Mindset quiz
Carol S. Dweck · 2006
Ten questions on Carol Dweck's key ideas, each with a short explanation. Read it a while ago? Take the quiz before you look at the summary: what you can recall now is what you'll keep.
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Question 1 of 10
A friend says growth mindset means anyone can become an Einstein if they just try hard enough. How does Dweck answer that?
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C. No: people differ, but no one knows how far effort can take them Dweck is clear that people start with different aptitudes and that not everyone can become Einstein or Beethoven. Her claim is narrower: you can't tell from where someone starts how far years of practice and good teaching will take them. She even argues that skills like drawing can be learned.
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Question 2 of 10
A coworker is sure she can become a better public speaker but says she'll never be a "math person." How does the book explain this?
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A. People can hold different mindsets about different abilities Dweck says we're all a mix of both mindsets, and the mix can differ from one area to another: you might think your writing can improve while believing your math ability is set. Whichever mindset you hold about an ability is the one that guides you in it.
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Question 3 of 10
At the University of Hong Kong, where classes are taught in English, Dweck's team asked new students with weak English whether they'd take a course to improve it. What happened?
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D. Growth-minded students were keen; fixed-minded ones mostly weren't Signing up meant admitting a weakness, so students with a fixed mindset showed little interest, even though poor English put their studies at risk. Growth-minded students saw a chance to learn. Dweck uses the study to show how the fixed mindset makes people avoid the very learning they need.
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Question 4 of 10
Violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, a former child prodigy, spent years at Juilliard refusing to fix her bad habits or work hard. How does Dweck explain it?
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B. Trying her hardest and still failing would leave her no excuse In the fixed mindset, effort is dangerous: if you never really try, you can always tell yourself you could have been great. She changed only when her teacher, Dorothy DeLay, threatened to drop her, and she decided that trying and maybe failing was better than drifting. Then she went all out and won a competition.
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Question 5 of 10
In the book, what makes tennis star John McEnroe an example of the fixed mindset?
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A. He blamed his losses on outside causes rather than fixing his game McEnroe believed talent was everything, and when he lost, it was a fever, a bad back or a noisy cameraman. Since no loss was his fault, he never worked on his concentration or temper. He was still number one for four years, but by his own account didn't reach his potential.
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Question 6 of 10
In Dweck's experiments, children who did well on a set of problems were praised either for being smart or for working hard. What happened when they were then offered a challenging task they could learn from?
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C. Most effort-praised children took it; smart-praised ones tended to refuse Praise for intelligence taught children that success proved their ability, so they steered clear of anything that might expose a flaw. About 90 percent of the effort-praised children chose the harder task. Later, the smart-praised group enjoyed the problems less, did worse, and almost 40 percent of them lied about their scores.
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Question 7 of 10
Elizabeth, a young gymnast, comes home from her first meet without a ribbon and is crushed. Which response does Dweck favor?
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D. "Others trained longer and harder; if you want this, work for it." Her growth-minded father was honest: other girls had been at it longer and worked harder, and if she really wanted to win, she'd have to put in the work. Promising a win next time because of her talent may do the most harm, Dweck says, since talent alone guarantees nothing.
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Question 8 of 10
After his early success running Chrysler, Lee Iacocca is the book's example of "CEO disease." What did it look like?
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B. He surrounded himself with admirers and drove out his critics Needing to look perfect, Iacocca kept bringing out the same car models with surface changes, filled his circle with admirers and pushed critics out, while Japanese carmakers rethought what a car should be. Dweck's point: a leader who can't hear about his shortcomings stops learning.
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Question 9 of 10
Your friend says, "If we were truly right for each other, it wouldn't take this much work." How does the book see this belief?
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B. As a fixed-mindset idea that turns normal problems into bad omens In the fixed mindset, a relationship is either meant to be or it isn't, so needing effort looks like proof it's failing, and conflict turns into a search for whose character is at fault. Dweck argues that every close relationship has problems, and working through them is how it grows.
