What is a Mindset?
A set of beliefs one has that guides now one responds to or interpreta situation
Fixed Mindset
The belief that one’s ability is a fixed trait and cannotbe developed
Growth mindset
The belief that basic abilities can be developed througheffort
Experimental evidence
(Mueller and dweck 1998 )
Found that praising students ability led them to fixed mindset and were vulnerable to issues such as coping with setbacks
Experimental evidence
(Yaegar and dwech 2012)
Found that low achieving students who learned to use a growth mindset did better compared to a control group without that learning
Evaluation - strengths
- Useful practical applications - teaches praise children based on offer move then ability to promote a growth mindset in children
- robustly supported by empirical evidence
- gunderson et al (2013) found that praise based on the effect the of child promoted growth mindset in a child 5 years later
Evaluation - weakness
-Some of our ability’s only improve up to a certain point. Bouchard and mcgue(2011) reviewed 111 studies and found 0.5 correlation between genetics and iq, suggesting that intelligenceis partially inherited
- may be more applicable to individuals below the age of 25 as young neutral pathways are more flexible and malleable
-Only focuses on effect of praise on children mindset
Previous studies - gender differences in praise
Boys
- more likely to receive process praise
- more likely to develop an incremental motivational framework
Girls
- more likely to receive person praise
- more likely to develop an entity motivational frame work
Aims of gunderson et Al’s (2013) study
-Investigate if parents use of person or process praise in early childhood predicts a Childs motivational framework 5 years later
- also look at type of praise
- investigate if there is a gender difference in the typeof praise parents give to their children
Method (gunderson et al )
(1) 53 children from Chicago were observed every 4 months, from age 14 months to 38 months
(2) three go-minute videos of children interacting with parents were analysed and transcribed (14 months, 26 months, 38 months)
(3) five years later, the children (now aged 7-8) took 2 verbal questionnaires about their motivational framework ( they were spaced 3 months apart
(4) parents also completed a questionnaireabout how malleable (changeble) they considered cognitive ability to be
Questionnaire examples
- 18 items cover children’s ideas about what intelligence Is
-6 item asked about beliefs about what are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ questions
Results
- Patients praised, the children in 3% of utterances
- 16 % of that was person 18% was process praise. Rest was classified as “other praise”
-Boys (24.4%) receive move process praise compared to girls (10.3%) - the more process praise there is in early childhood, the more likely the child (when older) is to belive putting in effect is worthwhile
- no relationship between early person praise and development of entity motivational framework
Conclusion
- A relationship between the use of process praise and the development of an incremental motivational framework
- lack of a link between person praise and an entity framework means that Dweck’s theory is only partly supported
- there is a gender difference, boys tended to develop move of an incremental framework than girls which supportsthe earlier research
Strengths
-Conducted in natural settings
- double - blind study ( no researcher bias)
Strengths
-Conducted in natural settings
- double - blind study ( no researcher bias)
Weaknesses
- Ethical issue (thinking aim is about language development)
- reactivity (parents may change praising style because they know they are being filmed)
- culturally biased
