[lyapunova]

You are completely right about this being a shallow treatment of a complicated subject.

There are many different functions the concept of the "growth mindset" serve. Unfortunately, we do not differentiate between them, which as you pointed out can make quite challenging to even discuss.

For example, the OpEd by Hattie you linked is also a fairly undeveloped exploration of what we are really getting at when we discuss the growth mindset. On one hand, for example, it is a way to help children cope with psychological struggle. On the other hand, it is a paradigm by which we live and fit into societal hierarchical structures.

I would argue that although having a fixed mindset might be a "tool" to use so that you don't "try too hard and hurt yourself" (which is more or less what Hattie argues), it is a terrible general paradigm to live by as it is fundamentally, a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you are born "dumb" and unable to read, that will always be the case. Obviously this is not how brains work. The reasonable conclusion here is that the growth-mindset is the closer model to reality and the fixed-mindset is a tool to help handle "moments in time".