Simulation Reveals the Long-term Consequences of Interventions

When I was working as a secondary school teacher, I realized that even seemingly tiny changes in my class could significantly improve students’ motivation and behavior. For example, take one of my students who didn’t seem to be interested in any subjects at all. In my class introducing moral philosophy to high schoolers (a challenging subject, even for college students), I employed several strategies (e.g., using easy and informal language) to make myself into an attainable and relevant exemplar for students, based on my own and others’ past research about exemplars. A couple of months later, that student’s homeroom teacher thanked me for the dramatic change in the student’s behavior, saying: “Hyemin, my student stopped sleeping in class! You made such a huge change!” Eventually, this once disengaged student earned a very good grade in my tricky moral philosophy class.

As shown in this example and by other psychological research, even a small, short-term intervention can change the developmental trajectories of students in the long-term. This means that if an intervention backfires and causes negative outcomes, then it might be a long-term disaster to students. Thus, educators and policy makers should be careful while planning to implement newly developed interventions in the real world. That is, they may need to conduct long-term, large-scale experiments in addition to small lab-level experiments in order to have more data and make better decisions. Unfortunately, it is very tricky to conduct these kinds of long-term, large-scale experiments due to the lack of time and resources as well as ethical issues.

How can we address the conundrum of conducting long-term, large-scale experiments while developing educational interventions? My new research suggests a potential solution: to simulate the potential outcomes of interventions using small datasets collected from lab-level experiments in advance of field experiments. In two recently published studies (Han, Lee, & Soylu, 2016, 2018), I developed a simulation tool that can be used for the prediction of outcomes of educational interventions in collaboration with a computer scientist and educational neuroscientist. In these studies, our team implemented Evolutionary Causal Matrices (ECM), which were proposed in the field of evolutionary psychology, with a widely-used computer language, Python. In studies on cultural evolution, ECM have been utilized to simulate long-term transitions among different statuses in different populations based on matrices representing status transitions between t and t+1. If we repeat such a transitional calculation multiple times, we can estimate long-term outcomes of transitions in a specific system (e.g., t+100).

In our studies, a dataset collected from studies testing moral educational interventions in a lab and classroom during a short-term experiment was used for simulations. The simulations were performed to examine: 1. which types of moral educational interventions more effectively promote students’ voluntary service engagement compared to other types of interventions, and 2. how often such interventions should be conducted to produce a large effect. In addition, we developed Python classes to enable potential users to conduct similar simulations with their own datasets (https://github.com/xxelloss/Markov-Learning). We reported simulated outcomes of different types of interventions with different frequencies over years.

Of course, because simulated outcomes are estimated based on results from relatively small experimental results, errors are inevitable. In addition, the simulation method that we developed can only take into account simple factors, such as an intervention type and frequency, due to the limitations of ECM. So, simulated outcomes do not necessarily show us exactly how the reality will be. However, the simulated outcomes provide insights about how to set hypotheses and how to design experiments to researchers and educators who intend to test outcomes of interventions in large-scale educational settings. And, future research can help to address these limitations. For instance, applying machine learning and deep learning methods will allow us to consider diverse human and environmental factors with improved prediction accuracy while performing simulation. Once we have a more sophisticated tool for simulation, researchers and educators will be able to have better knowledge about how to design more effective educational programs.


Dr. Hyemin Han is Assistant Professor in Educational Psychology and Educational Neuroscience at the University of Alabama. As an interdisciplinary research interested in the improvement of education, Dr. Han conducts research projects in Social, Emotional, and EDucational (SEED) Neuroscience. His research interests include neuroscience of morality, socio-moral development, growth mindset, educational intervention, computational simulation, and professional ethics education. 

Separating the Science from the Scientist

In the years since the #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter movements began, companies and consumers have increasingly punished public figures for personal misconduct like harassment and discrimination. But why do some offenders face mere 'slaps on the wrist,' while other, similar cases, bring more serious consequences? In a recent set of studies, we found that the artistic versus scientific nature of the offender's work plays an important role in determining the professional consequences they face.

Punishments Differ Between Arts and Sciences

Some jobs seem very scientific, like engineering and accounting. Others are more artistic, like graphic design and creative writing. Many jobs, though, have elements of both, including advertisers, computer programmers, and chefs.

