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Research Journal in Organizational Psychology and Educational Studies (ISSN: 2276-8475) 1(3):174-184
Carol Dwecks Views on Achievement and Intelligence: Implications for Education
LITERATURE REVIEW
This literature review will be broken into three
subsections. The first section will focus on Dwecks
research involving learned helplessness and students
beliefs about abilities in the academic realm. The
second section will cover research in the social realm
concerning students beliefs about abilities. The last
section will deal with implicit theories, including
stereotypes, which have emerged from the research in
the first two sections.
Dweck has been investigating intelligence and selfconcepts for over 30 years.
Her research is
significant because she investigates how self-concept
affects student achievement, motivation, goal-setting
and sense of intelligence. Because of the No Child
Left Behind (NCLB) Act passed in 2001, the zeitgeist
of public schooling is one of teacher-accountability
and the quest to help all students succeed all of the
time. The Department of Educations (DOE) No
Child Left Behind: A Parents Guide (2003) reports
that all states must produce annual report cards that
provide information on student achievement in the
175
Research Journal in Organizational Psychology and Educational Studies (ISSN: 2276-8475) 1(3):174-184
Carol Dwecks Views on Achievement and Intelligence: Implications for Education
Research Journal in Organizational Psychology and Educational Studies (ISSN: 2276-8475) 1(3):174-184
Carol Dwecks Views on Achievement and Intelligence: Implications for Education
Diener and Dweck (1978) reported that the masteryoriented children divided their explanations for their
failures among lack of effort, bad luck, the fairness of
the experimenter, and the increased difficulty of the
task (p.456). Helpless children, on the other hand,
attributed their failures primarily to ability and
increased difficulty in the task. Thus, masteryoriented children did not see their ability as an issue,
whereas helpless children did. Diener and Dweck
(1978) also found that helpless children used
ineffectual hypotheses significantly more than
mastery-oriented children. Upon further analysis, the
researchers discovered that helpless childrens
strategies deteriorated quite a bit more than masteryoriented childrens strategies following failure.
Mastery-oriented childrens strategies, on the other
hand, stayed the same, and in some cases, increased
in sophistication following failure feedback.
Research Journal in Organizational Psychology and Educational Studies (ISSN: 2276-8475) 1(3):174-184
Carol Dwecks Views on Achievement and Intelligence: Implications for Education
Research Journal in Organizational Psychology and Educational Studies (ISSN: 2276-8475) 1(3):174-184
Carol Dwecks Views on Achievement and Intelligence: Implications for Education
out a friendship inventory and a peer roster-andrating inventory (also known as a liking inventory).
The friendship inventory and liking inventory helped
control for popularity and liking as factors that might
influence subjects post rejection decisions or
withdrawal and perseverance. The subjects were told
they were being considered for a pen pal club. The
subjects had to record a first message to a pen pal that
would be used by the program committee to decide
whether or not the subject should be accepted into the
club. The experimenters provided a mild rejection
feedback to the subjects, and offered them the
opportunity to send another message to reverse the
decision. The researchers found that 64% of the
children who either perseverated or withdrew,
following the rejection experience, emphasized
incompetence attributions. The remaining children
were distributed evenly over the other categories
incompatibility, chance mood, misunderstanding, and
rejector), but all had rated incompetence as the
second most likely reason. The subjects who
emphasized incompetence (e.g., Its hard for you to
keep friends) produced less message change than
any other attribution group. Those who emphasized
incompatibility attributions (e.g., He/she didnt like
the kind of person you are) produced the greatest
information increase (p. 251). Thus, percent of
increase of information was systematically related to
attribution category (p. 254).
Research Journal in Organizational Psychology and Educational Studies (ISSN: 2276-8475) 1(3):174-184
Carol Dwecks Views on Achievement and Intelligence: Implications for Education
Following the slideshow, subjects completed a 15item rating scale (1 8) describing the traits of the
boy. Subjects completed an additional eight point
scale question indicating whether the subjects
believed the boy would be very much the same or
very different if they observed him again in a few
weeks (p. 867). Erdley and Dweck (1993) found
that entity theorists rating of negative traits of the
boy stayed the same, as did the amount of change
they predicted would occur in the boys personality in
the future. Furthermore, incremental theorists did
vary in their evaluations as a function of condition.
No evidence was obtained for negative
generalization (p. 868).
These results largely
supported Erdley and Dwecks original hypotheses,
that entity theorists would predict less change in the
boy than incremental theorists, and that entity
theorists would not acknowledge changes in the
boys traits to the same extent as incremental
theorists. These findings spurred Erdley and Dweck
to complete a second study (Study 2).
Research Journal in Organizational Psychology and Educational Studies (ISSN: 2276-8475) 1(3):174-184
Carol Dwecks Views on Achievement and Intelligence: Implications for Education
Research Journal in Organizational Psychology and Educational Studies (ISSN: 2276-8475) 1(3):174-184
Carol Dwecks Views on Achievement and Intelligence: Implications for Education
Research Journal in Organizational Psychology and Educational Studies (ISSN: 2276-8475) 1(3):174-184
Carol Dwecks Views on Achievement and Intelligence: Implications for Education
REFERENCES
Blackwell, L. S., Trzesniewski, K. H., & Dweck, C.
S. (2007). Implicit theories of intelligence predict
achievement across an adolescent transition: A
longitudinal study and an intervention. Child
Development, 78, 246-263. Retrieved September 15,
2007, from http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/
Diener, C. I., & Dweck, C. S. (1978). An analysis of
learned helplessness: Continuous changes in
performance, strategy, and achievement cognitions
following failure. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 36(5), pp. 451-462.
CONCLUSION
Dweck has devoted over 30 years to researching how
peoples perceptions of their intelligence, abilities,
and performance affect their achievement. Her
extensive research shows that when people believe
their intelligence or their ability to perform a certain
task, either academic or social, is a fixed entity, their
achievement will be lower than those who believe
that their intelligence or abilities are changeable or
incremental.
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Research Journal in Organizational Psychology and Educational Studies (ISSN: 2276-8475) 1(3):174-184
Carol Dwecks Views on Achievement and Intelligence: Implications for Education
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