WEBVTT 00:00:10.490 --> 00:00:12.490 My name is Carol Dweck. 00:00:12.490 --> 00:00:16.430 I'm a professor of psychology at Stanford University. 00:00:16.430 --> 00:00:22.900 My research shows that some students believe their intelligence is just a fixed trait. 00:00:22.900 --> 00:00:25.510 They have a certain amount and that's that. 00:00:25.510 --> 00:00:28.810 It's carved in stone; they can't get any more. 00:00:28.810 --> 00:00:33.510 When students believe that, they worry about challenges. 00:00:33.510 --> 00:00:38.180 "If I make a mistake, will it mean I'm not smart?" 00:00:38.180 --> 00:00:42.530 They want to take tasks they're sure they're good at. 00:00:42.530 --> 00:00:49.670 Their primary goal in school is to look smart, or at least don't look dumb. 00:00:49.670 --> 00:00:52.120 Other students think, "That's silly. 00:00:52.120 --> 00:00:55.450 Your intelligence is something you can develop 00:00:55.450 --> 00:00:59.200 over your whole life through effort and education." 00:00:59.200 --> 00:01:03.830 They don't think everyone's the same, but they think everyone can get smarter. 00:01:03.830 --> 00:01:09.950 When they have this view, first and foremost they want to learn. 00:01:09.950 --> 00:01:15.030 They want to do challenging things that will make them smarter, 00:01:15.030 --> 00:01:18.270 and they don't worry about mistakes. 00:01:18.270 --> 00:01:21.540 Mistakes are just part of learning. 00:01:21.540 --> 00:01:24.470 The students who have the fixed view 00:01:24.470 --> 00:01:28.500 of intelligence have what we call performance goals. 00:01:28.500 --> 00:01:32.270 They want to look smart in their schoolwork. 00:01:32.270 --> 00:01:38.110 They don't want to do anything where they're not sure they can do it really well 00:01:38.110 --> 00:01:41.850 and show themselves to be really competent. 00:01:41.850 --> 00:01:48.820 Students who have a growth view of intelligence, the idea that you can get smarter 00:01:48.820 --> 00:01:51.530 through learning, have learning goals. 00:01:51.530 --> 00:02:00.320 They think the main thing they want to do in school is learn new things and become smarter. 00:02:00.320 --> 00:02:09.570 Many students believe that math ability is just fixed-you have it or you don't. 00:02:09.570 --> 00:02:16.030 And then there's a stereotype on top of that that says, "Oh, maybe boys have more 00:02:16.030 --> 00:02:18.790 of it and girls have less of it." 00:02:18.790 --> 00:02:24.820 Girls are often afflicted by this stereotype, and a lot of them end up dropping 00:02:24.820 --> 00:02:30.620 out because they buy into this fixed idea that they don't have it. 00:02:30.620 --> 00:02:35.890 When you have the fixed idea and you experience difficulty, get confused, 00:02:35.890 --> 00:02:39.680 get a poor grade on a test, you go, "Oh! 00:02:39.680 --> 00:02:41.880 I guess it means I don't have it. 00:02:41.880 --> 00:02:44.550 I better do something else." 00:02:44.550 --> 00:02:51.120 When you have a view that math abilities are something that you can learn, 00:02:51.120 --> 00:02:56.810 then when you hit difficulty or even failure, you say, "Well, 00:02:56.810 --> 00:02:59.060 I've got to learn in a different way. 00:02:59.060 --> 00:03:00.930 I've go to put more into this. 00:03:00.930 --> 00:03:02.690 I've got to work with the teacher. 00:03:02.690 --> 00:03:05.420 I've got to do more homework." 00:03:05.420 --> 00:03:11.090 You feel that you can overcome these obstacles because it's a skill you can acquire. 00:03:11.090 --> 00:03:16.530 In a lot of research we've shown that students who have this growth mindset 00:03:16.530 --> 00:03:20.520 about their ability-they believe it can be increased-do better 00:03:20.520 --> 00:03:22.890 over challenging school transitions. 00:03:22.890 --> 00:03:28.090 They do better on hard tasks in school in difficult courses. 00:03:28.090 --> 00:03:35.850 So we decided, why not teach some students a growth mindset and see if this helps them, 00:03:35.850 --> 00:03:40.830 especially in math where so many students stumble when they go 00:03:40.830 --> 00:03:45.810 from grade school to junior high or middle school. 00:03:45.810 --> 00:03:50.170 We identified students who were struggling in math. 00:03:50.170 --> 00:03:59.530 We gave half of them an eight session workshop full of fantastic study skills. 00:03:59.530 --> 00:04:03.140 We gave the other half eight sessions as well. 00:04:03.140 --> 00:04:07.850 Some study skills, but also a growth mindset. 00:04:07.850 --> 00:04:11.480 They read an article about the brain. 00:04:11.480 --> 00:04:18.180 They learned that the brain becomes stronger when you exercise it, 00:04:18.180 --> 00:04:22.079 and that every time you stretch yourself, work hard, 00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:26.180 and learn something new, the brain forms new connections. 00:04:26.180 --> 00:04:28.700 Over time you get smarter. 