfectionist concerns are connected with depression, anxiety, and burnout, while perfectionist striving seems to be more adaptive.
In a study of Dutch professionals, researchers found that growth mindset had a stronger relationship to career adaptability than learning—but, over time, career adaptability led to learning.
Beware of premature automaticity, when, through repetition, you become “good enough” at a task and thus stop actively learning. Once automaticity occurs, our responses are difficult to change. (It’s why most of us only knew a few commands for software we may use every day, etc. By contrast, experts push past this, forcing themselves to work in new contexts and circumstances.)
“Commitment to change refers to a ‘mindset that binds an individual in a course of action deemed necessary for the successful implementation of a change initiative,” Nohe, et al. 2011
Speaking of possible dreams….
Pitch here. For those of you watching the heart-wrenching scenes in Lahaina, Hawaii, wishing there was something you could do….
One of my dearest friends is a retired priest who lives there in Lahaina, about a mile from the fires. He has an amazing charity that has built schools and hospitals in Haiti and Sudan, and now he’s facing unimaginable devastation in his own backyard. Within hours of the destruction, he was feeding people out of his kitchen; now he’s working on how to help people pay rent when jobs are gone, where to live when there’s nowhere to go. (Here’s a link to an interview he gave.) So if you’re looking for a way to help the people of Maui, consider making a donation to Ken’s charity. (You can put a note that the money’s to go to Lahaina when you donate.) And thank you!