Lay dispositionism and implicit theories of personality

Loneliness, Implicit-Self and Digital Literacy

Digital literacy is becoming more important because of the skillset of functioning in online is becoming a necessary skill set in daily life. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between loneliness and digital literacy and the mediation effect of motivation in that association. Also, this study examined the moderating effect of mindset in the meditation effect of motivation in the association between loneliness and digital literacy. 287 respondents were recruited from online survey in United States. To investigate the direct effect of loneliness on digital literacy, the mediating effect of motivation, and the moderating of mindset on the mediating effect, this research employed a mediated moderation model. The findings of this research suggest that prevention-focused motivation mediated the effect of loneliness on digital literacy and the effect was moderated by a fixed mindset (as opposed to a growth mindset). The result of the study contributes to the literature by examining how loneliness could impede acquiring digital literacy through prevention-focused motivation and fixed mindset.

Evidence for a Cultural Mindset: Combining Process Data, Theory, and Simulation

Despite large literature on Cross-Cultural Competence (3C) there is a gap in understanding learning processes and mechanisms by which people arrive at successful 3C. We present a novel perspective for 3C learning and decision-making in innovative assessment contexts. We use Mindset theory (i.e., believing ability is fixed or changeable) because it is shown to be a powerful motivator for general learning and performance and in cross-cultural contexts. We propose the notion of cultural mindsets - beliefs, affect, and cognition that govern how people adapt, learn, and update cultural information. To understand how cultural mindset affects learning and performance, we apply computational cognitive modeling using Markov decision process (MDP). Using logfile data from an interactive 3C task, we operationalize behavioral differences in actions and decision making based on Mindset theory, developing cognitive models of fixed and malleable cultural mindsets based on mechanisms of initial beliefs, goals, and belief updating. To explore the validity of our theory, we develop computational MDP models, generate simulated data, and examine whether performance patterns fit our expectations. We expected the malleable cultural mindset would be better at learning the cultural norms in the assessment, more persistent in cultural interactions, quit less before accomplishing the task goal, and would be more likely to modify behavior after negative feedback. We find evidence of distinct patterns of cultural learning, decision-making, and performance with more malleable cultural mindsets showing significantly greater cultural learning, persistence, and responsiveness to feedback, and more openness to exploring current cultural norms and behavior. Moreover, our model was supported in that we were able to accurately classify 83% of the simulated records from the generating model. We argue that cultural mindsets are important mechanisms involved in effectively navigating cross-cultural situations and should be considered in a variety of areas of future research including education, business, health, and military institutions.

Do Only White or Asian Males Belong in Genius Organizations? How Academic Organizations' Fixed Theories of Excellence Help or Hinder Different Student Groups' Sense of Belonging

High-profile organizations often emphasize fixed giftedness rather than malleable effort-based criteria as critical for excellent achievements. With giftedness being primarily associated with White or Asian males, such organizational implicit theories of excellence may shape individuals' sense of belonging depending on the extent to which they match the gifted White/Asian male prototype, i.e., the prototypical gifted person which is typically imagined to be a White or Asian male. Previous research has reported fixed excellence theories emphasizing giftedness (vs. malleable theories emphasizing effort) to impair the sense of belonging of females and negatively stereotyped ethnic minorities. We investigate the combined effects of gender and ethnicity. We predicted that, while individuals whose gender and ethnicity do not match the gifted prototype show a reduced sense of belonging in fixed organizations, White/Asian males who match the gifted prototype show the opposite effect, experiencing a higher sense of belonging in fixed (vs. malleable) organizations. In an experimental study (N = 663 students), we manipulated advertising material used by a highly selective academic institution in Germany and tested effects on students' belonging. Whereas the original material emphasized giftedness as essential for excelling (fixed excellence version), our manipulated version stressed effort (malleable version). As expected, females from stereotyped ethnic minority groups felt less belonging in the fixed (vs. malleable) organization, while White/Asian males anticipated stronger belonging in the fixed (vs. malleable) organization. Fixed views of excellence impair negatively stereotyped individuals' belonging but may even strengthen the belonging of prototypical academic elites.

My Brain Needs a Break: Kindergarteners' Willpower Theories Are Related to Behavioral Self-Regulation

Is the way that kindergarteners view their willpower – as a limited or as a non-limited resource – related to their motivation and behavioral self-regulation? This study is the first to examine the structure of beliefs about willpower in relation to behavioral self-regulation by interviewing 147 kindergarteners (52% girls) aged 5 to 7 years (M = 6.47, SD = 0.39). A new instrument was developed to assess implicit theories about willpower for this specific age group. Results indicated that kindergarteners who think of their willpower as a non-limited resource showed better behavioral self-regulation than children who adopted a more limited theory, even when controlling for age and gender. This relation was especially pronounced in low achieving children. Mediation and moderation analyses showed that this relation was partly mediated through the children’s willingness to invest effort to reach a learning goal. Findings suggest that fostering metacognitive beliefs in children, such as the belief that willpower is a non-limited resource, may increase behavioral self-regulation for successful adjustment to the demands of kindergarten and school.