We recently wondered whether this art-science distinction could influence the professional punishments people face for unrelated personal misconduct. For example, would artists or scientists face harsher punishments such as getting fired for misconduct like harassment or discrimination?

We ran several studies testing this question. We found that professional consequences are less harsh for offenders whose work seems like "more science than art" (vs. "more art than science").

Consider academic institutions—universities, funding agencies, and academic societies—that have jobs across arts and sciences. When academic institutions discipline faculty for personal misconduct, they presumably try to do so equitably. However, our results show that science faculty receive lighter punishments than arts faculty, on average.

In one of our studies, we identified records spanning 40+ years of universities' investigations of faculty for sexual misconduct. We asked one group of research participants to rate whether each offender's field was more artistic or scientific, and another group to rate the university-imposed punishments' severity.

Our analyses showed that the more scientific (vs. artistic) an offender's field seemed, the less severe their punishment. Surprisingly, punishments were not clearly related to the severity of the misconduct, and although punishments were related to other aspects of the situation like the professional rank of the offender, this difference between more scientific and artistic work still mattered.

Separating the Work from the Person Who Produced It

Why do scientists receive less severe professional punishments for their personal misconduct? The answer lies in a psychological process known as "moral decoupling."

Moral decoupling involves separating judgments about a person's morality from judgments about that person's work. It allows people to continue to value the work of ethically controversial figures while still recognizing their personal behavior as immoral.

We had reason to think that morally decoupling scientific work would be easier than artistic work. Science is usually considered impersonal—it doesn't matter who made a discovery because the facts mean the same thing to everyone. Gravity is gravity regardless of how Isaac Newton treated people. Artworks, though, are often viewed as extensions of their creators, making it harder to separate art from the artist. Consequently, when artists behave badly, it more easily spills into people's feelings about their work.

We ran several experiments to test this explanation. In one, we told people about a professor of visual arts or physics who committed sexual misconduct. Afterward, we asked them how much the professor's misconduct should affect judgments of his work (i.e., moral decoupling) and their support for boycotting his work.

As expected, although people condemned both professors' misconduct equally, they decoupled the scientist's (vs. artist's) work more, which meant they were less supportive of boycotting the scientist's work.

Explaining Persistent Misconduct in the Sciences?

Our findings suggest the impersonal nature of science can offer scientists a kind of professional shield, whereas artists' misconduct more easily tarnishes public perception of their work. This might help explain the relative persistence of sexual misconduct in scientific fields.

Even within a profession, though, individuals can differ in how "artsy" or "science-y" they tend to be. In another study, we described a tennis coach who committed tax fraud. Sure enough, just like with actual artists and scientists, people more readily separated the offender's work from his misconduct when we described his work style as scientific (vs. artistic). This again reduced support for boycotting this sports "scientist's" work.

Big Picture

Notably, this art-science divide seems to apply to professional (work-related) consequences like boycotts, deplatforming, demotions, firings, etc. When it comes to personal consequences, like criminal charges, moral decoupling doesn't come into play, and we don't find art-science differences.

Broadly, this research helps explain how relatively educated people in the U.S. often think about art and science, but this might not apply everywhere. In particular, we suspect the results might differ among people who conceptualize science as more personal or art as less personal.

Overall, our findings show how the artistic-versus-scientific nature of someone's work can shape their professional outcomes. This highlights the potential for inequities and suggests a need—especially in scientific fields and industries—to ensure that professional consequences for personal misconduct are proportional, appropriate, and fair.


For Further Reading

Siev, J. J. & Teeny, J. D. (2024). Personal misconduct elicits harsher professional consequences for artists (vs. scientists): A moral decoupling process. Psychological Science, 35(1), 82-92. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976231214739

Bhattacharjee, A., Berman, J. Z., & Reed, A. II. (2013). Tip of the hat, wag of the finger: How moral decoupling enables consumers to admire and admonish. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(6), 1167-1184. https://doi.org/10.1086/667786


Joe Siev (www.joesiev.com) is a postdoctoral fellow in marketing at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.

Jake Teeny is an assistant professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. More information about his research and work can be found at https://EverydayPsych.com.

Can Mindfulness Help Reduce Bias and Division?

One day, a man encounters a disheveled woman on the street, asking for spare change. Immediately, negative stereotypes spring to mind about the poor and unhoused, intertwined with other stereotypes about race or mental illness. The man feels disgust and contempt, and before he realizes it, he is rushing past her without a glance. As he walks away, he experiences a twinge of guilt and shame, as he ordinarily sees himself as a generous and compassionate person.

