How Firm Are the Foundations of Mind-Set Theory? The Claims Appear Stronger Than the Evidence (2020) Macnamara et al.

[Cheshire]

Mind-set refers to people’s beliefs about whether attributes are malleable (growth mind-set) or unchangeable ( fixed mind-set). Proponents of mind-set theory have made bold claims about mind-set’s importance. For example, one’s mind-set is described as having profound effects on one’s motivation and achievements, creating different psychological worlds for people, and forming the core of people’s meaning systems.

We examined the evidentiary strength of six key premises of mind-set theory in 438 participants; we reasoned that strongly worded claims should be supported by equally strong evidence. However, no support was found for most premises.

All associations (rs) were significantly weaker than .20. Other achievement-motivation constructs, such as self-efficacy and need for achievement, have been found to correlate much more strongly with presumed associates of mind-set. The strongest association with mind-set (r = −.12) was opposite from the predicted direction.

The results suggest that the foundations of mind-set theory are not firm and that bold claims about mind-set appear to be overstated.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797619897588?journalCode=pssa

 

[ME/CFS Skeptic]

Thanks for sharing.

Would be good to have an overview of findings in psychology that are robust, cause it seems that a lot of what was in the textbooks shouldn't have been in there.

 

[Trish]

Full article on Sci hub:
https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619897588

 

[Cheshire]

Preprint here (for those who can't access Sci hub)
https://psyarxiv.com/g9eu3

 

[rvallee]

For example, one’s mind-set is described as having profound effects on one’s motivation and achievements, creating different psychological worlds for people, and forming the core of people’s meaning systems.

What I love about this is that it's literally The Secret and somehow the people who promote this pretend otherwise, that there is anything more to this.

There's a very strong survivorship bias. It's an ideology created by people who have been successful in their lives and who therefore place their own success on superior innate traits that they think represents them. Roughly the same foundation over how phrenology somehow, by total surprise, found that the morphology traits of superior intelligence happened to be the same ones as the researchers' own particular morphology.

It's basically this but with more flowery language and mathemagics:

 

[alktipping]

the mind is and always will be an artificial construct created by the ancient Greeks more than 2400 years ago . because they could not grasp that the meat between our ears could be responsible for all the truly wonderous abilities we have . you would think this ignorance would have died out over time but their is too much money at stake . from carrying on assuming that people with weak minds(mental illness) are responsible for thier chronic health problems . I think this would of ended sooner if the insurance industry had not convinced judges to give them a get out clause for so called mental illnesses .