No Clarity Around Growth Mindset
Read the original on Slate Star Codex →
Follow-up reading
↳ I Will Never Have The Ability To Clearly Explain My Beliefs About Growth Mindset — immediate sequel · Apr 2015
↳ Growth Mindset 3: A Pox On Growth Your Houses — Growth Mindset 3 · Apr 2015
↳ Growth Mindset 4: Growth Of Office — Growth Mindset 4 · May 2015
Summary
A careful, substantial skeptical examination of Carol Dweck's growth mindset. Scott admits his bias, then works through the tension: the studies are 'diabolically good' (implausibly strong effects), yet the history is convoluted (pre-1980 studies found belief-in-ability protective, then it flipped), the longitudinal view is damning (fixed-mindset people are everywhere at Stanford; growth mindset correlates with LOWER SAT/GPA; the two groups start at the same level), and the Bielefeld study suggests a social/anxiety mechanism, not a deep-belief one. The durable section-V point: even if growth mindset is 100% true, it provides zero evidence that innate talent isn't the dominant factor (the religion-boosts-life-expectancy-doesn't-prove-Christianity parallel; the three-children graph; the Noble Lie). Balanced, agnostic conclusion.
Why this score
Quality 77 · Excellent. 77 — Excellent. A model of careful skeptical engagement with a popular psychology finding, with a genuinely durable, oft-cited logical contribution (benefits-of-a-belief ≠ truth-of-the-belief). Substantial and analytically rigorous; one of his stronger replication-crisis-era pieces.
Claude’s paradigm shift 60 · Notable shift. 60 — Notable, edging Major. The section-V clarification (growth mindset can be fully true and talent still dominant) is a fresh, generative logical point.
Real-world impact 2 · Minor. 2 — minor/within-blog. Influential within the rationalist/ed-psych-skeptic sphere; discourse-level.