Shuyi Jiang May 1, 2020 ENG 151 Professor Petrarca Superpower: the Mindset Happiness is not the product of being successful, but success is just one of the results for achieving genuine happiness. The most important part of the journey to happiness is to develop positive mindsets to begin. Mindset is the established attitude of a person, which predetermines the person's response and interpretation of life events. People who establish different positive mindsets will lead to a healthy, happy, and successful life. Establishing a positive mindset means people must step out of the comfort zone, and the best way to do so is to have motivation. Positive effects of establishing a positive mindset will motivate people to give it a try to change or recognize their mindset. For example, positive mindsets allow people to manage stress in a way to boost their lifestyle. People with a positive mindset have a different response when it comes to dealing with stress. No people can escape from stress completely, but the best way of dealing with stress is to turn stress into more energy in life. In the text, “Optimizing Stress Responses with Reappraisal and Mindset Interventions: an Integrated Model,” an experiment is done on 500+ plus company workers and hundreds of students from different grade levels. One part of the suspects are given lessons and speeches every day about stress optimization mindset, and the other part of the suspects remains the same. In this case, students were given the stress of a standardized test, or final test, after being notified a month beforehand by their teacher. The experiment team selects university students with a similar grade to each other and want to see their result for each practice test every week until the finals. As students progress with the pressure of the test, student groups with stress lessons are showing improvement in test grades every week. After students have lessons on stress mindset, their behavior was compared to the previous behavior of themselves. After three weeks of testing, “students who had a stress-is-enhancing mindset exhibited more moderate cortisol reactivity and a greater desire for feedback from peer and professor evaluators” (Jeremy 1). While on the other hand, students who were not given a lesson show low energy, careless behavior for practice tests, and high pressure when it comes to the final. This statement explains how students with a positive mindset have better academic improvement than students without the lesson. In addition, not only university students can benefit from this lesson. “Research on a large sample of 8th-grade adolescents (N = 1,383) has shown that relationships between adverse life events and perceived distress and lack of control were weakened for those who held a stressis-enhancing mindset (Park et al., [ 60] )” (Jeremy 1). This quote explains how academic improvements were not limited to just adults. On the other part of the experiment, financial employees were being tested similarly. Financial companies have monthly expectations from their employees, which means that the closer to the end of the month, the more stress there will be for the workers if they did not meet the minimum expectation yet. One part of the employee is told to watch a 3 minute stress mindset video or having a 2 hour meeting of how to deal with stress with mindset every week (Jeremy 1). Other employees were given a video about the symptoms of stress or no video at all. The text showed a similar result of how“in a longitudinal field study, employees who watched three 3-minute video clips about the enhancing nature of stress over the course of 1-week had greater self-reported improvements in work performance and general health compared to employees who watched videos about the debilitating effects of stress and compared to employees who did not watch any videos”( Jeremy 1). The research team concludes that with a stress-optimization mindset, people will achieve success in their desired field, less likely to suicide for depression/stress, and will find more joy in life. If solving stress is not enough of a reason, an academic boost will sure motivate people to achieve success and happiness. According to Susana Claros’ experiment, “Growth Mindset Tempers the Effects of Poverty on Academic Achievement,” there are two types of mindset when it comes to the field of academic achievement. A fixed mindset is a belief that all intelligence is determined since birth, and no changes can be done to it. People with a fixed mindset tend to have low energy, low resilience to challenges, and low confidence. On the other hand, a growth mindset is a direct opposite, where all intelligence can be developed. During Claros’ experiment on over 2000 schools in Chile, students were given a psychology-based survey to determine if they are an absolute fixed mindset or have a growth mindset, no inbetween. After observing for months, the experiment team took notes on the behavior and academic achievements of the two variable groups. The two groups of students were asked to take a standardized test on the subject of language and mathematics. Claros’ team members compared the behavior and the test results of the two mindset groups. The result states that “student mindset explained 11.8% of variance (r = 0.343) in a composite average of mathematics and language scores, and the top student-level socioeconomic predictor explained 11.3% (r = 0.336)”(Claros 8665). This evidence shows how people with a growth mindset outperform students with a fixed mindset by nearly 12 percent out of 100 percent. The 12% gap is not just for 1 test, and it is for tests throughout the whole semester. Not to mention that the behavior of the 2 test groups was also different during the process. To expand the experiment, Claros and her experiment team decide to reach out for more information about if a mindset can determine someone's future achievement, and this is where the behavior record comes into place. The experiment team observed how they act in class, what the social life outside of the classroom, and general energy they have every day coming into school. They conclude that “students who do well may hold positive self-perceptions, such as believing themselves to be intelligent, accomplished students. It is plausible that these positive self-perceptions could lead to other positive beliefs, such as the belief that their intellectual ability can grow over time”(Claros 8665). During the observation, growth mindset students often show up with great energy the