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Dissertation
FAILING TO CHANGE: INVESTIGATING WHEN A GROWTH MINDSET BACKFIRES
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
05/2025
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000007499
Abstract
A growth mindset, or the belief that abilities and traits can grow and change, is associated with a greater tendency to blame people for staying the same. The studies discussed in this paper are the first to demonstrate this unexpected backfiring effect in a learning context. In study 1 we used a survey to provide preliminary evidence that mindset and blame are associated when judging student performance. College student participants with more growth (vs. fixed) mindset beliefs thought a hypothetical student who consistently turned in poor assignments was more blameworthy. In study 2 we extended these results with a laboratory experiment that tested whether this relationship was causal. College student participants were induced to hold a growth or fixed mindset, and then asked to teach task strategies to a confederate who either improved or consistently performed poorly on a learning task, resulting in a 2 (growth vs. fixed) x 2 (improvement vs. failure to change) experimental design. When the confederate consistently failed to change, participants induced to hold a growth (vs. fixed) mindset blamed them more and praised them less. Exploratory analyses suggest this relationship was mediated by perceptions of the confederate's effort. In study 3, we conducted a quasi-experiment to determine if we could detect this effect among active teachers and to test potential classroom consequences. Teachers were randomly assigned to read a set of essays written by a student whose performance either improved over the school year or failed to change. Teachers with higher growth beliefs reported less praise for the failing student, which was associated with a bigger grading penalty for failure vs. improvement. These studies build on one another using different methods to show: 1) that mindset and blame are related in a learning context, 2) that this relationship is causal, and 3) that there are concrete consequences of this relationship among teachers, although the effect is driven by low praise rather than high blame.
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Details
- Title
- FAILING TO CHANGE
- Creators
- Makita M. White
- Contributors
- Elizabeth Canning (Chair)Renee Magnan (Committee Member)Walter Scott (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Department of Psychology
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 120
- Identifiers
- 99901220447901842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation