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== Introduction ==
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| pages = 276
| isbn = 978-1-4000-6275-1
| goodreads_rating = 4.06
| goodreads_rating_date = 8 November 2025
| website = [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/44330/mindset-by-carol-s-dweck-phd/ penguinrandomhouse.com]
}}
'''''Mindset''''' is a psychology book by {{Tooltip|Stanford University}} psychologist {{Tooltip|Carol S. Dweck}} that contrasts “fixed” and “growth” mindsets and explains how beliefs about ability shape achievement across school, work, sports, and relationships.<ref name="PRH2006">{{cite web |title=Mindset by Carol S. Dweck |url=https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/44330/mindset-by-carol-s-dweck-phd/ |website=Penguin Random House |publisher=Penguin Random House |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref> Drawing on decades of research, Dweck argues that seeing abilities as developable—through effort, strategies, and feedback—supports learning and resilience, whereas treating them as fixed
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== Chapters ==
=== Chapter 1 – The mindsets ===
🧠
=== Chapter 2 – Inside the mindsets ===
🔍
=== Chapter 3 – The truth about ability and accomplishment ===
🎓
=== Chapter 4 – Sports: the mindset of a champion ===
🏅
💼 In 2001 Enron’s collapse became the cautionary tale: consultants at {{Tooltip|McKinsey}} popularized a “talent mindset,” {{Tooltip|Malcolm Gladwell}} wrote in {{Tooltip|The New Yorker}}, and the company built systems that prized looking brilliant over learning, turning error-correction into a threat. Inside Enron that logic hardened into image protection—tied to lab findings where {{Tooltip|University of Hong Kong}} students with fixed beliefs refused a remedial English course that would have helped them and, in a separate study, nearly 40% of intelligence-praised students overstated their scores after struggling. {{Tooltip|Jim Collins}}’s five-year {{Tooltip|Good to Great}} research offers a foil: eleven companies that sustained market-beating returns were led by self-effacing executives who confronted brutal facts and built teams, not cults of personality. {{Tooltip|Circuit City}}’s {{Tooltip|Alan Wurtzel}} ran boardroom debates, called himself a “plow horse,” and over fifteen years delivered the highest total return to {{Tooltip|NYSE}} shareholders in his era. In a simulation by {{Tooltip|Robert Wood}} and {{Tooltip|Albert Bandura}}, graduate business students ran a computerized furniture company: those told the task measured inborn ability clung to early choices, while those told management skills develop examined mistakes, revised strategy, and raised productivity with steady confidence. It then contrasts fixed-mindset chiefs—Lee Iacocca–style “genius with a thousand helpers”—with growth-minded leaders who share credit and institutionalize learning. {{Tooltip|Jack Welch}} kept visiting {{Tooltip|GE}} factory lines and shifted rewards from lone originators to the teams that executed; {{Tooltip|Lou Gerstner}} at {{Tooltip|IBM}} and Anne Mulcahy at {{Tooltip|Xerox}} rebuilt cultures around development rather than star worship. Together these cases show how beliefs about ability shape what leaders notice, how they react to feedback, and whether organizations become reputational theaters or learning systems. When ability is treated as expandable, leaders set mastery goals, face information squarely, and design practices that compound improvement; when ability is treated as fixed, image defense crowds out inquiry and the enterprise stops self-correcting.
💞 To see how beliefs play out in intimacy, more than a hundred people were recruited and asked to recount a “terrible rejection”; the stories were similar, but interpretations differed—some fixated on permanent flaws and payback, others looked for lessons, support, and a path forward. Therapists’ evidence undercuts the fantasy of effort-free compatibility: {{Tooltip|Aaron Beck}} warns that “if we need to work at it, something’s wrong” is destructive, and {{Tooltip|John Gottman}} notes that every marriage demands ongoing effort as opposing forces tug at a bond. Vignettes show what the mindsets feel like up close: the urge to “mind read” rather than ask, the shock when minor disagreements threaten a fragile ideal of perfect agreement, and the spiral as labels replace listening. A public example tests forgiveness: after the {{Tooltip|Lewinsky affair}}, the {{Tooltip|Clintons}} spent one full day a week in counseling for a year; forgiveness made sense only when change looked intentional and sustained, not when character was assumed fixed. In “The Partner as Enemy,” blame becomes the default; to interrupt it, an imaginary third party—“Maurice”—soaks up knee-jerk accusations long enough for problem-solving to begin. Competitive undercurrents also surface in “Who’s the Greatest?”, where a partner’s status anxiety turns conferences and casual praise into scorecards; other pairs crowd each other’s identities until there’s no room to grow. Friendship, shyness, and bullying dynamics follow the same pattern: fixed beliefs invite humiliation-avoidance and revenge, while growth beliefs invite communication, boundaries, and skill-building. If traits and relationships are fixed, conflict confirms defects and risk feels dangerous; if traits and bonds can develop, effort, feedback, and small repairs become signs of care and paths to improvement.
👨👩👧👦 Claudia Mueller and Carol Dweck’s 1998 experiments with fifth graders offer the starting point: after an initial success on nonverbal puzzles, some children heard a single line praising their intelligence while others heard praise for effort; across six studies, the intelligence-praised children shifted toward performance goals, lost persistence and enjoyment after setbacks, and even overstated their scores, whereas effort-praised peers stayed engaged and improved on later problems. In one extension, 86% of ability-praised children chose to read about other students’ scores rather than strategy tips after a failure, but only 23% of effort-praised children did so, a sign that messages steer attention either to image management or to learning. Beyond the lab, living rooms and classrooms show how common remarks—“You learned that so quickly!” or “You’re a natural”—teach kids to treat speed and flawlessness as measures of worth, while process-focused feedback (“You found a new approach on that tough part”) links progress to strategies, practice, and help-seeking. Coaches and teachers are powerful messengers: when they frame errors as data and set high standards with concrete support, students lean into challenge; when they treat mistakes as verdicts, students avoid risk, hide weaknesses, and stop asking questions. A father’s blunt post-match talk with his tennis-playing daughter—explaining that a shaky win is not real improvement—shows how candor tied to practice plans builds resilience more reliably than consolation or trait labels. The throughline is that adult language and expectations do not just describe ability; they define what effort and failure mean, shaping whether kids pursue mastery or protect an identity. Person-focused praise cues fixed traits and performance goals, while process-focused messages cue controllable causes (strategy, time on task, feedback) that sustain motivation and learning over repeated trials.
🔄 A two-part program with {{Tooltip|New York City}} seventh-graders anchors the chapter: in Study 1 (n=373), students who believed intelligence could grow showed an upward trajectory in math grades across two years of junior high, while fixed-mindset peers held flat; in Study 2 at a second school, brief lessons teaching brain malleability (experimental n=48; control n=43) reversed the typical spring decline for the taught group and increased teachers’ reports of effort and interest. Complementary field work finds similar effects when adolescents learn that standardized-test performance is improvable and stress is a cue to deploy strategies rather than proof of inability, narrowing gaps linked to {{Tooltip|stereotype threat}}. Practice tools include naming the inner fixed-mindset voice, answering it with a growth-minded one (“yet,” plans, tactics), and converting global labels into specific, trainable skills. Exercises ask readers to reframe setbacks—bombed quiz, critical boss, missed shot—into hypotheses for practice, to script what help to seek, and to track small wins so effort’s payoffs stay visible. Case notes show how students who start avoiding challenge begin requesting harder problems, attending office hours, and revising work when they connect strain with strengthening neural pathways. Beliefs can be taught and rehearsed until they become a habit of interpretation in the moment of difficulty. Teaching that abilities develop shifts goals from validation to mastery and redirects attention to strategies and feedback loops, which, over repeated cycles, compound into better performance and more durable confidence.
