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Mindsets in the Clinic: Appling mindset theory to clinical psychology
Abstract
Beliefs about the malleability of attributes, also known as mindsets, have been studied for decades in social-personality psychology and education. Here, I review the many applications of mindset theory to clinical psychology and psychotherapy. First, I review social psychological and cognitive neuroscience evidence that mindsets and mindset-related messages are, to a large extent, focused on emotional tolerance. Specifically, the growth mindset, or the belief that attributes are malleable, encourages confronting and tolerating anxiety, frustration, and disappointment in healthy and adaptive ways that promote resilience, whereas the fixed mindset and related messages discourage the experience of these emotions and often leads to helplessness. Second, I review the emerging research on the anxiety mindset and discuss its relevance to clinical work. A model is proposed illustrating connections between mindsets, emotion regulation strategies, treatment preferences, and outcomes. Case examples are used to illustrate practical applications. I conclude that mindsets can inform psychotherapy, research, and public policy.
... Individuals' belief systems, also known as implicit theories or mindsets (Dweck and Leggett, 1988), have been widely examined with respect to mental health. Specifically, there is growing interest in research on emotion malleability beliefs in relation to emotional problems (Kneeland et al., 2016;Burnette et al., 2020;Reffi et al., 2020;Schroder, 2021). People with more malleable beliefs about emotion show a positive correlation with positive emotions and well-being and a negative correlation with negative emotions and depressive symptoms (Tamir et al., 2007;King and dela Rosa, 2019). ...
... A recent meta-analysis demonstrated a negative association between fixed (less malleable) emotion beliefs and mental health. Moreover, previous studies suggest that individuals holding these beliefs frequently use maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (King and dela Rosa, 2019;Ortner and Pennekamp, 2020;Schell et al., 2023), which are associated with the development, persistence, and exacerbation of emotional disorders (Kneeland et al., 2016;Schroder, 2021). ...
... Emotion dysregulation is at the core of trans-diagnostic mechanisms of emotional disorders (Gross, 2013;Sloan et al., 2017). Whether individuals believe emotions to be malleable or fixed affects their emotion regulation strategies and their experience of emotions, which is associated with psychopathologies such as depression and anxiety (for reviews, see Kneeland et al., 2016;Schroder, 2021). People who believe that emotions can be changed are more likely to engage in adaptive emotion regulation, such as cognitive reappraisal, in which they think of alternative interpretations of a situation (Tamir et al., 2007). ...
Background
Recent studies have shown an association between psychological distress and emotion malleability beliefs, meaning mindsets about whether one’s emotions are fixed or changeable. However, most studies have not examined the association between these beliefs and sociodemographic factors.
Methods
A nationwide cross-sectional Internet survey of residents of Japan aged 15–79 years was conducted using sampling weights for national estimates to investigate the association between emotion malleability beliefs and sociodemographic factors and between fixed beliefs and severe psychological distress (SPD). SPD was defined as a Kessler 6 Scale score of ≥13. Adjusted odds ratios for SPD were calculated considering potential confounders. Further analyses were stratified by sex, age and presence of any psychiatric disorder.
Results
The analysis included 23,142 participants (female, 48.64%). Fixed beliefs were associated with female sex, age < 45 years, and presence of psychiatric disorders. These beliefs were associated with SPD, and additional analysis showed stronger associations with SPD among female respondents, respondents aged 45–59 years, and those aged ≥60 years.
Conclusion
Results indicate that female sex, age < 45 years, and current mental disorders were associated with fixed emotion malleability beliefs. Associations between fixed emotion malleability beliefs and SPD were particularly strong among female respondents and people aged ≥45 years compared with the general population. Our study extends the association between emotion malleability beliefs and psychological health to the general population. Future studies should explore mechanisms underlying individual differences in emotion beliefs.
... Findings from previous studies have shown that individuals would be more motivated to persevere in the use of healthier strategies to overcome anxiety, if fundamentally, they believe that they can change their anxiety (Schroder, 2021). ...
... However, perceived lack of control over emotional responses relates to anxiety as a transient state. Though related, it is to be distinguished from the underlying emotion mindsets about anxiety as a trait (Schroder, 2021), which is the focal point of this study and will be defined later. ...
... empirically (Schroder, 2021). Ford and Gross (2019) postulate that emotion beliefs may vary across subordinate features of emotion. ...
An important part of the Educational Psychologist role involves the design and implementation of universal and targeted interventions to increase the use of evidence-based strategies for improving anxiety and psychological well-being outcomes in educational settings. Literature suggests that a key to motivation for engaging with healthy strategy use is the beliefs that individuals hold about the controllability of emotions. However, no research has yet examined beliefs which are specific to the malleability of anxiety in adolescents under the age of 18 years. Method: Self-report data was collected from 332 participants aged 16 – 18 attending post-16 educational settings in an inner city of England using validated questionnaires. Qualitative data was subsequently collected from a subset of the participants using semi-structured interviews in a follow-up study. Results: Anxiety malleability beliefs were a stronger predictor of anxiety and well-being than emotion controllability beliefs. Anxiety malleability beliefs were positively correlated with the reappraisal emotion regulation strategy and negatively correlated with the suppression strategy. Reappraisal did not mediate the association between the two beliefs and anxiety symptoms but did mediate the association between the two beliefs and psychological well-being. Adolescent anxiety malleability beliefs appeared to vary across features and contexts which were specific to anxiety. Discussion: implications on EP practice in the design and implementation of interventions include: addressing anxiety malleability beliefs before strategy use, targeting psychological well-being alongside anxiety outcomes, and evaluating individual differences in the relationship between anxiety beliefs and a wider range and combination of strategy use.
... Corrigan et al. [10] tested the association of perceived differences and stereotypes about people suffering from mental illness, finding that increased perception of differences was positively related to stereotypes. Also, a recent review about the impact of mindsets in clinical psychology from Schroder [38] posits that elucidating differences might endorse the belief of categorical differentness to people with mental illness and therefore increases depressionrelated stigma. ...
... Yet the key goal may well be to induce perceptions of similarities to individuals experiencing depression. A recent meta-analysis from Peter et al. [31] pointed out the potential importance of involving respondents along a sense of a mental health/mental illness continuum (e.g., "Basically we are all sometimes like [person X]."-it is just a question how pronounced this state is.") (see also [38]). ...
... Also, the effect of continuum beliefs seem to differ among different mental illnesses (see [46]). To reduce the stigma of depression, a changed mindset about the existence of depression characterized by the belief of a common ground of people with and without mental illness seems to be needed [38]. Especially perceiving oneself in relation to someone with mental illness, and thereby creating a common ground for people with and without mental illness, has been identified to be a fruitful approach to mental illness stigma reduction [31]. ...
Objective
Both continuum beliefs (i.e., that mental disorder exists on a spectrum of normative behavior patterns) and the perception of similarities to a person with schizophrenia have shown mixed effects on reducing mental illness stigma. To our knowledge, this is the first study to address continuum beliefs and the perception of similarities to a person with depression in the context of depression-related stigma.
Methods
This work is based on an online intervention study in an ethnically diverse sample recruited on Amazon MTurk including previously unanalyzed qualitive responses. Within this cross-sectional, mixed-methods online investigation (N = 304), we examined the relation of perceived similarities to continuum beliefs, social distance, and negative stereotypes in relation to a vignette about depression. A randomly assigned continuum beliefs intervention attempted to induce continuum beliefs about depression. An open-writing task asked participants to describe similarities and/or differences between themselves and the person depicted in the vignette.
Results
The continuum beliefs intervention was associated to a greater number of perceived similarities to and fewer perceived differences from the target vignette. Moreover, perceived similarities were associated with increased continuum beliefs, less social distance, and less-negative stereotypes. Perceived differences from a person with depression were associated with increased social distance.
Limitations
Even though the continuum beliefs intervention did not significantly alter stigma measures directly, expressed continuum beliefs were associated to decreased mental illness stigma.
Conclusions
The findings emphasize that perceived similarities to an outgroup member (i.e., a person with depression) might augment the stigma-reducing mechanism of continuum beliefs.
... Mindsets are groups of beliefs or assumptions that affect individual perceptions and actions (12). Mindset theory describes two general categories: fixed and growth. ...
... New ideas are needed to support peritoneal dialysis training and long-term modality success. The construct of mindset, a belief that a person's situation, knowledge, or abilities can change, is applicable to a broad range of health care settings (12,16,29). This study introduces mindset as a novel concept for understanding cognition, psychology, and decision-making in peritoneal dialysis patients. ...
... Novel interventions are needed to support peritoneal dialysis training and maximize patient success. This exploratory study presents empiric evidence linking the biopsychosocial model (6,7) to peritoneal dialysis patients, through the novel theoretical construct of mindset (12,13). If a growth mindset does align with more favorable clinical outcomes for peritoneal dialysis patients, then mindset may be considered as a target for behavioral interventions (14,32,33) to support maintenance of peritoneal dialysis in patients at high risk for poor health outcomes. ...
Increasing home dialysis prevalence is an international priority. Many patients start peritoneal dialysis, then transition to hemodialysis after complications. New strategies are needed to support modality persistence. Health mindset refers to individual belief about capacity to change to improve health. Mindset was measured in a cross-section of 101 adult peritoneal dialysis patients from April 2019 to June 2020. The Health Mindset Scale was administered to characterize the continuum of fixed vs. growth mindset with respect to health. Health literacy and health self-efficacy were also assessed. Participants were 43% female, 32% African American, and 42% diabetic. Health mindset scores were skewed toward growth (range 3–18), with average (SD) 12.83 (4.2). Growth mindset was strongly associated with health self-efficacy. Adults receiving peritoneal dialysis report health mindset variation. Growth mindset and health self-efficacy correlation suggests measurement of similar constructs, demonstrating convergent validity. The Health Mindset Scale may identify individuals who could benefit from targeted interventions to improve mindset, and foster peritoneal dialysis modality persistence.
... In studying stress mindsets, one study following a large cohort of adolescents showed that those who believed in the potential benefits of stress were less prone to feeling stressed in the wake of adverse life events (Park et al., 2018). Consequently, there is empirical support for the notion that when stress experiences or stressful events are conceptualized as potentially dangerous and harmful, the risk of experiencing them as harmful increases (Schroder, 2021). From a transactional perspective of stress, findings such as these are not surprising, given that this perspective assumes that the main source of variation in stress arousal and how it affects human functioning lies in the subjective evaluation of external events and the individual's efficacy in coping with them. ...
... For example, the term "burnout" suggests that some form of biomechanical irreversible energy depletion has occurred. Studies on biogenetic reductionist explanations show that psychiatric diseases can decrease hope for recovery and negatively affect beliefs about how much of the current symptoms are related to behaviors that can be changed (Haslam & Kvaale, 2015;Schroder, 2021). Furthermore, in studies of unspecific fatigue, expectations about fatigue being a chronic symptom have been shown to be a negative predictor of symptom progression (Nijrolder et al., 2009). ...
Long-term sick leave due to stress-related disorders has been steadily increasing in Western society. A portion of these sick leave rates is attributed to severe symptoms of exhaustion, assumed to be the result of persistent work stress. In Sweden, this symptomatology is currently classified using the diagnosis of stress-induced exhaustion disorder (ED). There are, however, no evidence-based treatments for ED, nor are there any established theoretical models to guide clinical interventions. Most current treatments revolve around promoting recovery behaviors, as ED is assumed to result from depleted psychophysiological resources. This thesis discusses the merits of this assumption and whether it is compatible with contemporary theories of stress and a contextual behavioral treatment approach. Additionally, a contextual behavioral model of ED is introduced with an accompanying biopsychosocial treatment, aiming to bridge the gap between theories of stress, basic learning principles, and clinically useful methods. The model suggests that ED can be conceptualized as a crisis of engagement rather than a result of depleted psychophysiological resources.
Complementing this theoretical work are empirical studies of different aspects of multimodal interventions (MMI) for ED with the overarching aim of fostering a more theoretically coherent ED treatment that can be made accessible to more patients. Study I was an open clinical trial tracking ED patients (N = 390) participating in a 24-week MMI based on cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). Study II explored sub-groups and predictors of improvements in a large cohort (N = 915) of ED patients participating in the same MMI as Study I. Study III explored mediators commonly suggested to be relevant within ED treatment in the same cohort as Study II: sleep concerns, pathological worry, perfectionistic concerns, and psychological flexibility. Study IV was an uncontrolled pilot trial (N = 26) of the biopsychosocial treatment for ED presented in this thesis, delivered within a 12-week online MMI.
