User:Emsparck/sandbox/Implicit Theories of Intelligence

In social and developmental psychology, an individual’s implicit theory of intelligence refers to their fundamental underlying beliefs regarding whether or not intelligence or abilities can change, developed by Carol Dweck and colleagues.

Brief History
Dweck and her collaborators began a social-cognitive approach to understanding how individuals unknowingly think about their intelligence and abilities through interpretations and interactions with their environment, ultimately effecting goals, motivation, self-esteem and behavior, first by looking at achievement motivation which led to the discovery of the existence of different beliefs or implicit theories of intelligence that influence behavior. It was noticed that some individuals thrived in the face of challenge while others quit or withdrew, and it was not actual differences in intelligence that predicted which path individuals would take.

Entity Theory vs. Incremental Theory
Specifically individuals can have one of two different implicit views, or mindsets, regarding their intelligence. Entity, or fixed, theorists believe that intelligence or ability is set and unchangeable, while incremental, or growth, theorists believe that intelligence or ability is malleable through hard work and effort. Incremental theorists “don’t necessarily believe that anyone can become an Einstein or Mozart, but they do understand even Einstein and Mozart had to put in years of effort to become who they were,” and are more concerned with learning than appearing intelligent or fear of making errors, while entity theorists are primarily concerned with preserving their competence. Individuals may fall on some spectrum between the two types of theories, and the view may change given different situations and training. By observing an individual’s motivation and behavior towards achievement, an individual’s general mindset regarding intelligence can be revealed. About 40% of the general population are entity theorists, 40% qualify as incremental theorists, and 20% do not fit neatly into either category.

Different Types of Goals
An individual’s motivation towards achievement is not just influenced by ability or actual intelligence, but also these differing implicit views and the types of goals associated with each. In fact, the best students are often most concerned with failure. J.G. Nicholls proposed two different types of goal orientations related to achievement, task involvement goals where individuals aim to better own their abilities and task or ego involvement goals where individuals want to better themselves compared to others. Dweck worked off of this dual goal notion, proposing “performance” goals and “learning” or “mastery” goals. “Performance goals” are associated with entity theory and lead individuals to perform actions in order to appear capable and avoid negative judgments regarding their capabilities, while “learning” or “mastery” goals are associated with incremental theory and lead individuals to engage and work in order to learn and master new things.

Response to Challenge
Individuals who believe they have the ability to grow and add to their knowledge or skill set pursue challenges that can aid in this growth on the path towards mastery. Individuals who believe their abilities are innate and fixed may seek challenges as long as they feel that their abilities will allow them to succeed and the challenge will not bring into question their intelligence. Both groups will persist in achievement. However, individuals who believe their abilities are unchangeable, but also lack confidence in those abilities, will often avoid, procrastinate, or possibly cheat in challenging situations that might make them appear incompetent and can lead to a sense of learned helplessness, which stymies intellectual growth.

Attribution of Failure
Attribution of failure and coping with that failure are highly related to mindset. Individuals who subscribe to an incremental view will attribute a failure to not yet having learned something, looking at something from the incorrect perspective, or not working hard enough, all of which can be corrected through effort, leading these individuals to continually seek any situation that will intellectually better themselves and engage in remedial action if necessary.

Self-Regulated Learning and Theory of Intelligence
Individuals thinking with an incremental mindset will take feedback and channel that into determination to try new and refined strategies for solving the given problem, a large part of self-regulated learning. As a result incremental theorists are more effective at self-regulated learning, ultimately leading them to be more productive at developing plans for learning, such as thinking about broad connecting themes which promote deeper processing of the material.

Self-esteem and Theory of Intelligence
Incremental individuals have general positive and stable self-esteem and do not question their intelligence in the face of failure, instead remaining eager and curious. Entity theorists attribute failure or having to exert effort to a lack of ability, and therefore if they do not succeed at some task, they are unlikely to seek similar tasks or quit trying, for fear of confirming their lack of ability. They believe that putting in effort will undermine their competence because if they were smart enough to begin with they would not need to put in effort. These individuals will limit themselves to situations where they believe they will succeed and may limit themselves in the face of negative feedback, which is likely to be interpreted as a personal attack on their ability. These individuals’ self-esteem as well as their enjoyment of a task may suffer when they encounter failure and the associated feelings of helplessness. Many children who see failure as a reflection of their intelligence will even lie about their scores to strangers to preserve their self-esteem and competence since they connect their judgments of self to their performance, while students who see the value of effort do not show such a tendency. Interestingly, students who achieve a great deal of academic success early on might be most likely to fall prey to the pitfalls of entity theory because they so frequently have been praised regarding their intelligence and may have faced fewer setbacks through which they had to learn to persist through errors. Longitudinal research shows that individuals who endorse an entity theory of intelligence experience decreasing self-esteem throughout their college years, while individuals who endorse an incremental theory of intelligence experience an increase.

