Overview
“Fixed mindset” is a term that refers to mindsets that viewed people and their traits as rigid and static entities. In other words, the fixed mindset is characterized by the idea that you either had talent or you didn’t, and nothing you do could change that fact.
It’s often framed as a contrast to a “growth mindset,” which views people and their traits as malleable and capable of predictable influence. A student with a growth mindset views test scores as feedback for where they currently are rather than a determination of their innate talent.
There is also a distinct term from the growth mindset called a “mutable mindset.” The “fixed vs growth” dichotomy can suggest that change either doesn’t happen or happens in a positive direction, but this can lead students with a growth mindset to become deeply demotivated if, for any reason, their performance declines against their expectations of growth. “Mutable” suggests a more neutral fluidity, such that a student is prepared for the possibility of declining scores as part of an ebb and flow in the circumstances around their performance.
Commentary
The concepts of growth and fixed mindsets have become staples of the culture of (pseudo)scientific management that conveniently provides an aesthetically-pleasing vocabulary to simply blame individuals for not trying hard enough within broken systems. Anyone who feels that they’re struggling with finding solutions or coping with impossible situations can just be told to adopt a growth mindset that encourages change rather than dwelling on a fixed mindset that concludes failure is certain. The idea of overcoming the impossible certainly lends itself to inspirational quotes and optimistic projections, but reality has a way of defying projections. After all, the difference between landing on the moon and landing on the sun is not the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset.
In defense of Carol Dweck, who popularized the framework in 2006 with empirical evidence that has since come under intense scrutiny, she didn’t advocate that changing one’s mindset alone was adequate to improve the capacity for people to learn and grow. She identified that a growth mindset was associated with better performance, not that individuals who simply chose a growth mindset would perform better:
Prodding students to increase effort alone, telling them they would have done better if they had tried harder, isn’t enough, Dweck said. Without suggesting learning strategies when students are stymied and judiciously offering help at the right time, a student may feel more incompetent if more effort doesn’t work. Telling students to “keep trying and you’ll get it” does not instill a growth mindset, Dweck said. “I call it nagging.”
Teachers who heap encouragement on students may assume they have adopted a growth mindset. But, Dweck said, “growth mindset is about closing the achievement gap, not about making low-achieving kids feel good in the moment but not learn in the long run.” 1
That being said, even if fixed mindsets are associated with lower performance, evidence for an association between the two doesn’t necessarily mean we have evidence that changing a student’s mindset will lead to changes in performance. It’s plausible that a student who is able to develop a growth mindset has fundamentally different factors in their social environment and personal experiences than a student who remains in a fixed mindset, such as a home environment with parents who attained college degrees and can reinforce educational practices everyday. A student who notices that learning study skills pays off through the reward of improved performance may show all the hallmarks of a growth mindset. It’s also possible that growth mindset interventions don’t succeed at cultivating a growth mindset, even if having one plays a role in one’s performance, so the growth mindset theory might be absolutely true yet lack actionable proposals for testing and implementation. An interesting discussion between academics Russell Warne and David Yaeger over the interpretation of the evidence around growth mindset theory can be found here, in which Warne argues that evidence for growth mindset theory is overblown and Dweck’s research is influenced by her own career ambitions while Yaeger argues that the evidence is too nuanced to discard growth mindset theory and interventions, especially if certain subgroups and at-risk student populations benefit in ways that average metrics may not yield statistically significant results for.
In my own opinion, I certainly think there are merits to cultivating stronger growth mindsets as part of a student’s educational journey. It’s practically a prerequisite to learning that you reject the idea that your knowledge and skills are fixed. In that sense, mindsets aren’t discrete. You’re not either in a fixed mindset or in a growth mindset; you might believe that certain aspects of yourself are fixed while others can change, and you might have very reasonable evidence you use to arrive at those conclusions. If you fail every math test after trying your hardest, even if the problem lies in instruction or resources, you might reasonably begin to think math isn’t your strong suit and invest your attention and energy elsewhere. We might call that a fixed mindset in regards to math, but it would take a lot more than restoring the positive attitude of a growth mindset for someone to feel comfortable with math. In my tutoring experience, I find it necessary to build bridges between areas a student feels capable of growth in to areas where they feel fixed, which can require meeting them halfway on their personal interests before broaching academic subjects.
