Implicit theories of intelligence
In social and developmental psychology, an individual's implicit theory of intelligence refers to his or her fundamental underlying beliefs regarding whether or not intelligence or abilities can change, developed by Carol Dweck and colleagues.
History
Ellen Leggett introduce implicit theories of intelligence in 1985. Her paper "Children's entity and incremental theories of intelligence: Relationships to achievement behavior" was presented at the 1985 meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association in Boston.As a result, Dweck and her collaborators began studying how individuals unknowingly assess their own intelligence and abilities through interaction and interpretation of their environment. It was assumed that these assessments ultimately influenced the individual's goals, motivations, behaviors, and self-esteem. The proposed theories was made to explain how individuals view and response to learning process and achievement relates to the motivational framework. The researchers began by looking at students who were highly motivated to achieve, and students who were not, though the levels of self-achievement were not clarified. They noticed that the highly motivated students thrived in the face of challenge while the other students quit or withdrew from their work, but critically, a student's raw intelligence did not predict whether a student was highly motivated or not. Rather, they discovered that these two groups of students held different beliefs about intelligence, categorized as entity or incremental theories, which affected their classroom performance.Entity theory vs. incremental theory
Carol Dweck identified two different mindsets regarding intelligence beliefs. The entity theory of intelligence refers to an individual's belief that abilities are fixed traits. For entity theorists, if perceived ability to perform a task is high, the perceived possibility for mastery is also high. In turn, if perceived ability is low, there is little perceived possibility of mastery, often regarded as an outlook of "learned helplessness". However, the incremental theory of intelligence proposes that intelligence and ability are malleable traits which can be improved upon through effort and hard work. For incremental theorists, there is a perceived possibility of mastery even when initial ability to perform a task is low. Those who subscribe to this theory of intelligence "don't necessarily believe that anyone can become an Einstein or Mozart, but they do understand even Einstein and Mozart had to put in years of effort to become who they were". This possibility of mastery contributes in part to intrinsic motivation of individuals to perform a task, since there is perceived potential for success in the task.Individuals may fall on some spectrum between the two types of theories, and their views may change given different situations and training. By observing an individual's motivation and behavior towards achievement, an individual's general mindset regarding intelligence is revealed. About 40% of the general population believe the entity theory, 40% believe the incremental theory, and 20% do not fit well into either category.
Performance level on a task is not always predetermined by an individual's mindset. Previous research on the subject has shown that when faced with failure on an initial task, those with an entity theory mindset will perform worse on subsequent tasks that measure the same ability than those with an incremental theory mindset. However, when the subsequent task measured a different ability, entity theorists performed better than incremental theorists. In certain situations, the incremental theorists' were self-critical about the previous failure; these thoughts disrupted their performance on the subsequent task. Incremental theorists' reactions to failure are traditionally seen as an "adaptive response", meaning they link the failure to insufficient effort and therefore search for ways to improve their performance. If there is no opportunity for improvement on the task, such as in the research study, thoughts of doubt about the failure affect future performance.
For the individuals who believed in an entity theory of intelligence, there were no such feelings of doubt when performing the second task because they perceived the task as not measuring the ability that they lacked on the initial task. After the first failure, self-critical thoughts are less likely to linger in their minds while performing the second task; the study points out that "entity theorists will not necessarily feel helpless because the second task does not measure the ability they think they lack". Therefore, in this study, entity theorists performed better on the subsequent task than did incremental theorists if the measured ability was different.
Furthermore, socialization plays a role in shaping students implicit view of their intelligence which can impact their academic performance, meaning that implicit theory of intelligence also vary across culture. In a recent study there is support on the association between students belief about intelligence and their academic performance using the Dweck's scale of intelligence. Student who have the belief of intelligence as incremental theorists show higher grades in specific subjects and in overall achievements. Meanwhile, students who have the belief of intelligence as entity theorist also showed higher grades in specific subjects but the effect was weaker. The study highlight that there is also cross-cultural differences association on how people belief of intelligence based on entity theory and incremental theory. Students from Eastern continents show a positive association between incremental theory beliefs and achievement; this means that collectivistic society emphasize students value the process of learning more than individual academic achievement and results. Meanwhile, European students displayed a positive association between entity theory beliefs and achievement; this means that in individualistic society there is more priority to individual academic achievement and results over the learning process. This study show that there is an important role of cultural differences that can be taken into account while talking about the implicit theory of intelligence.
Motivation toward achievement
Different types of goals
An individual's motivation towards achievement is shaped by their implicit theory of intelligence and its associated goals. J.G. Nicholls proposed two different types of goals related to achievement. Task involvement goals involve individuals aiming to improve their own abilities. Ego involvement goals involve individuals wanting to better themselves compared to others. Dweck modified Nicholls' ideas by proposing performance goals and mastery goals. Performance goals are associated with entity theory and lead individuals to perform actions in order to appear capable and avoid negative judgments about their skills. Mastery goals are associated with incremental theory and lead individuals to engage and work in order to gain expertise in new things.Response to challenge
Individuals who believe they have the ability to grow and add to their knowledge gladly accept challenges that can aid in growth towards mastery. Individuals who believe their abilities are fixed will also accept and persist through challenges as long as they feel they will succeed and their abilities will not be questioned. However, when these individuals lack confidence in their abilities, they will avoid, procrastinate, or possibly cheat in challenging situations that might make them appear incompetent. These behaviors can lead to a sense of learned helplessness and stymied intellectual growth.Research also suggests that the theories of intelligence are predictors of one's affective states when responding to challenges. Individuals with an incremental theory mindset are associated with positive emotions such as hope, pride, and enjoyment, which encourage persistence and direct engagement with challenges. Whereas individuals with an entity mindset are associated with negative emotions such as anger, shame, anxiety, likely leading to demotivation and avoidance behaviors.
