MALE SPEAKER: really excited
to have such a full room.
And I know we have
a lot of people
on the live stream
and a lot more people
still who can't make
either and looking forward
to seeing this up on
YouTube which will be
the case in the next few days.
I'm really excited to
introduce Professor Carol
Dweck from Stanford University.
She's the Lewis and Virginia
Eaton professor of psychology.
She is best known for
her work on mindsets
that people use to
guide their behavior.
She earned a BA in psychology
from Columbia University
and then a Ph.D. In
psychology from Yale.
She's the author of a
bestselling book, "Mindset:
The New Psychology of Success."
And despite traffic,
a bunch of books
arrived at the back
of the room, which
you can purchase afterwards.
I certainly encourage
you to do so.
There's my well-thumbed copy.
It's sold over a
million copies, so there
are many of your
friends out there
who have enjoyed this work.
She's a frequent speaker,
has spoken on the TED stage
multiple times, at the United
Nations, the White House,
among other prestigious
organizations.
Her work has won so many
awards that if I named them all
that would be the entire talk.
So I'm not going to do that.
And now that I've
incredibly boosted her ego,
I'd like to bring
up Professor Dweck.
[APPLAUSE]
All right, before we
get into mindsets,
I want you to share what
we've learned from what is now
the widely-discredited theory of
self esteem and the self esteem
movement.
CAROL DWECK: OK.
In the 1990s the self esteem
movement took over the world.
We were told to
tell everyone how
fabulous, brilliant, talented,
special they were all the time.
This was going to motivate them
and boost their achievement.
Instead, as you said, it
was a complete disaster.
It led to the acceptance
of mediocrity.
It didn't challenge people
to fulfill their potential.
And our research showed
telling people they're smart
actually backfires.
It makes them afraid
of challenges,
it makes them fold in
the face of obstacles,
because they're worried, oh,
does this not look smart?
Am I not smart?
The whole currency is
built around smart.
MALE SPEAKER: So what
triggered your interest
in going deeper and
researching how people
are motivated and learn,
and how did that lead
to your definition of mindsets?
CAROL DWECK: I was
always interested
in why some people wilted
in the face of failure,
shied away from
challenges, when people
who are no more talented or
able were embracing challenges
and thriving in the
face of failure.
Ultimately this led to our
discovery of the mindsets.
And what we found was that some
people believe their talents
and abilities are just these
fixed traits-- you have
a certain amount and that's it.
But other people believe
talents and abilities
can be developed through
hard work, good strategies,
good mentoring from others.
Through years of work, we found
that having a fixed mindset led
you to be afraid of
challenges that might unmask
your deficiencies,
made you withdraw
in the face of difficulty
because you felt stupid.
You didn't want to feel stupid.
You didn't want other people
to think you're stupid.
Whereas having this
growth mindset,
the idea that your abilities
could be developed,
made you think,
why waste my time
looking smart when I
could be getting smarter?
And I do that through
taking on challenges.
I do that through
seeing them through.
Now granted, that
doesn't mean everyone's
the same, that they
don't different talents
and abilities.
It just means everyone can grow.
MALE SPEAKER: And sort of
building on that, you really
can't watch a sports
broadcast or the TV
show America's Got Talent,
who has talent in the name,
without hearing how
talented that player is.
Or seeing someone
perform the ballet
and say she has
tremendous talent.
What role, if any, does
innate talent play?
CAROL DWECK: Well, they
do have talent now,
when we're watching
them, but I think
it's created a
nation that thinks
when they see someone
displaying talent
or incredible performance,
they were born that way.
And they've had this inevitable
rise to great success.
I teach a freshman seminar
at Stanford every year.
And I have my students
do an assignment
where they do research
on their hero,
and almost invariably
they think that hero just
catapulted to success because
of this amazing inborn talent.
But every single time
they find that the hero
put in inordinate amounts
of work, met with obstacles,
and really powered through them.