Development of Implicit Theory of Intelligence
This implicit theory of intelligence develops at early age and is subtly influenced by parents and educators and the type of praise they give for successful work. Typically it has been assumed that any sort of praise will have a positive impact on self-confidence and achievement; however different types of praise can lead to the development of different views on intelligence. Young children who hear praise that values high intelligence as a measure of success, such as “You must be smart at these problems,” after solving difficult problems may link failure with a lack of intelligence and are more susceptible to developing an entity mindset. Often children are given high praise for their intelligence after relatively easy success, which rather than fostering confidence and enjoyment of learning, sets them up to develop counterproductive behaviors in dealing with academic setbacks. Rather students who receive praise valuing hard work as a measure of success, such as “You must have worked hard at these problems” after solving difficult problems, more often pursue mastery goals that underlie an incremental mindset. Praise for intelligence connects performance with ability, rather than effort, leading these individuals to develop “performance” goals to prove ability. Subtle differences in speech to children that promote non-generic praise (i.e. “You did a good job drawing”) versus generic praise (i.e. “You are a good drawer”), led children to respond to later criticism in a way that demonstrated an incremental mindset.

Shifting From Entity to Incremental Mindset to Improve Achievement
Understanding differences in achievement motivation and behavior between entity theorists and incremental theorists allows for the prediction of intellectual perseverance and can help assist in changing behaviors that may contribute to academic shortcomings for those with entity tendencies. While these implicit beliefs regarding where intelligence comes from that stem from stably and development permeate all aspects of behavior, it is possible to change peoples’ perspective on ability on a given task with the right priming. Dweck’s 2006 book Mindset: How You Can Fill Your Potential focuses on teaching individuals how they can encourage thinking with a growth mindset for a happier and more successful existence.

Elementary-Aged Students
When fifth graders are oriented towards the purpose of gaining skill, they will challenge themselves, but when they are oriented to focus on assessment they will pick a task at which they believe they will be successful and will show off their abilities, forgoing new learning if it means the possibility of making mistakes. If the situation is framed in a manner that emphasizes learning and process rather than success, mindset can be altered.

Middle School-Aged Children
Older students with low abilities transitioning between elementary school and middle school, a time when many students espousing an entity theory of intelligence begin to experience their first taste of academic difficulty, can be oriented to a growth mentality when taught that their brains are like muscles that get stronger through hard work and effort. This lesson can result in a marked improvement in grades compared to students with similar abilities and resources available to them who do not receive this information on the brain.

College-Aged Students
College students are able to overcome negative impacts of the stereotype threat, which results in a mindset similar to that of an entity theorist, after participating in a incremental thinking intervention and are quantitatively more successful and qualitatively happier students.

Success in School and on Tests
An individual’s implicit theory of intelligence can predict future success, particularly navigating life transitions that are often associated with challenging situations, such as elementary to middle school. Students followed throughout their middle school careers showed that those who possessed growth mindset tendencies made better grades and had a more positive view on the role of effort than students who possessed fixed mindset tendencies with similar abilities, two years following the initial survey. Entity theorists worry more about tests even in situations where they have experienced some success, spend less time practicing before tests, and thusly have reduced performance on IQ test relative to the incremental theorists. If the situation is framed in a manner that emphasizes learning and process rather than success, mindset can be altered. Entity theorists may engage in less practice to allow themselves an excuse besides low ability for potentially poor performance to preserve their egos. Students who have learning goals are more intrinsically motivated and successful in the face of a challenging college course. After a first test, those with learning were likely to improve their grades on the next test whereas that was not the case for performance goals, and in fact those with performance goals.

Negotiation Skills
Incremental theorists tend to have stronger negotiating skills, believing that with effort a better deal can be reached, which may have implications for more favorable working conditions for incremental theorists.

“Easily Learned = Easily Remembered” Heuristic
Individuals who believe their intelligence can grow really do think about and encode information in their world differently even outside of academic challenges, evidenced by different the use of different heuristics when making judgments of learning (JOLs). Entity theorists are generally guided by the principle “easily learned” means “easily remembered” such that during the encoding of information, these individuals will make low JOLs when fluency is relatively low (i.e. having to learning vocabulary words with no obvious relationship). Incremental theorists did not follow this “easily learned” means “easily remembered” principle, perhaps believing that if more effort is put into encoding the not as easy to learn words, those words will be better remembered and will result in higher JOLs even though fluency is low.

Other Behaviors Governed by Implicit Theories
Views regarding intelligence are just a single manifestation of a more general entity or incremental theory that reveals a great deal about a person’s view of the world and self. Generally an entity theorist will view all characteristics, in addition to intelligence, as innate and static while an incremental theorist see room for growth. Entity theorists engage in more stereotyping, feel more rigidity in these beliefs, and experience more difficulty when conflict arises, whereas incremental theorists are more open to beliefs and amenable during conflict. In intimate relationships, those who possess an incremental mindset tend to believe that people can change and exhibit more forgiveness than their entity theorist counterparts. Similarly, entity theorists are likely to endorse the fundamental attribution error than incremental theorists, who tend to focus much more on the situation at hand than making underlying judgments of character.