Carol Dweck Fixed Mindset

The way that people think about their ability to change and grow can impact their lives. In her book, Mindset: The new psychology of success, Carol Dweck introduces this way of viewing of the world as our mindsets. She proposes that there are two different types of mindsets: growth and fixed. People with a growth mindset see their abilities as something that can be cultivated and changed through effort. They are more willing to take chances to learn and grow.

Students with growth mind-sets like challenges and work hard to get better and improve their skills and knowledge. They also honed in on the skills needed to accept challenges and confront difficulty in order to better solve their problem or problems. If they make a mistake or answer a problem wrong it drives them to want to try harder and figure out and solve the problem they were faced with. This lets them academically surpass their fellow students who have a fixed mind-set because of their hard work and drive to succeed.

As described in her article they tend to feel discouraged and worthless (54). While on the other hand, people with a “growth mindset” believe they can change their qualities with effort. In the article, Dweck challenged people with both mindsets to compare their reactions and everyone with the growth mindset responded in an almost opposite

Fixed Mindsets and Growth Mindsets are both similar because they both affect our future. They are different in a Fixed Mindset you believe you are or aren’t good at something. Secondly, in a Growth mindset you believe you can do anything because your ability are entirely due to your actions. While Fixed and Growth Mindsets are both Mindsets, there seems to be several major differences between them. The most notable is that in a Growth mindset you keep up your confidence by always pushing into the unfamiliar, to make sure you’re always learning.

Basically, individuals with a fixed mindset often feel measured by a failure, sometimes permanently. Unfortunately, failed attempts are viewed as a label rather than an opportunity to plan a new path of succes. On the other hand, an individual with a growth mindset views a failed attempt as an opportunity to take action, to confront obstacles, to keep up with their schoolwork, and/or to better manage and organize their time. Growth mindset individuals believe that qualities can be developed, expanded, and eventually result in a successful outcome. A second lesson learned is the power of labels and the stereotype of ability; this lesson is undoubtedly one of the most enlightening. Dweck discovered in one of her studies that, “... ability praise often pushed students right into a fixed mindset, and they showed all the signs of it too. When we gave them a choice, they rejected a challenging new task that they could learn from. They didn’t want to do anything that could expose their flaws and call into question their talent” (72). One’s mindset determines their reaction to labels and stereotypes. An individual with a fixed mindset will settle for a positive label and chose stagnation and permanent inferiority rather than risk losing the label; whereas,

To compare and contrast the two is very easy because they are very alike yet very different. A fixed mindset is wanting to look smart without doing the work like avoiding challenges , giving up easily and not getting things your full effort they also hate constructive criticism which leads them to feel threatened by others success. A growth mindset is someone who want to learn and challenge themselves and over come all setbacks so that they can master what they are learning they take constructive criticism very well which leads them to become happy at the success of others.

Dweck believes that someone who possesses a “growth mindset” is almost the polar opposite of someone who has a “fixed mindset.” A person with a growth mindset is able to think positively and see the silver lining of an unfavorable situation. They are able to improve from their mistakes, and always finds a way to become better at different aspects of life. Growth mindsets come with an open mind, making these people extremely versatile in any circumstance. In addition, their mindsets increase in complexity through maturity. They believe that as long as anyone puts in the effort, they have the potential to succeed.

Dweck defines her understanding of a growth mindset as, “The growth mindset says all of these things can be developed. All – you, your partner, and the relationship – are capable of growth and change” (Maria Popova, BrainThinkings). Therefore, the weaker mindset would be known as fixed mindset, “In a fixed mindset, the ideal is stant, perfect, and perpetual compatability. Like it was meant to be. Like riding off into the sunset. Like they liked happily ever after” (Maria Popova, BrainThinkings).

The Mindsets Growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.(Mindset p.7). It is a belief that people aren’t born with a gift of high intellect or a brilliant mind or, on the other hand, born dim-witted or unintelligent. It is a belief that gives value to hard work, persistence and passion for learning. A belief

People who have a fixed mindset usually want something easy and not challenging; they feel scared to lose while growth mindset people tend to love challenges and making mistakes lives within their body as a trait. The author proves when she said that students with fixed mindset will never showed any interest when they found difficulties in completing those assignment. Only when they did well right away, they will feel the enjoyment. In contrast, the harder it gets, the more urges for the growth mindset to grab the knowledge and feel excited to learn something. Carol Dweck also gives an example in Columbia where she met a lot of intelligent med students who always get A’s in their test. It only took a day to make them a failure, when they said

I’m going to tell you how student learn these mindsets. In the 90s parents thought the most important thing that you child should have was self-esteem. But were they messed up is that you cant just hand your kids self-esteem. They took a poll among parents and found that 85% of parents thought that it was necessary to “praise” their children’s abilities to boost confidence. Now were going to talk about growth mindset. These students believe that intelligence is something that can be gained through education and effort. I wish in high school that I would of taken it more serious because now I could have had a growth mindset witch would of helped me out a lot in college. Those students have growth mindsets. They believe that you can gain intelligence through learning. Those with a growth mindset had a very straightforward idea of effort. The idea that the harder you work the greater the outcome is and I think that’s true. When these students had a set back in school they simply just study more or differently next time. That was my biggest set back in high school. Many bright students find grade school fairly easy and get right through it. But later on in life like in college they struggle. They don’t want to put the time into something and feel dumb when they get a bad grade on it. That’s bad because you should never feel dumb about something that you tried your hardest to complete. I hope that this information was helpful

Have you ever wondered why we as students sometimes tend to give up with our education or why we choose to stop putting in effort into a certain subject. According to a research done by Carol S. Dweck there are two different types of mindsets which are fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Both have different psychological effects on a person. Having a fixed mindset is believing that your talents are natural if you’re smart you’re smart and if you’re dumb you’re dumb nothing can change that. A person with a growth mindset is someone who believes hard work and effort is what helps them achieve their goals.

To me, Growth mindset is an optimistic way of thinking where one believes that abilities can always be improved. They look forward to facing challenges, don't give up and always persist through obstacles. A fixed mindset is a thought where one is too reluctant to take risks & shies away from challenges. They believe that failures define them and give up easily.

Fixed mindset, growth mindset, praise effort and praise for intelligence with impact and my experience about them with specific examples

From my perspective, the mind always seemed like a complicated and intricate puzzle. It was a puzzle that I had no desire to evaluate or even begin to learn more about. It was something that I had just accepted because I believed it was above my understanding and much too complex. However, I never thought to look at just one small piece of the puzzle. If I could just focus on one little section, maybe I could increase my overall knowledge of the mind. By reading the book, Mindset by Carol S. Dweck, I was given the opportunity to be able to specialize on one very crucial part of our mind. A part that deals with how we view ourselves and others, our communication, and the reasoning behind our actions. This is called our mindset. While reading