In summary, the results of this thesis indicate that ED patients participating in CBT- based MMI benefit from treatment and report few adverse effects. Moreover, high degrees of perfectionism and high treatment credibility were identified as predictors of improvement, indicating the importance of addressing perfectionistic behaviors and treatment credibility in ED treatment. With positive results similar to those of Study I, Study IV provides preliminary support that ED can be treated more effectively with fewer clinical resources than more extensive MMIs when a more focused and theoretically stringent approach is utilized.
... Growth mindsets, the beliefs in change of personal attributes, are closely related to psychopathology [12], and the mindset intervention has recently been applied to clinical practice [13]. Fixed mindsets are linked to more suppressive emotion regulation and medication therapy choice while growth mindsets are associated with cognitive reappraisal and efforttaking therapy choices, such as counseling [14,15]. ...
... In addition, growth mindsets alleviate the associations between stressful life events and mental distress [16]. The growth mindset interventions have shown promising effects [13,17], particularly in enhancing perceived emotional control and decreasing anxiety symptoms [18]. However, single-session growth mindset intervention is far from sophisticated and needs further refinement and delicate design for the targeted population. ...
Background
The university years are a developmentally crucial phase and a peak period for the onset of mental disorders. The beliefs about the changeability of negative emotion may play an important role in help-seeking. The brief digital growth mindset intervention is potentially scalable and acceptable to enhance adaptive coping and help-seeking for mental health needs in university students. We adapted the Single-session Intervention on Growth Mindset for adolescents (SIGMA) to be applied in university students (U-SIGMA). This protocol introduces a two-armed waitlist randomized controlled trial study to examine the effectiveness and acceptability of U-SIGMA in promoting help-seeking among university students in the Greater Bay Area.
Methods
University students (N = 250, ages 18–25) from universities in the Greater Bay Area will be randomized to either the brief digital growth mindset intervention group or the waitlist control group. Participants will report on the mindsets of negative emotions, perceived control over anxiety, attitude toward help-seeking, physical activity, hopelessness, psychological well-being, depression, anxiety, and perceived stress at baseline and the 2-week and 8-week follow-ups through web-based surveys. A 30-min digital intervention will be implemented in the intervention group, with a pre- and post-intervention survey collecting intervention feedback, while the control group will receive the link for intervention after 8 weeks.
Discussion
This protocol introduces the implementation plan of U-SIMGA in multi-cities of the Greater Bay Area. The findings are expected to help provide pioneer evidence for the effectiveness and acceptability of the brief digital intervention for university students in the Chinese context and beyond and contribute to the development of accessible and effective prevention and early intervention for university students’ mental health.
Trial registration
HKU Clinical Trials Registry: HKUCTR-3012; Registered 14 April 2023. http://www.hkuctr.com/Study/Show/7a3ffbc0e03f4d1eac0525450fc5187e.
... Growth mindsets, the beliefs in change of personal attributes, are closely related to psychopathology (12) and the mindset intervention has recently been applied to clinical practice (13). Fixed mindsets are linked to more suppressive emotion regulation and medication therapy choice while growth mindsets are associated with cognitive reappraisal and effort-taking therapy choices, such as counselling (14,15). ...
... In addition, growth mindsets alleviate the associations between stressful life events and mental distress (16). The growth mindset interventions have shown promising effects (13,17), particularly in enhancing perceived emotional control and decreasing anxiety symptoms (18). However, single-session growth mindset intervention is far from sophisticated and needs further re nement and delicate design for the targeted population. ...
Background
The university years are a developmentally crucial phase and a peak period for the onset of mental disorders. The beliefs about the changeability of negative emotion may play an important role in help-seeking. The brief digital growth mindset intervention is potentially scalable and acceptable to enhance adaptive coping and help-seeking for mental health needs in university students. We adapted the Single-session Intervention on Growth Mindset for adolescents (SIGMA) to be applied in university students (U-SIGMA). This protocol introduces a two-armed waitlist randomized controlled trial study to examine the effectiveness and acceptability of U-SIGMA in promoting help-seeking among university students in the Greater Bay Area.
Methods
University students (N = 250, ages 18–25) from universities in the Greater Bay Area will be randomized to either the brief digital growth mindset intervention group or the waitlist control group. Participants will report on the mindsets of negative emotions, perceived control over anxiety, attitude toward help-seeking, physical activity, hopelessness, psychological well-being, depression, anxiety, and perceived stress at baseline, the 2-week and 8-week follow-up through web-based surveys. A 30-minute digital intervention will be implemented in the intervention group, with a pre- and post-intervention survey collecting intervention feedback, while the control group will receive the link for intervention after 8 weeks.
Discussion
This protocol introduces the implementation plan of U-SIMGA in multi-cities of the Greater Bay Area. The findings are expected to help provide pioneer evidence for the effectiveness and acceptability of the brief digital intervention for university students in the Chinese context and beyond and contribute to the development of accessible and effective prevention and early intervention for university students’ mental health.
Trial registration
The study is registered with HKU Clinical Trials Registry: HKUCTR-3012; Registered 14 April 2023.
... Emotion mindset research draws directly from Carol Dweck and others' work defining the influential role of mindsets individuals have about intelligence to outcomes such as how students cope with a setback, effort expended at overcoming a challenge, and feelings of hopelessness (Blackwell et al., 2007;Dweck, 2000;Hong et al., 1999). Emotion mindsets have been linked to a range of outcomes including clinical symptoms, emotional experiences, and motivation for psychological treatment (Burnette, Knouse et al., 2020;Schroder, 2021). While mindset research originated in social and personality psychology (Tamir et al., 2007), mindsets and mindsets of emotion, specifically, have been increasingly studied in the domain of clinical psychology (Kneeland et al., 2016a(Kneeland et al., , 2016b(Kneeland et al., , 2016cSchleider et al., 2015). ...
... Future research could also examine how emotion perspectives relate to which clients benefit the most from certain psychological treatments and engage in treatment. We echo the call from others (e.g., Schroder, 2021) that mindsets and other emotion perspectives can provide insights into the development, maintenance, and treatment of psychological disorders. Clarifying the role of emotion perspectives in conceptualizations of psychiatric disorders and distress can illuminate targets for treatment, serve as a guide to clinicians, and be used to enhance treatment motivation and efficacy. ...
Empirical research has demonstrated that individuals vary widely in how they view their emotions. We call the viewpoints that individuals have towards their emotions emotion perspectives. While many subdisciplines of psychology, such as social psychology and clinical psychology, have studied this topic, research thus far can be siloed, despite overlap in terms and constructs. The goal of the current special issue and this introduction is to describe the state of research on emotion perspectives, highlight common themes in streams of emotion perspective research, and present future directions for investigation. The first portion of this introduction to the special issue provides a basic review of emotion perspective research, spotlighting topics such as emotion beliefs, emotion mindsets, lay theories of emotion, and attitudes toward emotion. The second portion of the introduction presents themes that cut across papers in the special issue, with a discussion of future research directions throughout. The goal of this introduction and special issue is to serve as a guide for greater integration in emotion perspective research and to provide a roadmap for emotion perspective research moving forward.
... Indeed, growth mindsets-beliefs in the malleability of human attributes-are associated with positive health outcomes; specifically, reduced psychological distress (e.g., depression, anxiety, stress), elevated treatment value (i.e., expectations that treatment will be valuable and effective), and active coping (Burnette et al., 2020). By contrast, fixed mindsets-beliefs that human attributes are immutable-are associated with anxiety, avoidance, and helplessness (Schroder, 2021). ...
... Indeed, the impact of biogenetic messaging on neural correlates of cognition remains unexplored. Recent studies using event-related potentials (ERPs) suggest mindsets differ in terms of their neurophysiological reactions to mistakes (see Schroder, 2021 for review). The error positivity (Pe)-an ERP signal that denotes conscious attention allocation to an error (Falkenstein et al., 2000)-has been linked to the emotional significance of errors (Falkenstein et al., 2000;Ridderinkhof et al., 2009). ...
During the past 60 years, perceptions about the origins of mental illness have shifted toward a biomedical model, depicting depression as a biological disorder caused by genetic abnormalities and/or chemical imbalances. Despite benevolent intentions to reduce stigma, biogenetic messages promote prognostic pessimism, reduce feelings of agency, and alter treatment preferences, motivations, and expectations. However, no research has examined how these messages influence neural markers of ruminative activity or decision-making, a gap this study sought to fill. In this pre-registered, clinical trial (NCT03998748), 49 participants with current or past depressive experiences completed a sham saliva test and were randomly assigned to receive feedback that they either have (gene-present; n = 24) or do not have (gene-absent; n = 25) a genetic predisposition to depression. Before and after receiving the feedback, resting-state activity and neural correlates of cognitive control (error-related negativity [ERN] and error positivity [Pe]) were measured using high-density electroencephalogram (EEG). Participants also completed self-report measures of beliefs about the malleability and prognosis of depression and treatment motivation. Contrary to hypotheses, biogenetic feedback did not alter perceptions or beliefs about depression, nor did it alter EEG markers of self-directed rumination nor neurophysiological correlates of cognitive control. Explanations of these null findings are discussed in the context of prior studies.
... Entity theorists often blame their lack of ability to change when they encounter setbacks or difficulties and are prone to helpless tendencies, negative emotions, and behaviors. In contrast, incremental theorists focus more on environmental factors, strive to find new solutions to improve the current situation, exhibit positive emotions and behaviors (Liu et al., 2013), and are more likely to overcome personal frustrations to promote psychological resilience (Schroder, 2021). Research shows that individuals who support entity theory have a poor ability to adapt to public health challenges, while individuals who support incremental theory can better recover from public health crisis events (Park and Shapiro, 2021). ...
... Researchers found that individuals' beliefs that personality was malleable influenced their use of conflict management strategies in romantic relationships (Kammrath and Dweck, 2006). Individuals who support the incremental theory often face and tolerate anxiety, setbacks, and disappointments in healthy and adaptive ways that increase resilience (Schroder, 2021). Research has shown that growth mindset interventions in the personality domain can also improve individuals' stress coping styles, reduce stress levels, improve cardiovascular and circulatory system function, and enhance their mental resilience, enabling them to cope positively when they experience negative emotions (Yeager et al., 2016). ...
Implicit theories refer to assumptions people hold about different domains, also known as mindsets. There are two implicit theories on the malleability of one’s ability: entity theory and incremental theory. They constrain and regulate people’s understanding and responses to an individual’s behavior, leading to different social cognitive patterns and behavioral responses. Resilience is a positive adaptation in highly stressful situations that represents mechanisms for coping with and transcending difficult experiences, i.e., a person’s ability to successfully adapt to change, resist the adverse effects of stressors, avoid significant dysfunction, and be chronically affected by considered a protective factor for mental health. Although previous studies showed that individuals’ implicit theories are associated with resilience, this relationship has received little attention in the nursing population. It is unclear which variables may contribute to explaining the relationship between implicit theories and resilience. Therefore, the current study aims to deeply explore the relationship between implicit theories and the resilience of Chinese nurses. In addition, we also seek to demonstrate the chain mediating effects of grit and meaning in life on this relationship. We surveyed 709 Chinese nurses through online questionnaires using the self-made demographic questionnaire, the Implicit Theories Scale, the Short Grit Scale, the Meaning in Life Questionnaire, and the 10-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. After controlling for demographic variables such as age, gender, educational background, marital status, professional title, and working years, the results reveal positive associations between Chinese nurses’ implicit theories and their resilience, and grit and meaning in life play a partial mediating role in this relationship, respectively. Furthermore, grit and meaning in life play a chain mediating role between implicit theories and resilience. These findings contribute to understanding the psychological impact mechanism of implicit theories on nurses’ resilience and provide a theoretical basis for nursing managers to formulate strategies to improve nurses’ psychological resilience.
... Conversely, individuals with a fixed mindset view mistakes and failure as inherent flaws and avoid challenges. Moreover, they value external achievements, such as GPA or material possessions, over personal growth to validate their self-worth [23][24][25], which potentially hinders personal value and meaning. Therefore, the study predicts that a growth mindset will positively correlate with PER and HUM (reflecting intrinsic value-based goal commitment), while a fixed mindset will exhibit a positive relationship with CAR, EXP, and DEF (denoting extrinsic value-based goal commitment and lack of self-value in academics). ...
