Analyses of ancient dog DNA suggest that dogs were likely domesticated from Eurasian wolves around 23,000 years ago, possibly in Siberia.
Image credit: Pixabay/Chiemsee2016.
Contributed by Carol S. Dweck, May 25, 2016 (sent for review September 27, 2015; reviewed by Ross A. Thompson and Timothy D. Wilson)
Significance
This study is the first, to our knowledge, to show that a growth mindset (the belief that intelligence is not fixed and can be developed) reliably predicts achievement across a national sample of students, including virtually all of the schools and socioeconomic strata in Chile. It also explores the relationship between income and mindset for the first time, to our knowledge, finding that students from lower-income families were less likely to hold a growth mindset than their wealthier peers but that those who did hold a growth mindset were appreciably buffered against the deleterious effects of poverty on achievement. These results suggest that mindsets may be one mechanism through which economic disadvantage can affect achievement.
Abstract
Two largely separate bodies of empirical research have shown that academic achievement is influenced by structural factors, such as socioeconomic background, and psychological factors, such as students’ beliefs about their abilities. In this research, we use a nationwide sample of high school students from Chile to investigate how these factors interact on a systemic level. Confirming prior research, we find that family income is a strong predictor of achievement. Extending prior research, we find that a growth mindset (the belief that intelligence is not fixed and can be developed) is a comparably strong predictor of achievement and that it exhibits a positive relationship with achievement across all of the socioeconomic strata in the country. Furthermore, we find that students from lower-income families were less likely to hold a growth mindset than their wealthier peers, but those who did hold a growth mindset were appreciably buffered against the deleterious effects of poverty on achievement: students in the lowest 10th percentile of family income who exhibited a growth mindset showed academic performance as high as that of fixed mindset students from the 80th income percentile. These results suggest that students’ mindsets may temper or exacerbate the effects of economic disadvantage on a systemic level.
Footnotes
- ↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: sclaro{at}stanford.edu or dweck{at}stanford.edu.
Author contributions: S.C. designed research; S.C. and C.S.D. performed research; S.C. and D.P. analyzed data; S.C., D.P., and C.S.D. wrote the paper; and S.C., D.P., and C.S.D. designed figures.
Reviewers: R.A.T., University of California, Davis; and T.D.W., University of Virginia.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Data deposition: The original datasets used for this study belong to the Chilean Department of Education. Applications to access these datasets should be done at www.agenciaeducacion.cl/simce/bases-de-datos-nacionales/ for the SIMCE datasets. The JUNAEB dataset can be downloaded directly from their site at junaeb.cl/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/PRIORIDADES-2012-B%C3%81SICA-MEDIA-COMUNA-CON-IVE-SINAE-OFICIAL.xlsx.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1608207113/-/DCSupplemental.
Mindset tempers effects of poverty on achievement
Article Classifications
- Social Sciences
- Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
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