Regardless of the future consensus about growth mindset theory or your opinion about it now, we can be reasonably certain that the evidence base for workplace “growth mindset” positivity interventions is incredibly weak. Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft as of 2014, branded his attempts to overhaul Microsoft’s purportedly toxic work culture with Dweck’s theories about growth mindsets. It’s telling then that in 2016, Dweck, much like William Edwards Deming and Peter Drucker, felt the need to speak out shortly after observing the widespread corporate adoption (read: bastardization) of her work:
“Scholars are deeply gratified when their ideas catch on. And they are even more gratified when their ideas make a difference — improving motivation, innovation, or productivity, for example. But popularity has a price: People sometimes distort ideas and therefore fail to reap their benefits. This has started to happen with my research on ‘growth’ versus ‘fixed’ mindsets among individuals and within organizations…’Growth mindset’ has become a buzzword in many major companies, even working its way into their mission statements. But when I probe, I often discover that people have a limited understanding of the idea.” 2
She links to another Harvard Business Review article that espoused the value of her work when implemented at the CME Group:
“We hired Carol to speak with senior leadership and then with all employees. We recorded the sessions, and all new employees watch the video. Gill emphasizes the idea of highlighting the growth mindset. Instead of focusing on output, which can be seen as the result of talent (and emblematic of a fixed mindset), we think about effort. Instead of celebrating employee achievements, we say, ‘Thank you for your effort…’ We’ve adopted behavioral interviewing techniques using mindset-focused questions. For example, ‘Describe a time you confronted a challenge. How did you work through it to overcome your doubts?‘… It’s too early to say it’s a huge success. But it has allowed us to formalize and institutionalize our innovation process and innovate more quickly.” 3
If you have the same hate for Ted Talks that I do, then this description possibly induced some twitching around the eyes. It’s hard enough to see what kinds of students could benefit from a growth mindset intervention when it’s a popular topic in the research community. Bringing in an expert to give employees a brief management-approved recorded talk that preaches a reductive version of nuanced research is the entire basis of my disdain for Ted Talks. I distinctly remember wanting to pull out my hair when I first heard a manager recommend that I look into a “fixed mindset” after describing a personal rut I was in, as if I hadn’t been bombarded with pseudoscientific management psychology since middle school, but had not once undergone a meaningful mental health screening. It turns out that it can be much easier to have a growth mindset with the right antidepressants if you have clinical depression. By all accounts, this was a smart guy who had bootstrapped a significant portion of his career, and I’m sure he followed what he preached. Back to Dweck’s article:
“People often confuse a growth mindset with being flexible or open-minded or having a positive outlook — qualities they believe they’ve always had. My colleagues and I call this a false growth mindset. Everyone is actually a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets, and that mixture continually evolves with experience. A pure growth mindset doesn’t exist, which we must acknowledge to attain the benefits we seek.” 2
This idea of “false growth mindset” has been acknowledged by researchers for years. From a 2019 paper published in the journal Research in Organizational Behavior:
“In addition to the false dichotomy, one of the most common misunderstandings that constitutes part of the false growth mindset is that growth mindset is just about effort. However, we know that when people struggle, if they simply apply rote effort and do the same thing over and over again in the same way, they are not necessarily more likely to succeed. Instead, a true growth mindset involves trying new strategies and seeking help when one is stuck. Sheer effort alone will not enhance learning and development. Another dimension of false growth mindset is praising effort when that effort is not really effective. If a worker does not try hard on a task, for example, and their supervisor nonetheless praises their effort, the supervisor has communicated that they don’t really understand what the job entailed. It is important to praise effort when something has been effortful – and when that effort actually leads to learning. A third dimension of false growth mindset is believing that people have a growth mindset about everything all of the time. Research in fact reveals that mindsets about different characteristics (e.g., intellectual ability, personality, sports ability) are not necessarily correlated with each other (Dweck, 2000; Scott & Ghinea, 2013) and the situational nature of mindset suggests that the same person can have fixed or growth mindset beliefs depending on the situation (e.g., Hoyt, Burnette, & Innella, 2012; Kray & Haselhuhn, 2007). Dweck notes that it is important to legitimize the fixed mindset and acknowledge that we all have both sets of beliefs within us. “If we ‘ban’ the fixed mindset, we will surely create false growth mindsets”, Dweck wrote (2015).”
I was initially primed to view the concept of “false growth mindset” as a No True Scotsman fallacy in which failed interventions or implementations under the “growth mindset” would simply be sweeped under the “false growth mindset” label, but Dweck and other researchers have been consistent about defining the specific mechanisms that distinguish it from a real “growth mindset.”