Randomized Trial of a Single-Session Growth Mind-Set Intervention for Rural Adolescents' Internalizing and Externalizing Problems

Adolescents living in rural regions of the United States face substantial barriers to accessing mental health services, creating needs for more accessible, nonstigmatizing, briefer interventions. Research suggests that single-session "growth mind-set" interventions (GM-SSIs)-which teach the belief that personal traits are malleable through effort-may reduce internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescents. However, GM-SSIs have not been evaluated among rural youth, and their effects on internalizing and externalizing problems have not been assessed within a single trial, rendering their relative benefits for different problem types unclear. We examined whether a computerized GM-SSI could reduce depressive symptoms, social anxiety symptoms, and conduct problems in female adolescents from rural areas of the United States. Tenth-grade female adolescents (N = 222, M age = 15.2, 38% White, 25% Black, 29% Hispanic) from 4 rural, low-income high schools in the southeastern United States were randomized to receive a 45-min GM-SSI or a computer-based active control program, teaching healthy sexual behaviors. Young women self-reported depression symptoms, social anxiety symptoms, and conduct problem behaviors at baseline and 4-month follow-up. Relative to the female students in the control group, the students receiving the GM-SSI reported modest but significantly greater reductions in depressive symptoms (d= .23) and likelihood of reporting elevated depressive symptoms (d= .29) from baseline to follow-up. GM-SSI effects were nonsignificant for social anxiety symptoms, although a small effect size emerged in the hypothesized direction (d= .21), and nonsignificant for change in conduct problems (d= .01). A free-of-charge 45-min GM-SSI may help reduce internalizing distress, especially depression-but not conduct problems-in rural female adolescents.

A strategic mindset: An orientation toward strategic behavior during goal pursuit

Many attractive jobs in today's world require people to take on new challenges and figure out how to master them. As with any challenging goal, this involves systematic strategy use. Here we ask: Why are some people more likely to take a strategic stance toward their goals, and can this tendency be cultivated? To address these questions, we introduce the idea of a domain-general "strategic mindset." This mindset involves asking oneself strategy-eliciting questions, such as "What can I do to help myself?", "How else can I do this?", or "Is there a way to do this even better?", in the face of challenges or insufficient progress. In three studies (n = 864), people who scored higher on (or were primed with) a strategic mindset reported using more metacognitive strategies; in turn, they obtained higher college grade point averages (GPAs) (Study 1); reported greater progress toward their professional, educational, health, and fitness goals (Study 2); and responded to a challenging timed laboratory task by practicing it more and performing it faster (Study 3). We differentiated a strategic mindset from general self-efficacy, self-control, grit, and growth mindsets and showed that it explained unique variance in people's use of metacognitive strategies. These findings suggest that being strategic entails more than just having specific metacognitive skills-it appears to also entail an orientation toward seeking and employing them.

Optimus Primed: Media Cultivation of Robot Mental Models and Social Judgments

Media influence people's perceptions of reality broadly and of technology in particular. Robot villains and heroes-from Ultron to Wall-E-have been shown to serve a specific cultivation function, shaping people's perceptions of those embodied social technologies, especially when individuals do not have direct experience with them. To date, however, little is understood about the nature of the conceptions people hold for what robots are, how they work, and how they may function in society, as well as the media antecedents and relational effects of those cognitive structures. This study takes a step toward bridging that gap by exploring relationships among individuals' recall of robot characters from popular media, their mental models for actual robots, and social evaluations of an actual robot. Findings indicate that mental models consist of a small set of common and tightly linked components (beyond which there is a good deal of individual difference), but robot character recall and evaluation have little association with whether people hold any of those components. Instead, data are interpreted to suggest that cumulative sympathetic evaluations of robot media characters may form heuristics that are primed by and engaged in social evaluations of actual robots, while technical content in mental models is associated with a more utilitarian approach to actual robots.

