Carol Dweck was honored for her Distinguished Scientific Contribution in the 2012 Awards Issue of the American Psychologist. This was for her work on Mindsets and human nature: Promoting change in the Middle East, the schoolyard, the racial divide, and willpower. She summarized her work and other research in an article in the same publication (Dweck, 2012) that demonstrates how our beliefs about human traits and attributes, like intelligence and personality characteristics, can change and are subject to, what in the past was referred to as the Pygmalion effect (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968); basically a self fulfilling prophecy set forth by priming. The Rosenthal & Jacobson research did indeed show that students of teachers primed with higher expectations for them actually performed better, or up to those higher expectations in comparison with a control group of students of equal ability and equivalent historic performance. The suggestion is that the teachers in this case unknowingly treated the higher expectation students differently than equivalent students where no or a lower expectations were set.
Dweck reviewed a series of
studies that showed that, not only do beliefs about whether people’s traits and
attributes guide expectations and behaviors, but also that beliefs and related
expectations and behaviors are subject to change via priming.
In the experiments Dweck
described, baselines were set by assessing whether subject mindsets were fixed
or open, for example with regard to whether people can change or not, and their
subsequent thoughts and behaviors with respect to subject-others or their
personal characteristics. As expected, findings
indicated that those with fixed mindsets tend to avoid challenges, show less resilience
in the face of setbacks, tend to rapidly judge individuals and groups, and generally
reject information that is contrary to held beliefs. This is in contrast with those with open
mindsets that tend to seek challenging opportunities; show greater resilience in
the face of setbacks; tend toward understanding peoples behaviors as being
situationally or contextually driven, as opposed to being the result of psychological
traits; and, that are less likely to affix labels and more likely to update
impressions in the face of new information.
Baselines were followed by experiments
where subjects were primed with reading materials that either reflected a fixed
or open mindset; for example evidence that groups and individuals that are evil
or aggressive will always be that way, vs. evidence that groups and individuals
are not inherently evil and can learn from new information or experience
respectively.
A promising result came from
a study involving Israeli and Palestinian attitudes toward one
another where those with seemingly intractable baselines, from both sides, who
were primed with an open mindset article,
developed more favorable attitudes toward the other side and became more open
to actions and compromises for resolving disputes. This was also the case with a study involving adolescent
bullies and victim aggression where adolescents provided with a personal rejection
scenario and subsequently primed with an open mindset article, assigned 40%
less retaliatory measures and wrote more pro-social notes about their
experience to the aggressor in the scenario.
Individual beliefs about
whether willpower or energy are limited, or non-limited were also found to be
predicted by mindset. In the last study
Dweck summarized a limited mindset predicted worse self regulation in the last
weeks of final exams (unhealthy eating, more procrastination vs. studying) at a
university. In the same study, providing
sugar to those who believed that sugar would help restore energy (limited
glucose theory) was only helpful to those who believed in limited willpower. In fact those with limited willpower beliefs
showed restored performance when they thought they ingested sugar even though
they did not. This placebo effect is
consistent with studies indicating that a significant percentage of the
effectiveness of medications is dependent upon who gives it to you (McKay, Imel,
& Wampold, 2006; Wampold, & Brown, 2005).
And so I must ask myself, what
is the role my mindsets play with respect to the outcome of the individuals in my
care? How are mindset and priming
incorporated into organizational cultures; and, what role might priming play in
building individual self-efficacy and patient outcome. How can organizations in treatment systems
better serve patients by priming for the best of expectations when making referrals?