Purpose
Students report various motives for attending university (MAU) grouped under five categories, namely, personal–intellectual development (PER), humanitarian (HUM), careerist–materialist (CAR), expectation-driven (EXP), and uncertain motives. Although the literature demonstrates that these motives exert an influence on learning and achievement, relatively less attention is given to this issue in the context of dental students. This study aimed to examine the relationship among the mindsets, MAU, academic engagement (AE), and DAL of dental students and to test the mediating effect of AE on the relationship between MAU and deep approach to learning (DAL).
Methods
The study recruited 226 dental students at various levels of the curriculum, who responded to four questionnaires for measuring MAU, DAL, mindsets, and AE. The study employed structural equation modeling to analyze the mediation effects of AE on the relationship between MAU and DAL and to determine the influence of mindsets on MAU.
Results
This model reveals the significant relationships of a growth mindset with CAR, PER, and HUM. Moreover, the study finds that a fixed mindset was associated with CAR, EXP, and uncertain motives. Furthermore, AE only fully mediated the significant positive relationship between PER and DAL, whereas CAR negatively predicted DAL without a mediator.
Conclusions
These findings suggest that administering the inventories in a dental school setting can facilitate a more comprehensive understanding of students’ mindsets toward learning and effective processes related to learning. This understanding can inform instructors’ pedagogical practices, enabling them to provide more effective guidance to students navigating the complexities of academic coursework.
... The positive association between personal traits and the inclination to explore various options in dental entrepreneurship aligns with the idea that understanding one's strengths contributes to effective decision-making and adaptability [27] and corresponds to a growth mindset described already in the literature [28]. The relevant literature underscores the influential role of mindset, specifically the distinction between fixed and growth mindsets, in shaping decision-making and career trajectories [28][29][30]. A fixed mindset, characterized by the belief in inherent limitations, leads individuals to perceive their abilities as rigid and resistant to change, impacting their reactions to unexpected career developments [17]. ...
The SWOT analysis, pivotal in the competitive healthcare sector, aids dentists in identifying and analyzing internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats. This study focuses on senior dental students, aiming to scrutinize their use of SWOT analysis and evaluate its efficacy as an educational tool for career decision-making in dental entrepreneurship. The research sample comprises 116 senior dental students in the final stages of their dental education, with data collection accomplished through the administration of an e-questionnaire. The data extracted from the SWOT analysis encompass internal and external factors, gender distinctions, and outcomes derived from Stepwise Binary Logistic Regression concerning predictor markers. The results from the SWOT analysis of 114 questionnaires, revealed that participants identified communication skills (50%) and organization skills (49.10%) as their primary strengths, followed by favorable personal traits contributing to goal success (36%). Weaknesses predominantly centered around emotional and personal traits like anxiety (41.20%) and other characteristics, alongside practical challenges such as lack of initial capital (24.60%). Main opportunities included collaboration with experienced dentists (33.30%) and access to training programs (27.20%), while economic instability in Greece (77.20%) and the saturated dentist profession (26.30%) were perceived as significant threats. Gender differences were notable, with female dentists more likely to report organization skills as a strength and anxiety as a weakness. Values such as industriousness, persistence, and ethics were commonly shared, with actions focusing on training programs (57.9%) and gaining experience with experienced dentists (29.8%). Cluster analysis identified two subgroups, with one emphasizing on utilizing all available options (n=49) and the other prioritizing on gaining professional skills and experience (n=65). Logistic regression indicated that participants valuing industriousness were less likely to explore all available options, while those recognizing personal traits were more likely to do so. The study's outcomes highlight key predictor factors linked to a proactive orientation in career decision-making among senior dental students. These insights offer valuable implications for educational institutions and career counselors.
... The positive association between personal traits and the inclination to explore various options in dental entrepreneurship aligns with the idea that understanding one's strengths contributes to effective decision-making and adaptability [27] and corresponds to a growth mindset [28]. Furthermore, the relevant literature underscores the influential role of mindset, specifically the distinction between fixed and growth mindsets, in shaping decision-making and career trajectories [29,30]. A fixed mindset, characterized by the belief in inherent limitations, leads individuals to perceive their abilities as rigid and resistant to change, impacting their reactions to unexpected career developments [19]. ...
The SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis is a framework used to evaluate a company’s competitive position and to develop strategic planning. In the competitive dental sector, it can aid dentists in identifying and analyzing internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats. This study focuses on senior dental students of the Department of Dentistry at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, aiming to scrutinize their use of SWOT analysis and assess its application as a tool for evaluating entrepreneurial goals and making career decisions in dental entrepreneurship. The research sample comprises 116 senior dental students (N1) in the final undergraduate year of their dental education, with data collection accomplished through the administration of an e-questionnaire during the obligatory course of “Organization and management of dental practices” in December 2023. The data extracted from the SWOT analysis encompass internal and external factors, gender distinctions, and outcomes derived from Stepwise Binary Logistic Regression concerning predictor markers. The results from the SWOT analysis of 114 valid questionnaires (N2), revealed that participants identified communication skills (50%) and organization skills (49.10%) as their primary strengths, followed by favorable personal traits contributing to goal success (36%). Weaknesses predominantly centered around emotional and personal traits like anxiety (41.20%) and other characteristics, alongside practical challenges such as lack of initial capital (24.60%). Main opportunities included collaboration with experienced dentists (33.30%) and access to training programs (27.20%), while economic instability in Greece (77.20%) and the saturated dentist profession (26.30%) were perceived as significant threats. Gender differences were notable, with female dentists more likely to report organization skills as a strength and anxiety as a weakness. Values such as industriousness, persistence, and ethics were commonly shared, with actions focusing on training programs (57.9%) and gaining experience with experienced dentists (29.8%). Cluster analysis identified two subgroups, with one emphasizing utilizing all available options (n = 49) and the other prioritizing on gaining professional skills and experience (n = 65). Logistic regression indicated that participants valuing industriousness were less likely to explore all available options, while those recognizing personal traits were more likely to do so. The study’s outcomes highlight key predictor factors linked to a proactive orientation in career decision-making among senior dental students. These insights offer valuable implications for educational institutions and career counselors.
... Individuals and groups that seem to struggle with making perceived progress could work with positive psychological practitioners (e.g. mentors, teachers, trainers, educators, coaches, therapists) who can adopt strategies such as applying a growth mindset (perceiving agency as a mindset; Seligman, 2022;Schroder, 2021) or providing encouragement to promote agency (see Wong et al., 2019 on academic self-efficacy). Notably, our findings on the mediation effects shed light on distinct interventions to promote perceived progress. ...
Grounded in Seligman’s tripartite model of agency, the authors developed the 10-item Agency Scale. Using data from three waves (1994–1996, 2004–2006, 2013–2014) of the MIDUS national longitudinal study, results from midlife adults (N = 2,717) supported a three-factor structure, corresponding to self-efficacy, future-minded planning (as a measure of optimism), and imagina-tion. Evidence for measurement invariance, construct validity, and reliability was provided. The three subscales of the Agency Scale uniquely and positively predicted effort, persistence, gener-ativity (as an indicator of innovation), and perceived progress. Supporting Seligman’s hypothesis, sequential mediation analyses revealed that effort, persistence, and generativity significantly mediated the self-efficacy-perceived progress, future-minded planning-perceived progress, and imagination-perceived progress relations, respectively. Significant mean differences across three timepoints indicated an overall declining trend in scores of agency (including self-efficacy, future- minded planning, and imagination) and perceived progress. Collectively, these findings provide support for Seligman’s tripartite model of agency.
... These monitoring processes also have the advantage that perceived progress toward goals can boost motivation and commitment (Liberman & Förster, 2008;Nunes & Dreze, 2006) while the lack of progress may contain crucial information for adaptive change (e.g., Edmondson, 2023;Ericsson, 1993), especially if the obstacle can be narrowed down to particular turning knobs (e.g., too low feasibility of a means). Installing a general growth mindset (Dweck & Yeager, 2019) in the patient, or the tendency for growth reappraisals, may be an important extrinsic EMOTION REGULATION SYSTEMS 28 MER goal of the therapist (Schroder, 2021). This is because, with a growth mindset, monitoring will become a win-win situation (by either being pleased by the progress or by realizing opportunities for change). ...
We introduce emotion regulation (ER) systems as particular goal systems that use sets of ER and meta-emotion-regulation (MER) strategies, tactics, and behaviors as means for reaching an individual’s approach and avoidance goals. These goals can be connected to higher-level goals like basic needs or values that may serve an overall emotional well-being. As every psychotherapeutic method can be seen as ER or MER, as we will argue, and every psychotherapy comprises some set of goals for the specific patient, ER systems can be regarded as a transdiagnostic and transtheoretical method for psychotherapy. We will illustrate how one could potentially build and apply ER systems dynamically in practice. ER systems may help promote endeavors toward a unified psychotherapy that cuts across mental disorders and psychotherapy schools. Through their unifying and complexity-reducing nature, they may also be promising building blocks of prevention programs for subclinical populations across ages.
... Growth Reappraisal Hoyt et al., 2023Schroder, 2021 Example technique: Growth mindset for shyness (Dweck, 2017): Before going into a social situation thinking to oneself how social skills are something one can improve. (Friedberg & McClure, 2015): Thinking about the future self and how that self may think or act in the situation now (e.g., the relatively short-term future self that has just overcome the problem, or the distant future self on the death-bed, looking back on their life and giving advice). ...
We introduce the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Emotion Regulation (HiTOE) to resolve conceptual inconsistencies and to provide a common, and richer, vocabulary for emotion regulation (ER) research and practice. It is based on a breakdown of ER strategies into their subtypes (i.e., tactics) and, at the bottom of the hierarchy, into the actual ER (overt or covert) behavior. The HiTOE can be extended to other levels (e.g., a subtactic level) and serves as a structural model for future categorizations of ER processes. Based on the HiTOE, we further propose extensions of the ER flexibility and emotion polyregulation concepts to include not just strategy flexibility and strategy polyregulation but also tactic flexibility (flexibly choosing between ER tactics, within or between strategies) and tactic polyregulation (using multiple ER tactics, within or between strategies). This approach of zooming in on ER strategy subtypes as tactics affords a precision that may be particularly important when considering context-dependent ER effectiveness. What furthermore emerges is the need for understanding and using meta-emotion-regulation, namely, the processes by which one influences ER behavior, so that context-sensitive and effective ER becomes feasible.
... There is evidence from cohort studies and RCTs that growth mindsets are associated with reduced levels of subsequent depressive symptoms. 28,29 Conversely, mastery-avoidance goals could increase the risk of these experiences, which are potentially associated with increased risk of depressive symptoms. 26 ...
Background: Students define competence according to the development of their skills and understanding (mastery) or based on comparisons with their peers (performance). Students may aim to achieve the outcome of interest (approach) or to avoid failure of not meeting their definition of competence (avoidance). Achievement goals are linked to adolescents cognitions, coping, stress, and potentially depressive symptoms. We conducted the first longitudinal study of the association between achievement goals and depressive symptoms in a nationally representative adolescent sample.
Methods: We analysed data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Achievement goals were measured at age 12/13, with the primary outcome (depressive symptoms) measured at ages 14/15 and 16/17 (Kindergarten only). Analyses were linear multilevel and traditional regressions, with adjustment for confounders.
Outcomes: We included 3,200 and 2,671 participants from the Kindergarten and Baby cohorts, respectively. Higher mastery-approach goals were associated with decreased depressive symptoms (Kindergarten: -0.33 [95%CI: -0.52 to -0.15]; Baby: -0.29, [95%CI: -0.54 to -0.03]), and higher mastery-avoidance with increased depressive symptoms (Kindergarten: 0.35, [95%CI: 0.21 to 0.48]; Baby: 0.44 [95%CI: 0.25 to 0.66]). Higher performance-avoidance goals were associated with increased depressive symptoms in the Kindergarten cohort only (Kindergarten: 0.26, [95%CI: 0.11 to 0.41]; Baby: -0.04 [95% CI: -0.27 to 0.19]). We found little evidence of an association between performance-approach goals and depressive symptoms.
Interpretation: If associations reflect a causal relationship, school environments that promote mastery-approach goals, could reduce adolescent depressive symptoms.
... Mindset theory has historically been associated with goal orientation and response to setbacks [9]. Within goal orientation, a growth mindset focuses on actual learning, while a fixed mindset is geared towards performance and achievement. ...