Attribution of failure
Attribution of failure and coping with that failure are highly related to mindset. Individuals who subscribe to an incremental view will attribute a failure to not yet having learned something, looking at something from the incorrect perspective, or not working hard enough. All of these problems can be corrected through effort, leading incrementalist individuals to continually seek any situation that will intellectually better themselves. Also they are more likely to engage in remedial action to correct mistakes if necessary. Those with fixed intelligence views attribute failure to their own lack of ability.Self-regulation vs. Self-Handicapping
Individuals with an incremental mindset will take feedback and channel that into determination to try new strategies for solving a given problem, a large part of self-regulated learning. As a result, incrementalist individuals are more effective at self-regulated learning, ultimately leading them to be more productive at developing plans for learning and making connections between topics which promotes deeper processing of information.In addition to self-regulated learning, there is a strong positive correlation between incremental theory and behavioral self-regulation indicated by organizational behaviors such as planning and task completion, along with an association with positive affect. In contrast, individuals with entity theory mindsets had significant correlation with negative affect and self-handicapping behavior such as making excuses or procrastinating.
Self-esteem
Incrementalist individuals generally have positive and stable self-esteem, and are less likely to question their intelligence when faced with failure. Individuals with entity beliefs mostly attribute failure or having to exert effort to a lack of ability. Individuals with entity beliefs tend to attribute failure or exertion of effort to a lack of ability. Therefore, if an individual with entity beliefs does not succeed at some task, they are unlikely to seek similar tasks and may stop trying to solve the current task. They believe that putting in effort will undermine their competence because if they were smart enough to begin with, they would not need to put in effort. These individuals believe that exertion will undermine their competence as they tend to equate effort with a lack of intelligence. As such, these individuals tend to put themselves in situations where they believe they will succeed and may limit themselves in the face of negative feedback, as they are more likely to believe this feedback to be a direct attack on their ability. These individuals' self-esteem and enjoyment of a task may suffer when encountering failure and the associated feelings of helplessness.Many children who see failure as a reflection of their intelligence will lie about their scores to preserve their self-esteem and competence, since their self-concept is largely tied to their performance. Other ways of preserving self-esteem include mentioning expertise in other domains, or in some cases boasting about their wealth or possessions. Incrementalists, who place a greater value on effort, do not show such a tendency, instead viewing difficult problems as an opportunity for mastery. In an academic setting, many students who achieve a great deal of academic success early on may be more likely to develop an entity mindset because they so frequently have been praised regarding their intelligence. Additionally, these students may have faced fewer setbacks and lack experience persisting through errors. Longitudinal research shows that individuals who endorse entity beliefs tend to experience decreasing self-esteem throughout their college years, while individuals who endorse incremental beliefs tend to experience an increase.
Development
Implicit theories of intelligence develop at an early age and are subtly influenced by parents and educators and the type of praise they give for successful work. Typically it has been assumed that any type of praise will have a positive impact on a child's self-confidence and achievement. However, different types of praise can lead to the development of different views on intelligence including "person praise" and "process praise". Studies have shown that parents' type of praise to their children between the ages of 14 and 38 months was significant a predictor of the child's implicit theory of intelligence at age 7 to 8 years, even when the parent-child interactions were only measured and observed in 4.5 hours of interaction. Young children who hear "person praise" that values high intelligence as a measure of success may link failure with a lack of intelligence and are more likely to develop an entity mindset. Often, children are given high "person praise" for their intelligence after relatively easy success. This sets them up to develop counterproductive behaviors in dealing with setbacks in this domain, rather than fostering confidence and the enjoyment of learning. "Process praise" for intelligence connects performance with ability, rather than effort, leading these individuals to develop "performance" goals to prove competence. However, students who receive praise valuing hard work as a measure of success more often pursue mastery goals more characteristic of an incremental mindset. Furthermore, subtle differences in speech to children that promote non-generic praise versus generic praise, lead children to respond to later criticism in a way that demonstrates an incremental mindset. Therefore, parent use of process praise can influence children's later motivational frameworks of implicit theories of intelligence.Early on, children tend to subscribe to an incremental theory. This is consistent with findings that in general, children and adolescents tend to view traits as more flexible than adults. However, as children grow, their implicit theories can shift as they receive more fixed-mindset reinforcement. For example, it is thought that lack of challenge in school encourages an entity mindset, since hard work is not necessary nor rewarded. This lack of challenge also results in ability-based praise, further reinforcing the entity mindset.