The Latest Science of Growth Mindset with Carol Dweck

Today it’s a real honor to have Carol Dweck on the podcast. Dr. Dweck is a leading researcher in the field of motivation and is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford. Her research examines the role of mindsets in personal achievement and organizational effectiveness.
Dr. Dweck has also held professorships at Columbia and Harvard Universities, has lectured to education, business, and sports groups around the world, has addressed the United Nations, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, and has won 12 lifetime achievement awards for her research. Her best-selling book Mindset has been widely influential and has been translated into over 25 languages.

In this episode we discuss:

Carol’s earliest research on “incremental” vs. “entity” beliefs
Carol’s dream of “bottling” the mindsets that lead people to persevere
The limitations of Carol’s earlier studies
The two big developments in studying growth mindset
Growth mindset exercises
The “Big Mama” of growth mindset studies
The underwhelming effect size of educational interventions
How low SES students benefit more from growth mindset interventions
The conditions under which growth mindset interventions don’t work
The role of teacher mindset on teaching effectiveness
The relationship between growth mindset and other outcomes in life
How growth mindset doesn’t invalidate the existence of giftedness
Why every child should be challenged
Why we shouldn’t cut out gifted and talented programs
How praising gifted students for effort can backfire
The relationship between mindsets and IQ
How having a fixed mindset can sometimes lead to increased performance
Cross-cultural differences in mindsets
Criticism that growth mindset claims have been overblown
Carol Dweck’s dream of improving the sustainability of growth mindset interventions (Dweck’s “next big Mount Everest”)
Why mindset is not a “miracle maker”
What Carol Dweck is most excited about in terms of future directions