The Effort Effect

[Developer]

Here's a great article. It describes how some people have a "fixed ability" mindset, vs a "growth" mindset. People with a fixed ability mindset give up when they encounter setbacks, and avoid trying too hard to do anything.

STANFORD Magazine: March/April 2007 > Features > Mind-set Research

I guess that most people reading this forum will already have adopted a growth mindset, but I think the article is interesting anyway. I definitely recognise this problem from when I was at school.

[RT Wolf]

Yay for beliefs.

Growth mindset related to creativity:
the show with zefrank

I remember reading in "What the Best College Teachers Do" that people who think that intelligence grows with hard work, were more intelligent, if I recall correctly. It might have even been this person's research.Yayz.

Thanks for the link, I agree wholeheartedly.

[RT Wolf]

If you don't have time to read the article (and you really should), this nice diagram from the article explains things quite nicely:

http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/m...ck_mindset.pdf

[bodhiavttas]

I love this article. Thank you.

We should teach as many kids (and people) as possible that intelligence is not fixed.

Maybe I'm missing something, but don't the two profiles of students (as you can see in the diagram) in a way represent darkworkers and a lightworkers? Not the complete picture, but in the sense that a darkworker wants to get good at something to look good in front of others (ie: become powerful),

Students for whom performance is paramount want to look smart even if it means not learning a thing in the process

whereas lightworkers want to achieve mastery/increase their ability in something just for the sake of learning, in the way Steve describes some lightworkers in the gaming industry (from his "Polarity and Your Career" article)

On the one hand, there were some highly creative developers who were truly working for the sheer joy of creation.

?

Other things don't apply and make the analogy work. For example, darkworkers would accept negative criticism if it were helpful for them.

But isn't mastery always preferable to performance, therefore making lightworkers "better" than darkworkers in this one sense?

[RT Wolf]

Thank you very much for posting that link, it forced me to hunt around for more information and I came up with this article, which describes me perfectly. I get the feeling that it might describe others as well:

The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids -- New York Magazine

Since Thomas could walk, he has heard constantly that he’s smart. Not just from his parents but from any adult who has come in contact with this precocious child. When he applied to Anderson for kindergarten, his intelligence was statistically confirmed. The school is reserved for the top one percent of all applicants, and an IQ test is required. Thomas didn’t just score in the top one percent. He scored in the top one percent of the top one percent.

But as Thomas has progressed through school, this self-awareness that he’s smart hasn’t always translated into fearless confidence when attacking his schoolwork. In fact, Thomas’s father noticed just the opposite. “Thomas didn’t want to try things he wouldn’t be successful at,” his father says. “Some things came very quickly to him, but when they didn’t, he gave up almost immediately, concluding, ‘I’m not good at this.’ ” With no more than a glance, Thomas was dividing the world into two—things he was naturally good at and things he wasn’t.

I am that kid. I did not appreciate the necessity of hard work, nor that you get compensated (even by your own satisfaction or happiness) based on results, not how smart you are. I am learning to change that, though.

Thank you for that wonderful article.

[starlet]

I had the fixed ability mindset for years. My IQ was tested at near-genius levels and I caught on very quickly. But everytime I'd make a little mistake, I'd get hysterical. Art class was horrible for me in elementary school, I could not draw worth beans (still can't but don't care) and I'd cry.

I've now set myself on the growth mindset path and love it. I have a list of all the things I was too scared to try before, or thought I was bad at, and I am going through the list one by one. Still am bad at mini-golf, but now I love that I am a bad player, its funny. I want to play again, to see if I can beat my record of losing 6 balls in one game

[Isis Kali]

I think that reading this article just changed my life. It explains so much. SO much. I'm that kid Thomas. I was a prodigy- dancing, singing, academically. Well, until I started to self-sabotage I was the youngest person in the NJ State Opera for a bit, but got mad and left when I didn't get a chorus part that I wanted. I was a dancer, but stopped taking classes when I didn't get into the Joffrey summer program one year. I screwed up college (nearly full scholarship to a baby Ivy) when I refused to practice my singing (why should I? I'm brilliant!) and wouldn't do other work.

I hit another wall recently in my writing and business, and I noticed that I'm self-sabotaging again. This time, though, I'm going to learn from my mistakes, keep going after things, and work through the frustration. I'm going to be less judgemental and kinder to myself. I'm going to have faith. And, I'm going to do more research on the growth mindset.

You seriously have no idea of the favor you did for me today, Developer!

[Rin]

Ooh, I like those articles. I'm a teacher, and they confirmed a lot of my personal observations and beliefs. Thanks for sharing.

Yes, sometimes the best thing you can do is just keep plugging away, until you get the hang of it! All the ability and talent in the world will not compensate for lack of sheer dogged persistence and perseverance.

What's that old fable, about the tortoise and the hare?