Abstract
In this chapter, the authors describe research showing that people’s mindsets, or their “implicit theories,” about intelligence significantly impact their academic motivation and performance, sometimes in counter-intuitive ways. In particular, accumulating evidence shows that holding a “growth mindset”—the belief in intelligence as malleable as opposed to fixed—enhances challenge-seeking, interest in learning, effort investment, use of effective strategies, achievement outcomes, and even how the brain functions. They discuss converging evidence for the malleability of intelligence drawn from recent research in cognitive neuroscience that indicates greater brain plasticity and development resulting from learning than previously thought to exist, as shown by the impact of training on executive functions and fluid intelligence. Finally, they discuss how mindsets can be influenced and changed, and the practical implications of this research for educational policy and practice.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Aronson, J., Lustina, M., Good, C., Keough, K., Steele, C., & Brown, J. (1999). When white men can’t do math: Necessary and sufficient factors in stereotype threat. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35, 29–46.
Aronson, J., Fried, C. B., & Good, C. (2002). Reducing the effects of stereotype threat on African American college students by shaping mindsets of intelligence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 113–125.
Bartels, M., Rietveld, M., Van Baal, G., & Boomsma, D. (2002). Genetic and environmental influences on the development of intelligence. Behavior Genetics, 32, 237–249.
Beilock, S. L., Rydell, R. J., & McConnell, A. R. (2007). Stereotype threat and working memory: Mechanisms, alleviations, and spillover. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136, 256–276.
Binet, A. (1975). Modern ideas about children. (trans: Heisler, S.). Menlo Park: Suzanne Heisler. (originally work published in 1909).
Blackwell, L., Trzesniewski, K., & Dweck, C. S. (2007). Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: A longitudinal study and an intervention. Child Development, 78, 246–263.
Blascovich, J., Spencer, S. J., Quinn, D. M., & Steele, C. M. (2001). African-Americans and high blood pressure: The Role of stereotype threat. Psychological Science, 12, 225–229.
Borland, J. H. (2003). The death of giftedness. In J. H. Borland (Ed.), Rethinking gifted education (pp. 105–124). New York: Teachers College Press.
Borland, J. H. (2005). Gifted education without gifted children: The case for no conception of giftedness. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Borland, J. H., & Wright, L. (2001). Identifying and educating poor and underrepresented gifted students. In K. A. Heller, F. J. Monks, R. J. Sternberg, & R. F. Subotnik (Eds.), International handbook of research and development of giftedness and talent (pp. 587–594). London: Pergamon Press.
Brehmer, Y., Westerberg, H., & Backman, L. (2012). Working-memory training in younger and older adults: Training gains, transfer, and maintenance. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, 1–7.
Brescoll, V. L., & LaFrance, M. (2004). The correlates and consequences of newspaper reports of research on gender differences. Psychological Science, 15(8), 515–521.
Breslau, N., Chilcoat, H., Susser, E., Matte, T., Liang, K., & Peterson, E. (2001). Stability and change in children’s intelligence quotient scores: A comparison of two socioeconomically disparate communities. American Journal of Epidemiology, 154, 711–717. doi:10.1093/aje/154.8.711.
Brown, R. P., & Day, E. A. (2006). The difference isn’t black and white: Stereotype threat and the race gap on Raven’s advanced progressive matrices. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 979–985.
Cadinu, M., Maass, A., Rosabianca, A., & Kiesner, J. (2005). Why do women underperform under stereotype threat? Psychological Science, 16, 572–578.
Canivez, G., & Watkins, M. (1998). Long-term stability of the Wechsler intelligence scale for children—third edition. Psychological Assessment, 10, 285–291.
Ceci, S. J. (1991). How much does schooling influence general intelligence and its cognitive components? A reassessment of the evidence. Developmental Psychology, 27(5), 703–722.
Cimpian, A., Mu, Y., & Erickson, L. C. (2012). Who is good at this game? Linking an activity to a social category undermines children’s achievement. Psychological Science, 23(5), 533–541.
Darling-Hammond, L. (1994). Performance-based assessment and educational equity. Harvard Educational Review, 64, 5–31.
Darling-Hammond, L. (1995). Cracks in the bell curve: How education matters. The Journal of Negro Education, 64, 340–353.
Dar-Nimrod, I., & Heine, S. J. (2006). Exposure to scientific theories affects women’s math performance. Science, 314, 435.
Draganski, B., Gaser, C., Busch, V., Schuierer, G., Bogdahn, U., & May, A. (2004). Neuroplasticity: Changes in grey matter induced by training. Nature, 427, 311–312.
Duckworth, A., & Seligman, M. (2005). Self-discipline outdoes IQ in predicting academic performance of adolescents. Psychological Science, 16, 939–944.
Dweck, C. S. (1999). Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development. Philadelphia: Psychology Press.
