Growth Mindset: Facilitating Resilience and Self-efficacy in Learners

Dr. Carol Dweck, a psychologist, helped shift this discussion as she grew curious about how people perceive and cope with failure. The 1970s kickstarted Dweck’s decades-long research program exploring how people’s self-conceptions influence the development of the self, behavior (e.g., motivation, self-regulation), performance, achievement, and interpersonal processes. Dweck’s research conceptualized how the self-theories of intelligence (i.e., self-concept) orient people toward different goals and performance outcomes. Specifically, she proposed a social-cognitive model for motivational processes and its impact on achievement behavior. Those with an entity theory of intelligence (a fixed mindset) were thought to remain relatively stagnant, perceive their actions and behaviors as trait-focused, and seek favorable judgments from others. In contrast, those with an incremental theory of intelligence (a growth mindset) thought that intelligence was fundamentally malleable and process-focused and to evolve and cultivate their qualities over time.