... Zdá se, že změna názvu konceptu prospěla, kromě širší obeznámenosti způsobila také rozšíření nastavení mysli z inteligence na obecné schopnosti (Kapasi & Pei, 2022) a tím patrně i expanzi do dalších oblastí, v posledních letech zejména do klinické a terapeutické. (Kapasi & Pei, 2022;Schroder, 2021) Jádrem růstového nastavení mysli je přesvědčení, že "osobní zlepšení je možné za těch správných podmínek" (Yeager & Dweck, 2023). Pokud tedy vyvineme dostatečné úsilí, najdeme dobrou strategii nebo požádáme o pomoc, můžeme se neustále zlepšovat. ...
Teacher-student relationship is an integral part of educational psychology; however, its dyadic perspective has mostly been overlooked in the Czech Republic. The study aimed to adapt a measure on the 3-factor construct of teacher-student connectedness (García-Moya et al., 2020b) extending it by "Student-perceived growth mindset of the teacher" based on Carol Dweck´s theory (2017) and to explore gender and age differences within the individual constructs, as well as their relationship with academic performance (report card grade from Czech and Maths). The data from 658 adolescents support the 3-factor and 4-factor solutions for the measure, indicating evidence of factorial validity. Gender and age differences were not found in mean scores. The constructs correlate moderately strongly with each other and weakly negatively with both grades, the correlation with Czech is stronger than with Maths. We suggest shortening the measure and further modifying some items to enhance its validity.
... According to Schroder (2021), people who have growth mindsets are able to overcome failures compared to those who have fixed mindsets. Another study named "An Entity Theory of Intelligence Predicts Higher Cortisol Levels When High School Grades Are Declining" conducted by Lee et al. (2018) investigated how the mindsets of students transitioning to high school influenced their stress levels, which were measured by collecting saliva samples as they contain cortisol, the primary stress hormone. ...
... Resilience enables a person to thrive; to bounce back from adversity, to develop a drive to prosper, even in tough circumstances by using personal attributes or coping strategies (Cleary et al., 2018). Schroder (2021) argues that a growth mindset enables the individual to tolerate uncomfortable emotions and experiences using adaptive strategies that promote resilience. Having an open mind, a positive attitude, the ability to rely on friends and family, along with a willingness to help others, enables a student to be resilient and to learn to overcome adversity (Mueller, 2021). ...
... The association between mindsets and suicidality has not received much attention, but it seems that fixed mindsets play an important role in the suicidal process (Olié et al., 2010). Previous studies have found that mindsets differentially predict willingness to tolerate discomfort (Schroder, 2020), and having fixed mindsets may decrease hope for improvement and lead to avoidance coping and hopelessness. Suicidal thoughts emerge among distressed young people if they take a constricted mindset and think of death as the only way to escape the temporarily psych-ache (Tezanos et al., 2021). ...
Background:
Fixed mindsets or beliefs about the non-malleability of self-attributes are linked to a wide range of negative psychological outcomes. Its association with suicidal ideation (SI) among young people has not been explored.
Objectives:
To examine the association of fixed mindsets of depression, anxiety, and stress and SI; and its mediating role underlying the association between depression and SI.
Methods:
A sample of 1393 adolescents (Mage = 13.04, SD = 0.85, 640 boys) from 11 middle schools voluntarily participated in a two-wave longitudinal study before and during the COVID-19 pandemic with a 9-month interval.
Results:
Both depressive symptoms and fixed mindsets were positively and significantly associated with concurrent and future suicidality, after controlling for demographic and socioeconomic status and previous SI. Participants with stronger fixed mindsets were more likely to have SI than those with only depressive symptoms. Also, fixed mindsets mediated the association between depressive symptoms and SI in both cross-sectional and longitudinal models.
Conclusion:
The current study provides empirical evidence of the effects of fixed mindsets and SI and the mediating role of fixed mindset between depressive symptoms and SI among young people. Interventions to foster a growth mindset may enhance hope and reduce suicidality among adolescents.
... According to cognitive appraisal theory, Individuals using suppression frequently leads to high emotional exhaustion, which in turn strengthens the bad effect of negative emotions. Furthermore, Schroder (2021) found that expressive suppression decreases student's satisfaction on daily work, which in turn strengthens intentions to give up the current work, thus reducing the deeper thinking in production and students' giving up halfway (D'Mello and Duckworth, 2019;Pujol, 2019). In addition, students who suppress their emotions are also seen as desolate and lack of confidence for some matters, which can attenuate the creativity as a result of negative emotion (Shi et al., 2021). ...
Artificial intelligence (AI) era challenges the use and functions of emotion in college students and the students’ college life is often experienced as an emotional rollercoaster, negative and positive emotion can affect the emotional outcomes, but we know very little about how students can ride it most effectively to increase their creativity. We introduce frustration tolerance as a mediator and emotion regulation as a moderator to investigate the mechanism of creativity improvement under negative emotion. Drawing on a sample of 283 students from professional music colleges or music major in normal universities, we find that negative emotion are generally associated with a lower creativity, while frustration tolerance can mediate the relationship between negative emotion and creativity, but these effects depend on the emotion regulation. Cognitive reappraisal exerts a negative effect on the relationship between negative emotion and creativity, while expressive suppression has the opposite effect. Our study contributes to the literatures on student’s emotions and creativity in music education and to the emotion regulation literature.
... The belief that one has the capacity to grow is known as a growth mindset. Growth mindset, or attributes that are malleable, encourage healthy and adaptive ways of facing and tolerating anxiety, frustration, and disappointment, which promotes resilience (Schroder, 2020). Growth mindset may make individuals more resilient and persistent in the face of challenges or difficulties, as they are more likely to adopt effort-oriented strategies in their efforts to achieve their goals (Zhao et al., 2021a). ...
Growth mindset refers to our core belief that our talents can be developed through practice, which may influence our thoughts and behaviors. Growth mindset has been studied in a variety of fields, including education, sports, and management. However, few studies have explored whether differences in individuals’ growth mindsets influence college students’ self-reported mental health. Using the Growth Mindset Scale, Adolescent Self-rating Life Events Checklist, and SCL-90 Scale, data was collected from 2,505 freshmen in a University in China. Findings revealed that the students within the growth mindset group scored significantly lower on “mental health issues” and “stress due to life events” than the students in the fixed mindset group. Our findings suggest that individuals with a growth mindset are less prone to mental health problems than individuals with a fixed mindset.
... Participants who completed the intervention reported reduced depressive symptoms compared to a control group from baseline to 4-month follow-up (Schleider et al., 2020). One potential explanation for this effect is the concept of emotional tolerance; a growth mindset encourages confronting and tolerating emotional distress and promotes resilience, whereas fixed mindsets discourage feeling distressing emotions such as frustration and disappointment (Schroder, 2021). ...
Mindset theory is an achievement motivation theory that centers on the concept of the malleability of abilities. According to mindset theory, students tend to have either a growth mindset or a fixed mindset about their intelligence; students with a growth mindset tend to believe that intelligence is malleable, whereas students with fixed mindsets tend to believe that intelligence is unchangeable. As described in many empirical and theoretical papers, the mindset a student holds can influence important psychological and behavioral factors, including reaction to failure, persistence and level of effort, and expectations of success, which ultimately impact academic achievement. Importantly, mindsets can be changed, and interventions have been developed to promote a more growth mindset. A growth mindset allows students to view challenges as an opportunity for improvement, is linked to enjoyment of learning, and increases motivation in school. School psychologists are often working with students with learning differences and/or mental health concerns who are particularly at-risk for poor academic achievement, and researchers have demonstrated the important impact a growth mindset can have for these vulnerable students. School psychologists are well-positioned to incorporate mindset theory into the school environment in order to best support the students they serve. In this paper we provide a theoretical overview of mindset theory and mindset interventions, and specifically review the literature on mindset theory for individuals with learning disabilities and mental health challenges. We discuss how school psychologists can incorporate mindset theory into their practice to support the shift from a fixed to a growth mindset for all students.
... The association between mindsets and suicidality has not received much attention but it seems that fixed mindsets seem to play an important role in the suicidal process (Olié et al., 2010). Previous studies have found that mindsets differentially predict willingness to tolerate discomfort (Schroder, 2020), and having a fixed mindset may decrease hope for improvement and lead to avoidance coping and hopelessness. Suicidal thoughts emerge among distressed young people if they take a constricted mindset and think of death as the only way to escape the temporarily psych-ache (Tezanos et al., 2021). ...
Background: Fixed mindsets, or beliefs about the non-malleability of self-attributes have been linked to a wide range of clinical psychological outcomes. Yet, their impact on suicidality has not been examined. Objectives: To examine the association of fixed mindset of depression, anxiety and stress and suicidal ideation (SI) and its mediating role underlying the association between depression and SI.Methods: A sample of 1393 adolescents (Mage = 13.04, SD = 0.85, 640 boys) from eleven middle schools voluntarily participated in a two-wave longitudinal study with 9-month interval. Results: Both depression and fixed mindset positively and significantly associated with concurrent and future suicidality, after controlling demographic and socio-economic status and previous SI. Participants with stronger fixed mindset presented stronger association with suicidality than those with only depressive symptoms. Also, fixed mindset of depression, anxiety and stress mediated the association between depression and suicidality in both cross-sectional and longitudinal models. Conclusion: Findings of the current study not only shed light on the role of fixed mindset on suicidality and the mechanisms linking depression and suicidality among adolescents, but also provide an empirical basis for formulating prevention and/or intervention programs aimed at reducing the development of suicidality and minimizing the negative psychological reactions to challenges during human development.
A broad range of mindset theories co-exist around the world today. This systematic review is the first of its kind to study this diverse range of mindset theories, to get a sense of how coherent or incoherent they are with one another, and with people's direct experience of mindset. It was found that at present, most mindset theories seldom acknowledge or compare themselves to one another, nor do they examine how all theories belong to a coherent and comprehensive theory of mindset. It is recommended more studies are undertaken to better understand all of the theories that co-exist in the mindset field and how these theories relate to people's direct experience. You are invited to participate in this process of shared learning, so that the mindset field can develop more coherent and comprehensive theories of mindset.
Growth mindset, the viewpoint that ability and intellect are dynamic and can be improved upon with dedication and feedback, has been associated with increased resiliency and academic success. Prior research suggests that many surgeons have a fixed mindset, viewing personal attributes as static entities. There is a paucity of literature exploring how mindset is perceived and/or applied in a surgery-specific context. This study sought to identify mindset characteristics of surgical trainees and faculty at general surgery residency programs in the United States.
As part of the SECOND Trial, semi-structured interviews about wellness were conducted with surgical faculty, residents, and staff. Programs were selected based on their performance on the SECOND Trial survey (e.g., exemplary wellness scores), notable wellness initiatives identified on the SECOND Trial Program Director survey, and/or identification by wellness experts. Transcripts were coded deductively using the SECOND Trial conceptual model. Transcripts that had been coded with the Individual Mediating Factors domain, which focuses on individual residents’ skills in dealing with difficult situations, were selected for further deductive coding, applying fixed and growth mindset frameworks. Coding was performed by dyads with differences in coding discussed until consensus was reached. After the transcripts were coded, narrative data were deconstructed and thematic analysis was performed inductively identifying wider emergent themes and subthemes.
393 interviews and focus groups were conducted at 15 general surgery residency programs. 201 transcripts were coded for Individual Mediating Factors. In 35 of these transcripts, examples of mindset were identified through additional coding and reconciliation. Sub-themes from fixed mindset data include: perfection or bust, sabotage for success, old habits die hard, and hiding from emotion. In growth mindset, the following sub-themes emerged: opportunity from failure, lifelong learning, and flexibility and open-mindedness. Additionally, broader sub-themes on mindset fluidity were identified: the ability to shift mindset and how the departmental environment plays a critical role in cultivating mindset.
Surgeons provided examples demonstrating how fixed and growth mindset characteristics appear in surgical training programs. Growth mindset themes described a positive educational and working environment, while fixed mindset often hindered performance and camaraderie. Benefits to individuals and programs were noted when mindset shifts (from fixed to growth) occurred. Thus, teaching growth mindset may improve professional development, learning opportunities, and workplace collegiality. Department of surgery leaders have an opportunity to facilitate environments that support and propagate growth mindset.
