Mindset Matters for Parents and Adolescents

Abstract

An important responsibility of pediatricians is to help children achieve good health, resiliency, and developmental skills, especially when faced with adversity. While psychological factors have been shown to influence both physiological health and behavioral outcomes in a variety of settings, relatively little of this research has reached the world of clinical practice. The purpose of this commentary is to introduce the concept of mindset to pediatricians to stimulate research that may benefit children's health and development. In addition, we hope to bring their attention to well-established evidence of interventions that may influence mindset and behaviors.In psychological theory, a mindset is a set of beliefs or assumptions held by individuals that contribute to their world view and can lead to different perceptions and actions. The study of mindset has been particularly influential in the world of education, where "growth" mindsets, in which success is based on effort or hard work, have resulted in improved performance on school tasks as well as insocialinteractions. 1 Ontheoppositeendofthespectrum, children who have fixed and unchangeable mindsets, especially when supported by social contingencies (eg, girls are not good at math), tend to think there is nothing they can do to effect change within a certain area of function, which is reinforced by poor performance. These children show less persistence and worse performance after even minor failures, while those with a growth mindset about intelligence try harder and perform better at similar tasks. 1 Thus far, there has been no specific temperament or neurobiologicalsourceforthisresilienceinthefaceofsetbacks; rather, it appears to stem from an underlying belief that success comes with challenges (including failure) and that performance can be improved through hard work.Mindset research also has been shown to be valuable in the world of health care. Indeed, mindset analysis can be considered the cornerstone of placebo responses and may offer an explanation for the positive effects and physiological changes that are associated with inert pills or sham procedures. One elegant study 2 showed the power of beliefs or mindsets to result in different ghrelin responses when participants were told that the same milkshake was either high or low in calories and fat. 2 This finding goes beyond the subjective feeling of satiation directly to mind-mediated hormonal response; it is a placebo effect directly from the brain without the need of a pill. In another research paradigm, healthy adolescents with a "growth" mindset of health have been shown to view illness as less debilitating than those with "fixed" health mindsets, while adolescents with type 1 diabetes who believe health to be malleable have better health outcomes than those who view health as fixed. 3 These effects were found to be independent of traditional "locus of control" measures.Importantly, children do not appear to be born with 1 type of mindset or another; rather, it seems that mind-VIEWPOINT

A parent intervention with a growth mindset approach improves children's early gesture and vocabulary development

“…Interventions that take a growth mindset approach with school‐aged children are successful in promoting academic skills and resilience in students (Yeager & Dweck, ). We suggest that this approach can also be useful with parents (e.g., Mueller, Rowe, & Zuckerman, ). This simple mindset messaging might be just the kind of “nudge” (Thaler & Sunstein, ) parents need to promote behaviors at scale that positively contribute to their children's development during early childhood (Benartzi et al, ).…”

The relationship between health mindsets and health protective behaviors: An exploratory investigation in a convenience sample of American Indian adults during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Mindset is a relatively new concept within health but one which has shown initial promise [30][31][32][33]. Our findings suggest that holding a growth mindset of health can be linked to greater adoption of behaviors which may work to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 in vulnerable communities.…”

The impact of parental health mindset on postoperative recovery in children

“…Here, mindset is defined "a set of beliefs or assumptions held by individuals that contribute to their world view and can lead to different perceptions and actions." 11 Mueller revised the original mindset scale developed by Dweck to be appropriate for use in the healthcare settings. 12 In addition to the academic realm, mindset has been explored across a number of domains including stress 44 and personal relationships 45,46 .…”

“…Accordingly, Dweck and colleagues have introduced a cost‐effective intervention that successfully taught children how to change their mindset, which resulted in improvements in academic performance 9,10 . In fact, mindset has been proposed as an important concept in the context the health and well‐being of children and adolescents 11 …”

“…In the educational setting, simple one-hour interventions can improve growth mindset and grades. 11 More recently, online interventions have successfully impacted mindset and achievement, 56 and these types of interventions can impact physiological response to stress by lowering cortisol. 57 Our group and others have adopted mobile health (mHealth) interventions targeting perioperative anxiety, pain, and recovery in children undergoing outpatient surgery 58,59 .…”