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Question 10 of 10
Dweck's team ran workshops for seventh graders who were struggling in math. Both groups learned study skills. What did the group whose grades improved also learn?
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C. That the brain grows new connections when you learn hard things The extra lessons taught that the brain is like a muscle that gets stronger with use, so hard work makes you smarter. One boy, Jimmy, asked if this meant he didn't have to be dumb, and soon was staying up late on homework he used to skip. The study-skills-only group showed no such gain.
Mindset in one paragraph
Mindset argues that what you believe about your abilities shapes what you do with them. Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck describes two beliefs: a fixed mindset, which treats talent and intelligence as a set amount you must keep proving, and a growth mindset, which treats them as things you can build. Drawing on her own experiments and on stories from school, sports, business, love and parenting, she argues that the growth mindset turns challenges, effort and setbacks into ways to learn, and that it can be taught.
The 8 key ideas of Mindset
Two beliefs about ability
In the fixed mindset, intelligence, talent and personality are handed out at birth, so life becomes a matter of showing how much you got. In the growth mindset, they can be developed through effort, good strategies and help from others. Dweck is careful: this doesn't mean anyone can become anything, only that no one can tell from someone's starting point how far years of practice will take them.
Proving yourself versus improving yourself
With a fixed mindset, every test, task and conversation is a verdict on your worth, so you stick to what you already do well. With a growth mindset, a challenge is the point: it's how you get better. In one study, fixed-minded students at an English-language university showed little interest in a course that would fix their weak English, rather than admit the weakness.
Effort is what builds ability
In the fixed mindset, needing to try hard is proof you lack talent; a true natural shouldn't have to. Effort is also risky, because if you try and still fail, you're out of excuses. The growth mindset sees effort as the thing that turns potential into skill. Dweck argues that even celebrated geniuses like Edison and Jackson Pollock got there through long, dedicated work.
Failing is not being a failure
A fixed mindset turns a failure from something you did into something you are. Setbacks feel permanent, so people hide them, blame others or make excuses instead of learning from them. A growth mindset treats a setback as information about what to do next. In Dweck's study of college students, fixed-minded students who felt low let their work slide, while growth-minded students who felt low did more to tackle their problems.
Praise the process, not the person
Telling children they're smart feels kind, but Dweck's experiments suggest it backfires: it teaches them that success proves their ability, so a struggle must prove the opposite. Children praised for their effort chose harder problems and kept enjoying them. For parents, teachers and coaches the lesson is broader: focus on teaching rather than judging, and give honest feedback that shows a child how to improve.
Leaders who keep learning
Dweck sees the fixed mindset behind many business failures. Leaders with CEO disease need to look perfect, so they surround themselves with admirers and push out critics; Lee Iacocca at Chrysler is her main example. She also blames Enron's worship of raw talent, which left people unable to admit mistakes. Growth-minded leaders such as Lou Gerstner at IBM and Anne Mulcahy at Xerox faced hard truths and kept learning.
Love takes work too
Mindsets apply to people as well as skills. In a fixed mindset about love, each partner's qualities and the relationship itself are what they are: the couple is either meant to be or not, so needing to work at it signals that something is wrong, and every conflict becomes a hunt for whose character is to blame. The growth mindset expects problems in any close relationship and works through them together.
You can change your mindset
A mindset is a belief, and beliefs can change. In workshops for seventh graders who were struggling in math, Dweck's team taught students that the brain grows new connections when you learn, much as a muscle gets stronger with use. Their grades improved, while a group taught only study skills saw no such gain. Dweck stresses that change takes ongoing work: old fixed-mindset reactions don't vanish overnight.
Has it held up?
The research behind Mindset is real, but the effects are smaller than the book's tone suggests. A 2018 pair of meta-analyses by Victoria Sisk and colleagues found only a weak link between students' mindsets and their grades, and a small average effect of mindset interventions (about 0.08 standard deviations). Students from low-income families or at high risk of failing may benefit more, though few studies tested this.