Creative Mindsets: Scale Validation in the Chinese Setting and Generalization to the Real Workplace

Creative mindsets reflect the implicit beliefs individuals hold regarding the nature of creativity as innate (i.e., fixed mindset) or malleable (i.e., growth mindset). Karwowski (2014) developed the Creative Mindsets Scale (CMS), in which fixed and growth creative mindsets were each measured with five items. Across three studies, the current study aimed to examine its psychometric properties in Chinese settings and to explore to what extent effects of creative mindsets on creativity were generalized to the real workplace. Based on the survey data of 216 college students (Study 1) and 205 full-time employees (Study 2) in China, results consistently indicated that a two-factor structure, in which both types of creative mindsets were independent of each other, was confirmed. Measures of both types of creative mindsets were of satisfactory psychometric features in terms of reliability (internal consistency) and validity (construct, convergent, and discriminant validities). Furthermore, Study 1 provided evidence for the incremental validity of creative mindsets beyond mindsets of intelligence in explaining creative personal identity and creative self-efficacy. Based on a third independent sample consisting of 282 full-time employees from several Chinese companies, Study 3 further demonstrated that measures of creative mindsets could predict employees' creative performance as rated by their supervisors, lending additional support for their generalizability to the real workplace. Moreover, growth mindset, but not fixed mindset, was significantly related to creative performance, and such an effect was mediated by effort. The present study contributes to the creative mindset literature by cross-validating the CMS's psychometric properties in a new setting and empirically establishing the link between creative mindsets and employees' creativity in the real workplace.

Domain Specificity or Generality: Assessing the Chinese Implicit Theories Scale of Six Fundamental Psychological Attributes

Implicit theories have been widely studied in different domains; however, it is still debatable whether these theories are domain-specific or domain-general. Using the Implicit Theories Scale (ITS) about six fundamental psychological attributes, i.e., intelligence, personality, cognition, feeling, behavior, and emotion, we examined domain specificity versus generality using a factor analytic approach; in addition, we investigated associations between implicit theories about these domains and related psychological attributes. In four sequential studies, we translated a Chinese version of the ITS (Study 1), tested inter-item correlations within and between subscales (Studies 1–4), and conducted exploratory factor analysis (Studies 2 and 3) and confirmatory factor analysis (Studies 3 and 4). We tested associations between implicit theory domains and coping, resilience, grit, and school performance (Studies 3 and 4). Results showed that the six ITS subscales were independent, while the implicit theories about cognition, feeling, behavior, and emotion shared a common component. The implicit theories of intelligence and personality were independent and did not share a common component. The six domains presented different patterns of association with psychological variables. Overall, our results suggest that implicit theories are both domain-specific and domain-general. Future studies are needed to examine the mechanism underlying the domain specificity and generality of implicit theories.

Apologies as signals for change? Implicit theories of personality and reactions to apologies during the #MeToo movement

During a national reckoning against sexual violence, the public read or heard dozens of apologies offered by prominent public figures in response to allegations of sexual misconduct. This study examined people's reactions to these apologies, with a focus on whether their implicit theories of personality-their beliefs about whether personality is changeable-influenced their evaluations of the apologies and the men who issued them. Using a nationally representative sample (N = 720) and real apologies offered during the #MeToo movement, it was found that, relative to people holding more of an entity (i.e., fixed) view of personality, those holding more of an incremental (i.e., malleable) view evaluated the apologies and apologizers more favorably, held more positive general attitudes toward this recent wave of apologies for misconduct, and were more likely to indicate that redemption was possible for the accused men. These findings suggest that people who hold more of an incremental theory of personality might interpret an apology as a meaningful signal that a person is ready and willing to change their ways and work toward self-improvement.

The impact of dynamic status changes within competitive rank-ordered hierarchies

Jockeying and competing for higher status is an inherent feature of rank-ordered hierarchies. Despite theoretically acknowledging rank changes within hierarchies, the extant literature has ignored the role of competitors' dynamic movements on a focal actor's resulting behavior. By using a dynamic lens to examine these movement in competitive situations, we examine how positive change in a competitor's rank-that is, positive status momentum-affects a focal actor's psychology and resulting performance. We consider the real-world contexts of 5.2 million observations of chess tournaments and 117,762 observations of professional tennis players and find that a focal actor's performance in both cognitive and physical competitions is negatively impacted when facing a competitor with positive momentum. Additionally, 4 experimental studies reveal that a competitor's positive momentum results in the focal actor's positive projection of the competitor's future rank, which, in turn, increases the psychological threat for the actor. Collectively, our findings advance the social hierarchy literature by helping to elucidate the manner in which rank-ordered hierarchies are negotiated and disrupted over time.