Most of us have experienced a similar scenario—automatic associations hijack our behavior and leave us feeling uncomfortable and ashamed. People sort others into categories, based on status and roles, race or ethnicity, age, religion, or social class. People then distance themselves from dissimilar others (outgroup) and hold more positive views of similar others (ingroup).  Unchecked, these cultural biases lead to harmful intergroup processes such as marginalization, dehumanization, discrimination, hate crimes, and genocide. In addition, bias targets may internalize negative stereotypes about their group, increasing their risk for negative health, academic, and other important life outcomes.

Strategies to Reduce Intergroup Bias

Research shows that contact with outgroup members is one of the best ways to reduce intergroup bias when the groups have equal status and a shared goal, and the contact involves cooperation and has institutional support. However, most people circulate in homogenous social networks, resulting in fewer opportunities for intergroup interactions. For example, a July 2023 Pew Research poll involving more than 5,000 Americans found that 70% of White people report that all or most of their close friends are also White.

Mindfulness As a Strategy to Mitigate Bias

How can people mitigate bias in a spatially and digitally segregated world?  Recent research suggests that mindfulness disrupts intergroup bias, including bias against others and internalized stigma. Adapted from Buddhist meditation practices, mindfulness involves moment-by-moment awareness of bodily sensations, thoughts, feelings, and surrounding environment, coupled with an attitude of openness, curiosity, and nonjudgment.

We conducted a meta-analysis, examining the previous evidence that mindfulness, as a meditative practice or as a personal trait, predicts decreased bias directed towards others or internalized toward oneself. We also examined whether mindfulness relates to anti-racist or other anti-bias outcomes, such as donating money to the homeless, cultivating relationships with oppressed group members (for example, racial or religious minorities), or acknowledging that racism is a root cause of social inequality.

A total of 70 studies from 62 articles involving 9,231 participants mostly from the U.S., but also across Europe, Asia, and Australia, as well as the Middle East (specifically Israel and Palestine) reported findings relevant to our research questions. The studies included students, clinical populations, trainees and professionals in health care, education, and law enforcement. Combining results across studies revealed 3 key findings.

First, mindfulness was strongly associated with improvements in intergroup or antibias outcomes, with big effects on explicit responses such as attitudes, feelings, and observed behaviors and medium effects on implicit attitudes that operate outside of conscious awareness and control.

Second, mindfulness may enhance the well-being of marginalized people by increasing their resilience to negative societal messages about their group.

Third, among intervention studies, effects did not vary by the duration of the intervention or specific target group (e.g., Black Americans, the homeless). However, mindfulness-based interventions had a stronger positive effect on bias in the general population compared to those in the helping professions (e.g., teachers, counselors, medical staff).

In sum, mindfulness can reduce biases and help people find more egalitarian, anti-bias ways of relating to themselves and others.  In practice, it might look something like this:

As the man encounters the disheveled woman, he notices his negative thoughts about the poor and unhoused, involuntary tension in his body, feelings of disgust, and a desire to move away. Adopting an attitude of openness, curiosity, and kindness, he interprets these reactions as ingrained habits of mind that are reinforced by a culture that blames the poor for being poor, and reminds himself that people's contexts (as well as their choices) shape their life outcomes. He acknowledges that he does not know the specific chain of events in this woman's life that brought her to this moment of need.  Reminding himself of his core values of generosity, kindness, and compassion, he pauses and brings his attention to his body, inhibiting the impulse to walk past her outstretched hand. He slows his pace, meets her gaze, and offers her a few bills, affirming their shared humanity. 


For Further Reading

Chang, D.F., Donald, J., Whitney, J., Miao, I.Y., & Sahdra, B. (2023). Does mindfulness improve intergroup bias, internalized bias, and antibias outcomes? A meta-analysis and systematic review of the evidence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672231178518

Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(5), 751–783. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.90.5.751


Doris F. Chang is a clinical psychologist and an Associate Professor at the New York University Silver School of Social Work. She studies factors associated with ethnic minority mental health and develops culturally-affirming interventions for clinical and educational contexts that integrate mindfulness and other contemplative traditions.

