[pawelmi]

There is a great book by Carol Dweck - Minset. She distinguishes two types of minset in people. Fixed - who believe their capabilities are static and even when they have some success they are afraid to do more in order to not ruin the impression; and growth mindset - who believe almost everything can be developed and are not afraid to learn and try. There is a lot of research and interesting examples from businesses, social and sport in the book on the topic of thise different understandings of talent.

[ctchocula]

There has also been some controversy from others being unable to replicate her work [1], so this should be taken with a grain of salt.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck#Criticism

[pawelmi]

Thank you, I was not aware. Interesting to read the other side.

[bzbarsky]

I think it's important to believe you can improve, and that most people can improve with practice. This avoids the very real problem of people self-limiting in unnecessary ways.

I think that telling people people that they can achieve _arbitrary_ things through enough effort is just wrong: it sets up unrealistic expectations and makes them blame themselves when things don't work out, because they must not have tried enough. Telling someone who's 5 feet tall as an adult and not particularly athletic that if they just work hard enough they can become a successful Olympic swimmer is not OK.

It's a tough communication problem, because "maybe you can reach this goal if you work really hard and happen to be lucky too" is a much harder concept to communicate and internalize than "you can reach this goal if you just work hard". It's also a tough problem in trying to figure out what expectations ought to be "realistic" for a given child, because of all the biases we bring to such evaluations. So erring somewhat on the side of emphasizing growth mindset can make sense, and should absolutely be done when doing evaluation, but you have to be pretty careful how you communicate the resulting recommendations.

Past that, the unfortunate thing is that Dweck's disciples (and I use the word specifically for its religious connotations) go overboard on the "everything is possible with a growth mindset" thing, in exactly the way that I think is harmful. I see this in a lot of elementary school teachers; they love this book, but end up in the "growth mindset solves everything" trap, at least in their communication.

I should note that unlike many things in that field Dweck's work actually replicates in large pre-registered studies, albeit ones still done by Dweck herself. The effects are quite small on average, but maybe on the margin (i.e. for students who are more likely to doubt themselves for various reasons) might be significant.

That said, I would be happier if someone who is not Dweck were able to reproduce her results, and I have ~0 confidence that "growth mindset as practiced in elementary schools today" is at all useful...

[bradlys]

Growth mindset might lead people to realizing they can’t accomplish something later due to some innate thing but that happens all the time. Even if you were stupidly talented at chess, only one person can be the best chess player in the world. So, if another person is even more talented than you (all other things equal) then you’re fucked anyway. And that’s life - it happens. Why tell kids that they can’t be the greatest? They don’t know until they really try. So what if they waste time on it, as long as they are enjoying the journey then that’s all that matters. Life isn’t a destination.

I find the accomplishments people (even young children) want to set out for are mostly reasonable. If you’re wanting to be a Nobel prize winner, mega rich CEO, or be some well regarded author - it’s gonna require a lot of luck. And that should be informed to people that are all about the destination and not the pursuit. There’s no reason to not pursue those things if you want to.

Honestly, I think a growth mindset is amazing for young children. If it wasn’t for people in my childhood having that - even for the shithole I grew up in - I probably wouldn’t have accomplished anywhere near what I have. I had nothing but doubts about myself because I saw no one ever escape the trappings of my surroundings. Yet... I’d get told by some pretty good teachers, “you’re capable of doing anything if you just set your mind to it.” (The kind of growth mindset I was taught)

I see other people severely limiting themselves because they just project whatever societal norms are around into themselves. They assume because they see no one else doing it in their immediate surroundings that it can’t be done. And it’s a shit way to go, dude. People won’t grow with that mindset. It traps them in poverty.

Growth mindset might lead to a few childhood dreams being crushed but who gives a shit. It’s a childhood dream - some kids want to be Goku and there’s no reason to crush that shit so early.

[pawelmi]

Not to mention that success is often fair dose of luck. But if you know it and try multiple times while correcting your mistakes, the chance is only increasing.