Process and outcomes evaluation of a pre-academic arts program for individuals with mental health conditions: a mixed methods study protocol

INTRODUCTION

The Garage is a multidisciplinary pre-academic arts school for people with artistic abilities who are coping with mental health conditions (MHC). The programme, supported by the National Insurance Institute and the Ministry of Health in Israel, is an innovative rehabilitation service designed to impart and enhance artistic-professional skills and socioemotional abilities to ultimately facilitate participants' integration into higher education and the job market.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

This mixed methods longitudinal study will include an embedded design in which the qualitative data are primary and the quantitative data are secondary, thus providing complementary information. The study will examine the contribution of the Garage to changes in participants' personal recovery, well-being, creative self-concept and community integration as well as possible mechanisms that may account for these changes. Qualitative data will be collected using focus groups with graduates and students (a total of ~60 participants). Quantitative data will be ‎collected by self-report questionnaires only from students attending the programme (before, during and at the end of the academic year). Data on the graduates' integration into higher education and the job market after completing the programme will also be collected from the management team. The qualitative data will be analysed following the grounded theory approach and the quantitative data will be analysed with correlations, paired tests to examine pre-post changes and regression analyses. A merged data analysis will be conducted for data integration.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

The University's Human Research Ethics Committee approved the design and procedures of the study (approval #357-16). All participants will sign an informed consent form where it is clarified that participation in the study is on a voluntary basis, and anonymity and confidentiality are guaranteed. The results will be submitted for peer-reviewed journal publications, presented at conferences and disseminated to the funder and the programme's management team.

Cultural Asymmetry Between Perceptions of Past and Future Personal Change

Research has shown that Westerners expect less change to occur in the future than they recall having occurred in the past. The present research investigated how recalled change and anticipated change may vary across cultures. Because Chinese perceive past times as being closer to the present than do Westerners, and people believe things tend to change more over a long period of time than over a short period of time, Chinese may perceive smaller changes from the past to the present than do Westerners. Consequently, the asymmetry between recalled change and anticipated change would disappear for Chinese. Four empirical studies revealed that for British participants, recalled changes in the past for personality, values, and the person as a whole were greater than anticipated changes in the future, whereas for Chinese, recalled changes in the past were similar in magnitude as anticipated changes in the future. Studies 2b and 3 further revealed that subjective temporal distance accounted for the cross-cultural differences in the asymmetry between recalled and anticipated changes.

Implicit Theories of Intelligence and Academic Achievement: A Meta-Analytic Review

The current study intended to model the link between implicit theories of intelligence (ITI) and students' academic achievement, within a meta-analytic review procedure. To assess studies' effect size, the Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) was used. The review of 46 studies (94 effect sizes) with 412,022 students presented a low-to-moderate association between the ITI and students' academic achievement. The results indicated that incremental theorists are more likely to have higher grades in specific subjects (verbal and quantitative) and in overall achievement. The entity beliefs were positively associated with students' specific verbal and quantitative domains but at a lower magnitude than incremental beliefs. Moreover, the moderator effect analyses results indicated that the link between ITI and students' achievement was not moderated by gender, but there was a moderate association in student's middle school grade. Additionally, the ITI assessment based on the most recent versions of Dweck's scales, the use of specific academic scales instead of general ITI scales, and the use of the original measures rather than adapted versions strongly moderated the link between ITI and achievement. Moreover, students from Eastern continents (Asia and Oceania) reported a positive association between incremental beliefs and achievement, Europe displayed a positive link between entity beliefs and achievement, whereas North America presented negative correlations between entity perspectives and academic achievement. This meta-analysis updates the current evidence supporting the direct link of ITI and students' academic achievement and acknowledges specific effects that ITI could have in different academic outcomes.

Implicit theories concerning the intelligence of individuals with Down syndrome

Studies over the past three decades have shown that learning difficulties are not only determined by neurological disorders, but also by motivational and/or socio-cognitive factors Among these factors, implicit theories of intelligence (also referred to as conceptions, mindsets or beliefs about intelligence) are key elements. The belief that intelligence is fixed (entity theory), as opposed to malleable (incremental theory), is generally associated with negative teaching practices and poorer student outcomes, yet beliefs about the intelligence of individuals with intellectual disabilities have not received much attention. We propose the first study on conceptions of intelligence of persons with intellectual disabilities, here people with Down syndrome. Participants were 55 professionally qualified people working with individuals with intellectual disabilities and 81 adults from the community. We compared what both groups of participants believe about intelligence of typical people and what they believe about the intelligence of individuals with Down syndrome. We also investigated implicit theories of intelligence as predictors of explicit judgments about intelligence and implicit attitudes toward people with Down syndrome. Whatever the work experience in the field of intellectual disability, implicit theories of intelligence were found to be less incremental when considering people with Down syndrome than when considering typical people; and the stronger the belief in entity theory, the more negative (and less positive) the judgments expressed explicitly. Implicit theories of intelligence were also found to be predictors of negative implicit attitude but only in adults from the community. These findings offer prospects for improving practices by people working in the field of intellectual disability. They might interest a wide range of people caring for people with intellectual disabilities, such as teachers, but also other professional caregivers, and other scientists focusing on intellectual disabilities or social cognition.