Learning About Systemic Racism Can Reduce Anti-indigenous Bias

Racism toward Indigenous people is common and has awful consequences. For example, anti-Indigenous racism is linked with poor academic performance, depression, and even death in Indigenous people.

Can people be taught to abandon their racism? The short answer is yes, but some types of education work better than others.

Organizations across Canada and other countries use education to try to reduce racism. You might have taken "diversity training" or "cultural awareness training" at your job or school. Even though these types of training are common, researchers know surprisingly little about what works when it comes to reducing racism. So, we wanted to test what type of education reduces racism the most.

Racism Takes Different Forms

We first needed to consider what racism is, exactly. Racism is a negative bias toward a person based on their race, which includes biased thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

There are many types of racism. We focused on two in our research. One is the type of racism people usually think of—racism that happens between two people (interpersonal racism) such as when someone uses a racial slur. Another is racism that happens within an institution (systemic racism). For example, some of our earlier research found that universities are designed to support the needs of White students, but not the needs of Indigenous students. Both types of racism cause harm.

Systemic racism is the foundation of past and present attempts to destroy Indigenous peoples' cultures. For example, residential schools funded and operated by the governments of Canada and churches until 1996 were designed to destroy Indigenous cultures. The large number of Indigenous children currently in foster care in Canada is another example of the destruction of Indigenous cultures. In many cases, Indigenous children are removed from their families and put into foster care with non-Indigenous families because of poverty. But the reason poverty is higher in Indigenous communities than non-Indigenous communities is systemic: racist government policies provide less funding to Indigenous communities than non-Indigenous ones.

In addition to systemic biases undergirding residential schools and built into foster care systems, Indigenous people have also experienced (and continue to experience) widespread interpersonal racism, such as when workers at residential schools used racial epithets or when a social worker removes a child because they assume an Indigenous mother is unfit without sufficient cause. Such experiences of interpersonal racism are linked to a host of negative outcomes, including hating one's own culture and parental distress.

Which Type of Racism to Teach?

We wanted to know if people's own biases would be more affected by learning about interpersonal or systemic racism. To study this, we conducted online experiments with 1,738 first-year psychology students at the University of Manitoba. We collected data at several times, to see how the educational interventions worked across time.

We split participants randomly into three groups. The first group didn't learn anything about racism. The other groups watched a brief educational video about residential schools and Indigenous children in foster care, but one group's video included an additional discussion of interpersonal racism, and the other group's video included an additional discussion of systemic racism. Over the next few months, we conducted several surveys to gauge everyone's degree of anti-Indigenous bias.

Overall, learning about either interpersonal racism or systemic racism tended to have positive effects, improving participants' thoughts and feelings about Indigenous people and indirectly increasing their pro-Indigenous behavior such as watching an additional educational video about Indigenous experiences.

However, our results also showed that teaching people about systemic racism was the better education initiative, leading people to express less racism. Teaching about interpersonal racism didn't just underperform—it backfired! People became less aware of White privilege over time when they learned about interpersonal racism. Both educational initiatives had less impact over time.

How to Reduce Racism

Our findings highlight how educational interventions can be designed to reduce racism. First, because we found that the benefits of education can wane over time, educational interventions to reduce racism should be recurring (though they should not simply repeat the same training each year as we suspect this would cause attendees to take them less seriously). 

Second, our findings clearly highlight that teaching about systemic racism is especially beneficial. In fact, emphasizing interpersonal racism, which is likely the focus of many existing interventions, can make matters even worse.

Third, there is no shortage of ideas about how to address racism. However, our research illustrates the importance of rigorously testing existing interventions to see if they work, if they have weak points, and if they produce lasting change.

We still have many questions. For example, why does learning about systemic racism work better? Does learning about systemic racism work better with all people or just undergraduate university students? What else might we add to educational interventions to make them even more effective? New studies may further clarify which methods are best for reducing racism toward Indigenous people.


For Further Reading

Efimoff, I. H. & Starzyk, K. B. (2023). The impact of education about historical and current injustices, individual racism, and systemic racism on anti-Indigenous prejudice. European Journal of Social Psychology, 53, 1542-1562. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2987

Efimoff, I. H. & Starzyk, K. B. (in press). An example of embedding indigenous research approaches into social psychology: A mixed methods program of research to reduce anti-Indigenous prejudice. SAGE Research Methods: Diversifying and Decolonizing Research Case Studies.
 

