The Role of Peer Mindsets in Students’ Task Value and Performance: An Experimental Study

• In Event: 1-190 - The Role of Peers in Learning across Distinct Life Stages

Integrative Statement

Growth mindset, the belief that intelligence can be improved through effort, is an important predictor of student academic motivation and achievement. Conversely, fixed mindset, the belief that intelligence is innate, has been shown to hinder learning outcomes. Much of the empirical research on mindset has focused on the role of parents, teachers, and media, yet little is known about how peers influence the development of students’ mindsets. The present study examined the effects of peer mindsets on college students’ task value and objective performance. As past research has shown that peer influence is affected by perceptions of the peer model, this study also examined perceptions of peers’ competence as a mechanism for the relationship between growth mindset and increased learning outcomes. In addition, we investigated gender as a potential moderator of peer mindset influence.

Participants were 134 college students (66% female) who interacted with two peers in either a growth or fixed mindset environment and subsequently completed a Raven’s Progressive Matrices problem solving task. Prior to initiation of the study, undergraduate research assistants were trained to act as confederates. The confederates memorized a series of predetermined phrases designed to communicate either a growth or fixed mindset point of view regarding the Raven’s matrices task. Each pair of confederates had 10 minutes to incorporate either 10 growth or 10 fixed mindset phrases into their conversation with the participant. Consistent with hypotheses, growth mindset peer environment predicted students’ heightened task value and fixed mindset peer environment predicted dampened task value, bs > .23, ps < .05. Contrary to predictions, there was no relationship between peer mindset environment and effort on the problem solving task. Further analysis of peer perceptions revealed that perceptions of peers’ competence mediated the relationship between growth mindset peer environment and task value, such that participants surrounded by growth mindset peers perceived their peers to be more competent, which increased their subsequent valuing of the Raven’s Matrices task (see Figure 1). Finally, a significant interaction of gender was found, such that growth mindset environment predicted performance on the problem solving task for females but displayed the opposite effect for males (see Table 5).

Findings indicate that peer growth mindset can affect students’ task value, an important learning outcome that is predictive of mastery goals. The mediation of perceptions of peers’ competence in the relationship between growth mindset environment and task value is congruent with past research on peer influence and modeling, and also suggests that the growth mindset is viewed by peers as a positive quality indicative of skill. The moderation of gender suggests that the peer mindset environment affected males differently from females, but it is difficult to interpret these results due to the lack of a male comparison peer group, as all confederates in this study were female. Future studies could examine peer mindset transmission in different age groups, such as adolescents, using both female and male peers.

Authors

• Pamela Sheffler, University of California, Riverside
  Presenting Author

• Cecilia Cheung, University of California, Riverside
  Non-Presenting Author