Although both students started college with relatively the same ability, they each seem to have opposite mindsets when considering Carol Dweck’s self-theory. Ned is content with his current exercise program and doesn’t see the appeal of changing his routine to something more beneficial, considering Dweck’s theory, Ned would be considered to have an entity mindset. His roommate Joe recently took up athletics and his program is working wonders for his physical ability as well as his self-esteem. Joe’s improvement and commitment to the sport indicates he has an incremental mindset.

The different behavioural outcomes that can be drawn from people with these two types of mindsets can have either a positive or negative effect on self-esteem, especially when considering the case study of Ned and Joe:

 

1.    Emotional instability

The emotional state that Ned must feel could be best described as drained. Working out on with the same routine every day is likely to become boring and will not produce results if the program is not re-evaluated. The fact he is not meeting his goals of becoming bigger and stronger is most likely going to aggravate him and lead him to taking his frustrations out on the people around him. All these negative emotions will greatly reduce Ned’s self-esteem.

 

2.    Increased self-image

Joe should be feeling very content with his exercise program because it, along with his own determination to improve, has enabled him to improve his running out of sight. Such improvement must do wonders for his self-esteem which improves his outlook on all aspects of life and leading to more positive behaviours. Having such a positive self-image will give Joe full confidence going into the inter-university games which could lead to him performing at his optimum level.

 

3.    Excuses

Ned is likely to use a form of attribution theory to attribute Joe’s success to potential factors such as genetics, exaggerating his own injuries or maybe even exaggerating the difficulty of lifting weights opposed to athletics. Ned making up all these excuses for his failure to improve may lead to him using these excuses in his everyday life which could isolate him from his peers as they find his constant excuses intolerable. Not only making excuses up for his own shortcomings but also for Joe’s potential success in the inter-university games can have a negative effect on Joe as he can’t enjoy fully enjoy his success if his roommate and good friend believed it was a ‘fluke’.

 

4.    Avoiding challenges

Ned’s lack of improvement may lead to him avoiding future challenges in order to reduce the spotlight effect and limit chances for embarrassment and failure. Avoiding future challenges will lead to a very solitary lifestyle that will become boring. The fixed mentality that Ned possess seems to already limit the likelihood of him taking risks due to his statement referring to Joe’s participation in the inter-university games, he said ”Are you crazy? What happens if you come last!”. This yet again proves his entity mindset as it shows he is extrinsically motivated and not concerned at all by development of skills. If Joe was to be successful at the athletics meeting, Ned could comprehend this in a few different ways.

He may assume Joe was only able to do it because he was born with a higher level of ability unlike himself who has reached his maximum ability. This can be seen on the concept map in which fixed mindset people believe a person's ability is non malleable.

 

Ned may react negatively to Joes success and in order to feel that sense of accomplishment he may resort to cheating (drugs eg. steroids).

 

Ned may identify the success Joe has achieved from his training and mindset and may possibly take this positively and adopt Joes growth mindset approach as it has clearly worked and change his own physical training to see results.

 

If Joe was to go away and lose at the athletics meeting, due to his growth mindset he will not see this as a loss but rather take it as a learning opportunity and train harder so that he can perform better next time. As seen on the concept map Joe with a growth mindset will see challenges like this as a potential chance to develop. With the current fixed mindset Ned possesses, when he learns of Joe’s loss at the athletics carnival he will identify this purely as loss, and therefore tell Joe it is because his training doesn’t work and because he simply does not have the ability.

 

5.    Taking on more challenges

As Joe has the opposite mindset of Ned when considering Dweck’s self-theory, he is more open to the spotlight effect and see’s the opportunity as a potential learning experience. The fact that Joe had no expectations on himself when starting athletics as he had zero experience meant that he had no concern for the spotlight effect as he was not expected to succeed. This allowed him to improve and grow as an athlete at his own pace and will give him confidence to partake in more challenges involving the sport.

 

 

 

 

 

Cooley, D. (2015). Lecture 3 Personality and Exercises. Retrieved from MYLO.

Cooley, D. (2015). Lecture 4 Personality 2015. Retrieved from MYLO.

Cooley, D. (2015). Lecture 5 Meaning Systems. Retrieved from MYLO.

Cooley, D. (2015). Lecture 6 The effect of PA on Personality. Retrieved from MYLO.