Growth mindset and academic achievement in Chinese adolescents: A moderated mediation model of reasoning ability and self-affirmation

Health Workers' Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Resilience During COVID-19 Pandemic

Background

Research indicates that a significant number of healthcare workers accounted for all confirmed Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases, and many of the infected healthcare workers were asymptomatic. During the COVID-19 outbreak, a considerable number of people in Taiwan contracted the disease. Therefore, health workers in Taiwan often experienced lack of medical resources, and this problem is worse for outer island areas. In terms of stress and mental health, this study investigated the effect of poor healthcare capacity and high workload on health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study also explored mindfulness-based stress reduction and resilience in health workers.

Methods

This study conducted an in-depth interview to investigate stress perceived by health workers in a hospital located on an outer island of Taiwan as well as their mental health and stress relieving strategies.

Results

It was found that during the COVID-19 outbreak, some common sources of stress for health workers included exposure to infectious diseases, heavy workloads, facing ethical dilemma in clinical decision-making, and unfamiliar problems from the pandemic. These types of stress cause worries, anxiety, and depression in health workers, which affects their mental and physical health as well as their patient-care performance.

Conclusion

This study proposed that mindfulness-based stress reduction and protecting mental health are important for health workers.

The relationship between growth mindset and cognitive fusion in college students is mediated by bias towards negative information

This study aimed to investigate the relationships among growth mindset, cognitive fusion, bias towards negative information, and bias towards positive information. The Growth Mindset Scale, the Attention to Positive and Negative Information Scale, and the Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire were employed. A total of 470 college students in China participated in the study. The findings showed a negative correlation between a growth mindset and cognitive fusion. In addition, a parallel mediation analysis demonstrated that bias towards negative information mediated the relationship between a growth mindset and cognitive fusion and that the indirect effect was significant. However, the mediation of bias towards positive information in this model was not significant. These results suggest that possessing a growth mindset is advantageous for mental health.

Longitudinal Links Between Parental Failure Mindsets, Helicopter Parenting, and Fixed Mindset of Intelligence in Adolescents

Evidence for the prospective associations among parental failure mindset, helicopter parenting, and children's intelligence mindset is lacking. This three-wave longitudinal study (12 months apart between waves) addressed this research gap by testing whether perceived maternal helicopter parenting mediated the link between perceived maternal failure mindset and intelligence mindset. Participants included 525 Chinese adolescents (47.2% girls, M_age = 15.41 years, SD = 0.22). Random-intercept cross-lagged analysis suggests that mothers with stronger failure-is-debilitating mindsets are more likely to engage in helicopter parenting, which may in turn contribute to stronger endorsements of a fixed mindset of intelligence in their adolescent children. The relation between maternal helicopter parenting and children's intelligence mindset appeared to be reciprocal, i.e., children's fixed mindset may elicit more helicopter parenting over time.

When (deliberate) practice is not enough – the role of intelligence, practice, and knowledge in academic performance

It is well established that academic performance (AP) depends on a number of factors, such as intellectual capacities, practice, and previous knowledge. We know little about how these factors interact as they are rarely measured simultaneously. Here we present mediated-Factors of Academic Performance (m-FAP) model, which simultaneously assesses direct and indirect, mediated, effects on AP. In a semester-long study with 118 first-year college students, we show that intelligence and working memory only indirectly influenced AP on a familiar, less challenging college course (Introduction to Psychology). Their influence was mediated through previous knowledge and self-regulated learning activities akin to deliberate practice. In a novel and more challenging course (Statistics in Psychology), intellectual capacities influenced performance both directly and indirectly through previous knowledge. The influence of deliberate practice, however, was considerably weaker in the novel course. The amount of time and effort that the students spent on the more difficult course could not offset the advantage of their more intelligent and more knowledgeable peers. The m–FAP model explains previous contradictory results by providing a framework for understanding the extent and limitations of individual factors in AP, which depend not only on each other, but also on the learning context.