Dealing with Social Difficulty During Adolescence: The Role of Implicit Theories of Personality

Social difficulty during adolescence contributes to internalizing problems (e.g., depression, stress) and spurs cycles of aggression and retaliation. In this article, I review how implicit theories of personality-beliefs about whether people can change their socially relevant characteristics-can help explain why some adolescents respond to social difficulty in these ways while others do not. Believing an entity theory of personality-the belief that people cannot change-causes people to blame their own and others' traits for social difficulty, and predicts more extreme affective, physiological, and behavioral responses (e.g., depression, aggression). Interventions that teach an incremental theory of personality-the belief that people can change-can reduce problematic reactions to social difficulty. I discuss why interventions to alter implicit theories improve adolescents' responses to conflict and propose suggestions for research.

The Dark Side of Malleability: Incremental Theory Promotes Immoral Behaviors

Implicit theories drastically affect an individual's processing of social information, decision making, and action. The present research focuses on whether individuals who hold the implicit belief that people's moral character is fixed (entity theorists) and individuals who hold the implicit belief that people's moral character is malleable (incremental theorists) make different choices when facing a moral decision. Incremental theorists are less likely to make the fundamental attribution error (FAE), rarely make moral judgment based on traits and show more tolerance to immorality, relative to entity theorists, which might decrease the possibility of undermining the self-image when they engage in immoral behaviors, and thus we posit that incremental beliefs facilitate immorality. Four studies were conducted to explore the effect of these two types of implicit theories on immoral intention or practice. The association between implicit theories and immoral behavior was preliminarily examined from the observer perspective in Study 1, and the results showed that people tended to associate immoral behaviors (including everyday immoral intention and environmental destruction) with an incremental theorist rather than an entity theorist. Then, the relationship was further replicated from the actor perspective in Studies 2-4. In Study 2, implicit theories, which were measured, positively predicted the degree of discrimination against carriers of the hepatitis B virus. In Study 3, implicit theories were primed through reading articles, and the participants in the incremental condition showed more cheating than those in the entity condition. In Study 4, implicit theories were primed through a new manipulation, and the participants in the unstable condition (primed incremental theory) showed more discrimination than those in the other three conditions. Taken together, the results of our four studies were consistent with our hypotheses.

The (Biological or Cultural) Essence of Essentialism: Implications for Policy Support among Dominant and Subordinated Groups

Most research links (racial) essentialism to negative intergroup outcomes. We propose that this conclusion reflects both a narrow conceptual focus on biological/genetic essence and a narrow research focus from the perspective of racially dominant groups. We distinguished between beliefs in biological and cultural essences, and we investigated the implications of this distinction for support of social justice policies (e.g., affirmative action) among people with dominant (White) and subordinated (e.g., Black, Latino) racial identities in the United States. Whereas, endorsement of biological essentialism may have similarly negative implications for social justice policies across racial categories, we investigated the hypothesis that endorsement of cultural essentialism would have different implications across racial categories. In Studies 1a and 1b, we assessed the properties of a cultural essentialism measure we developed using two samples with different racial/ethnic compositions. In Study 2, we collected data from 170 participants using an online questionnaire to test the implications of essentialist beliefs for policy support. Consistent with previous research, we found that belief in biological essentialism was negatively related to policy support for participants from both dominant and subordinated categories. In contrast, the relationship between cultural essentialism and policy support varied across identity categories in the hypothesized way: negative for participants from the dominant category but positive for participants from subordinated categories. Results suggest that cultural essentialism may provide a way of identification that subordinated communities use to mobilize support for social justice.

Two Different Views on the World Around Us: The World of Uniformity versus Diversity

We propose that when individuals believe in fixed traits of personality (entity theorists), they are likely to expect a world of "uniformity." As such, they easily infer a population statistic from a small sample of data with confidence. In contrast, individuals who believe in malleable traits of personality (incremental theorists) are likely to presume a world of "diversity," such that they "hesitate" to infer a population statistic from a similarly sized sample. In four laboratory experiments, we found that compared to incremental theorists, entity theorists estimated a population mean from a sample with a greater level of confidence (Studies 1a and 1b), expected more homogeneity among the entities within a population (Study 2), and perceived an extreme value to be more indicative of an outlier (Study 3). These results suggest that individuals are likely to use their implicit self-theory orientations (entity theory versus incremental theory) to see a population in general as a constitution either of homogeneous or heterogeneous entities.

