Mindset module
This module will concentrate on mindsets, what they are and how can they be adapted for ensuring more positive results.
Objectives
Mindset definition
Mindset: A mental attitude or inclination (Merriam-Webster).
Mindset: A set of attitudes or fixed ideas that someone has and that are often difficult to change (Oxford Dictionary).
Mindset: refers to an established set of attitudes of a person or group concerning culture, values, philosophy, frame of reference, outlook, or disposition (Wikipedia).
Growth mindset - Carol Dweck
Carol S. Dweck is an American psychologist, she holds the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professorship of Psychology at Stanford University. Her research centers on the transformative power of how individuals perceive their own capabilities, distinguishing between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset.
What is relevant from Dweck's work for the MRL is how a simple concept that at face value would seem to be only relevant to the field of learning new skills, ends up relating to an incredible amount of inter-disciplinary concepts: from self-worth to ego, resilience systems, learning systems, emotional responses, communicative skills and much more.
"Believing that your qualities are carved in stone (the fixed mindset) creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over" Mindset (p. 6), Carol S. Dweck.
Those with a fixed mindset believe that intelligence and talent are static traits, leading to a desire to possess desirable traits such as being smart, sophisticated, talented or perfect. People with this mindset develop a tendency to avoid challenges given that they might put that self-image at risk, therefore trapping them into boxes of their own making.
They tend to catastrophize failures and are prone to quickly label themselves and others as insufficient, quickly pointing out the recurrent culprit: static personality traits and characteristics.
"Beyond how traumatic a setback can be in the fixed mindset, this mindset gives you good recipe for overcoming it. If failure means you lack competence or potential, that you are a failure, where do you go from there?" Mindset (p. 35), Carol S. Dweck.
In contrast, individuals with a growth mindset view their basic qualities as things that can be developed through dedication, hard work, and feedback. They tend to be governed by curiosity and shy away from labeling but rather enthusiastic about effort. This perspective creates a love for learning and a resilience that is beneficial when facing setbacks.
"The more depressed people with the growth mindset felt, the more they took action to confront their problems, the more they made sure to keep up with their schoolwork, and the more they kept up with their lives. The worse they felt, the more determined they became" Mindset (p. 38), Carol S. Dweck.
The core of Dweck's philosophy is that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. By shifting from a fixed to a growth mindset, people can change their internal dialogue from one of judgment and anxiety to one of curiosity and development. This transition allows individuals to embrace challenges as opportunities for growth rather than threats to their self-worth.
"In short, when people believe in fixed traits, they are always in danger of being measured by a failure. It can define them in a permanent way. Smart or talented as they may be, this mindset seems to rob them of their coping resources" Mindset (p. 39), Carol S. Dweck.
Ultimately, Mindset illustrates that while people may differ in every which way, in their initial talents and aptitudes, everyone can change and grow through application and experience.
According to Growth Mindset Institute these are the eight triggers of a fixed mindset:
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Mindset Beliefs: A baseline trigger where you believe your intelligence, talents, or personality are simply set in stone.
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High Effort: Feeling that if you have to work hard at something, you must not be naturally "good" at it; you believe things should come easily.
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Challenges: Avoiding tasks where the outcome is uncertain or where failure is a possibility.
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Setbacks & Failure: Being disproportionately affected by mistakes, viewing them as proof of incompetence rather than data for growth.
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Success of Others: Feeling threatened or insecure when peers succeed, often viewing success as a "limited resource".
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Comfort Zone: Getting anxious about unfamiliar tasks and resisting any change to the status quo.
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Feedback: Experiencing defensiveness or anxiety when receiving critique, often leading to total avoidance of feedback.
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Grit: A specific drop in motivation or persistence when a task is perceived as uninteresting or boring. In a fixed mindset, if the work isn't "inspiring," people are more likely to give up rather than persevere through the friction.
"People who believe in fixed traits feel an urgency to succeed, and when they do, they may feel more than pride. They may feel a sense of superiority, since success means that their fixed traits are better than other people's".
Carol S. Dweck
Viktor Frankl
"Ein Psycholog erlebt das Konzentrationslager" (A psychologist that survived a Concentration Camp) was the original title given by Frankl to his now famous 1946 book "Man's search for meaning" . It is of note that the original title of the first English translation, published in 1959 was "From Death-Camp to Existentialism". This denotes a close correlation between one of the most catastrophic events in human history and Frankl's interests in the field of Psychology.
"Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not"
"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms, to chose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way" Man's search for meaning (p. 75), Viktor Frankl
Viktor Frankl is relevant because as human beings we all face suffering but some people faced what might have been the worst catastrophe in human history. It is remarkable that even under those circumstances he developed a mindset that allowed him to find refuge in that horrible situation and helped him document so articulately the experience of being inside a concentration camp in World War II.
How often do we fall pray to justifying our own bad attitude? If one were to be so inclined, one would always find reasons to be in a terrible disposition. The mind of a person with a terrible mindset is constantly searching for injustices and when one is found, the justification to quit becomes too strong.
He observed that individuals who maintained a sense of purpose or a "will to meaning" were more likely to survive the physical and psychological trauma of the concentration camps in comparison with those who lost hope. Frankl's approach was rooted in the belief that while humans cannot always control their external circumstances, they retain the ultimate freedom to choose their spiritual and mental attitude toward those circumstances.
"Psychological observations of the prisoners have shown that only the men who allowed their inner hold on their moral and spiritual selves to subside eventually fell victim to the camp's degenerating influences....
... Such people forgot that often it is just such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself"
Regardless of social status, culture or economical position, no one is exempt of being put in a tragic situation, a situation which pushes one into circumstances that were not initially desired, the so called external circumstances, in other words, circumstances that are not a consequence of personal choice or action. Frankl was in an extreme example of an external circumstance that was completely undesirable and he survived by re-arranging his internal expectations and finding an element in himself that no one could take. Despite the removal of identity that the camps exerted on prisoners, despite torture and senseless work, devised to make everyone apathetic and suicidal, he found meaning, he found hope and spiritual depth.
"When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude"
Viktor Frankl
Links
Rediscovering Meaning and Purpose: An Approach to Burnout in the Time of COVID-19 and Beyond:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9746258/