''—Note: The above summary follows the {{Tooltip|Random House}} first edition (2006).''<ref name="OCLC58546262">{{cite web |title=Mindset : the new psychology of success |url=https://search.worldcat.org/title/58546262?tab=details |website=WorldCat |publisher=OCLC |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref>
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== Background & reception ==
🖋️ '''Author & writing'''. {{Tooltip|Carol S. Dweck}} is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at {{Tooltip|Stanford University}}, where her work examines how self-conceptions influence motivation and achievement.<ref name="StanfordProfile">{{cite web |title=Carol Dweck |url=https://profiles.stanford.edu/carol-dweck |website=Stanford Profiles |publisher=Stanford University |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref> In a retrospective with {{Tooltip|David Yeager}}, she traces mindset research from early laboratory studies to large, multi-site school trials over several decades.<ref name="DweckYeager2019">{{cite journal |last=Dweck |first=Carol S. |author2=Yeager, David S. |date=2019 |title=Mindsets: A View From Two Eras |journal=Perspectives on Psychological Science |volume=14 |issue=3 |pages=481–496 |doi=10.1177/1745691618804166 |url=https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6594552/ |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref> With ''Mindset'' (2006), Dweck set out to translate this scholarship for general readers, organizing examples from classrooms, teams, and companies around the fixed/growth contrast.<ref name="PRH2006" /> Reviewers noted the book’s practical tone and the inclusion of a checklist to gauge one’s own mindset.<ref name="PW2005" /> Later updates added advice on avoiding a “false growth mindset,” a theme Dweck clarified in a widely read {{Tooltip|Harvard Business Review}} essay.<ref name="PRH2006" /><ref name="HBR2016">{{cite web |last=Dweck |first=Carol |title=What Having a “Growth Mindset” Actually Means |url=https://hbr.org/2016/01/what-having-a-growth-mindset-actually-means |website=Harvard Business Review |date=13 January 2016 |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref>
📈 '''Commercial reception'''. The publisher describes ''Mindset'' as a million-copy bestseller in its updated edition materials.<ref name="PRH2006" /> The title appeared on {{Tooltip|The Washington
👍 '''Praise'''. Publishers Weekly’s pre-publication review called it “a serious, practical book,” highlighting how the framework applies across business, sports, and love.<ref name="PW2005" /> Library Journal (starred) is quoted by the publisher as calling the book “an essential read for parents, teachers [and] coaches,” noting its broad usefulness.<ref name="PRH2006" /> In coverage of the idea’s continuing reach, {{Tooltip|The Washington Post}} reported that Dweck’s framework still shapes how educators and managers teach, critique, and motivate students and workers.<ref name="WaPo2023" />▼
▲📈 '''Commercial reception'''. The publisher describes ''Mindset'' as a million-copy bestseller in its updated edition materials.<ref name="PRH2006" /> The title appeared on The Washington Post’s paperback nonfiction bestsellers during mid-2017, including the weeks of 25 June and 13 August.<ref name="WaPo2017Jun25" /><ref name="WaPo2017Aug13" /> It also features in Publishers Weekly’s 25-year roundup of bestselling print titles, listed as “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2007), Ballantine.”<ref name="PW25Years">{{cite news |title=25 Years of Bestselling Authors and Books |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/89042-25-years-of-bestselling-authors-and-books.html |work=Publishers Weekly |date=19 April 2022 |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref>
👎 '''Criticism'''. A
▲👍 '''Praise'''. Publishers Weekly’s pre-publication review called it “a serious, practical book,” highlighting how the framework applies across business, sports, and love.<ref name="PW2005" /> Library Journal (starred) is quoted by the publisher as calling the book “an essential read for parents, teachers [and] coaches,” noting its broad usefulness.<ref name="PRH2006" /> In coverage of the idea’s continuing reach, The Washington Post reported that Dweck’s framework still shapes how educators and managers teach, critique, and motivate students and workers.<ref name="WaPo2023" />