Individuals' beliefs about the malleability of emotions have been theorised to play a role in their psychological distress by influencing emotion regulation processes, such as the use of emotion regulation strategies. We conducted a meta-analysis to test this idea across studies with a focus on the relationships between emotion malleability beliefs and five distinct emotion regulation strategies: cognitive reappraisal, suppression, avoidance, rumination, and acceptance. Further, using two-stage meta-analytic structural equation modelling (TSSEM), we examined whether the emotion regulation strategies mediate the cross-sectional relationship between emotion malleability beliefs and psychological distress across studies. Thirty-seven studies were included in the meta-analyses and 55 cross-sectional studies were included in the TSSEM. Results demonstrated that, across studies, emotion malleability beliefs were significantly associated with greater use of putatively helpful strategies (particularly with cognitive reappraisal) and less use of putatively unhelpful strategies (particularly with avoidance). The use of cognitive reappraisal and avoidance partially mediated the relationship between emotion malleability beliefs and psychological distress. These results highlight the importance of considering beliefs about the malleability of emotions in the context of emotion regulation. These findings suggest the potential role of emotion malleability beliefs in interventions for individuals with emotion regulation-related difficulties and psychological distress.
This study focuses on the impact of growth mindset interventions on students’ motivation, resilience and academic achievement. The specific objectives of the study entail: to assess the impacts of growth mindset interventions on student motivation, resilience, and academic performance in educational settings, to examine the practical strategies employed by educators to implement growth mindset interventions effectively and to identify potential challenges and limitations of growth mindset interventions in fostering a growth mindset culture in schools. The study employed qualitative research approach and used documentary review to collect data of the study. The findings of the study on the impact of growth mindset interventions on students’ motivation, resilience and academic achievement revealed that growth mindset interventions have demonstrated significant positive impacts on students' motivation in educational settings, evidence from various studies demonstrates that growth mindset interventions have a positive impact on students' resilience in educational settings and lastly various recent research studies conducted provide evidence of the positive impact of growth mindset interventions on students' academic achievement, motivation, engagement, resilience, and persistence. The findings of the study on the practical strategies employed by educators to implement growth mindset interventions effectively entail: provision of explicit instruction, fostering a supportive classroom culture, teaching effective learning strategies, provision of feedback that promotes growth mindset, encouragement of reflection and metacognition, modelling a growth mindset and leverage of technology and digital resources: The findings of the study on the potential challenges and limitations of growth mindset interventions in fostering a growth mindset culture in schools include: limited sustainability, individual differences, low teacher training, contextual factors and overgeneralization. The study recommends that Schools and educational institutions should actively incorporate growth mindset interventions into their curriculum and teaching strategies, encouraged to set realistic and achievable goals and regularly reflect on their progress, provide professional development opportunities and training programs for educators to enhance their understanding of growth mindset principles and strategies and should create an environment that promotes positivity, encouragement, and a sense of belonging.
Objectives:
Resilience during old age reflects the capacity to adapt to changes and challenges associated with normative aging and is an important component of successful aging. Belief in the incremental theory of intelligence and personality could help older adults maintain cognitive functioning and social engagement, which may further contribute to their resilience. The current study investigated how implicit theories of intelligence and personality affected older adults' resilience and examined cognitive functioning and social participation as two mediators.
Method:
A total of 108 older adults aged 60-92 were recruited and completed relevant scales and cognitive tasks. Path analyses were conducted to estimate the expected mediation model.
Results:
The incremental theory of intelligence, but not personality, was positively related to older adults' resilience. Both cognitive functioning and social participation mediated the effect of the implicit theory of intelligence in the model without covariates. When background variables were controlled, the mediation effect of cognitive functioning remained significant, while the link between the implicit theory of intelligence and social participation was weakened.
Conclusion:
Older adults' implicit theory of intelligence plays a significant role in fostering resilience in late adulthood, especially through maintaining older adults' cognitive functioning.
Rationale & Objective
Dialysis comes with a substantial treatment burden, so patients must select care plans that align with their preferences. We aimed to deepen the understanding of decisional regret with dialysis choices.
Study Design
This study had a mixed-methods explanatory sequential design.
Setting & Participants
All patients from a single academic medical center prescribed maintenance in-center hemodialysis or presenting for home hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis check-up during 3 weeks were approached for survey. A total of 78 patients agreed to participate. Patients with the highest (15 patients) and lowest decisional regret (20 patients) were invited to semistructured interviews.
Predictors
Decisional regret scale and illness intrusiveness scale were used in this study.
Analytical Approach
Quantitatively, we examined correlations between the decision regret scale and illness intrusiveness scale and sorted patients into the highest and lowest decision regret scale quartiles for further interviews; then, we compared patient characteristics between those that consented to interview in high and low decisional regret. Qualitatively, we used an adapted grounded theory approach to examine differences between interviewed patients with high and low decisional regret.
Results
Of patients invited to participate in the interviews, 21 patients (8 high regret, 13 low regret) agreed. We observed that patients with high decisional regret displayed resignation toward dialysis, disruption of their sense of self and social roles, and self-blame, whereas patients with low decisional regret demonstrated positivity, integration of dialysis into their identity, and self-compassion.
Limitations
Patients with the highest levels of decisional regret may have already withdrawn from dialysis. Patients could complete interviews in any location (eg, home, dialysis unit, and clinical office), which may have influenced patient disclosure.
Conclusions
Although all patients experienced disruption after dialysis initiation, patients’ approach to adversity differs between patients experiencing high versus low regret. This study identifies emotional responses to dialysis that may be modifiable through patient-support interventions.
Individuals with high levels of growth mindsets believe that attributes are malleable. Although links between acute stress responses and growth mindsets of thought, emotion, and behaviour are central to the conceptualisation of psychological disorders and their treatment, such links have yet to be examined. Undergraduate participants (N = 135) completed a modified Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), and their salivary cortisol and anxiety were assessed throughout the session. Hierarchical linear models revealed that higher growth mindset of behaviour was associated with lower cortisol levels at 25-min after the TSST onset (i.e. peak cortisol stress reactivity) in men, but not in women. Considering one's gender may be critical in understanding the relationship between growth mindset and stress responses.
Depression is often framed as a disease or dysfunctional syndrome, yet this framing has unintended negative consequences including increased stigma. Here, we consider an alternative messaging framework - that depression serves an adaptive function. We describe the historical development of popular messages about depression and draw from the fields of evolutionary psychiatry and social cognition to describe the alternative framework that depression is a "signal" that serves a purpose. We then present data from a pre-registered, online randomized-controlled study in which participants with self-reported depression histories viewed a series of videos that explained depression as a "disease like any other" with known biopsychosocial risk factors (BPS condition), or as a signal that serves an adaptive function (Signal condition). In the entire sample (N = 877), three of the six hypotheses were supported: The Signal condition led to less self-stigma, greater offset efficacy, and more adaptive beliefs about depression. Exploratory analyses revealed these Signal effects were stronger among females (N = 553), who also showed a greater growth mindset of depression after the Signal explanation. Results suggest that framing depression as an adaptive signal can benefit patients and avoid harmful consequences of popular etiological presentations. We conclude that alternative framings of depression are worthy of further study.
Recent research showed that emerging adults have higher rates of depression and anxiety when facing stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Growth mindset and self-compassion have consistently been found to be essential to support the resilience of emerging adults. This study is aimed to examine whether growth mindset and self-compassion, as well as their interplay, can predict the psychological resilience of Chinese emerging adults during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two hundred Chinese emerging adults aged 18–25 years old completed an online questionnaire during the lockdown. Findings from the hierarchical stepwise regression analysis showed that higher levels of growth mindset and self-compassion independently and significantly predicted higher levels of resilience, while their interaction effect was insignificant. Further analyses indicated that two self-compassion positive components (self-kindness and mindfulness) significantly predicted higher levels of resilience. Furthermore, there was a significant interaction effect between growth mindset and the self-compassion component of common humanity (understanding of life hardship and suffering as shared human experiences) in predicting psychological resilience. In other words, the positive association between growth mindset and psychological resilience was significantly stronger for Chinese emerging adults with higher sense of common humanity. These findings suggested that developing culturally-sensitive programs to cultivate growth mindset and self-compassion may contribute to building resilience in life adversities among Chinese emerging adults. Further investigation is needed to better understand the interplay between growth mindset and self-compassion components.KeywordsEmerging adultsGrowth mindsetSelf-compassionPsychological resilience
Despite the centrality of emotion regulation in psychiatric disorders such as depression, there is a lack of experimental studies examining the psychological factors that influence emotion regulation in individuals with depressive symptoms. Participants with current depressive symptoms were randomly assigned to an experimental manipulation promoting more malleable emotion beliefs or the control condition. Participants underwent a negative emotion induction and reported on their affect and emotion regulation during the induction. Individuals who received the experimental manipulation reported greater cognitive reappraisal and greater emotion recovery. Experimental manipulations that can enhance emotion regulation and emotion recovery possess significant promise as a preliminary step in developing brief interventions that can overcome formal barriers to care.
Across two studies (N = 803), we explored how meaning‐making systems (i.e., mindsets and narrative identity) are related to each other as well as to coping in the wake of challenges faced during the COVID‐19 pandemic. In Study 1, we find that struggle‐is‐enhancing, relative to struggle‐is‐debilitating, mindsets predicted stories defined by elements of personal control with opportunities for growth (agency) and an emphasis on the positive, rather than on the suffering (redemptive). Stronger enhancing mindsets and agentic as well as redemptive narratives predicted more adaptive coping, including less negative affect, less avoidance, and positive expectations for future success. In Study 2, we replicated these fundamental findings and explored relations with wellbeing. Struggle‐is‐enhancing, relative to debilitating, mindsets related to greater wellbeing as did agency and redemptive stories. Overall, creating meaning from struggle, crafting tales with more positive themes, and using active coping show promise for future work focused on enhancing social, emotional, and psychological wellbeing.
This chapter explores how student affairs professionals in higher education in the United States can benefit from integrating a growth mindset grounded in empathy in their professional life. The authors examine ways a fixed mindset can impede learning and perpetuate inequities and how a growth mindset can encourage student affairs professionals to see themselves and the students they serve as capable of learning and growth. Therefore, the objectives of this chapter are (1) to provide insight into the meaning of mindset, (2) to highlight how the development of a growth mindset can help student affairs professionals nurture and sustain their capacity for empathy, (3) to examine how empathy supports the building of meaningful relationships with students, (4) how these relationships influence student success more equitably, and (5) provide recommendations on how student affairs professionals can actively develop and maintain an empathic growth mindset.
According to a recent theory, anterior cingulate cortex is sensitive to response conflict, the coactivation of mutually incompatible responses. The present research develops this theory to provide a new account of the error-related negativity (ERN), a scalp potential observed following errors. Connectionist simulations of response conflict in an attentional task demonstrated that the ERN—its timing and sensitivity to task parameters—can be explained in terms of the conflict theory. A new experiment confirmed predictions of this theory regarding the ERN and a second scalp potential, the N2, that is proposed to reflect conflict monitoring on correct response trials. Further analysis of the simulation data indicated that errors can be detected reliably on the basis of post-error conflict. It is concluded that the ERN can be explained in terms of response conflict and that monitoring for conflict may provide a simple mechanism for detecting errors.
We review knowledge concerning public presentations for depression. These presentations impact illness beliefs and may influence public stigma, self-stigma, and depression literacy. We provide a critical review of messages, images, and information concerning depression's causes, continuum conceptualization, timeline, curability, coping/treatment regimen, and strengths. To provide data regarding the prevalence of particular presentations, we conducted a content analysis of 327 videos about depression representative of material on the YouTube social media platform. YouTube presentations of depression indicate that depression: 1) is caused by either biological (49.5%) or environmental (41.3%) factors; 2) is a categorical construct (71%); 3) is treatable, with 61% of relevant videos (n = 249) presenting recovery as “likely”; 4) is chronic, found in 76% of videos mentioning timeline; 5) is recurrent (32.5%); 6) is mostly treated via medication (48.6%) or therapy (42.8%), although diet/exercise (29.4%) and alternative treatments (22.6%) are commonly endorsed; and 7) is rarely associated with strength (15.3%). Nearly one-third of videos were uploaded by non-professional vloggers, while just 9% were uploaded by mental health organizations. We discuss how these presentations may influence stigmatizing attitudes and depression literacy among people with and without depression and suggest future research directions to better understand how to optimize public presentations.