Dweck, C. S., & Leggett, E. L. (1988). A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review, 95, 256–273.
Erikson, K., Drevets, W., & Schulkin, J. (2003). Glucocorticoid regulation of diverse cognitive functions in normal and pathological emotional states. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 27, 233–246.
Farrington, C. A., Roderick, M., Allensworth, E., Nagaoka, J., Keyes, T. S., Johnson, D. W., & Beechum, N. O. (2012). Teaching adolescents to become learners. The role of noncognitive factors in shaping school performance: A critical literature review. Chicago: University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research.
Flynn, J. (2007). What is intelligence? New York: Cambridge University Press.
Giles, J. W., & Heyman, G. D. (2003). Preschoolers’ beliefs about the stability of antisocial behavior: Implications for navigating social challenges. Social Development, 12, 182–197.
Good, C., Aronson, J., & Inzlicht, M. (2003). Improving adolescents’ standardized test performance: An intervention to reduce the effects of stereotype threat. Applied Developmental Psychology, 24, 645–662.
Good, C., Rattan, A., & Dweck, C. (2012). Why do women opt out? Sense of belonging and women’s representation in mathematics. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(4), 700–717. doi:10.1037/a0026659.
Gunderson, E., Gripshoever, S., Romero, C., Dweck, C., Goldin-Meadow, S., & Levine, S. (2013). Parent praise to 1- to 3- year-olds predicts children’s motivational frameworks 5 years later. Child Development, 84(5), 1526–1541. doi:10.1111/cdev.12064.
Hackman, D., & Farah, M. (2009). Socioeconomic status and the developing brain. Trends in Cognitive Science, 13(2), 65–73.
Hartley, B., & Sutton, R. (2013). A stereotype threat account of boys’ academic underachievement. Child Development, 84, 1716–1733. doi:10.1111/cdev.12079.
Henderson, V. L., & Dweck, C. S. (1990). Motivation and achievement. In S. S. Feldman & G. R. Elliot (Eds.), At the threshold: The developing adolescent (pp. 308–329). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Herrnstein, R. J., & Murray, C. (1994). The bell curve: Intelligence and class structure in American life. New York: Free Press.
Hertzog, C., & Schaie, K. (1986). Stability and change in adult intelligence: 1. Analysis of longitudinal covariance structures. Psychology and Aging, 1, 159–171.
Heyman, G., Gee, C., & Giles, J. (2003). Preschool children’s reasoning about ability. Child Development, 74, 516–534.
Hong, Y., Chiu, C., Dweck, C., Lin, D., & Wan, W. (1999). Implicit theories, attributions, and coping: A meaning system approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 588–599.
Hoyt, C., Burnette, J., & Inella, A. (2012). I can do that: The impact of implicit theories on leadership role model effectiveness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38, 257–268. doi:10.1177/ 0146167211427922.
Inzlicht, M., McKay, L., & Aronson, J. (2006). Stigma as ego depletion: How being the target of prejudice affects self-control. Psychological Science, 17, 262–269.
Kaufman, S. (2013). Ungifted: Intelligence redefined. New York: Basic Books.
Keller, J., & Dauenheimer, D. (2003). Stereotype threat in the classroom: Dejection mediates the disrupting threat effect on women’s math performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 371–381.
Kray, L. J., & Haselhuhn, M. P. (2007). Implicit negotiation beliefs and performance: Experimental and longitudinal evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 49–64.
Krendl, A. C., Richeson, J. A., Kelley, W. M., & Heatherton, T. F. (2008). The negative consequences of threat: A functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation of the neural mechanisms underlying women’s underperformance in math. Psychological Science, 19, 168–175.
Lupien, S., McEwen, B., Gunnar, M., & Heim, C. (2009). Effects of stress throughout the lifespan on the brain, behaviour and cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10, 434–445.
Mackey, A. P., Hill, S., Stone, S., & Bunge, S. A. (2011). Differential effects of reasoning and speed training in children. Developmental Science, 14(3), 582–590. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2010.01005.x.
Mackey, A., Whitaker, K., & Bunge, S. (2012). Experience-dependent plasticity in white matter microstructure: reasoning training alters structural connectivity. Frontiers in Neuroanatomy, 6, 1–9. doi:10.3389/fnana.2012.00032.
Mackey, A., Miller-Singley, A., & Bunge, S. (2013). Intensive reasoning training alters patterns of brain connectivity at rest. Journal of Neuroscience, 33(11), 4796–4803.
Mangels, J. A., Butterfield, B., Lamb, J., Good, C. D., & Dweck, C. S. (2006). Why do beliefs about intelligence influence learning success? A social-cognitive-neuroscience model. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 1, 75–86.
Marx, D. M., & Stapel, D. A. (2006). Distinguishing stereotype threat from priming effects: On the role of the social self and threat-based concerns. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 243–254.
