Mindsets That Promote Resilience: When Students Believe That Personal Characteristics Can Be Developed

TLDR

Resilience is essential for success because challenges are ubiquitous in school and life. The article reviews how students’ growth mindsets affect resilience, explains why mindset interventions work, and outlines future research on general versus domain‑specific implicit theories. Studies examined domain‑specific implicit theories—such as math ability or shyness—rather than general intelligence or personality. Students who hold incremental mindsets achieve higher grades, complete challenging math courses more often, and experience lower aggression, stress, and better performance after peer victimization. Table 1 lists academic mindsets for entity versus incremental theories of intelligence and is available as a downloadable CSV.

Abstract

Abstract Because challenges are ubiquitous, resilience is essential for success in school and in life. In this article we review research demonstrating the impact of students' mindsets on their resilience in the face of academic and social challenges. We show that students who believe (or are taught) that intellectual abilities are qualities that can be developed (as opposed to qualities that are fixed) tend to show higher achievement across challenging school transitions and greater course completion rates in challenging math courses. New research also shows that believing (or being taught) that social attributes can be developed can lower adolescents' aggression and stress in response to peer victimization or exclusion, and result in enhanced school performance. We conclude by discussing why psychological interventions that change students' mindsets are effective and what educators can do to foster these mindsets and create resilience in educational settings. Notes Of interest, research also shows it is possible within a given domain for a person to have an even more specific implicit theory. For instance, Good, Rattan, and Dweck (Citation2012) and Rattan, Good, and Dweck (Citation2012) examined implicit theories about math ability rather than general theories about intelligence. Beer (Citation2002) investigated implicit theories about shyness rather than general theories about personality. An important area for future research will be to document the relative advantages for educational practice of intervening to change a more general implicit theory versus a more specific one. TABLE 1 Academic Mindsets, for Those With More of an Entity Versus Incremental Implicit Theory of Intelligence Download CSVDisplay Table