Iloradanon H. Efimoff is a Haida and White scholar at Toronto Metropolitan University who studies how to reduce racism toward Indigenous people in Canada.

Katherine B. Starzyk is a Polish and Canadian scholar at the University of Manitoba who studies intergroup relations, including progress toward reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada.

Recapping the 2023 Presidential Plenary: How Norms Change – Part 2

In this piece, we are continuing from last month's recap of the SPSP 2023 Presidential Plenary on Social Norms, with talks from Drs. Guy Elcheroth and Cristina Bicchieri. Read on for the recaps and check out Part 1 here!

How Norms Change Faster: Social Creativity in Times of Crisis – Guy Elcheroth, University of Lausanne

A large part of the study of human behavior focuses on change, from perceptions and beliefs to norms and behavior. In his talk, Dr. Elcheroth offers a perspective that change during challenges contexts is different from the change that occurs during times of relative peace. Difficult times (think world wars, pandemics, etc.) herald rapid changes in the daily lives and behaviors of people. These disruptions often occur at a pace and scale with which people are often radically unfamiliar and can be difficult to understand. It seems that the most consequential changes are the hardest to comprehend or predict.

Common-sense intuitions cannot always help us in the case of non-linear, rapid change, such as when the pace of previous change is different from the pace of future change. Once a feedback loop is established in this case, the relative importance of the root cause of the change diminishes. However, traditional research methods used to study change, like regressions and assumptions of stable relationships between predictor and outcome, are built on such assumptions. This has led to social psychological research studying popular uprisings from a point of view removed from the people at the center of it. They are instead rooted in researchers' own positions and ideologies, leading to suppositions that collective situations can escalate rapidly and contagiously, leading to a breakdown of values and humanity. However, modern research on collective behaviors disputes this conclusion.

Dr. Elcheroth chairs the The Pluralistic Memories Project, which studies collective memories in conflict zones in order to understand how communities can remain resilient to the exploitation of past trauma. Studying three communities that endured political violence (Sri Lanka, Berundi, and Palestine), researchers found evidence of stories testifying to the resilience, creativity, and solidarity of communities amidst crises (see Figure 1 below).

Pyramid-shaped diagram showing themes identified through coding 200 testimonies

Figure 1. Themes identified through coding 200 testimonies (Pluralistic Memories Project)

Perceived social norms can act as vehicles of rapid social change, the type that will be essential for combatting adverse climate change and global ecological breakdown. In a meta-analysis of social norm interventions for environmental conservation, researchers found that people systematically use less energy and material resources after learning that such behavior is normative. Similarly, public support for social distancing rules in the UK increased faster after the government imposed a strict lockdown. These examples suggest that perceived norms may act as a catalyst for rapid social change for the greater good.

How might perceived norms shift collective action behaviors in conflict settings? In a study conducted with Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem, Dr. Elcheroth and colleagues found that the closer communities lived to Israeli military infrastructure and surveillance (e.g. the separation wall, checkpoints, or military barracks), the less likely they were to support cooperative forms of collective action (e.g. negotiations), although support for confrontational forms of collective action was unchanged (e.g. boycott). Could this impact of surveillance on collective action be explained by communication norms at the community level? Yes—participants' perceptions of the extent to which complex, alternative narratives of the conflict fit with local communication norms mediated the relationship between proximity to military infrastructure and the kind of collective action they supported.

These findings show that shifting social norms have the potential to accelerate social change because they orient behavior when stakes are high and values uncertain. They also have a self-reinforcing capacity and are sensitive to cues from public policy. In order to understand them better, we must be innovative in our research by employing multilevel study designs, non-linear modeling tools, and pursuing transdisciplinary collaborations.

Norm Dynamics – Cristina Bicchieri, University of Pennsylvania

How do we use "norm nudging" to change behaviors? Norms are supported by empirical expectations (what we expect others to do), normative expectations (what we expect others to approve/disapprove of), and conditional preferences. Norm nudging uses social information to induce change, under the assumption that the social information will change social expectations, thus fueling behavior change. However, there are mixed results for this method, where effects are often short-lived and sometimes fail altogether.

One of the reasons for the failures in norm nudging is the asymmetry of inferences that people draw from the social information they are given. However, not much attention has been paid to this factor and therefore we know little about how people draw inferences from social information. We know that people draw inferences about individuals (e.g. beliefs, attitudes) from social information about individual people—called social inference. However, making norm inferences about an overall group based on social information about a few people is difficult.

