Mindset

Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.

Subtitle: The new psychology of success: How we can learn to fulfill our potential.

Dweck is a psychologist who did a bunch of research (starting with kids) about how people learn, think about intelligence and respond to failure. She comes up with a paradigm that suggests people are either in a "Fixed Mindset" or a "Growth Mindset". Fixed being: you can't change your talent or intelligence, and Growth being: you can learn new talents and learn to be more intelligent. Sort of an "if you try you can do more". Notice that this is not you can do "it", but do "more", because she does not suggest that everyone can do anything, with effort. But talent and intelligence is something that can be developed. As with all good self-help, popular psychology books, the "findings" of the research generally come across as DUH!. But Dweck infuses her book with application suggestions, leading to perhaps the most interesting insights. She presents cases for how language used can actually push people into either a fixed mindset or growth mindset in different situations. As a teacher, a coach, a person interested in social organization and structures, I see daily how students have become "grade hounds" and fall firmly into the fixed mindset. With this, I have also noticed how my natural language pushes people that way (as most of us probably do in U.S. culture). So I suppose I was the target audience, someone who will now think about my language and my discussions, working to motivate people with development oriented, growth mindsets instead of results driven, fixed mindsets. The DUH! portion may be that this has been my goal and my interest in teaching and coaching from day one, but now I have a framework to help shape my own thinking.
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