Outline  Dweck: Growth vs Fixed  Ability vs Effort  Language  Questions and Discussion

Carol DweckCarol Dweck  Stanford University  Changing beliefs changes motivation  Fixed vs Growth

Fixed MindsetFixed Mindset  Fixed: How intelligent am I?  Shouldn’t have to try  Should be easy  More willing to cheat – all about perception  More likely to compare to others below them  More likely to avoid difficult tasks If intelligence is fixed, and I failed, where do I go from there?

Self-handicapping  Sacrificing achievement by not trying  Preserving sense of ability  Feeling good now is better than feeling good later  Attributions can be based upon (Weiner, 1985)  Effort  Ability  Level of difficulty  Luck

Growth MindsetGrowth Mindset  Growth: How can I improve? What type of effort?  Growth develops resilience  Great way of promoting metacognitive skills and the development of executive skills. If I fail, I can learn from the mistake, adjust my plan, and try again.

How do we know ability can be improved?  Neuroplasticity  Motor memory  Practice

Caveats  More effort does not always equal success.  People do have inherent strengths and weaknesses.  Nature of evaluations

Language MattersLanguage Matters  Praising intelligence promotes fixed mindsets  Praising effort can seem as a consolation if we are in a habit of praising ability  A matter of changing our language

Try these phrases for success  “You should be proud of yourself.”  “What did you do to earn that grade?”  “What technique or study trick did you find particularly helpful?”  “Would you use that technique again?”

Try these phrases for unsuccessful attempts  “How did you come to that conclusion?”  “What made that test or assignment challenging?”  “How did you prepare?”  “What will you do differently next time?”

Simply Stated…Simply Stated…  Praising Ability:  Promotes fear of failure  Promotes negative coping mechanisms  Less resilient  Focus on the outcome  Praising Effort:  Promotes learning  More control and higher self-efficacy  Higher resilience  Focus on the process

Discussion QuestionsDiscussion Questions  As parents, what are the main challenges for promoting a growth mindset or praising effort?  What feedback do you most often give to your daughters when they earn high grades?  As successful people, how did you learn? Do you consider yourself process or product oriented?  What are the differences and similarities between the attributions that you make for your own learning and the ones that you make for your daughters’ learning?

Resources  Mindset (Dweck, 2008)   _that_you_can_improve?language=en _that_you_can_improve?language=en  Tips for increasing self-efficacy through praise:  elations/life-skills/Pages/Self-efficacy-children.aspx elations/life-skills/Pages/Self-efficacy-children.aspx  Attribution Theory – Base for recent motivation research (Weiner 1985)  /weinerAnattributionaltheory.pdf