{"id":42556,"date":"2018-02-21T11:35:04","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T19:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=42556"},"modified":"2018-02-21T11:35:04","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T19:35:04","slug":"biggest-asset-academic-career-success-growth-mindset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/biggest-asset-academic-career-success-growth-mindset\/","title":{"rendered":"Your biggest asset for academic career success? A growth mindset"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nIs your latest career success testimony to your no doubt commendable talents? Connecting career achievements to ability seems obvious \u2013 and crucial in today\u2019s competitive academic environment.<\/p>\n

Yet we would argue that we are often blind to the connections between ourselves and our work, and seriously underestimate the influence that our mindset has over career success and happiness. This can be demonstrated by looking at two psychological approaches: the \u201cfixed\u201d mindset and the \u201cgrowth\u201d mindset.<\/p>\n

The fixed mindset: success based on self<\/strong><\/h4>\n

For Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, a \u201cfixed mindset\u201d is evident when a person\u2019s perceived accomplishments are psychologically associated with their abilities and attributes.\u00a0Ongoing work achievements provide sustaining self-verification and vindication. In other words, success happens because we are smart.<\/p>\n

Yet just as success is affirming, setbacks and failure can lead to perilous self-doubt and to worries about appearing competent and respected. Goals involving uncertainty, discomfort or higher risk of failure are, therefore, avoided. Ambition and creativity are reduced.<\/p>\n

Experiments show that when children with fixed mindsets fail artificially difficult tests, they buttress their self-esteem by being openly disparaging or looking down on peers. In a similar way, labelling colleagues as \u201cstruggling\u201d, or seeing them as inferior, leads to higher stress, \u201cpeer victimisation\u201d, aggressive retaliation and underperformance.<\/p>\n

As those with fixed mindsets assume that others\u2019 behaviour can\u2019t change, peer conflicts resulting from this perpetuate and escalate rather than resolve.<\/p>\n

Does talk in your workplace dwell on people\u2019s smartness and successes? It\u2019s ostensibly positive to celebrate awards, grants and publication achievements in websites, announcements and conversations. But our personal mindsets are also\u00a0influenced and reinforced by those of our working cultures.<\/p>\n

This can lead to workplaces that foster failure-avoidance, lower ambition and even unethical research conduct. Notably, the children who failed the experimental test also exhibited a higher willingness to cheat next time.<\/p>\n

With some academics confessing to using questionable research practices to increase the chance of success in their work \u2013 such as cutting studies short or withholding negative findings \u2013 fixed mindsets have important ethical consequences, too.<\/p>\n

The growth mindset: learning always<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Conversely, people with \u201cgrowth mindsets\u201d focus predominantly on bringing their hardest and most astute efforts to their work and, crucially, seek to improve by learning from whatever transpires.<\/p>\n

Research links the growth mindset with many benefits, including: greater comfort with taking personal risks and striving for more stretching goals; higher motivation; enhanced brain development across wider ranges of tasks; lower stress, anxiety and depression; better work relationships; and higher performance levels.<\/p>\n

These benefits don\u2019t happen because difficult work is avoided \u2013 it\u2019s actually more likely to be sought.<\/p>\n

However, despite research supporting the growth mindset, its influence in academia remains limited. More critically, the centrality of learning in academic work makes the growth mindset seem self-evident: we spend our careers developing new skills and teaching, so what\u2019s the new or big deal with the growth mindset?<\/p>\n

Beset with difficult work, financial constraints, bullying and poor mental health, it\u2019s also tempting for academics to dismiss the mindset as hollow positive thinking or a \u201cmagic solution\u201d that will only distract us from the real underlying problems and inequities in academia.\u00a0Yet we would argue that academia also primes us for the fixed mindset and an incapacity to change this.<\/p>\n

When doing challenging and sometimes uncertain work, it\u2019s more pleasant to dwell on successes and more reassuring to attribute achievements to our talents while casting others as less able than ourselves. Departments compound this by reinforcing the importance of staff abilities and past successes over their ongoing learning and effort.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, breaking our own fixed mindset spell is extremely difficult because our mindset itself determines our perceptions and unconscious biases.<\/p>\n

Strengthening your growth mindset<\/strong><\/h4>\n

When our mind, careers and workplaces are built around the fixed mindset, how can we grow our growth mindsets? In our new book, How to be a Happy Academic,<\/em>\u00a0we make some suggestions.<\/p>\n