Fostering Personal Growth The Power of a Growth Mindset in Psychological Support

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Fostering Growth: Unveiling the Power of Mindsets

What can the field of positive psychology tell us about how to help HopeLine callers and texters? That question made me curious, so I began to read up on positive psychology. Positive psychology was started in 1999 by psychologist Martin Seligman. Seligman was interested in how helping professionals could go beyond reducing distress to increasing people’s well-being through the development of traits like character strengths. Hmmm…does that sound familiar? (For more on positive psychology: https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/our-mission and https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/positive-psychology-theory/.)

There couldn’t be a better fit between positive psychology and our HopeLine mission! HopeLine has been focused on supporting the personal development of our callers/texters by recognizing strengths since its very beginning. Today, let’s look at Stanford professor Carol Dweck’s Mindset. This popular book is backed by 30 years of Dweck’s research on students from elementary school to college. Her work has been applied to parenting, teaching, psychotherapy, personal growth, sports psychology, business and leadership, and relationships.

Mindset explores the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Someone with a fixed mindset believes that human attributes like intelligence, personality, and character are fixed aptitudes (natural abilities) that cannot be developed or changed.

Dweck explains that people with a fixed mindset:

Evaluate themselves and others constantly, and “keep score” as to who’s best
See one success = they are smart/talented/a winner
View one failure/rejection = they are stupid/a loser
Believe talent is everything and success should come naturally without effort
Have thinking patterns that could lead to depression and “stewing” about problems or not being good enough

Someone with a growth mindset sees human qualities as potential and believes talents, interests, and personality can be developed through effort, training, and experience—we can stretch ourselves. Although it’s not true that anyone can do anything, there are few predetermined limits on what a person can achieve.

Dweck’s research shows a growth mindset can be taught in schools, leading to increased motivation and school achievement. As Dweck puts it, “Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn’t mean that others can’t do it (and sometimes do it better) with training.”

People with a growth mindset have greater success in life because they:

Focus on self-improvement rather than evaluating themselves and others
Believe attributes can be developed through effort, strategies, and help from others
Love a challenge and throw themselves into learning and growing
Remain persistent, enthusiastic, and resilient in the face of challenges and obstacles
See, failure is a temporary setback. They can learn from mistakes and move on

Mindset isn’t all-or-nothing. You can have a fixed mindset regarding your intelligence, for example, and a growth mindset regarding your personality or other personal qualities.

Dweck says, “You can change your mindset…we are all a mixture of the two mindsets.” She says to work toward a growth mindset, you can:

Accept that you (and everyone else) have a fixed mindset at times
Learn what your fixed mindset triggers are (e.g., obstacles when someone outperforms you or when criticized). Don’t judge yourself—just observe.
Discover your fixed mindset thoughts, emotions, and actions. How do they impact others?
Anticipate your fixed mindset’s appearance when it is triggered.
Learn from the setback and move forward. Don’t let the experience derail you. Changing your mindset is an ongoing process that takes time!

Tips for teachers:

See the potential of all children, set high standards, but don’t say, “You can do anything.”
Praise effort toward their goals, their actual achievement, their development of resources and effective learning strategies, and their thinking for themselves
Don’t praise intelligence or talents because that interferes with motivation/performance
Avoid judging who’s smart and who’s not
Normalize failure as happening to everyone and an opportunity for learning

Tips for parents:

Teach your children to enjoy challenges
Help children see mistakes as areas for further learning
Avoid protecting children from failure, but empathize when they feel let down
Be honest when they fail, and don’t lie to them about it. Use constructive criticism
Don’t withhold love from children when they fail

Tips for relationships:

All relationships have issues. Expect differences to arise and plan to overcome them
Focus on developing each other and the relationship to reach full potential
Avoid competing with your partner about who is smarter, nicer, or more talented
Don’t blame yourself or your partner when problems arise—find ways to fix them
Focus on lessons learned after a breakup, let go and move forward

Tips for use with HopeLine callers/texters (in addition to the above tips):

Avoid the use of jargon: “You have a fixed mindset about….”
Allow the caller/texter to explore their emotional pain first
Validate their feelings of failure/hopelessness as understandable but not the end of things. Move them toward lessons learned, strengths, and new strategies
Lead the caller/texter to examine how they can learn from any setback/obstacle/failure
Weave in concepts from a growth mindset when you point out their strengths. Don’t say, “You’re smart,” but emphasize their effort, strategies, and thinking for themselves
Ask, “How can things be different in the future?”

References:

Seligman, M. E. P. (1999). Positive psychology: A new approach to mental health. American Psychologist, 55(1), 5-14. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.5
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House.
Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania. Our Mission. Positive Psychology Center. https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/our-mission
Positive Psychology Program. Positive Psychology Theory: An Introduction. Positive Psychology Program. https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/positive-psychology-theory/

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