Fixed mindset and growth mindset

Since the dawn of time, people have thought differently, acted differently, and fared differently with each other.

It was guaranteed that someone would ask the question of why people differed-why some people are smarter, and whether there was something that made them permanently different.

There are 2 common opinions on this. some people thought it is due to nature and some people thought it is because of nurture. but we also have a third view which stated both complied a person.

Physical changes

some said there is the sound physical basis for these differences, making them unavoidable and unchangeable. through the ages, the physical differences bump in the skull(phrenology), the size and shape of the skull(craniology), and, today genes.

Environmental and personal experiences

Do you know about Alfred Binet? the inventor of the IQ test. people like Alfred Binet said people do differ because of strong differences in people’s backgrounds, experiences, training or ways of learning.

The IQ test was not meant to summarize children’s unchangeable intelligence. Binet, a Frenchman working in Paris in the early twentieth century, prepared this test to identify children who were not profiting from the Paris public schools so that new educational programs could be designed to get them back on track

Binet didn’t deny individual differences in children’s intelligence, but he believed that education and practice could bring about fundamental changes in intelligence.

He wrote in his book,” modern ideas about children”, in which he beautifully summarizes his work with hundreds of children with learning difficulties:

“A few modern philosophers…assert that an individual's intelligence is a fixed quantity, a quantity which cannot be increased. we must protest and react against this brutal pessimism..with practice, training, and above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgment and literally to become more intelligent than we are before.”

So who is right?

Today most experts believe it’s not nature or nurture, genes or environment. but there is a constant give and take between the two.

For example, Gilbert Gottlieb, an eminent neuroscientist said, not only do genes and environment cooperate as we develop, but genes require input from the environment to work properly.

Today, scientists are learning that people have more capacity for lifelong learning and brain development than they ever thought. we know, every person has a unique genetic endowment.

People may start with different temperaments and different aptitudes, but it is clear that experience, training and personal effort take the rest of the way.

Robert Sternberg, the present-day guru of intelligence says :

“is not some fixed prior ability, but purposeful engagement.”

As Binet recognized :

“it’s always not the people who start out the smartest who end up the smartest.”

So we can’t ignore genes but we can improve our intelligence and attention by continues learning.

Game of mindsets

Fixed mindset

Believing that your qualities are carved in the stone — — THE FIXED MINDSET — — creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. if you have a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality. you are being criticized in your classroom, at your office and at public places. they are accusing you that you have a lower IQ.so, you are a backbencher. it’s unpleasant for us. because many people around us think that intelligence is fixed. so you are dumb. Let’s see another mindset.

The growth mindset

This mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. people can differ in which but in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments, everyone can change and grow through application and experience.

People with this mindset do not believe that anyone can be anything, that anyone with proper motivation or education can become Einstein or Beethoven?

No, but they believe that a person’s true potential is unknown (unknowable).

Darwin and Tolstoy were considered ordinary children.

Ben Hogan, one of the best golfers of all time, was completely ungraceful as a child.

The photographer Cindy Sherman, an important artist of the twentieth century, failed her first photography course.

The Geraldine page, one of the greatest actresses, was advised to give it up for lack of talent.

You can see how the belief cherished qualities can be developed creates a passion for learning. Why waste time proving over and over on how great you are, when you could be getting better?

Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them?

Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who also challenge you to grow?

And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you?

The passion of stretching yourself and sticking to it, even it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset.

This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the challenging times in their lives.