3-203 - New Longitudinal and Experimental Evidence on the Powerful Influence of Ability Beliefs on Academic Success Across Development

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

People hold beliefs about many aspects of intellectual ability: whether it is malleable or fixed; whether it is clustered within certain social groups or distributed more uniformly; and so on. Many of us even have meta-level beliefs on this topic – beliefs about whether certain ability beliefs are endorsed by others. How does this intricate web of ability conceptions relate to actual academic ability and success? This symposium provides compelling new answers to this important question. The first talk suggests that simple interventions that instill adaptive beliefs (e.g., that intelligence is malleable) can effectively raise the achievement of college students who face harmful stereotypes about the intellectual potential of their group (e.g., first-generation students or negatively-stereotyped minority students). The second talk illustrates how children’s ability beliefs affect their achievement by shaping how they interpret the homework help they receive: Children who believe ability is fixed interpret parents’ help as evidence of low ability, with negative long-term effects for their achievement. The third talk examines the effects of meta-level ability beliefs: When female college students believe that their instructors hold a fixed view of STEM ability, they experience more stereotype threat, which lowers their performance and involvement. The fourth talk investigates the development of stereotyped beliefs about the intellectual abilities of men and women, and the striking effects of these beliefs on girls’ pursuit of intellectually-demanding activities. Together, these talks provide a coherent body of evidence on the link between ability beliefs and success.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Chair

• Lin Bian, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Individual Presentations

• Beliefs That Facilitate the Reproduction of Inequality Across Developmental Transitions: Evidence From Large-Scale Interventions - Presenting Author: David Scott Yeager, University of Texas at Austin; Greg Walton, Stanford University; Shannon T. Brady, Stanford University; Ezgi N. Akcinar, Stanford University; Dave Paunesku, Stanford University; Laura Keane, uAspire; Donald Kamentz, YES Prep Public Schools; Gretchen Ritter, Cornell University; Angela Lee Duckworth; Robert Urstein, Stanford University; Eric M. Gomez, Stanford University; Hazel Rose Markus, Stanford University; Geoffrey L. Cohen, Stanford University; Carol S Dweck, Stanford University

• Children’s Motivational Frameworks Moderate the Effect of Parents’ Intrusive Homework Help on Achievement - Presenting Author: Daeun Park, University of Chicago; Elizabeth A Gunderson, Temple University; Erin Maloney, The University of Chicago; Sian Beilock, University of Chicago; Susan Cohen Levine, University of Chicago

• Expert Theories of STEM Ability Moderate the Effect of Stereotype Threat for Female Students in STEM - Presenting Author: Kathryn Boucher, Indiana University; Mary C. Murphy, Indiana University; Sabrina Zirkel, 2Mills College; Julie A. Garcia, California Polytechnic State University

• Gender Stereotypes About Intelligence: Developmental Trajectory and Consequences for Children’s Activity Choices - Presenting Author: Lin Bian, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Andrei Cimpian, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Sarah-Jane Leslie, Princeton University