Book review: Mindset – the new psychology of success (Carol Dweck)

Summary: Stanford Professor writes about her research on how people's beliefs about ability and the effects of training influence their success. People who think that their intelligence and ability are fixed consider each failure as a sign that they are inherently incompetent and unloveable, making them stressed, defensive, and challenge-avoiding. People with a growth-mindset, who see ability as a result of training, tend not to get discouraged as easily and often get better results in the long run.

There's an old adage that one should never judge a book by its cover. Of the many books I have read in my life, this would be the book to which that is probably most applicable (barring my misprint of The Baron of Munchhausen with the Don Quichote cover). Words like "the new psychology of success" reek of a loud-mouth semi-literate author who has read one or two books on popular psychology and is now marketing 'scientifically sound' workshops. In reality though, the book is written by a prominent researcher (who is indeed an actual psychologist) who summarizes and popularizes the scientific research of herself and her group.

Though the book has over 240 pages, this is probably a sort of minimum required by the publisher, since the core idea is actually quite compact: if people believe that their results are the sole consequence of their instrinsic, unalterable, genetic endowment they are generally less motivated to learn, and succumb more easily to stress or depression. People who, however, believe that their abilities are the result of learning and experience, are much more likely to learn and to endure adversity without too many ill emotional effects.

While this sounds rather common-sense-like, the beauty of professor Dweck's book is in how it carefully uses both biographical data and scientific research to strengthen the reader's understanding of the true implications of this finding. After you've read 'Mindset', you will understand much better why John McEnroe was famous for his tantrums (he had a very fixed mindset, a tennis loss meant that he was inherently worthless), as well as why a four-star chef like Bernard Loiseau committed suicide. You'll learn that Chinese students who think that intelligence is unalterable don't follow remedial English courses, but also that American medical students who believe in innate ability flunk chemistry much more often than students who consider early failure rather as a sign that they haven't worked hard enough or that they should try other learning strategies. You'll also learn some things that are counterintuitive, such that you should never praise children for being smart or talented.

The subtleties of praise, for example, are neatly illustrated by one of Dweck's core experiments, in which she divided preschoolers in two groups, both of which had to solve puzzles. After a certain time had expired, the children had to report how many puzzles they had solved. They then got praised by the experimenter. The children from the first group were praised with sentences like "You got seven out of ten! You must be very smart!", the children from the second group however heard "Seven out of ten! You must have worked very hard. You can be proud of yourself."
Of course, the real experiment began only then.

After being praised, the students were asked whether they'd like to solve another set of puzzles, and were allowed to choose either puzzles which were as difficult as the first set, or puzzles with a greater difficulty level. What did you think the kids chose? Most of the children praised for their intelligence chose the 'standard' puzzles, the children being praised for working hard chose the more difficult ones.

In reality, all children got the more difficult puzzles (after all, one should never trust an experimental psychologist), which made the 'clever' children break down and burst out in tears – suddenly they were not smart anymore. In contrast, the 'hard workers' thoroughly enjoyed themselves. When finally a third set of puzzles were given, of the same difficulty as the first set, the 'intelligent' children performed worse, the hard workers in contrast had improved.

Explaining one's successes and failures on the basis of work and experience may therefore be a much more sensible strategy than clinging to concepts of innate ability. It is sad that people like Bernard Loiseau and many Chinese top students at elite universities have ended their own lives as a response to their self-perceived too-low ability, and almost as sad that many other people are giving up activities or not challenging themselves (which would make them grow) because they believe they can't change their skills. So, while the book's title may indeed contain far too much hot air, and the book is definitely at least 100 pages thicker than it should have been, I think that every parent and teacher should know or learn its core principles by heart, and teach them to those they want to prepare for life. One's mindset is unlikely to be the only component of success, but managing it well may nevertheless allow one to achieve a higher performance, and definitely do it with a lot less stress, and much more joy.