Reducing risk for anxiety and depression in adolescents: Effects of a single-session intervention teaching that personality can change

Efforts to reduce youth mental health problems have advanced greatly but have not lowered overall rates of youth mental illness. Thus, a need exists for disseminable, mechanism-targeted approaches to reducing risk of youth psychopathology. Accordingly, we conducted a randomized-controlled trial testing whether a single-session intervention teaching growth personality mindsets (the belief that personality is malleable) reduced known risk factors for anxiety and depression in adolescents experiencing or at risk for internalizing problems (N = 96, ages 12-15). Compared to a supportive-therapy control, a 30-min computer-guided mindset intervention strengthened adolescents' perceived control; this improvement was associated with increases in growth mindsets. Further, electrodermal activity recovery slopes showed that youths receiving the mindset intervention recovered from a lab-based social stressor over three times as fast as control group youths. Improvements in growth mindsets and perceived control were linked with faster stress recovery. Results suggest a disseminable strategy for reducing internalizing problem risk among adolescents.

Implicit Theories, Expectancies, and Values Predict Mathematics Motivation and Behavior across High School and College

Mathematics motivation declines for many adolescents, which limits future educational and career options. The present study sought to identify predictors of this decline by examining whether implicit theories assessed in ninth grade (incremental/entity) predicted course-taking behaviors and utility value in college. The study integrated implicit theory with variables from expectancy-value theory to examine potential moderators and mediators of the association of implicit theories with college mathematics outcomes. Implicit theories and expectancy-value variables were assessed in 165 American high school students (47 % female; 92 % White), who were then followed into their college years, at which time mathematics courses taken, course-taking intentions, and utility value were assessed. Implicit theories predicted course-taking intentions and utility value, but only self-concept of ability predicted courses taken, course-taking intentions, and utility value after controlling for prior mathematics achievement and baseline values. Expectancy for success in mathematics mediated associations between self-concept of ability and college outcomes. This research identifies self-concept of ability as a stronger predictor than implicit theories of mathematics motivation and behavior across several years: math self-concept is critical to sustained engagement in mathematics.

Does Mindset Intervention Predict Students' Daily Experience in Classrooms? A Comparison of Seventh and Ninth Graders' Trajectories

One's beliefs about whether ability is fixed or malleable-also known as fixed or growth mindset-can impact academic outcomes. This quasi-experimental study investigated effects of a six-week classroom intervention targeting growth mindset on students' daily quality of experience in science classrooms. Seventh grade (N = 370) and 9th grade (N = 356) students (50 % female, 61 % Hispanic) were randomly assigned by classroom to either a mindset intervention condition or content writing task condition. Students provided self-reports on multiple aspects of their daily classroom experience 11 times across the school year. Hierarchical linear growth models indicate that 7th and 9th grade students who were not exposed to the mindset intervention showed declines in perceived control skill, interest, and learning. In contrast, 9th graders in the mindset intervention reported increased control and interest, and maintained constant levels in skill and learning. Similar effects were not observed among 7th graders. The results are discussed in terms of implications for future research and optimal developmental periods for mindset intervention.

Implicit theories and ability emotional intelligence

Previous research has shown that people differ in their implicit theories about the essential characteristics of intelligence and emotions. Some people believe these characteristics to be predetermined and immutable (entity theorists), whereas others believe that these characteristics can be changed through learning and behavior training (incremental theorists). The present study provides evidence that in healthy adults (N = 688), implicit beliefs about emotions and emotional intelligence (EI) may influence performance on the ability-based Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT). Adults in our sample with incremental theories about emotions and EI scored higher on the MSCEIT than entity theorists, with implicit theories about EI showing a stronger relationship to scores than theories about emotions. Although our participants perceived both emotion and EI as malleable, they viewed emotions as more malleable than EI. Women and young adults in general were more likely to be incremental theorists than men and older adults. Furthermore, we found that emotion and EI theories mediated the relationship of gender and age with ability EI. Our findings suggest that people’s implicit theories about EI may influence their emotional abilities, which may have important consequences for personal and professional EI training.

Individual differences in situation awareness: validation of the situationism scale

ABSTRACT. This article concerns the construct of lay situationism-an individual's belief in the importance of a behavior's context. Study 1 identified a 13-item Situationism Scale, which demonstrated good reliability and validity. In particular, higher situationism was associated with greater situation-control (strategies to manipulate the environment in order to avoid temptation). Subsequent laboratory studies indicated that people higher on the situationism subscales used greater situation-control by sitting farther from junk food (Study 2) and choosing to drink non-alcoholic beverages before a cognitive task (Study 3). Overall, findings provide preliminary support for the psychometric validity and predictive utility of the Situationism Scale and offer this individual difference construct as a means to expand self-regulation theory.

