Turns out a bedrock parental cliche—"you can do anything if you put your mind to it"—is true. Research reveals that, if you teach students that their intelligence can grow and increase, they do better. Research psychologist Carol Dwek from Stanford University and her colleague Lisa Blackwell from Columbia University worked with hundreds of seventh graders, assessing which believed their intelligence was fixed and which thought that it could increase. The first group floundered over the next two years, while the latter thrived. The researchers then speculated that they could help by teaching the children who had the fixed mindset that they could actually grow their intelligence.
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