Mindset Theory
What is Mindset Theory?
Mindset theory posits that people have different beliefs about the malleability of human attributes. Some believe qualities like intelligence can evolve with effort (growth mindset), while others see them as static and unchangeable (fixed mindset).
The Basic Idea
For some people, it seems like the sky’s the limit, while for others the ceiling is a bit lower, closer to earth. We sometimes see this dichotomy as optimists versus pessimists; the ambitious versus the less motivated. Classic bits of folklore starting with, “there are two types of people in this world,” typically fail to account for the people in between, but that doesn’t mean we can’t exist on a continuum of two perspectives.
One of these spectrums of unique perspectives is mindset: the idea that people hold differing beliefs regarding the malleability of human attributes.1 On one extreme is the view that these attributes, such as intelligence or personality, can be changed through effort and determination, while the other extreme is that these attributes are innate and remain fixed over time. Research has explored these two forms of mindsets and found that such lay beliefs can predict a variety of personal outcomes.
In one world, effort is a bad thing. It, like failure, means you’re not smart or talented. If you were, you wouldn’t need effort. In the other world, effort is what makes you smart or talented.
- Carol Dweck
About the Authors
Dan Pilat
Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.
Dr. Sekoul Krastev
Dr. Sekoul Krastev is a decision scientist and Co-Founder of The Decision Lab, one of the world's leading behavioral science consultancies. His team works with large organizations—Fortune 500 companies, governments, foundations and supernationals—to apply behavioral science and decision theory for social good. He holds a PhD in neuroscience from McGill University and is currently a visiting scholar at NYU. His work has been featured in academic journals as well as in The New York Times, Forbes, and Bloomberg. He is also the author of Intention (Wiley, 2024), a bestselling book on the science of human agency. Before founding The Decision Lab, he worked at the Boston Consulting Group and Google.