Dr. Bicchieri and PhD student Jinyi Kuang examined inferences that participants drew when presented empirical or normative information about 23 different behaviors. Dr. Bicchieri and Kuang found that for positive behaviors like driving below the speed limit, people made stronger normative inferences from empirical information. If participants are told most people pay taxes on time, for example, they infer that most people think it is right to do so. However, this is not the case when making empirical inferences from normative information. For instance if participants are told most people think it is right to pay taxes on time, they do not infer that most people do. This double asymmetry effect was flipped for negative behaviors like bribing public officers.

For some of the 23 behaviors examined, Dr. Bicchieri and Kuang found a double asymmetry effect. Others demonstrated only positive behavior asymmetry, while the rest showed no asymmetry. Possible explanations for the asymmetry outliers could be baseline expectations, frequency of the behavior, observability of behaviors, and social consequences (both objective and perceived). For behaviors having strong social benefit, there is a tendency to infer strong approval from empirical information and weaker prevalence from normative information (asymmetry). On the other hand, for behaviors with low positive social benefit, the inferences from empirical and normative information did not significantly differ (no asymmetry). In other words, when a behavior has low social consequences, participants believe that the prosocial behaviors of others are a genuine reflection of normative attitudes.

Taken together, to launch successful norm nudging efforts, researchers and practitioners must consider the characteristics of the behavior, perceived social consequences of the behavior, and assess the kind of norm inferences that will be drawn from information about the behavior, before designing messages that influence said behavior.

We thank Drs. Elcheroth and Bicchieri for sharing their findings and insights with convention attendees!

 

Do Growth Mindset Interventions Work?

Google "growth mindset" and you get nearly 300 million hits. Walk into an American school and you are bombarded with growth mindset messaging. Naturally, scientists, policymakers, and educators want to know if fostering a growth mindset can help people reach their goals. Do growth mindset interventions work? Before answering this question, let's first discuss what growth mindsets are. 

The What, When, and Why of Growth Mindsets

Growth mindsets are intuitively held beliefs about the potential for attributes, abilities, and human characteristics to change. Someone with a growth mindset believes that traits such as intelligence can be developed, whereas someone with a fixed mindset believes that such attributes are set in stone early in life.

These mindsets apply to a multitude of qualities ranging from beliefs about the fundamental nature of people, to beliefs about the capacity to change one's weight or basic artistic abilities. Mindsets, regardless of context, matter because they set the stage for interpreting life's experiences, especially during challenging times. For example, when students with a growth mindset struggle at school, they tend to persist, remain optimistic, and reach out for help. In contrast, students with a fixed mindset tend to shy away from working harder, become anxious, anticipate future failures, and avoid the situation. In summary, mindsets set up a pattern of motivation, with implications for achievement, and they matter most when stressors and struggles arise. 

Can These Mindsets be Changed?

Considering the potential benefits of growth mindsets, it is natural to ask whether a person's mindset can be changed (for the better). And if so, will this help people achieve positive outcomes in their lives? My colleagues and I asked these very questions in a review of all the studies that have rigorously tested these ideas. We limited our review to 53 studies that randomly assigned people either to a treatment condition in which they received a growth mindset message, or to a control condition. We focused on whether growth mindset interventions could improve academic, interpersonal, and mental health-related outcomes.  

We asked a number of distinct questions when summarizing the research. For example, do these interventions foster stronger growth beliefs that abilities and attributes can change? Do they also improve confidence and increase persistence? Do these, in turn, improve academic performance, interpersonal functioning, and mental health? Based on the evidence, the short answer is yes, growth mindset interventions foster strong growth mindsets, more persistence, improved mental health, better interpersonal functioning, and perhaps greater confidence as well. However, the direct link to improved academic performance is small, which brings us to our next point.

The answer about intervention effectiveness is not a simple yes or no. Rather, like most things in life, the answer is "it depends." Just as people who are more at risk for a heart attack benefit the most from blood pressure-lowering drugs, interventions with individuals with some indication of risk should demonstrate larger effects. Indeed, this is what we find for academic performance and mental health. Growth mindset interventions worked the best when they were delivered to people who needed them—those with some indication of risk or vulnerability.