Identifying differences in the experience of (in)authenticity: a latent class analysis approach

Generally, psychologists consider state authenticity – that is, the subjective sense of being one’s true self – to be a unitary and unidimensional construct, such that (a) the phenomenological experience of authenticity is thought to be similar no matter its trigger, and (b) inauthenticity is thought to be simply the opposing pole (on the same underlying construct) of authenticity. Using latent class analysis, we put this conceptualization to a test. In order to avoid over-reliance on a Western conceptualization of authenticity, we used a cross-cultural sample (N = 543), comprising participants from Western, South-Asian, East-Asian, and South-East Asian cultures. Participants provided either a narrative in which the described when they felt most like being themselves or one in which they described when they felt least like being themselves. The analysis identified six distinct classes of experiences: two authenticity classes (“everyday” and “extraordinary”), three inauthenticity classes (“self-conscious,” “deflated,” and “extraordinary”), and a class representing convergence between authenticity and inauthenticity. The classes were phenomenologically distinct, especially with respect to negative affect, private and public self-consciousness, and self-esteem. Furthermore, relatively more interdependent cultures were less likely to report experiences of extraordinary (in)authenticity than relatively more independent cultures. Understanding the many facets of (in)authenticity may enable researchers to connect different findings and explain why the attainment of authenticity can be difficult.

Identifying differences in the experience of (in)authenticity: a latent class analysis approach

Generally, psychologists consider state authenticity - that is, the subjective sense of being one's true self - to be a unitary and unidimensional construct, such that (a) the phenomenological experience of authenticity is thought to be similar no matter its trigger, and (b) inauthenticity is thought to be simply the opposing pole (on the same underlying construct) of authenticity. Using latent class analysis, we put this conceptualization to a test. In order to avoid over-reliance on a Western conceptualization of authenticity, we used a cross-cultural sample (N = 543), comprising participants from Western, South-Asian, East-Asian, and South-East Asian cultures. Participants provided either a narrative in which the described when they felt most like being themselves or one in which they described when they felt least like being themselves. The analysis identified six distinct classes of experiences: two authenticity classes ("everyday" and "extraordinary"), three inauthenticity classes ("self-conscious," "deflated," and "extraordinary"), and a class representing convergence between authenticity and inauthenticity. The classes were phenomenologically distinct, especially with respect to negative affect, private and public self-consciousness, and self-esteem. Furthermore, relatively more interdependent cultures were less likely to report experiences of extraordinary (in)authenticity than relatively more independent cultures. Understanding the many facets of (in)authenticity may enable researchers to connect different findings and explain why the attainment of authenticity can be difficult.

The Social Explanatory Styles Questionnaire: assessing moderators of basic social-cognitive phenomena including spontaneous trait inference, the fundamental attribution error, and moral blame

Why is he poor? Why is she failing academically? Why is he so generous? Why is she so conscientious? Answers to such everyday questions—social explanations—have powerful effects on relationships at the interpersonal and societal levels. How do people select an explanation in particular cases? We suggest that, often, explanations are selected based on the individual's pre-existing general theories of social causality. More specifically, we suggest that over time individuals develop general beliefs regarding the causes of social events. We refer to these beliefs as social explanatory styles. Our goal in the present article is to offer and validate a measure of individual differences in social explanatory styles. Accordingly, we offer the Social Explanatory Styles Questionnaire (SESQ), which measures three independent dimensions of social explanatory style: Dispositionism, historicism, and controllability. Studies 1–3 examine basic psychometric properties of the SESQ and provide positive evidence regarding internal consistency, factor structure, and both convergent and divergent validity. Studies 4–6 examine predictive validity for each subscale: Does each explanatory dimension moderate an important phenomenon of social cognition? Results suggest that they do. In Study 4, we show that SESQ dispositionism moderates the tendency to make spontaneous trait inferences. In Study 5, we show that SESQ historicism moderates the tendency to commit the Fundamental Attribution Error. Finally, in Study 6 we show that SESQ controllability predicts polarization of moral blame judgments: Heightened blaming toward controllable stigmas (assimilation), and attenuated blaming toward uncontrollable stigmas (contrast). Decades of research suggest that explanatory style regarding the self is a powerful predictor of self-functioning. We think it is likely that social explanatory styles—perhaps comprising interactive combinations of the basic dimensions tapped by the SESQ—will be similarly potent predictors of social functioning. We hope the SESQ will be a useful tool for exploring that possibility.

What are lay theories of social class?