Relationship Between Growth Mindset and English Language Performance Among Chinese EFL University Students: The Mediating Roles of Grit and Foreign Language Enjoyment

There is no denying that there is ample evidence of numerous factors that influence language learners' success. Recently, there is a critical call to embrace positive psychology that is more open and appreciative of the positive influences in learning English as a foreign language (EFL). Set against this burgeoning area of study in language learning, this paper puts forward the findings of a study that aimed to examine the mediating roles of grit and foreign language enjoyment in the relationship between growth mindset and English language performance. The study employed a correlational research design involving 388 EFL students from one university in China. The data were collected through a questionnaire and an English language performance test. Using the structural equation modeling, this study found that the association between growth mindset and English language performance was partially mediated by grit and foreign language enjoyment. This indicates that students with a growth mindset tend to possess a higher level of grit as well as experience more enjoyment in learning English, which consequently can lead to students becoming more successful language learners. These findings provide significant implications for language teachers, educational material developers, and school administrators in China to embrace the affective domain postulated by positive psychology.

Employee Growth Mindset and Innovative Behavior: The Roles of Employee Strengths Use and Strengths-Based Leadership

This study aimed to investigate the relationship of employee growth mindset with innovative behavior and the mediating role of use of strength as well as the moderating role of strengths-based leadership in this relationship. Data with a sample of 244 employees working in diverse Chinese organizations were collected at two points in time. Results of bootstrapping analyses demonstrated that growth mindset is positively related to innovative behavior, employee strengths use partially mediates the positive relationship of growth mindset with innovative behavior, and strengths-based leadership strengthens the direct relationship between employee growth mindset and innovative behavior and the indirect relationship of employee growth mindset with innovative behavior via strengths use. This study advances growth mindset and innovative behavior theories and research.

A person-centered analysis of emotional-behavioral functioning profiles in adolescents: Associations with teacher autonomy support and growth mindset

Anchored in the socio-ecological framework, the current study examined the association of teacher autonomy support with emotional-behavioral functioning profiles using a person-centered approach and investigated whether growth mindset and adolescents’ gender would moderate this association. To achieve these research objectives, this study involved 1741 adolescents (54.1% girls; Mage = 12.62; SD = 1.50) who were uniformly instructed to fill in a set of self-report questionnaires. Results based on latent profile analysis revealed four emotional-behavioral functioning profiles: primarily externalizing (6.2%), comorbid (32.9%), well-adjusted (53.7%), and high-risk (7.2%). Adolescents with high teacher autonomy support were more likely to be group members of the well-adjusted profile than the remaining three emotional-behavioral functioning profiles. Moreover, interaction analyses demonstrated that girls benefited more when teacher autonomy support and growth mindset were congruently high, whereas boys did not. The current findings suggest that teachers should be equipped with sufficient skills and training to maintain an autonomy-supportive classroom climate. Meanwhile, growth mindset intervention may develop into an integral part of the school’s activities to facilitate adolescents’ optimal emotional-behavioral functions, but distinctly gendered pathways for these activities should be carefully considered.

The Influence of Growth Mindset on the Mental Health and Life Events of College Students

Growth mindset refers to our core belief that our talents can be developed through practice, which may influence our thoughts and behaviors. Growth mindset has been studied in a variety of fields, including education, sports, and management. However, few studies have explored whether differences in individuals' growth mindsets influence college students' self-reported mental health. Using the Growth Mindset Scale, Adolescent Self-rating Life Events Checklist, and SCL-90 Scale, data was collected from 2,505 freshmen in a University in China. Findings revealed that the students within the growth mindset group scored significantly lower on "mental health issues" and "stress due to life events" than the students in the fixed mindset group. Our findings suggest that individuals with a growth mindset are less prone to mental health problems than individuals with a fixed mindset.

A Structural Equation Model of Perceived Autonomy Support and Growth Mindset in Undergraduate Students: The Mediating Role of Sense of Coherence

Although prior research has extensively documented the correlates of growth mindset, little is known about its antecedents in undergraduate students. Guided by the self-determination theory, the current study investigated the association of perceived autonomy support (i.e., parental autonomy support and teacher autonomy support) with growth mindset and assessed whether sense of coherence mediated this association. A total of 1,030 Chinese undergraduate students (62.4% females; M _age = 20.44, SD = 1.52) aged from 18 to 25 years were involved in this study; they were asked to fill out a set of self-reported questionnaires. Results of the structural equation modeling showed that sense of coherence fully mediated the association between parental autonomy support and growth mindset and between teacher autonomy support and growth mindset. More precisely, parental autonomy support and teacher autonomy support were each positively associated with sense of coherence, which in turn was positively related to growth mindset. The current findings further confirm the beneficial effect of autonomy support on individuals' adaptive skills in a collective cultural context, suggesting that autonomy-supportive parents and teachers can contribute to undergraduate students' growth mindset through the role of sense of coherence.