Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
    • Front Matter Portal
    • Journal Club
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses
  • Submit
  • Submit
  • About
    • Editorial Board
    • PNAS Staff
    • FAQ
    • Accessibility Statement
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Journal Club
  • Subscribe
    • Subscription Rates
    • Subscriptions FAQ
    • Open Access
    • Recommend PNAS to Your Librarian

User menu

  • Log in
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
Home
Home
  • Log in
  • My Cart

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
    • Front Matter Portal
    • Journal Club
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses
  • Submit
Research Article

Growth mindset tempers the effects of poverty on academic achievement

Susana Claro, David Paunesku, and Carol S. Dweck
  1. aGraduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-3001;
  2. bDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305

See allHide authors and affiliations

PNAS August 2, 2016 113 (31) 8664-8668; first published July 18, 2016; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1608207113
Susana Claro
aGraduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-3001;
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: sclaro@stanford.edu dweck@stanford.edu
David Paunesku
bDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Carol S. Dweck
bDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: sclaro@stanford.edu dweck@stanford.edu
  1. Contributed by Carol S. Dweck, May 25, 2016 (sent for review September 27, 2015; reviewed by Ross A. Thompson and Timothy D. Wilson)

  • Article
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

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.

  • mindset
  • academic achievement
  • income
  • inequality
  • education equality

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.

View Full Text
PreviousNext
Back to top
Article Alerts
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on PNAS.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Growth mindset tempers the effects of poverty on academic achievement
(Your Name) has sent you a message from PNAS
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the PNAS web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Mindset tempers effects of poverty on achievement
Susana Claro, David Paunesku, Carol S. Dweck
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Aug 2016, 113 (31) 8664-8668; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1608207113

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Request Permissions
Share
Mindset tempers effects of poverty on achievement
Susana Claro, David Paunesku, Carol S. Dweck
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Aug 2016, 113 (31) 8664-8668; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1608207113
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Mendeley logo Mendeley

Article Classifications

  • Social Sciences
  • Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: 113 (31)
Table of Contents

Submit

Sign up for Article Alerts

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Materials and Methods
    • Results
    • Discussion
    • SI Materials and Methods
    • Acknowledgments
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF

You May Also be Interested in

Smoke emanates from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant a few days after tsunami damage
Core Concept: Muography offers a new way to see inside a multitude of objects
Muons penetrate much further than X-rays, they do essentially zero damage, and they are provided for free by the cosmos.
Image credit: Science Source/Digital Globe.
Water from a faucet fills a glass.
News Feature: How “forever chemicals” might impair the immune system
Researchers are exploring whether these ubiquitous fluorinated molecules might worsen infections or hamper vaccine effectiveness.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Dmitry Naumov.
Venus flytrap captures a fly.
Journal Club: Venus flytrap mechanism could shed light on how plants sense touch
One protein seems to play a key role in touch sensitivity for flytraps and other meat-eating plants.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Kuttelvaserova Stuchelova.
Illustration of groups of people chatting
Exploring the length of human conversations
Adam Mastroianni and Daniel Gilbert explore why conversations almost never end when people want them to.
Listen
Past PodcastsSubscribe
Panda bear hanging in a tree
How horse manure helps giant pandas tolerate cold
A study finds that giant pandas roll in horse manure to increase their cold tolerance.
Image credit: Fuwen Wei.

Similar Articles

Site Logo
Powered by HighWire
  • Submit Manuscript
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS Feeds
  • Email Alerts

Articles

  • Current Issue
  • Special Feature Articles – Most Recent
  • List of Issues

PNAS Portals

  • Anthropology
  • Chemistry
  • Classics
  • Front Matter
  • Physics
  • Sustainability Science
  • Teaching Resources

Information

  • Authors
  • Editorial Board
  • Reviewers
  • Subscribers
  • Librarians
  • Press
  • Cozzarelli Prize
  • Site Map
  • PNAS Updates
  • FAQs
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Rights & Permissions
  • About
  • Contact

Feedback    Privacy/Legal

Copyright © 2021 National Academy of Sciences. Online ISSN 1091-6490