This investigation examined how people’s beliefs about the functionality of emotion shape their emotional response and regulatory strategies when encountering distressing events. In Study 1, we present data supporting the reliability and validity of an 8-item instrument, the Help and Hinder Theories about Emotion Measure (HHTEM), designed to assess an individual’s beliefs about the functionality of emotion. Participants who more strongly endorsed a Help Theory reported greater wellbeing, emotional acceptance, and use of reappraisal to regulate emotion. Participants who more strongly endorsed a Hinder Theory reported less wellbeing and more expressive suppression and substance use. In Study 2, we demonstrate that encouraging participants to view emotion as helpful affected their physiological and regulatory response to a distressing event. Participants in the Help Theory condition showed greater physiological reactivity (SCL) during a distressing film than control participants but were more accepting of their emotional response. Shortly after the film, SCL decreased for participants in the Help Theory condition. Compared to control participants, they engaged in less suppression and reported less lingering effect of the film on their mood. Together, these studies suggest that people’s theories about the functionality of emotion influence their reactivity, the strategies they adopt to regulate emotion, and their ability to rebound after distressing events.
Mind-set refers to people’s beliefs about whether attributes are malleable ( growth mind-set) or unchangeable ( fixed mind-set). Proponents of mind-set theory have made bold claims about mind-set’s importance. For example, one’s mind-set is described as having profound effects on one’s motivation and achievements, creating different psychological worlds for people, and forming the core of people’s meaning systems. We examined the evidentiary strength of six key premises of mind-set theory in 438 participants; we reasoned that strongly worded claims should be supported by equally strong evidence. However, no support was found for most premises. All associations ( rs) were significantly weaker than .20. Other achievement-motivation constructs, such as self-efficacy and need for achievement, have been found to correlate much more strongly with presumed associates of mind-set. The strongest association with mind-set ( r = −.12) was opposite from the predicted direction. The results suggest that the foundations of mind-set theory are not firm and that bold claims about mind-set appear to be overstated.
The dominant cultural valuation of stress is that it is “bad for me.” This valuation leads to regulatory goals of reducing or avoiding stress. In this article, we propose an alternative approach—stress optimization—which integrates theory and research on stress mindset (e.g., Crum, Salovey, & Achor, 2013) and stress reappraisal (e.g., Jamieson, Mendes, Blackstock, & Schmader, 2010) interventions. We further integrate these theories with the extended process model of emotion regulation (Gross, 2015). In so doing, we explain how altering second-level valuation systems—shifting the valuation of stress from “is bad for me” to “can be good for me”—fundamentally changes the overarching goal of stress regulation from reducing stress to optimizing stress responses to achieve valued goals. With this optimization goal in mind, individuals are invited to flexibly identify, select, and engage in specific regulation tactics (e.g., situation selection, attentional control, cognitive change, and response modulation) in ways that help them achieve valued ends as opposed to merely reducing or avoiding stressful experiences. We discuss definitions and issues related to key terms including stress, stressors, stress responses, and stress regulation and outline a research agenda for testing this new integrated theory as an intervention.
Mindsets can impact an individual’s performance in stressful experiences such as public speaking or receiving negative feedback. Yet we know little about the boundary conditions of where these mindsets predict success, and where they may become irrelevant or even maladaptive. The current research asks whether mindsets are beneficial in environments of extreme physical and mental stress using participants undergoing the notoriously challenging Navy SEALs training. We hypothesized that participants with stress-is-enhancing mindsets – who believe stress enhances their health, performance and wellbeing – will outperform those with stress-is-debilitating mindsets. In addition, we explore whether other mindsets about willpower and failure predict success in a similar manner. Following 174 Navy SEALs candidates, we find that, even in this extreme setting, stress-is-enhancing mindsets predict greater persistence through training, faster obstacle course times, and fewer negative evaluations from peers and instructors. We also find evidence that failure-is-enhancing mindsets may be detrimental to candidates’ success, and non-limited willpower mindsets prompt negative evaluations from others. Multiverse analyses were conducted to test for the robustness of these effects across researcher analytical decisions, which produced consistent results. We discuss how findings in this unique environment can provide insight into the importance of mindsets in other organizations and propose future avenues of research to further understand the causal role of mindsets in diverse workplace contexts.
Mindset theory predicts that a growth mindset can substantially improve children’s resilience to failure and enhance important outcomes such as school grades. We tested these predictions in a series of studies of 9–13-year-old Chinese children (n = 624). Study 1 closely replicated Mueller and Dweck (1998). Growth mindset manipulation was associated with performance on a moderate difficulty postfailure test (p = .049), but not with any of the 8 motivation and attribution measures used by Mueller and Dweck (1998): mean p = .48. Studies 2 and 3 included an active control to distinguish effects of mindset from other aspects of the manipulation, and included a challenging test. No effect of the classic growth mindset manipulation was found for either moderate or more difficult material in either Study 2 or Study 3 (ps = .189 to .974). Compatible with these null results, children’s mindsets were unrelated to resilience to failure for either outcome measure (ps = .673 to .888). The sole exception was a significant effect in the reverse direction to prediction found in Study 2 for resilience on more difficult material (p = .007). Finally, in 2 studies relating mindset to grades across a semester in school, the predicted association of growth mindset with improved grades was not supported. Neither was there any association of children’s mindsets with their grades at the start of the semester. Beliefs about the malleability of basic ability may not be related to resilience to failure or progress in school.
Implicit theories about the malleability of emotion and anxiety (i.e., mindsets) are
related to clinically relevant outcomes. However, a paucity of research in clinical
samples highlights the importance of assessing the role of these mindsets in treatment.
In the current study, treatment-seeking adults (N = 104, Mage = 25.29, SD = 8.42) at a
university training clinic evidenced greater malleability in anxiety (but not emotion)
mindset at their final treatment session as compared to their initial intake appointment.
Surprisingly, neither anxiety nor emotion mindset exerted an indirect effect on the
relationship between intake and final session levels of symptom distress, social role, or
interpersonal functioning, while controlling for pre-treatment mindsets and session
attendance. Yet, accounting for the same covariates, anxiety mindset at the final
session was significantly associated with final session levels of symptom distress and
social role. Findings contribute to the growing evidence regarding the relative
importance of anxiety over emotion mindset in relating to clinical outcomes, while also
highlighting the limitations of both mindsets in explaining treatment change. Eprint available here: https://rdcu.be/bOZ2z
A global priority for the behavioural sciences is to develop cost-effective, scalable interventions that could improve the academic outcomes of adolescents at a population level, but no such interventions have so far been evaluated in a population-generalizable sample. Here we show that a short (less than one hour), online growth mindset intervention—which teaches that intellectual abilities can be developed—improved grades among lower-achieving students and increased overall enrolment to advanced mathematics courses in a nationally representative sample of students in secondary education in the United States. Notably, the study identified school contexts that sustained the effects of the growth mindset intervention: the intervention changed grades when peer norms aligned with the messages of the intervention. Confidence in the conclusions of this study comes from independent data collection and processing, pre-registration of analyses, and corroboration of results by a blinded Bayesian analysis.
The current research explored appraisals of the negative emotions that arise in the context of setbacks. We proposed that experiencing negative emotions could be appraised as either enhancing or debilitating. Across two studies, we investigated the hypotheses that individuals who perceive experiencing negative emotion to be enhancing, relative to debilitating, would report experiencing less severe negative emotions and engage in more mastery-oriented behavioral strategies after encountering setbacks. In Study 1 (N = 283), we examined initial associations among negative emotion appraisals, severity of emotions experienced, and behavioral strategies. In Study 2 (N = 141), in a preregistered report, we experimentally manipulated negative emotion appraisals to test causal relationships among these constructs. Results supported hypotheses in Study 1. In Study 2, we manipulated negative emotion appraisals but failed to shift self-regulatory processes.
A growth mindset is the belief that human capacities are not fixed but can be developed over time, and mindset research examines the power of such beliefs to influence human behavior. This article offers two personal perspectives on mindset research across two eras. Given recent changes in the field, the authors represent different generations of researchers, each focusing on different issues and challenges, but both committed to “era-bridging” research. The first author traces mindset research from its systematic examination of how mindsets affect challenge seeking and resilience, through the ways in which mindsets influence the formation of judgments and stereotypes. The second author then describes how mindset research entered the era of field experiments and replication science, and how researchers worked to create reliable interventions to address underachievement—including a national experiment in the United States. The authors conclude that there is much more to learn but that the studies to date illustrate how an era-bridging program of research can continue to be generative and relevant to new generations of scholars.
Significance
Increasing access to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields can create career opportunities. Yet many students, especially those from lower-income backgrounds, find the high-stakes exams in courses necessary for STEM success to be stressful and anxiety provoking. Such experiences of stress can lead to underperformance and compromise students’ ability to advance in STEM. We show that lower-income students given the opportunity to emotionally regulate their worries and reinterpret their arousal go on to perform better on their high school science exams and endorse a more adaptive interpretation of stress. Critically, emotion regulation interventions cut in half the course failure rate for lower-income students. For many students, success is based on more than STEM knowledge—their ability to regulate emotions is important too.
Beliefs about the malleability of self-attributes—mindsets—may have important relevance to clinical psychology. Individuals with growth mindsets of anxiety and general emotions (the belief that these attributes are changeable) report fewer psychological symptoms, more adaptive emotion regulation strategies, and prefer effortful treatments. However, most research has been conducted in unselected student samples, limiting understanding of clinical utility. Thus, we evaluated mindsets of anxiety and emotion in patients attending an intensive psychiatric partial hospitalization program using cognitive-behavior therapy, acceptance–commitment therapy, and dialectical-behavior therapy. Growth mindsets of anxiety and emotion were negatively correlated with psychological distress. Baseline growth mindset of anxiety, but not general emotion, predicted fewer anxiety symptoms at discharge, even after controlling for psychiatric symptoms, number of inpatient hospitalizations, and treatment expectations. Moreover, patients became significantly more growth-minded about anxiety at discharge, especially those with elevated psychiatric symptoms at baseline. Findings highlight the clinical potential of mindsets and point to intervention targets.
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a chronic, often debilitating mental health disorder that may develop after a traumatic life event. Fortunately, effective psychological treatments for PTSD exist. In 2017, the Veterans Health Administration and Department of Defense (VA/DoD) and the American Psychological Association (APA) each published treatment guidelines for PTSD, which are a set of recommendations for providers who treat individuals with PTSD. The purpose of the current review article is to briefly review the methodology used in each set of 2017 guidelines and then discuss the psychological treatments of PTSD for adults that were strongly recommended by both sets of guidelines. Both guidelines strongly recommended use of Prolonged Exposure (PE), Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Each of these treatments has a large evidence base and is trauma-focused, which means they directly address memories of the traumatic event or thoughts and feelings related to the traumatic event. Finally, we will discuss implications and future directions.
Pupillometry research has experienced an enormous revival in the last two decades. Here we briefly review the surge of recent studies on task-evoked pupil dilation in the context of cognitive control tasks with the primary aim being to evaluate the feasibility of using pupil dilation as an index of effort exertion, rather than task demand or difficulty. Our review shows that across the three cognitive control domains of updating, switching, and inhibition, increases in task demands typically leads to increases in pupil dilation. Studies show a diverging pattern with respect to the relationship between pupil dilation and performance and we show how an effort account of pupil dilation can provide an explanation of these findings. We also discuss future directions to further corroborate this account in the context of recent theories on cognitive control and effort and their potential neurobiological substrates.
Background:
Single-session interventions (SSIs) show promise in the prevention and treatment of youth psychopathology, carrying potential to improve the scalability and accessibility of youth psychological services. However, existing SSIs have conferred greater benefits for youths with anxiety, compared to depression or comorbid problems, and their effects have generally waned over time - particularly for follow-ups exceeding 3 months.
Method:
To help address these discrepancies, we tested whether a novel SSI teaching growth mindset of personality (the belief that personality is malleable) could reduce depression and anxiety and strengthen perceived control in high-risk adolescents (N = 96, ages 12-15). At baseline, youths were randomized to receive a 30-min, computer-guided growth mindset intervention or a supportive-therapy control. Youths and parents reported youth anxiety and depressive symptoms, and youths reported their levels of perceived control, at baseline and across a 9-month follow-up period.
Results:
Compared to the control program, the mindset intervention led to significantly greater improvements in parent-reported youth depression (d = .60) and anxiety (d = .28), youth-reported youth depression (d = .32), and youth-reported perceived behavioral control (d = .29) by 9-month follow-up. Intervention effects were nonsignificant for youth-reported anxiety, although 9-month effect sizes reached the small-to-medium range (d = .33). Intervention group youths also experienced more rapid improvements in parent-reported depression, youth-reported depression, and perceived behavioral control across the follow-up period, compared to control group youths.
Conclusions:
Findings suggest a promising, scalable SSI for reducing internalizing distress in high-risk adolescents.
Clinical trial registration number:
NCT03132298.
