Implicit personality theories on the modifiability and stability of the action repertoire as a meaningful framework for individual motivation: a cross‐cultural study

Abstract

The attainment of exceptional accomplishments requires extremely long periods of time. It has yet to be explained, though, how individuals find the motivation for such protracted learning. Carol Dweck proposed that an incremental theory of an individual's abilities is an important factor in this process since it would account for the optimism needed to successfully tackle new steps in the learning process and would help an individual to cope with setbacks. This study seeks to refine Dweck's theory. Drawing on the Actiotope Model of Giftedness, we argue that an incremental theory of an individual's abilities should be divided into two theories: a modifiability theory of the mutability of an individual's deficits in the areas of knowledge and capability; and a stability theory of the stability of successful extensions of the action repertoire. A sample of 488 12-to 13-year-old students from Brazil, South Korea, Spain, and the United States participated in the crosssectional study. Their IQ scores place them among the top 5% of the target population. A series of regression analyses using various indicators of motivational behavior as dependent variables shows that the theorized elaboration of Dweck's approach appears to be very useful.

Psychological characteristics of students in learning clinical interview skills with the use of virtual patient

“…Certainly, for such students it is natural to receive varied, often contradictory information from the patient, which cannot be quickly arranged into a clear diagnosis. People convinced of the stability of human traits tend to feel a higher level of anxiety in such a situation and try to reduce the complexity of the information to build an oversimplified picture of the patient [ 24 ]. Probably, they are also less tolerant of their mistakes which increases stress and the likelihood of making mistakes.…”

“…Beliefs in changeability vs stability of human traits [ 23 ] could also influence the way students learn interview skills. This trait is meaningful for the level of motivation, tendency to take up challenges, social-emotional functioning and engagement in effortful tasks, which translates into, for instance, educational achievements and the ability to cope with stressful situations [ 24 ]. Individuals who believe in the changeability of human traits react in a more positive way to feedback concerning a change in the level of task performance [ 25 ].…”

Helplessness among University Students: An Empirical Study Based on a Modified Framework of Implicit Personality Theories

“…On the subjective side, following the work of [69,70], we propose an extended variant of Dweck's implicit personality theory of the origin of helpless reactions. Helpless reactions in the face of (repeated) failure are predominantly demonstrated by persons who subscribe to an entity theory as opposed to an incremental personality theory [54,71,72].…”

“…Dweck has provided a lot of evidence that incremental theorists react more adaptively when facing failure [73][74][75][76][77]. However, building on [70], we believe that the focus on change and on the modifiability of deficits is insufficient. There are many well-established psychological constructs and theories that also assign a positive role to stability.…”

Do Implicit Theories About Ability Predict Self-Reports and Behavior-Proximal Measures of Primary School Students’ In-Class Cognitive and Metacognitive Learning Strategy Use?

“…Therefore, the more learners hold an incremental theory, the more effort they tend to invest (Cury et al, 2008;Ziegler and Stoeger, 2010;Mouratidis et al, 2017), and the more adaptively they react to setbacks. Whereas incremental theorists tend to look for ways to remedy their deficits (Hong et al, 1999;Ziegler et al, 2010a;Dresel et al, 2013) and to increase their effort (Jones et al, 2012;Rickert et al, 2014), entity theorists tend to experience negative affect (Shih, 2011), to reduce their effort (Smiley et al, 2016), and to consider giving up (Robins and Pals, 2002).…”