We also considered how these interventions are delivered. The effectiveness of the intervention can only be as good as its delivery. Like taking medicine, you must take the right dose, sometimes at a particular time of day, and in the right context (such as on an empty stomach). Similarly, growth mindset interventions need to be delivered accurately, need to include key ingredients, and are more effective in contexts that support the growth mindset messaging. In our work, we could not test all these elements, yet past research makes it clear that these practices are vital.

In summary, the answer to the question "Do growth mindset interventions work?" is yes. But, there are important qualifications. They most effectively impact mental health, relative to academic achievement, and are more likely to improve outcomes when implemented well and delivered to the right people.  


For Further Reading

Burnette, J. L., Billingsley, J., Banks, G. C., Knouse, L., Hoyt, C. L., Pollack, J. M., & Simon, S. (2022). A systematic and meta-analytic review of growth mindset interventions: For whom, how, and why might such interventions work? Psychological Bulletin.

Dweck, C. S. (2000). Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development. Taylor & Francis.

Dweck, C. S., & Yeager, D. S. (2019). Mindsets: A view from two eras. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14(3), 481–496. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691618804166


Jeni L. Burnette is a Professor of Psychology at North Carolina State University. Dr. Burnette's scholarly work is currently focused on understanding how to best implement growth mindset interventions and foster growth mindset cultures.

Crystal L. Hoyt is a Professor of Leadership Studies and Psychology and the Colonel Leo K. & Gaylee Thorsness Endowed Chair in Ethical Leadership at the University of Richmond. Dr. Hoyt's scholarship resides at the intersection of human belief systems, such as mindsets, stereotypes, ideologies, and social issues that have implications for social justice and wellbeing.

Joseph Billingsley is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Tulane University. Dr. Billingsley is particularly interested in applying evolutionary and cognitive approaches to understanding prosocial behavior, in such areas as forgiveness, kinship, and the psychology of religion.

Growth Mindset Interventions Yield Impressive Results

A growth mindset is the belief that intellectual abilities are not fixed, but can be developed. Do students who are taught a growth mindset earn higher grades and test scores?

Brooke Macnamara and her colleagues, who conducted a meta-analysis of growth mindset interventions, found that when students were taught a growth mindset, they showed significantly higher achievement. But Macnamara believes that the effects of these programs or interventions, while statistically significant, are too small to be practically meaningful.

My colleagues and I, along with educational evaluation expertseconomists and the World Bank, disagree.

You’re probably thinking that of course I would say the effects of growth mindset intervention are meaningful since my research is what led to their creation.

Yet our disagreement with Macnamara rests on exactly what one considers to be a meaningful effect size for an educational intervention. An effect size is a way to standardize treatment benefits across very different outcomes, like test scores and grade point averages.

Macnamara states that the average or typical effect size for an educational intervention is .57. In the case of grade point averages, this would mean that students in a typical intervention group would have grades that are about .57 points higher than a control group on a 4.0 scale.

Effects on grades

Looking closely at this literature, however, we found that most of the studies that yielded this .57 effect size did not examine effects on actual grades and standardized test scores at all. They often looked at performance on a quiz given minutes after students were taught something.

The right comparisons for the growth mindset interventions are educational interventions that looked at effects on actual grades and major test scores. As the examples below show, an effect size of .20 for grades or test scores within a school year is about the best you can expect. This is true of even the most costly and comprehensive programs – and especially for adolescents, the age group for which most growth mindset interventions take place.

For example, smaller class sizes for all the elementary schools in a state had an effect size of .20. In fact, a whole year of school learning from grade 9 to grade 10 yields an effect size of about .20 across subjects, as measured by standardized tests. A whole year with a good teacher, as opposed to an average teacher, usually yields an effect size of about .20.

Based on a search of the What Works Clearinghouse, a government site that reviews high-quality research on educational interventions, there are almost no rigorously evaluated interventions with significant effects on high school students’ achievement. One of the most highly regarded of the few successful programs for high school students is a literacy program for at-risk 9th grade readers, with an effect size of .06 and a cost of almost US$2,000 per student.

Sue Dynarski, a leading educational economist, says that in real-world settings, an effect size of .20 is “a large effect.”

The effect size that Macnamara reports for growth mindset interventions is .19 for students at risk for low achievement – that is, for the students most in need of an academic boost. When you include students who are not at risk or are already high achievers, the effect size is .08 overall. These effects don’t look so small when you use the right comparisons. But there’s more.