The android Data from Star Trek admired human emotion whereas Spock viewed emotion as irrational and maladaptive. The theory that emotions fulfil adaptive functions is widely accepted in academic psychology but little is known about laypeople’s theories. The present study assessed the extent to which laypeople share Data’s view of emotion as helpful or Spock’s view of emotion as a hindrance. We also assessed how help and hinder theory endorsement were related to reasoning, emotion regulation, and well-being. Undergraduates (N = 630) completed a stressful timed reasoning task and questionnaires that assessed their theories of emotion, emotion regulation strategies, happiness, and social support. Overall, participants viewed emotion more as a help than a hindrance. The more they endorsed the view that emotion helps, the better their reasoning scores. Endorsing a help theory also predicted the use of reappraisal which, in turn, predicted greater happiness and social support. In contrast, endorsing the view that emotion hinders was associated with emotion suppression and less social support. Thus, people’s theories about the functionality of emotion may have important implications for their reasoning and emotional well-being.
Individuals who believe intelligence is malleable (a growth mindset) are better able to bounce back from failures than those who believe intelligence is immutable. Event-related potential (ERPs) studies among adults suggest this resilience is related to increased attention allocation to errors. Whether this mechanism is present among young children remains unknown, however. We therefore evaluated error-monitoring ERPs among 123 school-aged children while they completed a child-friendly go/no-go task. As expected, higher attention allocation to errors (indexed by larger error positivity, Pe) predicted higher post-error accuracy. Moreover, replicating adult work, growth mindset was related to greater attention to mistakes (larger Pe) and higher post-error accuracy. Exploratory moderation analyses revealed that growth mindset increased post-error accuracy for children who did not attend to their errors. Together, these results demonstrate the combined role of growth mindset and neural mechanisms of attention allocation in bouncing back after failure among young children.
Individuals who believe intelligence is malleable (a growth mindset) are better able to bounce back from failures than those who believe intelligence is immutable. Event-related potential (ERPs) studies among adults suggest this resilience is related to increased attention allocation to errors. Whether this mechanism is present among young children remains unknown, however. We therefore evaluated error-monitoring ERPs among 123 school-aged children while they completed a child-friendly go/no-go task. As expected, higher attention allocation to errors (indexed by larger error positivity, Pe) predicted higher post-error accuracy. Moreover, replicating adult work, growth mindset was related to greater attention to mistakes (larger Pe) and higher post-error accuracy. Exploratory moderation analyses revealed that growth mindset increased post-error accuracy for children who did not attend to their errors. Together, these results demonstrate the combined role of growth mindset and neural mechanisms of attention allocation in bouncing back after failure among young children.
In spite of its familiar phenomenology, the mechanistic basis for mental effort remains poorly understood. Although most researchers agree that mental effort is aversive and stems from limitations in our capacity to exercise cognitive control, it is unclear what gives rise to those limitations and why they result in an experience of control as costly. The presence of these control costs also raises further questions regarding how best to allocate mental effort to minimize those costs and maximize the attendant benefits. This review explores recent advances in computational modeling and empirical research aimed at addressing these questions at the level of psychological process and neural mechanism, examining both the limitations to mental effort exertion and how we manage those limited cognitive resources. We conclude by identifying remaining challenges for theoretical accounts of mental effort as well as possible applications of the available findings to understanding the causes of and potential solutions for apparent failures to exert the mental effort required of us.
We propose that people are genetic essentialists—that is, they tend to think of genetic attributions as being immutable, of a specific etiology, natural, and dividing people into homogenous and discrete groups. Although there are rare conditions where genes operate in these kinds of deterministic ways, people overgeneralize from these to the far more common conditions where genes are not at all deterministic. These essentialist biases are associated with some harmful outcomes such as racism, sexism, pessimism in the face of illnesses, political polarization, and support for eugenics, while at the same time they are linked with increased tolerance and sympathy for gay rights, mental illness, and less severe judgments of responsibility for crime. We will also discuss how these essentialist biases connect with the burgeoning direct-to-consumer genomics industry and various kinds of genetic engineering. Overall, these biases appear rather resistant to efforts to reduce them, although genetics literacy predicts weaker essentialist tendencies.
This research integrated implicit theories of personality and the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat, hypothesizing that adolescents would be more likely to conclude that they can meet the demands of an evaluative social situation when they were taught that people have the potential to change their socially relevant traits. In Study 1 (N = 60), high school students were assigned to an incremental-theory-of-personality or a control condition and then given a social-stress task. Relative to control participants, incremental-theory participants exhibited improved stress appraisals, more adaptive neuroendocrine and cardiovascular responses, and better performance outcomes. In Study 2 (N = 205), we used a daily-diary intervention to test high school students’ stress reactivity outside the laboratory. Threat appraisals (Days 5–9 after intervention) and neuroendocrine responses (Days 8 and 9 after intervention only) were unrelated to the intensity of daily stressors when adolescents received the incremental-theory intervention. Students who received the intervention also had better grades over freshman year than those who did not. These findings offer new avenues for improving theories of adolescent stress and coping.
The current study examined how manipulating information about whether emotions are fixed or malleable influences the extent to which individuals engage in different emotion regulation strategies. We hypothesized that fixed, compared to malleable, emotion beliefs would produce less effort invested in emotion regulation. Participants were randomly assigned to experimental conditions emphasizing that emotions are malleable or fixed, and then completed an autobiographical negative emotion induction. Participants reported seven different emotion regulation strategies they used during the recall task. Participants in the fixed emotion condition, compared to those in the malleable emotion condition, reported engaging significantly less in self-blame and perspective-taking. They engaged somewhat, but not significantly, less in all of the other strategies, except acceptance. These results suggest that emotion malleability beliefs can be experimentally manipulated and systematically influence subsequent emotion regulatory behavior. Implications for affective science and mental health are discussed.
Etiological beliefs of depression have differing impacts on motivation, hope, and treatment expectations. However, it is unclear where people are exposed to these beliefs. Objective: This study examined beliefs about depression and their relations to symptoms, attitudes about depression, and treatment preferences. Participants: 426 undergraduates attending a large midwestern university. Methods: Participants completed an online survey asking about causes of depression, if and where they had heard about the "chemical imbalance" explanation of depression, attitudes about depression, as well as measures of their symptoms, treatment history, and hypothetical treatment preferences. Results: Sixty-two percent of the sample had hard of the chemical imbalance explanation, most commonly from the classroom. Biochemical beliefs about depression were most strongly endorsed among participants with a family history of depression and who had had personal experience with treatment. The chemical imbalance belief was uniquely related to dysfunctional beliefs about depression. Etiological beliefs were largely unrelated to treatment preferences. Conclusion: College students are exposed to models of mental health that may not be ideal for treatment and recovery.
Growth mindsets are increasingly used to promote learning, development, and health. The increased popularity resulted in scrutiny and disputes about utility. The current work reviews a perspective critical to the debate. Namely, we focus on emerging research that examines both the favorable and potentially adverse consequences of growth mindset messaging in stigma-relevant contexts. This double-edged sword model merges the mindset perspective with attribution theory and the psychological essentialism literature. In stigmatizing contexts and in isolation, growth mindsets can indirectly predict less positive outcomes, via personal responsibility for the problem, but more positive outcomes, via expectations for the potential to manage conditions in the future. Programmatic research illustrates how to tailor growth mindset messages and interventions, to avoid the potential costs of blame, yet keep the benefits of self-efficacy and weakened essentialism.
We investigated if growth mindsets—the belief in the malleable nature of human attributes—are negatively related to psychological distress and if they are positively related to treatment value and active coping. In the meta-analysis, we included articles published between 1988 and 2019, written in English, that reported on mindsets as well as a qualifying dependent variable and included information required to calculate an effect size. With a random effects approach, meta-analytic results (k = 72 samples, N = 17,692) demonstrated that mindsets relate to, albeit with minimal effects, to distress, treatment and coping. Specifically, there is a negative relation between growth mindsets and psychological distress (r = −0.220), a positive relation between growth mindsets and treatment value (r = 0.137) and a positive relation between growth mindsets and active coping (r = 0.207). Differences in mindset domain, assessment method of mindsets and timing of assessments moderated effects. There were not differences based on operationalization of psychological distress outcome or sample characteristics (i.e., developmental stage, diagnostic status, ethnicity). We discuss theoretical and practical applications of the findings.
This therapist guide of prolonged exposure (PE) treatment is accompanied by the patient workbook, Reclaiming Your Life from a Traumatic Experience. The treatment and manuals are designed for use by a therapist who is familiar with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and who has undergone an intensive training workshop for prolonged exposure by experts in this therapy. The therapist guide instructs therapists to implement this brief CBT program that targets individuals who are diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or who manifest PTSD symptoms that cause distress and/or dysfunction following various types of trauma. The overall aim of the treatment is to help trauma survivors emotionally process their traumatic experiences to diminish or eliminate PTSD and other trauma-related symptoms. The term prolonged exposure (PE) reflects the fact that the treatment program emerged from the long tradition of exposure therapy for anxiety disorders in which patients are helped to confront safe but anxiety-evoking situations to overcome their unrealistic, excessive fear and anxiety. At the same time, PE has emerged from the adaption and extension of Emotional Processing Theory (EPT) to PTSD, which emphasizes the central role of successfully processing the traumatic memory in the amelioration of PTSD symptoms. Throughout this guide, the authors highlight that emotional processing is the mechanism underlying successful reduction of PTSD symptoms.
Introduction: The goal of the current work is to contribute to the critical dialog regarding consequences of different communications about the nature of addiction by offering a new theoretical approach. Specifically, we merge a mindset perspective, which highlights the importance of beliefs regarding the malleability of human attributes, with the attribution literature to explore how messages stressing the changeable vs. fixed nature of addiction influence beliefs and treatment intentions.
Method: We crafted a message about addiction designed to induce the belief in the potential to change without influencing self-blame (compensatory-growth mindset message) and compared it to a message focused on the fixed underpinnings of addiction (disease-fixed mindset message).
Results: In an online sample of probable substance users (N = 214), we found that the compensatory-growth, relative to the disease-fixed message, led to participants reporting stronger growth mindsets and efficacy without an impact on blame. Additionally, the compensatory-growth, relative to the disease-fixed message, led to stronger intentions to pursue counseling and cognitive behavioral treatment therapies.
Discussion: The current work finds support for an innovative theoretical approach for understanding motivation to seek treatment among individuals with probable substance use problems.
Objective:
Interest in candidate gene and candidate gene-by-environment interaction hypotheses regarding major depressive disorder remains strong despite controversy surrounding the validity of previous findings. In response to this controversy, the present investigation empirically identified 18 candidate genes for depression that have been studied 10 or more times and examined evidence for their relevance to depression phenotypes.
Methods:
Utilizing data from large population-based and case-control samples (Ns ranging from 62,138 to 443,264 across subsamples), the authors conducted a series of preregistered analyses examining candidate gene polymorphism main effects, polymorphism-by-environment interactions, and gene-level effects across a number of operational definitions of depression (e.g., lifetime diagnosis, current severity, episode recurrence) and environmental moderators (e.g., sexual or physical abuse during childhood, socioeconomic adversity).
Results:
No clear evidence was found for any candidate gene polymorphism associations with depression phenotypes or any polymorphism-by-environment moderator effects. As a set, depression candidate genes were no more associated with depression phenotypes than noncandidate genes. The authors demonstrate that phenotypic measurement error is unlikely to account for these null findings.
Conclusions:
The study results do not support previous depression candidate gene findings, in which large genetic effects are frequently reported in samples orders of magnitude smaller than those examined here. Instead, the results suggest that early hypotheses about depression candidate genes were incorrect and that the large number of associations reported in the depression candidate gene literature are likely to be false positives.
Mental disorders are increasingly conceptualized as biomedical diseases, explained as manifestations of genetic and neurobiological abnormalities. Here, we discuss changes in the dominant explanatory accounts of psychopathology that have occurred over time and the driving forces behind these shifts, lay out some real-world evidence for the increasing ascendancy of biomedical explanations, and provide an overview of the types of attitudes and beliefs that may be affected by them. We examine theoretical and conceptual models that are relevant to understanding how biomedical conceptualizations might affect attitudes and beliefs about mental disorders, and we review some empirical evidence that bears on this question. Finally, we examine possible strategies for combatting potential negative effects of biomedical explanations and discuss important conclusions and directions for future research.
