Rates of Growth: An Unexplored Avenue Into the Effects of Mindsets

• In Event: Broadening the Assessment of Intelligence Mindsets to Align With the Promises of Mindset Theory

Abstract

Purpose

Beliefs about the malleability of intelligence (mindsets) are thought to be important determinants of student responses to challenge and failure, guiding the goals, attributions, and interpretations they make (Dweck, 1999). However, mindsets are not the only beliefs that influence these processes. To clarify when and how mindsets affect behavior, this study explores a set of related beliefs that may also influence these processes: beliefs about the rate at which one grows (termed “rate mindsets”).

Framework

Traditional mindsets are beliefs about the malleability of a specific trait. They can be “fixed”, indicating the trait is unable to change, or they can be “growth”, indicating the trait can be improved (Dweck, 1999). This distinction, however, does not further separate out whether one can change the speed at which improvement happens. Because of this, beliefs about the malleability of growth may be separable from traditional mindsets and equally important to consider. For example, would someone who believes an ability can grow, but only at a constant and slow rate, react to a setback in the same way as someone who believes they can also improve the speed at which they grow? If not, the effects of traditional mindsets in the literature may well be obscured by individual differences in rate mindsets.

Method

Students enrolled in an educational psychology course (N = 266) responded to an online, Likert-scale survey containing measures adapted from previously validated surveys. The measures assessed traditional mindsets (Dweck, 1999), goal orientations (Elliot & McGregor, 2001), procrastination (Zusho & Barnett, 2011), and effort regulation (Pintrich et al., 1991). Six new items, adapted from traditional mindset questions (Dweck, 1999), assessed rate mindsets in both growth (e.g., “You can always substantially change how quickly you improve your abilities”) and fixed (e.g., “You can try new techniques, but you can’t really change how fast you improve your abilities”) directions. Participants rated all items on a 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree) scale.

Results

See Table 1 for means, standard deviations, reliabilities, and correlations. Both growth- and fixed-rate mindsets were related to but separable from traditional mindsets (-.14 < r’s < .39). Additionally, growth-rate mindsets exhibited heteroskedasticity with traditional growth mindsets such that as growth mindsets increased, variance in growth-rate mindsets also increased (see Figure 1). Growth-rate mindsets predicted mastery and performance avoidance goal orientations similarly to traditional growth mindsets and more strongly than traditional fixed mindsets. Neither growth-rate mindsets nor fixed-rate mindsets predicted self-reported behaviors (procrastination or effort regulation).

Significance

These preliminary findings suggest that people who have a traditional growth mindset can still vary in their beliefs about the speed at which one can grow (i.e., rate-mindsets), and that believing that people can grow their abilities and improve the rate of that growth may be most motivationally adaptive. Implications regarding theory and measurement of mindset will be discussed.

Authors

• Luke D. Rutten, University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

• Katherine M. Muenks, University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author