She found that there are other people, though, who approach uncharted territory with trepidation because a possible failure, to them, seems like a pretty damning experience. These people have what she calls a “fixed mindset”: they believe that disposition and personal characteristics are unchangeable—that people are born with a set amount of intelligence or capacity. Poor performance, to these individuals, implies a lack of ability that can’t be overcome. Winning rather than learning is the goal, because failure defines who they are overall. Those with a fixed mindset view taking risks as a potential way of exposing their shortcomings, faults, and weaknesses. So rather than risk others finding out they are not capable of performing, they avoid even trying—which ultimately proves destructive, as they avoid opportunities to learn more.
The thing about these two different types of mindsets is that they change how our brains respond to mistakes we make. There’s a test based on Dweck’s work that researchers give that assesses people’s mindset. You can take it here. Using this scale, how much do you agree or disagree with the three statements below? When you’ve answered them all, sum up your answers, and divide by three.
MINDSET TEST
1 2 3 4 5 6
Strongly Agree Agree Mostly Agree Mostly Disagree Disagree Strongly Disagree
You have a certain amount of intelligence, and you really can’t do much to change it.
Your intelligence is something about you that you can’t change very much.
You can learn new things, but you can’t really change your basic intelligence.
Now, there’s no score that diagnoses you as having a growth or fixed mindset—in fact, your score could change if your beliefs about ability do. But people with higher average scores (think four and higher) tend to think people can learn new skills. On the other hand, people with lower average scores (like three and lower) tend to believe that you can’t really change something like your basic intelligence—that you have a certain amount of it, and really can’t do much to increase it.
Psychologist Jason Moser and his colleagues at Michigan State University administered this mindset test to research participants. They also created another interesting test, a visual search game in which participants had to quickly and accurately identify whether there was a mismatch in an image they saw. They asked participants if the images in the periphery were the same as the ones in the middle. Moser had the students take this test while wearing an EEG cap measuring brain activity across sixty-four points. Moser was interested specifically in the “Pe signal.” This is a brain wave that peaks when a person is consciously aware of having made a mistake; it can detect an individual’s awareness of that mistake in as little as one fifth of a second. Faster than the snap of a finger.
Moser knew which students held a stronger growth versus fixed mindset as they thought about whether intelligence is something you are born with or develop. From these differences in mindset, Moser could predict whose brains would pick up on their mistakes and whose brains would, in a sense, deny that they ever made any. Individuals with a growth mindset showed enhanced Pe amplitude. Neurologically, they were acknowledging whenever they’d made an error. Compare this to individuals who held a fixed mindset. Their neurological profiles were muted, as if they were not recognizing when they made a mistake. Importantly, recognition of error was key to improving performance on the test later on. Individuals with greater Pe responses performed better at the task almost immediately. A growth mindset allowed for faster recognition of mistakes, which helped the students learn, rebound, and improve.
When we pay attention to our mistakes and believe that they don’t mark us as incapable but instead give us an opportunity to grow, we also experience healthier mental lives and positive well-being. Researchers trained NCAA Division I athletes to adopt a growth mindset. Having learned to approach the possibility of failure as an opportunity for advancement, these athletes were less stressed, handled their own feelings of disappointment better, and had more energy to throw into their respective sports. Another study trained college rowers to use a growth mindset. These athletes developed mental toughness. They showed stronger belief in their own ability to achieve, which is a key component of success.
And success is defined by more than just shaving a few seconds off the timer or nailing another three-pointer. Success can take the form of rebirth. Bethany Hamilton is a professional surfer who experienced a horrific accident that changed the course of her life. She was winning competitions when she was only eight years old. In 2003, at the age of thirteen, she went out for a surf at Tunnels Beach in Kauai with her best friend, Alana Blanchard, and her family. It was 7:30 a.m. The light was perfect. The sand was golden and the cliffs were shrouded in green at the mouth of the bay. The turtles were swimming all around them. As Hamilton lay on her board, with her left arm dangling in the water, a fourteen-foot tiger shark swam up and bit her.
Her friends paddled her back to shore. Blanchard’s father created a tourniquet from a surfboard strap. They rushed her to the hospital. She was in shock, having lost 60 percent of the blood in her body. Her left arm was nearly entirely gone. But three weeks after the attack, Bethany Hamilton left the hospital. One week after that, she was back on her board surfing again. Within a year, she would go on to win first place in the Australian National Scholastic Surfing Association competition, and she is now ranked as one of the top fifty female surfers in the world.