00:04:28.700 --> 00:04:30.870 The group that just got the study skills, 00:04:30.870 --> 00:04:34.730 continued to show a decline in their math grades. 00:04:34.730 --> 00:04:42.130 The group that got study skills plus a growth mindset showed a rebound. 00:04:42.130 --> 00:04:49.000 Also, the teachers identified-could identify-even though they didn't know there were 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:55.350 two groups, the teachers could pick out-picked out three times as many students who were 00:04:55.350 --> 00:05:02.630 in the growth mindset workshop to say that they showed remarkable changes in their motivation. 00:05:02.630 --> 00:05:07.720 And you could even see it when you were delivering the workshop. 00:05:07.720 --> 00:05:13.040 When we introduced the idea that you are in charge of your brain, 00:05:13.040 --> 00:05:19.300 you could make yourself smarter, you could form new connections-one of the most difficult, 00:05:19.300 --> 00:05:26.120 turned off kids in the class looked up and said, "You mean, I don't have to be dumb?" 00:05:26.120 --> 00:05:31.090 And that was one of the many students who caught fire. 00:05:31.090 --> 00:05:34.920 Whether it was a boy who was turned off to school or a girl 00:05:34.920 --> 00:05:39.810 who doubted her abilities in math, they caught fire. 00:05:39.810 --> 00:05:45.630 Other people have-like Joshua Aronson and Katherine Good have done similar interventions 00:05:45.630 --> 00:05:53.010 and they found that not only were students in general helped by learning the growth mindset, 00:05:53.010 --> 00:05:58.010 but it closed the gap between boys and girls in math. 00:05:58.010 --> 00:06:04.190 After all, a stereotype in math is like a fixed mindset. 00:06:04.190 --> 00:06:06.770 Some people have it; some people don't. 00:06:06.770 --> 00:06:08.360 Your group doesn't. 00:06:08.360 --> 00:06:13.180 But a growth mindset says to kids, "You can get it. 00:06:13.180 --> 00:06:17.050 Maybe your group hasn't had it in the past. 00:06:17.050 --> 00:06:19.970 For a number of reasons-people didn't believe in them, 00:06:19.970 --> 00:06:25.100 they didn't have the experience-but they can get it." 00:06:25.100 --> 00:06:31.880 And so in these studies we see that girls profit even more than boys 00:06:31.880 --> 00:06:37.070 by learning the growth mindset-because it helps them combat the stereotype. 00:06:37.070 --> 00:06:41.020 We taught math lessons to girls and boys. 00:06:41.020 --> 00:06:49.090 For half of them we told them about math geniuses who were just born that way. 00:06:49.090 --> 00:06:53.640 You know how teachers like to spice up lessons with a little history? 00:06:53.640 --> 00:06:58.080 So we told them about some math geniuses who were just born that way, 00:06:58.080 --> 00:07:01.010 and then we taught them the math lesson. 00:07:01.010 --> 00:07:08.000 The other half of the students were told about math geniuses who fell in love with math 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:13.420 and were able to develop their amazing mathematical skills 00:07:13.420 --> 00:07:18.610 because of the effort and passion they put into it. 00:07:18.610 --> 00:07:21.110 So what were we teaching in the first case? 00:07:21.110 --> 00:07:23.900 We were saying you're born with it or you aren't. 00:07:23.900 --> 00:07:29.330 In the second case we're saying, "If you love math, you develop your ability." 00:07:29.330 --> 00:07:36.000 What we saw was that when girls heard the first lesson-"Math is fixed, you're born with it 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:42.490 or you aren't"-they really fell prey to the stereotype and did very poorly 00:07:42.490 --> 00:07:46.180 on a challenging math test afterwards. 00:07:46.180 --> 00:07:52.770 When girls heard, "You just fall in love with it and work hard and become good at it," 00:07:52.770 --> 00:07:55.820 they didn't fall prey to the stereotype. 00:07:55.820 --> 00:08:03.590 They maintained their motivation and performance even in the face of stereotypes about females. 00:08:03.590 --> 00:08:08.660 There are no differences in mathematical ability in young children. 00:08:08.660 --> 00:08:16.570 It doesn't look as though boys come wired for math and girls come wired for something else. 00:08:16.570 --> 00:08:21.330 The brains are equally adept at math to begin with, 00:08:21.330 --> 00:08:26.230 in every area of math that you can think of. 00:08:26.230 --> 00:08:33.950 So girls need to know that they can form new connections as well as boys can. 00:08:33.950 --> 00:08:39.240 Also, girls need to know that boys sometimes struggle. 00:08:39.240 --> 00:08:46.550 It doesn't come easily to all of them just because they're males, so they need to know 00:08:46.550 --> 00:08:51.050 that struggling is part of learning 00:08:51.050 --> 00:08:58.560 and that their brains form new connections as well as boys' do.