So I don't rule out
the idea of the fact
that some people are born
with passions and talents
and build those, but many people
who never achieve anything
are also born with
talents and passions
that they don't see through.
And what's there,
what we come with,
that's the raw material
that you've got to develop.
Michael Jordan, it turns out,
wasn't particularly talented
until he went at it so
ferociously, more ferociously
than anyone else.
MALE SPEAKER: Over lunch, we
had an interesting discussion
with part of the team here about
growth mindset, fixed mindset,
it's a great simplified
way to think of it.
Yet people can have both, and
it's more of the spectrum.
Talk a little bit more about
how you can have both mindset.
CAROL DWECK: Yes,
we're all a mixture.
And it's true that
you could have
a fixed mindset in one area and
a growth mindset another area.
And it's true that it's a
spectrum, not a dichotomy.
But it's a really dynamic.
Even in a given area, sometimes
you're in a fixed mindset.
You think, oh, my ability to
fix, I have to prove them,
I have to look smart, I can't
show that I'm working too hard.
People might not
think I'm so smart.
And other times we could be
more in a growth mindset.
So what we have to start doing
is looking for what triggers
the-- because the fixed
mindset holds us back,
we have to start looking for
what triggers it in all of us,
even me.
And what happens when you're
facing a big challenge?
Do you worry about, well, I'm
going to unmask deficiencies.
What happens when
there's a setback?
Do you think maybe
I'm not good at this?
What happens when you're
receiving criticism?
Do you get angry and defensive?
What happens when
you see someone
who's better than you
in what you're good at?
Do you feel jealous
and resentful,
or do you feel inspired?
Maybe I can learn
from that person.
Maybe they can mentor me.
So watch out at these
trigger moments.
See how you're feeling.
And see if you can get yourself
into more of a growth mindset.
MALE SPEAKER: So
I actually I have
two children, two
daughters, college age
and high school age.
I read your book after
my older daughter
was approaching high school, but
my younger daughter benefited
from it to the
point right where I
banned the two S-words in
our house-- smart and stupid.
I never used the
latter, but I was very
guilty of using the former.
Raise your hands if you
told a friend, or a child,
or a loved one how
smart they are.
Words are really powerful
is one thing I took away
from your book.
Talk about trigger words
like that: smart, stupid,
and how those can work
against your best intentions.
CAROL DWECK: Yes.
When you call someone smart,
you put them in a box.
Or, really, you are kind of
putting them on a pedestal.
And their life becomes organized
around deserving the pedestal,
staying on the pedestal.
And you can only do that
by narrowing your life
to include only
things you sure you're
good at, only things you're
sure you can succeed at.
When we tell someone, you
did that so quickly, I'm
so impressed, they hear
if I didn't do it quickly,
you wouldn't be impressed.
A lot of things
take a long time.
Or you got an A without
working, then they think,
oh, if I work you're not going
to think I'm smart at math,
say.
And so you're just very
subtly conveying these ideas
that smart people
don't make mistakes,
smart people don't
have to work hard,
the most important
thing in the world
is to be smart and look
smart at all times.
And then people start
narrowing their world
so they can succeed
within that fixed mindset.
MALE SPEAKER: So
one thing at Google
that we're obsessed with this
is proving things through data.
And I think one of the
compelling arguments
your book made was around the
research you did with children
in school environments.
So talk about some of
that early research
and how it's evolved to
reinforce that there's
weight behind this concept.
CAROL DWECK: Yes, we've
done research, now,
with tens of
thousands of students.
First, finding that those who
naturally have a growth mindset
do better.
We've traced them over
challenging-- especially
in challenging courses, like
pre-Med organic chemistry;
or challenging transitions,
seventh grade, high school,
college transitions.
We've studied all of those.
Recently we studied all
of the 10th grade students
in the country of
Chile, 170,000.
And we found that at every
level of family income,
those who believe they could
develop their intelligence
perform substantially higher
on achievement tests than those
who thought they couldn't.
And the most striking was
that among the poorest kids,
those who had a
growth mindset were
performing at the level
of much wealthier kids.
But importantly, because
those are correlations,
we've done a number of
studies where we have taught
students a growth mindset.
The ideas that every time
they do a really hard task
and stick to it, the
neurons in their brain
form new connections and
they can get smarter.
And then we show them how
to put that into practice.
We have found that
students who learn
this fare better
across challenging
courses and transitions.
We just showed that in a
study of women in STEM classes
at universities
around the country.
But we shown that
at the transition
to college, transition to
high school, and so forth.
So teaching a
growth mindset leads
kids to take on challenges,
stick to them, and improve.
MALE SPEAKER: So in our
current education culture,
and then I want to switch
to in the work environment,
there's such an obsession
with standardized testing
and those tests
having a real material
impact on teachers'
advancement and even,
in some cases, their income.
How do school systems battle on
that front and at the same time
tackle growth mindset, which
is more about working hard
in the process than
the actual end results.
CAROL DWECK: Yes.
It's such an interesting story,
because standardized tests were
brought in for good reason.
There are students in
certain parts of the country
and in certain schools who
were performing so poorly.
And nobody knew
and nobody cared.
And it was an attempt to
say let's not cheat kids out
of a good education.
But we all know the
unintended consequences.
School became about
standardized tests,
and many teachers, feeling
that their jobs or their raises
were on the line, taught to
the test the entire year.
How warning could that be
for teachers or for students?
And we did research to
show that a lot of students
think that those tests
measure how smart they are
and how smart they'll
be when they grow up.
So they're nervous about
them, and the whole year
is spent on them.
When, in fact, if
you just taught kids,
and in a way that made them love
learning, to love challenges,
know how to stick to them,
feel the thrill of improvement,
then the test score would
come as a byproduct of that.
Finland, the country
that does so well
on all these
international tests,
they don't teach to the test.
They teach.
The teachers love teaching,
the kids love learning,
and they do well on the test.
Let's get back to that here.
MALE SPEAKER: So going into
the corporate environment,
can you actually think
of an organization
as a growth mindset
organization or a fixed mindset
organization?
You do talk about
Enron in your book
as an example of probably
not the positive side.
So talk about how
you can look at it
from an organizational
level, and then
if you want your culture to
be a growth mindset culture,
how do you start to tackle that?
CAROL DWECK: Yes, yes.
So in my book, I identify
organizations that value
talent, raw talent,
above all else,
or they believed in everyone's
ability to improve and develop
and value that.
In our recent work
we've actually gone in
and asked the people.
We asked employees in different
Fortune 500 organizations,
what mindset does
your company have?
Is it a company that believes
in fixed talent and worships it?
Or is it a company
that believes everyone
can develop their abilities
and really provides
these opportunities?
And what we found was there
was remarkable consensus
within organizations about which
mindset their organization has,
and more important, it
made a big difference.
MALE SPEAKER: So in
terms of that difference,
you kind of compare
and contrast companies
that you view as leaders in
growth mindset versus those
that have struggled maybe
because of a fixed mindset
culture.
CAROL DWECK: Well,
in this research
we found that employees in a
growth mindset organizations
said they felt more
empowered by the organization
and more committed to it.
Whereas their counterparts
in the more fixed mindset
organizations kind
of had one foot out
the door waiting for
the next highest bidder.
But to me what was
even more interesting
is that the people in
growth mindset organizations
said their companies valued
creativity, innovation,
and they really put their
money where their mouth was.
So if you took it a reasonable
risk and it didn't work out,
they said my
company has my back.
My company really
values teamwork
was another thing they
said in the growth mindset
organization.
In the more fixed
mindset organizations,
the employees said,
yeah, the company talks
innovation and creativity.
But if things don't work
out, someone pays the price.
And finally, the managers in
the growth mindset organizations
said that their employees
had tremendous potential
to rise within the organization,
become stars, join management.
Whereas, and I love this finding
because in the fixed mindset
organization they're
worshipping the talent,
and hiring the talent, and
paying to keep the talent,
but a few years later,
they're not saying
there are a lot of
people who have potential
to rise in the organization.
Either they've left or they
don't have the potential
anymore.
MALE SPEAKER: So many
of us in the room
participate in interviewing
potential candidates
for Google.
So let's assume for a
second that Google's
trying to have a growth
mindset-- that it is.
What are strategies
that interviewers
can use to help identify
that train people,
or identify that someone will
be open to going down that path?
CAROL DWECK: Great question.
I worked with a major
league baseball team,
so I'll talk about that
first, to devise questions
that they could ask to
potential draft choices.
One was, how do you get
so good at baseball?
And some of them
said, well, you know,
I was born with
this natural talent.
And others said, well,
my father and I--
we worked at it constantly.
We had a batting
cage in the backyard.
He filmed me, we watched
the tapes, and so forth.
Another one was thinking
about on-field success
in the major leagues, what do
you think you'd have to change?
And some of them
said things like I'll
have to get used to the
cheering of larger crowds.
And others said,
maybe everything.
I'll have to take all my
skills to a new level.
It's a whole new ball game.
So this knowledge
that you might have
to really reorganize, redefine
yourself and build new skills
is really important.
Taking that to the
corporate setting,
first I might ask people with
their greatest failures were,
see whether they
take responsibility,
and what they did
with that failure.
Did they capitalize on it
to do something even better
than they could have imagined?
Did they use it to put value
added back into the company?
Or on the other hand, did they
say well, I had this failure.
I worked too hard.
Or do they make it something
that really reflects well
on them, or was it
someone else's fault?
And then this kind of
readiness to learn,
readiness to share credit,
these kinds of questions.
MALE SPEAKER: So I've debated
your theories of mindset
with colleagues over lunch,
particularly my last company.
There was really this
resistance to accept
that talent and/or intelligence
were in any way malleable.
Talk about that for a minute.
Is intelligence truly
something that's malleable?
And maybe other physiological
differences between people
that you've researched that
are identified as growth
mindset or fixed mindset.
CAROL DWECK: So
we absolutely know
that skills and
abilities are malleable,
and that's kind of what counts.
That's what turns
itself into performance.
But there have been
fascinating studies.
First of all, looking into
the brains of fixed and growth
mindset people as they work on
a hard task and make errors,
and you see that the people
who are in a growth mindset
are having the relevant
areas of the brain
really light up, catch fire
as they process the errors
and correct them.
Whereas in the brains
of the people who
are in more of a fixed mindset,
very little is going on.
They're seeing their errors,
and they're moving on
as quickly as possible.
But my favorite study
along these lines
tracked teenagers from
the age of 14 to 18.
The teenage brain-- our brains
are still very malleable,
but the teenage brain is
unbelievably malleable.
It's a time of tremendous
potential growth.
And what they found
over those four years
was that there were some kids
who gained a lot in IQ points
in math or verbal
areas, and there
were others that
lost a lot of points
and attract with the
density of their neurons
in the relevant parts
of their brains.
So we believe that the
kids who really went at it,
and took on the
challenges, and worked
hard were creating
these denser neurons,
and the others who
didn't use it lost it.
MALE SPEAKER: And I thought
another interesting aspect
of your research was, this could
apply in education, at home,
or in business,
is the proclivity
to cheat based on the
mindset that a person is in.
Talk a little bit about that.
CAROL DWECK: Yes.
We have studied that directly.
And we see that cheating is
more-- the desire to cheat
and the actual cheating-- is
more prevalent within a fixed
mindset.
Within a fixed
mindset, if, say you
haven't done well
on a subject before,
but you want a good
grade, you feel
like, oh, I have to find
some circuitous means.
But if you feel that there
are many ways that you
can do better through
actual learning,
you're more likely to do that.
So in one study
after a poor grade,
students who held
more of a fixed
mindset of their
intelligence actually
said in advance they're
seriously considering
cheating on the next test.
MALE SPEAKER: So in
your recent TED talk--
CAROL DWECK: Oh, I want
to say one more thing.
In our business study, the
people in the fixed mindset
organization said
cheating and deception
were much more prevalent.
And think about it.
If I have to be
smarter than you,
if I have to be
the superstar, I'm
going to consider
all different ways
to look better than you look.
And if I have to
keep secrets from you
or hoard my knowledge from other
people, I'm going to do that.
But in the growth
mindset organization
where people are
collaborating, and learning,
and tackling challenges
together, where's
the cheating going to come in?
It isn't.
MALE SPEAKER: So if a company
observes that behavior,
and it's a company
of scale-- let's
say it's not a
company of 10 people,
but hundred or thousands--
and they recognize
we have a culture problem.
How do you go about even
trying to tackle that?
What are some of the
strategies companies
can use if they decide, we
want to shift the culture.
We know it's going to take time.
It's not just a
switch that you flip.
What are some of the
strategies a company could
employ to change the culture?
CAROL DWECK: So I think the
best thing is for the message
to come down from the top,
where they don't just announce
we're a growth mindset culture.
They really explain what
the new value system is.
The new value system on
taking on challenges,
on rewarding reasonable
risk, on teamwork,
on sharing information, giving
performance evaluations that
speak to people's
growth and contribution
to the company in
terms of learning,
and salary increases
that take into account
did someone take on
challenges, improve,
help other people improve,
were they are good team player.
Bottom line counts, but
these things also count.
So to just kind of
talk growth mindset
talk without backing
it up, I don't
think that's going to happen.
If you have the
old reward system
that's rewarding
individual jockeying
for acclaim and power.
But if you back it up
with evaluations, rewards,
and mentoring, and what a
growth mindset deeply means,
and how it can be
enacted within the job,
I think that that's
a great start.
MALE SPEAKER: In
your recent Ted talk,
you talked about
the power of yet,
which I thought it was a
very interesting concept.
Tell me a little about
what you meant by that.
CAROL DWECK: Yes.
It all started when I learned
about a high school in Chicago
where students had to pass
maybe 84 units to graduate.
And if they didn't pass a unit,
they got the grade Not Yet.
I thought that isn't that great,
because if you get a failing
grade, you think, I hate
this, I'm out of here,
I'm no good at this.
And you kind of lose your steam.
But Not Yet means hey, you're
on a trajectory, a learning
trajectory.
Maybe you're not at the finish
line, but you're on your way
there.
And the students went around
the school unabashedly saying
to each other, how many
Not Yets do you have,
how many Not Yets do you have?
So we started a
program of research
that's still
continuing on the word
yet, and showing that saying
not yet after a wrong answer
keeps up motivation and
encourages persistence.
And listen to yourself.
If sometimes you say,
I'm not a "hmm" person,
or I could never do "hmm,"
then just add the word yet.
Or if one of your employees
says, I can't do it,
I'm no good at this yet, it
takes a very fixed mindset
statement, and it puts it in a
whole different growth mindset
context.
MALE SPEAKER: Just the
second to last question
for me is you did some
interesting research very
recently around gaming and
gaming applied to math.
Talk a little bit
about how you're
able to incorporate your
concept of the growth mindset
into that experience.
CAROL DWECK: We teamed
up with Zoran Popovic
and his colleagues at the
University of Washington
to create a math game
called Brain Points
that incorporated growth
mindset principles.
There were algorithms
built into the game that
detected the students' effort,
their use of strategies,
and their improvement.
And then in our experiment,
we compared Brain Points
to the standard
version of the game.
Now the standard
version of the game
is your usual game,
where the more you
zoom through and answer
problems correctly,
the more you rack up points.
Not in Brain Points.
Actually, if you zoom
through, it apologizes to you
and says you didn't earn
any points that time.
We're sorry.
We'll give you something more
challenging the next time.
So what happened
was this: First,
students played-- these
were grade school students--
they played longer
because they could
leave the game at any point.
They played
significantly longer.
They used more strategies.
We dropped in difficult
problems occasionally.
They persevered on them longer.
But this was my
favorite finding:
In the standard version, it
was mostly the high achievers
who played to the end.
But in the Brain
Points version, they
stayed in, they played to
the end, they liked it,
but so many more lower
and medium achievers also
stayed till the end.
MALE SPEAKER: So what
keeps you up and night
as you think about where
your research can go,
because like any
scientific endeavor,
it's constantly being
challenged and revisited.
What keeps you up worrying
about where your theory could
be right or wrong or improved?
CAROL DWECK: Yes.
I always had this
attitude of challenging
my ideas and my theories,
because if you're wrong,
you want to know it
as soon as possible.
You don't want to
spend your life on it.
So what keeps me up
at night in a good way
are different areas where
it could be applied.
So we have a whole
program of research
on peace in the
Middle East where
we're using mindset principles.
I'm not minimizing the
hugeness of the problem,
but we're using
mindset principles
to try to build some
greater understanding.
So I love to think of ways that
we can extend it into areas
we never thought of before.
I love to think of
ways to implement it
so that more kids who
need this way of thinking
can benefit from it.
And something that also
keeps me up at night
is the fear that people
are developing what I'm
calling a false growth mindset.
It's this idea of if
it's good, I have it.
So a lot of people are kind
of declaring they have it,
but they don't.
They think it just means
open-minded or being
a nice person, or maybe
they're saying they have it
for fixed mindset reasons.
I want you to judge me as
being the right kind of person.
So developing a growth
mindset is really a journey.
It's a lifelong journey of
monitoring your trigger points
and trying to approach things
in a more growth mindset way
of taking on the challenges,
sticking to them,
learning from them.
So right now I'm writing
something for educators
that I'm calling false growth
mindset to tell them, no, you
can't just say it.
You have to take a journey.
Because we're doing research
now showing that many teachers
and parents who say they
have a growth mindset
are actually responding
to kids in ways
that are creating fixed
mindsets for the kids.
So that's kind of
the array of things
that keep me up at night.
But that said, I do
sleep pretty well.
MALE SPEAKER: All
right, with that
we'll open up for questions
from the audience.
And I'm going to take a
quick look at the dory too,
so the mics can
get passed around.
AUDIENCE: Hi, I was introduced
to your book a couple of years
ago.
And I have 15
nieces and nephews.
And I find myself,
when I'm with them,
I don't know what
to say to them.
Because I don't want to
be, oh, you're so smart.
Because I'm not supposed to
use that word or whatever.
But it's like I forget
what to say when they're
telling me about friends
at school or problems
they're having.
It's somethings like
that sounds really hard.
Am I just supposed to
say, well, that's hard.
I can do hard things.
You can do hard things.
Do you have any advice?
CAROL DWECK: OK.
The question is if you can't
say smart, what can you say?
You can say so
many other things.
One thing is you can just
show interest in the process
that the child or other
person is engaging in.
In our research,
that's what we've
shown is effective:
focusing on the process,
or appreciating the process,
someone is engaging in
or that has engaged in.
So just show interest, ask
questions, give encouragement
if they've been
grappling with something
and they've tried new strategies
or stuck to the strategies.
One parent said, oh, I hate it
because I can't appreciate when
my child does something great.
I say, whoa, where'd
you get that from?
Of course you can appreciate
it, but then tie it
to something they engaged in.
Oh, you couldn't
do that yesterday.
You made progress.
That's so exciting.
Oh, that's great.
You really stuck to
it and learned it.
Or you tried all different
ways and look, that worked.
So you're really
appreciating some outcome
where they are,
and you're talking
about how they got there.
But if you don't have that
information, just ask them.
Never praise effort
that isn't there.
MALE SPEAKER: Got a
question from our Dory,
and then we'll go
back to the room.
So the question
from the Dory is how
do you think shame plays a role
in the growth mindset-- fixed
versus growth?
CAROL DWECK: Oh, that's
a great question.
We have studied
that, and we have
shown that shame is a big
factor in a fixed mindset.
You don't want to
take on a challenge.
It's humiliating to have the
set back within a fixed mindset.
It means you're not the
person you want to be,
and other people aren't going
to look at you in the same way.
We've studied it in adolescence.
Adolescents in a fixed
mindset feel incredible shame
when they are
excluded or rejected,
and that makes them want
to lash out violently.
For many years, many
people's research
has shown that shame is
not a productive emotion.
It makes you want
to hide or lash out,
both of which are
not going to get you,
in the long run,
where you want to be.
In a growth mindset, you
could feel very disappointed.
You can feel hurt.
You can feel guilty.
You can feel a lot of things.
But these are emotions that
allow you to go forward and be
constructive.
AUDIENCE: Hi, my name
is Jennifer and thanks
for coming to speak with us.
I worked on the K-12
education outreach team
here, focusing specifically
on computer science education
and diversity in that.
So I'm curious if you've
looked into how stereotypes may
interact with growth mindset.
For instance, thinking
that math is not for girls.
How does that interact
with growth mindset?
CAROL DWECK: Yes.
So how does the growth mindset
interact with stereotypes?
We've done extensive
research on that.
So a fixed mindset would be the
belief that I can't do math,
girls can't do math, et cetera.
And a growth mindset is it's
a learned set of skills.
Anyone can get better at them.
So notice, first of all, that
a stereotype is a fixed mindset
label.
It says it's fixed and certain
groups have it and certain
groups don't.
But in our research,
we also find
that when females have a fixed
mindset about math or computer
science, they're more
vulnerable to the stereotypes.
So in one study that we
did at Columbia University,
we found that when
women in calculus
have a fixed mindset
about their calculus,
their math abilities, when they
encountered stereotyping where
they felt their classmates
or the professors
thought women weren't as good
as men, they fell prey to that.
So as we tracked them over their
semester they started thinking,
I don't belong here, I
don't like this anymore,
I don't have confidence I
can succeed in this area.
And ultimately, they
did not intend as much
to take it in the future.
Whereas if they had
a growth mindset,
they did not like
the stereotyping,
but it didn't speak to them.
They didn't believe that
they couldn't improve, learn,
and succeed.
So they maintained
their confidence,
and maintained their
enjoyment of math,
and they maintained their desire
to take math in the future.
We just finished a study of
women in computer science
and are finding very
similar things in addition
to finding that teaching
a growth mindset
is helping women
withstand the stereotypes,
maintain their interest,
maintain the sense that it's
a field they belong in.
And these result in higher
grades in the course.
So we're very, very interested
in that intersection
between growth mindset
and stereotyping.
We also are finding at
the transition to college
that learning a
growth mindset helps
students from underrepresented
groups in general even more,
because it helps them deal
with stereotypes that they
might encounter.
MALE SPEAKER: Got another
Dory question here,
which I think is an
interesting take.
Do you see any context in
which a fixed mindset is more
beneficial to growth mindset?
CAROL DWECK: Well,
first let me say
that a growth mindset
doesn't require you to go
around improving everything.
You can focus.
And you can decide no,
I'm not going to do
that, I'm not going to do that.
But research, not my research,
but research of others
has, in fact, looked
at this question
and found two areas,
so far, in which
a fixed mindset is better.
One is sexual orientation.
People who accept that this
is who they are and this
is who they are meant to be
seem to be better adjusted
than people who think
I should be changing.
And the other is aging.
So it's nice to feel you can
stay young through exercise
and so forth, but people who
run around nipping, and tucking,
and the tummy tuck,
and the this, that,
and the other-- it's kind
of a desperate attempt
to retain extreme youth.
