Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.
Carol Dweck is a leading expert in motivation and personality psychology. I stumbled across her research while reading The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle and How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer. I was fascinated by her findings, especially this one: praising children’s intelligence harms their motivation and it harms their performance! Piqued, I needed to find out more, so I wrapped my arms around Dweck’s own book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
Dweck’s most famous study involved hundreds of fifth-graders in New York City schools. The students were given non-verbal puzzles to solve. Upon finishing the test, each student was given a score and praised. Half the students were praised for their intelligence, and half were praised for their effort.
They were then given the choice of two new, different tests: a hard one that would challenge them and teach them a lot, or an easier one like the one they had just completed. Ninety percent of the kids who had been praised for their effort chose the harder test. In contrast, most of those praised for their intelligence chose the easier test!
Finally, all students were given a test that had been written for eighth-graders. Kids who had been praised for their effort worked hard to figure out the puzzle. On the other hand, those who had been praised for their intelligence stumbled and were easily discouraged.
In Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Dweck addresses what she considers the core of her experiment findings: growth vs. fixed mindset. Those who have a growth mindset love the challenge and learn by making mistakes, while those with a fixed mindset rely on innate talents and fear failure.
What could put an end to this exuberant learning? The fixed mindset. As soon as children become able to evaluate themselves, some of them become afraid of challenges. They become afraid of not being smart… So children with a fixed mindset want to make sure they succeed. Smart people should always succeed. But for the children with the growth mindset, success is about stretching themselves. It’s about becoming smarter.
Dweck states that nowhere is the growth mindset more clear than in sports, where great performances are the just reward for strong work ethics, perseverance in the face of adversity, and courage. But it is equally true that we have our fair share of fixed-mindset athletes: the precocious, innately talented athletes who fade as they grow older, competition stiffens, and the “less talented” pass them by. These are the athletes that coaches label early on as “sure-thing” Olympians, only to see them self-destruct psychologically when the going gets tough.
The naturals, carried away with their superiority, don’t learn how to work hard or how to cope with setbacks… Those with the growth mindset were the ones who showed the most character or heart. They were the ones who had the minds of champions… Those with a growth mindset found setbacks motivating. They’re informative. They’re a wake-up call.
Dweck’s book is a must for parents, teachers and coaches. Mindset has chapters devoted to sports, leadership, and educators, as well as one that addresses how to change mindsets. Yes, the good news is that it’s possible to go from a fixed mindset to growth mindset as Dweck herself did. But, it does take work to do so. Dweck also covers a subject that parents, teachers, and coaches all must face sooner or later: bullies and victims.
For additional excerpts from Mindset, go to the book reviews on this site.
Sir,
I know of this study she did. Of course, it was interesting and in my mind incomplete.
Failure is a part of life that can build character just as success does. Encouragement is what makes the difference.
Ok, you won the Gold from this tournament but all of your matches went to Golden Score Hantei?
While I applaud your accomplishment, we have a lot to work on. Like throwing or pinning your opponent!
What I missed from this study (and now I am going to have to re-review the study) is that while praise is important it must be managed with expectations.
Missing was the expectations placed on the child by the authority (parents).
In sports, what is the expectation of the Coach-Team-Team mates? We’re talking millions of dollars which provides the motivation (which I missed in the study).
Excellence was the standard that I set for my troops. Anything else, while acceptable, is paramount to failure in my business. If the job could have been done better, then there is room for improvement. Therefore it was not excellent and needs to be improved upon.
Remember “Nothing is impossible—If someone else is doing it”
I would encourage you to reread the book or whatever study you seem to remember. Yes, failure is (a great) part of learning. By understanding mindsets, you’ll realize that the encouragement you talk about must be internally generated. Encouragement and motivation from external sources will take you just so far. As they say you can lead a horse to the water, but you can’t make him drink.