Mischel, W., Ayduk, O., Berman, M., Casey, B., Gotlib, J., Kross, E., Teslovich, T., Wilson, N., Zayas, V., & Shoda, Y. (2011). Willpower over the lifespan: Decomposing self-regulation. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 6(2), 252–256.
Moser, J., Schroder, H., Heeter, C., Moran, T., & Lee, Y. (2011). Mind your errors: Evidence for a neural mechanism linking growth mindset to adaptive post-error adjustments. Psychological Science, 22(12), 1484–1489.
Mueller, C. M., & Dweck, C. S. (1998). Intelligence praise can undermine motivation and performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 33–52.
Naglieri, J., & Goldstein, S. (2009). Practicioner’s guide to assessing intelligence and achievement. Hoboken: Wiley.
Neville, H., Stevens, C., Pakulak, E., Bell, T., Fanning, J., Klein, S., & Isbell, E. (2013). Family-based training program improves brain function, cognition, and behavior in lower socioeconomic status preschoolers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110, 12138–12143. doi:10.1073/pnas.1304437110.
Nisbett, R. (2009). Intelligence and how to get it: Why schools and cultures count. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
O’Brien, L. T., & Crandall, C. S. (2003). Stereotype threat and arousal: Effects on women’s math performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 782–789.
Osborne, J. W. (2006). Gender, stereotype threat and anxiety: Psychophysiological and cognitive evidence. Journal of Research in Educational Psychology, 8, 109–138.
Osborne, J. W. (2007). Linking stereotype threat and anxiety. Educational Psychology, 27, 135–154.
Pomerantz, E. M., & Kempner, S. G. (2013). Mothers’ daily person and process praise: Implications for children’s theory of intelligence and motivation. Developmental Psychology.
Rattan, A., Good, C., & Dweck, C. S. (2012). “It’s ok – not everyone can be good at math:” Instructors with an entity theory comfort (and demotivate) students. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 731–737.
Rheinberg, F., Vollmeyer, R., & Rollett, W. (2000). Motivation and action in self-regulated learning. In M. Boekaerts, P. R. Pintrich, & M. Zeidner (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation: Theory, research and application (pp. 503–529). San Diego: Academic.
Robins, R. W., & Pals, J. L. (2002). Implicit self-theories in the academic domain: Implications for goal orientation, attributions, affect, and self-esteem change. Self and Identity, 1, 313–336.
Rodriguez, S., Mangels, J., Guerra-Carrillo, B., & Higgins, T. (2014). Frame of mind: Focusing students on performance or mastery yields a double dissociation of the neural processes predicting subsequent memory. Manuscript in preparation.
Schmader, T., & Johns, M. (2003). Converging evidence that stereotype threat reduces working memory capacity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 440–452.
Smiley, P. A., & Dweck, C. S. (1994). Individual differences in achievement goals among young children. Child Development, 65, 1723–1743.
Smith, J. L., & White, P. H. (2002). An examination of implicitly activated, explicitly activated, and nullified stereotypes on mathematical performance: It’s not just a woman’s issue. Sex Roles, 47, 179–191.
Steele, C., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 797–811.
Stone, J., & McWhinnie, C. (2008). Evidence that blatant versus subtle stereotype threat cues impact performance through dual processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 445–452.
Thoman, D. B., White, P. H., Yamawaki, N., & Koishi, H. (2008). Variations of gender-math stereotype content affect women’s vulnerability to stereotype threat. Sex Roles, 58, 702–712.
Vick, S. B., Seery, M. D., Blascovich, J., & Weisbuch, M. (2008). The effect of gender stereotype activation on challenge and threat motivational states. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 624–630.
Wang, M., Eccles, J., & Kenny, S. (2013). Not lack of ability but more choice: Individual and gender differences in choice of careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Psychological Science, 24(5), 770–775.
Wolf, T. (1973). Alfred Binet. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Yeager, D., Paunesku, D., Walton, G., & Dweck, C. (2013). How can we instill productive mindsets at scale? A review of the evidence and an initial R&D agenda. [white paper]. Retrieved from: http://homepage. psy.utexas.edu/homepage/group/YeagerLAB/ADRG/Pdfs/Yeager%20et%20al%20R&D%20agenda% 20-%206-10-13.pdf
Zatorre, R., Fields, R., & Johansen-Berg, H. (2012). Plasticity in gray and white: Neuroimaging changes in brain structure during learning. Nature Neuroscience, 15(4), 528–536. doi:10.1038/nn.3045.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Blackwell, L.S., Rodriguez, S., Guerra-Carrillo, B. (2015). Intelligence as a Malleable Construct. In: Goldstein, S., Princiotta, D., Naglieri, J. (eds) Handbook of Intelligence. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1562-0_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1562-0_18
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-1561-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-1562-0
eBook Packages: Behavioral ScienceBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)