majority of the time to school. Observations show that they have a healthy social connection with friends, family, and teacher . Researchers believe that this high energy school life develops great confidence and healthy self-perceptions. These characteristics lead to great leadership skills and creativity (Claros 8667). Compared to students with a fixed mindset, fixed mindset students lack greatly in confidence and suffer stress issues. In addition, a growth mindset also strengthens students' ability to accept failure and turns that moment of negativity into motivation. The research states that “for any two students with equal characteristics, the one endorsing a growth mindset is more likely to enjoy higher academic achievement, suggesting that the benefit of having a growth mindset holds widely”(Claros 8667). As the test group of students moved on to harder subjects, growth mindset, students showed high energy after failing a higher level subject. This proves my point of how with this kind of attitude, students will be most likely to be involved with essential jobs in the future since dealing with failure is an important skill to enjoy life. Last but not least, a growth mindset helps to temper the gap of the poor and the rich in academic fields. The survey that the student took before the experiment started, asked for students' family income. In today's world, people who come from a high-income family are most likely to be successful with a head start of economy, higher education, and wider connection to other successful people. However, with the help of a growth mindset, the gap is smaller. In the text, the graph (figure.1 ) portraits the evidence to support this claim made by the experiment team. The 2 test groups both took the Language and Math exam. The score they got is represented by the Y axis and the family income being the X-axis. The higher the X value, the more family income the student has. As shown in the graph, students who lived in poverty with a growth mindset, outperformed the majority of the wealthy students with a fixed mindset in the Language subject, and most of the wealthy students. This example explains how even though schools cannot eliminate the advantage of the wealthy students, a growth mindset can be a crucial term to catch up. The experiment team came up with the theory that students with a growth mindset will enjoy their life more than the people with a fixed mindset because of behavior, tolerance to failure, and a healthy social network. The process of learning how to acknowledge or establish a positive mindset will benefit not just yourself, but also people around you. In the text, “Create a Growth Mindset School : An Administrator's Guide to Leading a Growth Mindset Community,” Mary Cay shared her experience during the time when Hammond elementary school was starting a brand new guideline for the students and teachers in developing encouraging mindset. They first held a meeting with the teachers, giving instructions on how to treat students, how to answer their questions. They were told to make students define themselves and allow them to encourage others. For example, when a student did not do well on an assignment, encourage them by focusing on the effort the student put in rather than the result. For just over several weeks, the experiment shows a massive impact on the school network. The principal of the school, Kimberlyn Pratesi states how “The positive energy and shift in perspective experienced in our focus to praise effort and hard work and to view situations through the lens of the power of yet have been life-changing for our stakeholders”(Mary 9). The study shows how the students with a positive mindset are changing students who believe they don’t have the sort of intelligence because of some random reasons. Teachers are showing more patience and care towards the students after this experiment was introduced. They encourage students to ask questions and make them comfortable asking questions. Parents were also receiving positive outcomes when students will go home with a high attitude and share their experiences with their parents. Not only does the positive mindset bring high energy for the learning environment, it also prepares failure for the environment. In Saint Lone Elementary School, they have a program which encourages teachers to accept students' failure and encourages them to be fearless about failing. The text states how the school “allows students to redo assignments and retake assessments only if structures are in place that will help them learn the information in a new way or practice and apply the information.”(Mary 27). Ms. Montgomery, one of the teachers in the school soon realized the importance of such preparation and put the guideline in use. Students were prepared for the mindset of not having a perfect assignment. They are taking in more information as they are progressing to fix the assignment and being fearless when they first hand in the assignment (Mary 28). These students are also encouraged to work together to find out the problem. This piece of evidence shows how establishing a positive mindset from one person may impact the community as a whole. From the principal to the staff of the school, from teachers then to students, and from students then to parents. This research provides evidence how students in this environment are prepared for leadership, teamwork, and resilience. More reasons could be brought up for all benefits for a person, but the fact that it provides a comfortable environment for that person makes a positive mindset seem valuable. Overall, positive mindsets such as stress-optimization mindset, growth mindset, and encouraging mindset provides the basic requirement for enjoying life. These positive mindsets not only prevent you from getting overwhelmed by stress, but also boost your lifestyle by optimizing it. It also provides characteristics for people to be successful in academic path or career. Finally, it creates a surrounding that allows people to support each other. Work Cited Page Claro, Susana, et al. “Growth Mindset Tempers the Effects of Poverty on Academic Achievement.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 113, no. 31, 2016, pp. 8664–8668. Jamieson, Jeremy P, et al. “Optimizing Stress Responses with Reappraisal and Mindset Interventions: an Integrated Model.” Anxiety, Stress, and Coping, vol. 31, no. 3, 2018, pp. 245–261. Ricci, Mary Cay. Create a Growth Mindset School: An Administrator's Guide to Leading a Growth Mindset Community. 2018.