Numerous studies have documented the effects of social class on psychological and behavioral variables. However, lay beliefs about how social class affects these dimensions have not been systematically tested. Studies 1 and 2 assessed lay beliefs about the association between social class and 8 variables (including psychological and behavioral tendencies and cognitive ability). Study 3 assessed lay beliefs about the Big five personality traits and social class, and study 4 reframed the 8 variables from study 1 in opposite terms and yielded similar results. Study 5 contained the variables framed as in both studies 1 and 4, and replicated those results suggesting that framing effects were not responsible for the effects observed. Interestingly, for the most part lay beliefs about social class did not differ as a function of participants’ own social class. In general people held relatively accurate and consistent stereotypes about the relationship between social class and well-being, health, intelligence, and neuroticism. In contrast lay beliefs regarding social class and reasoning styles, as well as relational, social, and emotional tendencies were less consistent and coherent. This work suggests that on the whole people’s beliefs about social class are not particularly accurate, and further that in some domains there are contradictory stereotypes about the consequences of social class.

Culture, gender and health care stigma: Practitioners' response to facial masking experienced by people with Parkinson's disease

Facial masking in Parkinson's disease is the reduction of automatic and controlled expressive movement of facial musculature, creating an appearance of apathy, social disengagement or compromised cognitive status. Research in western cultures demonstrates that practitioners form negatively biased impressions associated with patient masking. Socio-cultural norms about facial expressivity vary according to culture and gender, yet little research has studied the effect of these factors on practitioners' responses toward patients who vary in facial expressivity. This study evaluated the effect of masking, culture and gender on practitioners' impressions of patient psychological attributes. Practitioners (N = 284) in the United States and Taiwan judged 12 Caucasian American and 12 Asian Taiwanese women and men patients in video clips from interviews. Half of each patient group had a moderate degree of facial masking and the other half had near-normal expressivity. Practitioners in both countries judged patients with higher masking to be more depressed and less sociable, less socially supportive, and less cognitively competent than patients with lower masking. Practitioners were more biased by masking when judging the sociability of the American patients, and American practitioners' judgments of patient sociability were more negatively biased in response to masking than were those of Taiwanese practitioners. Practitioners were more biased by masking when judging the cognitive competence and social supportiveness of the Taiwanese patients, and Taiwanese practitioners' judgments of patient cognitive competence were more negatively biased in response to masking than were those of American practitioners. The negative response to higher masking was stronger in practitioner judgments of women than men patients, particularly American patients. The findings suggest local cultural values as well as ethnic and gender stereotypes operate on practitioners' use of facial expressivity in clinical impression formation.

Constructing agency: the role of language

Is agency a straightforward and universal feature of human experience? Or is the construction of agency (including attention to and memory for people involved in events) guided by patterns in culture? In this paper we focus on one aspect of cultural experience: patterns in language. We examined English and Japanese speakers' descriptions of intentional and accidental events. English and Japanese speakers described intentional events similarly, using mostly agentive language (e.g., "She broke the vase"). However, when it came to accidental events English speakers used more agentive language than did Japanese speakers. We then tested whether these different patterns found in language may also manifest in cross-cultural differences in attention and memory. Results from a non-linguistic memory task showed that English and Japanese speakers remembered the agents of intentional events equally well. However, English speakers remembered the agents of accidents better than did Japanese speakers, as predicted from patterns in language. Further, directly manipulating agency in language during another laboratory task changed people's eye-witness memory, confirming a possible causal role for language. Patterns in one's linguistic environment may promote and support how people instantiate agency in context.

The Role of Children's Lay Theories About the Malleability of Human Attributes in Beliefs About and Volunteering for Disadvantaged Groups

Two studies with 9- to 12-year-old children supported the hypothesis that lay theories about the malleability of human traits impact judgments of and behavior toward groups in need of volunteer help. The more children endorsed an incremental view (attributes can change), the more they reported liking, desiring social contact with, and perceiving similarity between themselves and a disadvantaged outgroup (homeless, UNICEF-funded children). Moreover, children endorsing more of a malleable view reported greater past volunteering, active participation in collecting money for a UNICEF event, and intentions to volunteer again. These findings held when controlling for the effects of participants' gender, self-esteem, and perceived social pressure to help others. How a malleable view and intergroup volunteerism may be mutually sustaining is discussed.

Valence Effects in Reasoning About Evaluative Traits

Reasoning about evaluative traits was investigated among a group of 7- and 8-year-olds (N = 34), a group of 11- to 13-year olds (N = 25), and a group of adults (N = 23) to determine whether their inferences would be sensitive to the valence of social and academic traits. Four aspects of trait-relevant beliefs were examined: (1) malleability, (2) stability over time, (3) origin in terms of nature versus nurture, and (4) an inference criterion that concerns how readily traits are inferred. Although there was evidence of an age-related decrease in the tendency to emphasize positive information, participants of all ages responded that positive traits are less malleable and more stable over time than negative traits, that the positive influences of biological and environmental factors are likely to override the negative influences, and that competence can be more readily inferred from positive outcomes than from negative outcomes.