Mindsets, or beliefs about the malleability of self-attributes such as intelligence and personality, have been linked to a wide range of outcomes in educational and social psychology. There has been recent interest in exploring this construct in clinical psychological contexts. To that end, research has shown that the fixed mindset of anxiety—the belief that anxiety is fixed and unchangeable—is related to a variety of psychological distress symptoms, emotion regulation strategies, and treatment preferences. One outstanding question is whether the fixed mindset of anxiety predicts future psychological symptoms. To address this question, the current longitudinal study assessed weekly distress and anxiety mindset across 5 weeks. We found that fixed mindset of anxiety is predictive of future weekly distress, even after controlling for the previous week's distress, sex, socioeconomic status, baseline depression symptoms, and presence of psychiatric diagnosis. These findings add evidence to an emerging conceptual framework in which the fixed mindset of anxiety represents an important risk factor for the onset of future psychological problems.
The world is complicated, and we hold a large number of beliefs about how it works. These
beliefs are important because they shape how we interact with the world. One particularly impactful set of beliefs centers on emotion, and a small but growing literature has begun to document the links between emotion beliefs and a wide range of emotional, interpersonal, and clinical outcomes. Here we review the literature that has begun to examine beliefs about emotion, focusing on two fundamental beliefs, namely whether emotions are good versus bad and whether emotions are controllable versus uncontrollable. We then consider one underlying mechanism that we think may link these emotion beliefs with downstream outcomes, namely emotion regulation. Finally, we highlight the role of beliefs about emotion across various psychological disciplines and outline several promising directions for future research.
Mind-sets (aka implicit theories) are beliefs about the nature of human attributes (e.g., intelligence). The theory holds that individuals with growth mind-sets (beliefs that attributes are malleable with effort) enjoy many positive outcomes—including higher academic achievement—while their peers who have fixed mind-sets experience negative outcomes. Given this relationship, interventions designed to increase students’ growth mind-sets—thereby increasing their academic achievement—have been implemented in schools around the world. In our first meta-analysis (k = 273, N = 365,915), we examined the strength of the relationship between mind-set and academic achievement and potential moderating factors. In our second meta-analysis (k = 43, N = 57,155), we examined the effectiveness of mind-set interventions on academic achievement and potential moderating factors. Overall effects were weak for both meta-analyses. However, some results supported specific tenets of the theory, namely, that students with low socioeconomic status or who are academically at risk might benefit from mind-set interventions.
According to prominent models in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and economics, effort (be it physical or mental) is costly: when given a choice, humans and non-human animals alike tend to avoid effort. Here, we suggest that the opposite is also true and review extensive evidence that effort can also add value. Not only can the same outcomes be more rewarding if we apply more (not less) effort, sometimes we select options precisely because they require effort. Given the increasing recognition of effort's role in motivation, cognitive control, and value-based decision-making, considering this neglected side of effort will not only improve formal computational models, but also provide clues about how to promote sustained mental effort across time.
Objective:
Depression, like other mental disorders and health conditions generally, is increasingly construed as genetically based. This research sought to determine whether merely telling people that they have a genetic predisposition to depression can cause them to retroactively remember having experienced it.
Method:
U.S. adults (men and women) were recruited online to participate (Experiment 1: N = 288; Experiment 2: N = 599). After conducting a test disguised as genetic screening, we randomly assigned some participants to be told that they carried elevated genetic susceptibility to depression, whereas others were told that they did not carry this genetic liability or were told that they carried elevated susceptibility to a different disorder. Participants then rated their experience of depressive symptoms over the prior 2 weeks on a modified version of the Beck Depression Inventory-II.
Results:
Participants who were told that their genes predisposed them to depression generally reported higher levels of depressive symptomatology over the previous 2 weeks, compared to those who did not receive this feedback.
Conclusions:
Given the central role of self-report in psychiatric diagnosis, these findings highlight potentially harmful consequences of personalized genetic testing in mental health. (PsycINFO Database Record
Children's mindsets about intelligence (as a quality they can grow vs. a trait they cannot change) robustly influence their motivation and achievement. How do adults foster "growth mindsets" in children? One might assume that adults act in ways that communicate their own mindsets to children. However, new research shows that many parents and teachers with growth mindsets are not passing them on. This article presents a new perspective on why this is the case, and reviews research on adult practices that do instill growth mindsets, concluding that a sustained focus on the process of learning is critical. After discussing key implications and promising future directions, we consider the topic in the context of important societal issues, like high-stakes testing.
In two samples (N = 247, N = 291), we examined the link between beliefs and messages about the changeable (incremental theory) vs. fixed (entity theory) nature of weight, attributions for weight, and body shame. We recruited participants using online sampling, employing a correlational design in Study 1 and an experimental design in Study 2. Across both studies, we found evidence for the stigma-asymmetry effect—incremental, relative to entity beliefs/messages of weight predicted both (a) stronger onset responsibility attributions, indirectly increasing body shame and (b) stronger offset efficacy attributions, indirectly decreasing body shame. Study 2 replicated the stigma-asymmetry effect with anti-fat attitudes. We discuss implications for public health obesity messages with the goal of reducing stigma.
This chapter explores the origins of lay theories, with a focus on theories associated with the concept of psychological essentialism such as Dweckian entity theories. I argue that the origins of essentialist lay theories can be approached from cognitive, developmental, cultural, and social perspectives. Cognitively, these theories appear to arise from deep-seated and possibly innate ontological assumptions and mental shortcuts, such as the proposed “inherence heuristic.” Developmentally, they appear to be promoted by particular kinds of language use (e.g., generics) and particular forms of communication by caregivers. The content of essentialist lay theories derives in part from idioms that circulate within a particular culture, making culture an important dimension of any account of theory origins. Finally, essentialist theories are promoted by certain social arrangements, including motivated maintenance of social hierarchies. A full account of the neglected issue of where lay theories come from requires an appreciation of these diverse factors.
Intelligence mindset refers to one's belief that either intelligence is a malleable trait that can improve with effort—a “growth” mindset—or is a relatively stable trait—a “fixed” mindset. According to proponents of mindset theory, holding a growth mindset is beneficial (e.g., greater academic persistence) while holding a fixed mindset is detrimental. Is there a relationship between one's intelligence mindset and one's intelligence? Proponents of mindset theory suggest that the answer is yes, and that this relationship differs by gender, with more intelligent females holding more of a fixed mindset (aka, the “bright girl effect”). However, investigations of all three factors—measured intelligence, intelligence mindset, and gender—have only been conducted with children and adolescents. Therefore, we tested whether, among adults, women have more of a fixed mindset than men, and whether women with higher intelligence are more likely to hold fixed mindsets. We found no evidence for women holding fixed mindsets more so than men. We found very limited evidence for a “bright woman effect”: Three-way interactions between age, gender, and intelligence predicting mindset emerged, however, the relationships were not consistently driven by brighter women (young or old) holding more of a fixed mindset than their less intelligent female counterparts or men. Furthermore, we did not find evidence to support the notion that holding more of a growth mindset results in greater academic persistence. We conclude that neither gender nor intelligence is consistently associated with mindset.
The understanding and amelioration of psychological dysfunction stands to be improved through application of the social psychological implicit theories framework, which emphasizes the role of entity (fixed) and incremental (growth) beliefs regarding personal characteristics and the correlates and consequences of those beliefs. This paper reviews cross-sectional, longitudinal, experimental, and meta-analytic studies regarding the role of entity and incremental beliefs in distress and dysfunction. Studies are organized into three categories: the role in psychological dysfunction of implicit theories of general personal and social attributes; the role of implicit theories of emotion; and the role of implicit theories of psychopathology. Several research and practice implications of the implicit theories framework are forwarded, such as cultivating incremental beliefs regarding disorder as an intervention tactic.
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a relatively common and debilitating mental health condition. Research has indicated associations between maladaptive personality traits and BPD. A separate line of work suggests that beliefs about how much one’s anxiety can change (i.e., anxiety mindset) may in uence a wide range of mental health symptoms, many of which people with BPD often exhibit. We begin to integrate these two perspectives in the current study by evaluating the relative effects of maladaptive personality traits and anxiety mindset on BPD symptoms in a large sample of undergraduates (N = 998). Results indicate that traits and mindsets are independent statistical predictors of BPD symptoms. These ndings suggest that both maladaptive traits and anxiety mindset are relevant to BPD, which may inform future research on the connections between personality processes and BPD as well as clinical intervention.
Beliefs about the malleability of global attributes like personality and intelligence – known as mindsets – are well-established predictors of resilience to challenges in education and developmental contexts. Recent research suggests that mindsets about anxiety may act in a similar fashion with mental health resilience. Here, we tested the hypothesis that the anxiety mindset would moderate relations between history of stressful life events and psychological distress and coping. Consistent with predictions, relations between number of stressful life events and posttraumatic stress symptoms, depression, substance use, and self-injury were weaker among those with more of a growth mindset relative to those with more of a fixed mindset. Results suggest anxiety mindsets may function in a similar way for mental health resilience as broader mindsets do in other domains.
Children's intelligence mind-sets (i.e., their beliefs about whether intelligence is fixed or malleable) robustly influence their motivation and learning. Yet, surprisingly, research has not linked parents' intelligence mind-sets to their children's. We tested the hypothesis that a different belief of parents-their failure mind-sets-may be more visible to children and therefore more prominent in shaping their beliefs. In Study 1, we found that parents can view failure as debilitating or enhancing, and that these failure mind-sets predict parenting practices and, in turn, children's intelligence mind-sets. Study 2 probed more deeply into how parents display failure mind-sets. In Study 3a, we found that children can indeed accurately perceive their parents' failure mind-sets but not their parents' intelligence mind-sets. Study 3b showed that children's perceptions of their parents' failure mind-sets also predicted their own intelligence mind-sets. Finally, Study 4 showed a causal effect of parents' failure mind-sets on their responses to their children's hypothetical failure. Overall, parents who see failure as debilitating focus on their children's performance and ability rather than on their children's learning, and their children, in turn, tend to believe that intelligence is fixed rather than malleable.
Beliefs that individuals hold about whether emotions are malleable or fixed, also referred to as emotion malleability beliefs, may play a crucial role in individuals' emotional experiences and their engagement in changing their emotions. The current review integrates affective science and clinical science perspectives to provide a comprehensive review of how emotion malleability beliefs relate to emotionality, emotion regulation, and specific clinical disorders and treatment. Specifically, we discuss how holding more malleable views of emotion could be associated with more active emotion regulation efforts, greater motivation to engage in active regulatory efforts, more effort expended regulating emotions, and lower levels of pathological distress. In addition, we explain how extending emotion malleability beliefs into the clinical domain can complement and extend current conceptualizations of major depressive disorder, social anxiety disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. This may prove important given the increasingly central role emotion dysregulation has been given in conceptualization and intervention for these psychiatric conditions. Additionally, discussion focuses on how emotion beliefs could be more explicitly addressed in existing cognitive therapies. Promising future directions for research are identified throughout the review.
Mindsets are beliefs regarding the malleability of self-attributes. Research suggests they are domain-specific, meaning that individuals can hold a fixed (immutability) mindset about one attribute and a growth (malleability) mindset about another. Although mindset specificity has been investigated for broad attributes such as personality and intelligence, less is known about mental-health mindsets (e.g., beliefs about anxiety) that have greater relevance to clinical science. In two studies, we took a latent variable approach to examine how different mindsets (anxiety, social anxiety, depression, drinking tendencies, emotions, intelligence, and personality mindsets) were related to one another and to psychological symptoms. Results provide evidence for both domain-specificity (e.g., depression mindset predicted depression symptoms) and generality (i.e., the anxiety mindset and the general mindset factor predicted most symptoms). These findings may help refine measurement of mental-health mindsets and suggest that beliefs about anxiety and beliefs about changeability in general are related to clinically relevant variables.
This research sought to integrate C. S. Dweck and E. L. Leggett's (1988) model with attribution theory. Three studies tested the hypothesis that theories of intelligence-the belief that intelligence is malleable (incremental theory) versus fixed (entity theory)-would predict (and create) effort versus ability attributions, which would then mediate mastery-oriented coping. Study 1 revealed that, when given negative feedback, incremental theorists were more likely than entity theorists to attribute to effort. Studies 2 and 3 showed that incremental theorists were more likely than entity theorists to take remedial action if performance was unsatisfactory. Study 3, in which an entity or incremental theory was induced, showed that incremental theorists' remedial action was mediated by their effort attributions. These results suggest that implicit theories create the meaning framework in which attributions occur and are important for understanding motivation.