🌍 '''Impact & adoption'''. In corporate culture, {{Tooltip|Microsoft}} under CEO {{Tooltip|Satya Nadella}} has explicitly promoted “growth mindset” as a touchstone for organizational learning and change, with Nadella discussing it publicly at {{Tooltip|Davos}} and in interviews.<ref name="Telegraph2018">{{cite news |title=Microsoft chief Satya Nadella: 'We're on the right side of history' |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/05/27/microsoft-chief-satya-nadella-right-side-history/ |work=The Telegraph |date=27 May 2018 |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="Telegraph2020">{{cite news |title=Davos live: Nadella says Microsoft aims for a ‘growth mindset’ culture |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/01/23/davos-wef-markets-live-latest-news-pound-euro-ftse-100/ |work=The Telegraph |date=23 January 2020 |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref> In education and management, {{Tooltip|The Washington Post}} has documented the concept’s continuing influence on how teachers and bosses give feedback and frame challenge.<ref name="WaPo2023" /> Large-scale school implementations have been studied experimentally, including a U.S. national trial delivering a brief online program to ninth-graders at scale.<ref name="Yeager2019" /> The book has also drawn high-profile endorsements, such as a favorable write-up on {{Tooltip|Bill
▲👎 '''Criticism'''. A major meta-analysis by Sisk, Burgoyne and colleagues (2018) found that average links between mindset and achievement and the effects of mindset interventions on grades were weak overall, with somewhat larger benefits for at-risk students.<ref name="Sisk2018">{{cite journal |last=Sisk |first=Victoria F. |author2=Burgoyne, Alexander P. |author3=Sun, Jianan |author4=Butler, Jamie L. |author5=Macnamara, Brooke N. |date=2018 |title=To What Extent and Under Which Circumstances Are Growth Mind-Sets Important to Academic Achievement? |journal=Psychological Science |volume=29 |issue=4 |pages=549–571 |doi=10.1177/0956797617739704 |url=https://englelab.gatech.edu/articles/2018/Sisk%2C%20Burgoyne%20et%20al.%20%282018%29%20-%20Mindset%20and%20Academic%20Achievement.pdf |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref> In England, the Education Endowment Foundation’s large “Changing Mindsets” trial reported no additional progress in literacy or numeracy for participating Year 6 pupils compared with controls.<ref name="EEF2019">{{cite news |title=EEF publishes new evaluation reports, including findings from ‘growth mindsets’ approach |url=https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/news/eef-publishes-findings-from-growth-mindsets-approach |work=Education Endowment Foundation |date=11 July 2019 |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref> Practitioner overviews have also cautioned that classroom evidence is limited and that the idea is often misunderstood when reduced to praising effort alone.<ref name="TES2023">{{cite web |title=What is growth mindset? |url=https://www.tes.com/magazine/tes-explains/what-growth-mindset |website=TES |date=2023 |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref> At the same time, a U.S. national randomized study (Nature, 2019) found small but positive effects of a brief online growth-mindset program, especially for lower-achieving ninth-graders, underscoring mixed but nuanced results across contexts.<ref name="Yeager2019">{{cite journal |last=Yeager |first=David S. |author2=et al. |date=2019 |title=A national experiment reveals where a growth mindset improves achievement |journal=Nature |volume=573 |pages=364–369 |doi=10.1038/s41586-019-1466-y |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1466-y |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref>
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▲🌍 '''Impact & adoption'''. In corporate culture, Microsoft under CEO Satya Nadella has explicitly promoted “growth mindset” as a touchstone for organizational learning and change, with Nadella discussing it publicly at Davos and in interviews.<ref name="Telegraph2018">{{cite news |title=Microsoft chief Satya Nadella: 'We're on the right side of history' |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/05/27/microsoft-chief-satya-nadella-right-side-history/ |work=The Telegraph |date=27 May 2018 |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="Telegraph2020">{{cite news |title=Davos live: Nadella says Microsoft aims for a ‘growth mindset’ culture |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/01/23/davos-wef-markets-live-latest-news-pound-euro-ftse-100/ |work=The Telegraph |date=23 January 2020 |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref> In education and management, The Washington Post has documented the concept’s continuing influence on how teachers and bosses give feedback and frame challenge.<ref name="WaPo2023" /> Large-scale school implementations have been studied experimentally, including a U.S. national trial delivering a brief online program to ninth-graders at scale.<ref name="Yeager2019" /> The book has also drawn high-profile endorsements, such as a favorable write-up on Bill Gates’s GatesNotes, which helped broaden mainstream awareness.<ref name="Gates2015">{{cite web |title=‘Mindset’ by Carol Dweck |url=https://www.gatesnotes.com/mindset-the-new-psychology-of-success |website=GatesNotes |date=7 December 2015 |access-date=8 November 2025}}</ref>
== See also ==
▲{{Youtube thumbnail | _X0mgOOSpLU | Carol Dweck on growth mindset (TED) (10 min)}}
▲{{Youtube thumbnail | -71zdXCMU6A | Growth mindset & leadership — Talks at Google (47 min)}}
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== References ==
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