Is Growth Mindset a Sham?

Unpacking a scientific controversy over how helpful it is to praise for effort.

As you know if you’re a regular reader of my newsletter or have read my book, I often refer to what’s called a “growth mindset” — an educational approach that involves praising kids for effort rather than ability.

If you’re not familiar with why a growth mindset is thought to be helpful or how to foster it, check out this newsletter I wrote a while back. But essentially, the idea is this: When kids are praised for effort rather than ability, and they connect their effort to their positive outcomes, they come to see ability and intelligence as malleable. They recognize that when they work hard and overcome challenges, they grow and become more skilled — and this recognition, supposedly, fosters motivation and resilience.

Today, I want to dig into a relatively new growth mindset controversy. It reached a fever pitch a few months ago when several new meta-analyses — research analyses that combine the results of multiple scientific studies — were published in an esteemed journal and came to vastly different conclusions.

One meta-analysis, conducted by Case Western University psychologist Brooke MacNamara and Georgia Tech psychologist Alexander Burgoyne, was particularly incendiary. Published in Psychological Bulletin, it concluded that “the apparent effects of growth mindset interventions on academic achievement are likely attributable to inadequate study design, reporting flaws, and bias” — in other words, the science on growth mindset is flawed, and the approach doesn’t actually boost kids’ grades.

Dr. MacNamara and Dr. Burgoyne also accused some well-known growth mindset researchers, including Stanford’s Carol Dweck, of promoting growth mindset for financial gain and letting their biases shape their research. This is A Very Big Accusation to make in academia, and as you can imagine, it got people riled up.

The other meta-analysis, published in the same journal issue, had a rather different take. In it, researchers at North Carolina State University, Tulane University, University of North Carolina Charlotte, the University of Richmond, and Siena College analyzed the effects of growth mindset and “found positive effects on academic outcomes, mental health, and social functioning, especially when interventions are delivered to people expected to benefit the most.”

So is growth mindset a farce? Or does it help struggling students?