The strongest support came from a 2019 national experiment published in Nature: two short online sessions given to about 12,500 US ninth graders slightly raised grades among lower-achieving students, especially in schools where peers backed the message. Two 2023 meta-analyses then reached different verdicts. Brooke Macnamara and Alexander Burgoyne found the effect shrank toward zero in the best-designed studies; Jeni Burnette and colleagues found small but real gains for at-risk students. A 2019 attempt to repeat the praise experiment with over 600 Chinese schoolchildren found little effect. The debate continues.
Dweck herself later warned against a "false growth mindset": praising effort that isn't producing learning, or just telling people to try harder.
Sources
- Sisk, V. F., Burgoyne, A. P., Sun, J., Butler, J. L., & Macnamara, B. N. (2018). To what extent and under which circumstances are growth mind-sets important to academic achievement? Two meta-analyses. Psychological Science, 29(4), 549–571.
- Yeager, D. S., Hanselman, P., Walton, G. M., et al. (2019). A national experiment reveals where a growth mindset improves achievement. Nature, 573(7774), 364–369.
- Macnamara, B. N., & Burgoyne, A. P. (2023). Do growth mindset interventions impact students' academic achievement? A systematic review and meta-analysis with recommendations for best practices. Psychological Bulletin, 149(3–4), 133–173.
- Burnette, J. L., Billingsley, J., Banks, G. C., Knouse, L. E., Hoyt, C. L., Pollack, J. M., & Simon, S. (2023). A systematic review and meta-analysis of growth mindset interventions: For whom, how, and why might such interventions work? Psychological Bulletin, 149(3–4), 174–205.
- Li, Y., & Bates, T. C. (2019). You can't change your basic ability, but you work at things, and that's how we get hard things done: Testing the role of growth mindset on response to setbacks, educational attainment, and cognitive ability. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148(9), 1640–1655.
- Dweck, C. S. (2015, September 22). Carol Dweck revisits the "growth mindset". Education Week.
Mindset book club questions
10 questions for a book club or a class, from first reactions to where the book can be argued with. They work best once everyone has finished it. For questions that work with any nonfiction book and a plan for the evening, see our book club questions guide.
- What was your first reaction to the claim that a single belief about ability shapes so much of life? Did it feel like a revelation, common sense or an oversimplification?
- Which story in the book stayed with you most, such as John McEnroe, the violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg or the struggling seventh graders, and why do you think it landed?
- Dweck argues that praising children for being smart can backfire. How were you praised growing up, and how do you think it shaped the way you handle challenges now?
- In the fixed mindset, needing to work hard is a sign you lack talent. Why do you think natural talent is so admired, and what does that admiration cost people?
- Dweck contrasts Lee Iacocca's CEO disease with leaders like Lou Gerstner and Anne Mulcahy. What would it take for a team or company to make admitting mistakes feel safe rather than risky?
- Dweck says believing a couple is either meant to be or not turns ordinary conflict into a bad omen. How does that idea apply to friendships and family, not just romance?
- Large studies find that mindset lessons raise grades only slightly on average, with clearer gains for struggling students. How does that change the way you read the book's confident tone?
- Dweck later warned against a "false growth mindset" that praises effort which isn't producing learning. Where have you seen the idea turned into a slogan, and what gets lost when it is?
- Think of something you gave up on because you decided you weren't good at it. What would a growth-minded second attempt look like, with new strategies and help, not just more effort?
- If you parent, teach, coach or manage others, what do you say or reward now that might nudge people toward a fixed mindset, and what could you do instead?
How to remember Mindset
Taking the quiz above was already the most useful thing you can do with a book you've read. Pulling an idea out of memory strengthens it far more than reading a summary again; psychologists call it active recall. The questions you got wrong are the ideas that were slipping away.
What keeps them is timing. Memory fades on a curve, quickly at first, so the next review works best in about three days, then a week later, then a few weeks after that. Our review schedule calculator gives you the exact dates, and how to remember what you read covers the whole method.
