Insides the shadows of an incremental theorist : the detrimental side of the growth mindset

Abstract

Have we as children not heard of our mother’s famous mantra, “you did not do well because you did not try hard enough”? Or of our friend’s willow like whisper, “do not give up, even Thomas Edison merely found 10,000 ways that would not work”. Such sentences are indicative of the merits of effort in goal achievement, yet realistically are we able to thin ourselves with such effort without succumbing to detrimental outcomes? In the face of unmet academic goals, implicit theories about the fixedness or malleability of intelligence can influence one’s affective state, motivation and determine how failure is justified. While the growth mindset has traditionally been found to engender beneficial outcomes, there exist a dearth of research in how growth mindset could possibly be pernicious. Of interest in the present study was to address this gap and assess how overvaluation of the growth mindset could lead to futility or negative outcomes, such as when failure is unjustly blamed on the lack of effort. Participants (N=40) were recruited online and randomly assigned to one of two devotion of effort condition (exceptional effort versus average effort) before completing various dependent variable measures. Findings revealed largely null, except one, marginally significant outcome where participants in exceptional effort condition attributed less entity related justification than participants in the average effort condition. Other noteworthy observations includes the non-buffering effect of incremental mindset against negative emotions and the motivation tendencies of Singaporeans. Limitations and future directions are also discussed.