That doesn't seem to
be so great either.
But when it comes
to skill areas,
it looks like a growth mindset
is typically more advantageous.
AUDIENCE: Could you
identify specific behaviors
that one to try to
advancing on the journey
for an open mindset?
And how do you know that you're
not kidding yourself or falsely
believing that you are one?
How do you know
when you get there?
CAROL DWECK: Yes.
Great question.
What are some
specific behaviors you
can do to get yourself on
the road to a growth mindset?
Here are some ideas.
So first, if you have
a choice of something
safe versus the challenge,
take the challenge.
If you hit an obstacle,
try to interpret it
in a growth mindset way.
So what can I learn from this?
What can I do next?
As I mentioned
before, if you see
someone who's better than
you, go learn from them.
So those are a set
of behaviors you
can start doing in
addition to, as I also
mentioned before, monitoring
those fixed mindset triggers.
And this thing is that it's a
journey that one is always on.
It's not ever the
case that you've
arrived at a full,
permanent growth mindset.
It's something that you have
to look at all the time.
So listen to that voice in your
head at the trigger points,
because even I hear myself
saying sometimes in my head.
I was never good at that.
Whoa, did I say that?
So listen to that
voice that's constantly
running in your head.
And I actually recommend that
as a very, very first step.
The first few weeks that
you embark on this journey,
don't push yourself to
exhibit any growth mindset
characteristics.
Just listen to that voice
that says, don't try this,
you might look foolish.
You made a mistake.
If people knew that,
they wouldn't look at you
in the same way.
That person's better than me.
I hate them.
Just whatever that voice
is saying in your head,
listen to it.
And even do it with friends.
Discuss it.
Or when you see
someone doing something
that looks effortless,
are you thinking,
oh, they're just
brilliant and talented?
Catch yourself thinking that.
Or someone who's struggling,
are you thinking, oh, they're
not really good at that.
Albert Einstein says
I'm not that smart.
I'm not smarter
than other people.
And he meant it.
He said, I just stick
to things to longer.
That's why people thought
he was slow, originally.
He knew he didn't understand
time, space, energy,
and so forth.
So I would say the
very first step
is the first few weeks just
listen to that fixed mindset
voice.
It's there.
We all have it, and
if you don't hear it,
it will rule your behavior.
AUDIENCE: Thank you for coming.
I actually read your book right
before I started at Google.
And I know I have a
very fixed mindset,
and this is sort of a fixed
mindset question, even.
But have you seen patterns in
which kids have fixed mindsets?
Are there differences
across socioeconomic lines?
Do you see that
certain teachers--
most of their students will
have the growth mindset?
Do you see patterns with
who has the growth mindset,
and how does that
happen to kids?
CAROL DWECK: Yes.
So first of all,
I don't rule out
that there could be
temperamental factors.
You kids pop out differently.
And some of them you see they're
tearing around the world.
They fall down.
They get up.
And then other kids, you
look at them sideways,
and they think, what did I do?
So there could be these
temperamental factors.
But we've shown the
environment is really powerful.
We actually did a study where
we looked at mothers' praise
to babies.
And found that the praise
they gave to their one, two,
and three-year-olds predicted
the child's mindset and desire
for challenge five years later.
So that environment is powerful.
Another thing we found is
that the way parents reacts
to kids' mistakes is
this big determinant
of the child's mindset.
A parent can say, I
have a growth mindset.
But if a child makes
a mistake, and they
act like it's negative,
importantly negative,
or even if they excuse
it and gloss over it
in a way that communicates
to the child is negative.
That child is more likely to
have more of a fixed mindset.
So yeah, there can be
temperamental input.
The environment is powerful.
MALE SPEAKER: Right.
I want to thank you so
much for taking time
to come to Google today
and for the terrific turn
out that we have here
and, I know, virtually
through the live stream.
So thank you very much.
CAROL DWECK: Pleasure.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