Inexpensive and efficient

Many growth mindset interventions last about an hour and cost less than $1 per student. They are delivered directly to students and do not change anything about the teacher, classroom or school. And yet they provide a reasonable chunk of the effects delivered by more extensive and costly interventions, even many of the best-in-class school reforms – such as smaller classes or better teachers.

Direct-to-student interventions are just one way to address students’ mindsets. Colleagues at the University of Washington and Indiana University are now building a curriculum to help teachers implement growth mindset practices in their classrooms. This will take us closer to understanding the true potential of growth mindsets to enhance students’ learning.

Our interventions for students are available to educators at no cost. The teacher curriculum, when fully developed and fully tested, will be as well. It should be noted that I have no financial relationship with any entity that sells mindset-related products.

Approaches to cultivating a growth mindset are in their infancy. Much remains to be learned. In pursuit of this knowledge, my colleagues and I have just completed a nationwide study of mindset interventions, examining where they work best and how they can be made better. We believe the most exciting part of our scientific journey is just beginning.


Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology, Stanford University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Methods Matter When Working to Improve Public Health

Four social and personality psychologists will discuss the latest nudges and policies that encourage, or discourage, healthy behaviors in individuals.

Atlanta, GA - From sugary beverages to apple watches and retirement accounts, research sheds new light on social-psychological interventions to improve public wellbeing. Four social and personality psychologists will discuss the latest nudges and policies that encourage, or discourage, healthy behaviors in individuals at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Convention.

Improving Public Health

Cities, counties, states and even the Federal government work to find ways to encourage healthy behaviors. In daily calorie consumption, the average American consumes more than they need on a daily basis, leading to excess weight gain and associated health issues.

Grant Donnelly (Harvard Business School) and colleagues field-tested the effectiveness of graphic warning labels (vs. text warning labels, calorie labels, and no labels), to provide insight into psychological mechanisms driving effectiveness of changing people’s behaviors towards buying sugary beverages, often cited as a source of extra calories in the American diet.

Based on their research, "Graphic images depicting the health risks of sugar consumption reduce purchasing of sugary beverages,” says Donnelly, “Calorie and text warnings do not."  Donnelly will discuss the findings from a large scale field experiment where graphic warnings decreased purchasing of sugary beverages by over 15% -- a larger reduction than the effect of the sugary beverage tax implemented in Berkeley, California.

When Nudges Backfire

Sometimes things we do to try and improve people’s health and wealth have unintended affects. 

“Interventions aimed to promote people’s physical activity and health — such as guidelines, fitness apps, and wearables — often have unintended negative effects on individuals’ psychological mindsets.” says Octavia Zahrt (Stanford University), who will be presenting on Saturday.

Zahrt and her co-author Alia Crum recently published research on people’s mindsets about how physically active they are as compared to their peers. The team found individuals who perceived themselves as less active than others were up to 71% more likely to die in the follow-up period than those who perceived themselves as more active.

“If we want to ensure that interventions actually improve people’s health and wellbeing, we need to take into account their effects on mindsets,” summarizes Zahrt.

Nudges to encourage people to save for their future also need to be worded carefully, according to Hengchen Dai (University of California, Los Angeles). Dai and colleagues recently studied how language to encourage retirement savings affected individuals’ willingness to save immediately or save later. The research showed that wording they thought would encourage people to save actually caused them to ignore the suggestion.

"Our research highlights that it is important for managers, policy makers, and marketers to pilot test nudges and assess the implicit messages that may be unintentionally leaked by their design,” says Dai.

Advancing Research

Jon Jachimowicz (Columbia Business School) will round out the symposium to discuss and dispel common myths related to social and personality psychology field work. His research shows that default effectiveness varies widely; and loss framing is more effective when personal (vs. societal) losses are emphasized. Field applications of behavioral science therefore require clearer theoretical specifications to be effective.

The symposium, Leveraging Social-Psychological Insights to Promote Public Health and Wellbeing, takes place Saturday, March 3rd at 8 a.m. on the final day of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Convention.


News media may contact [email protected] to request interviews with the speakers.

The SPSP Annual Convention brings together pioneers in the field of personality and social psychology to network, collaborate, and celebrate their science. The meeting serves not only as a platform for presenting and discussing the most recent breakthroughs in research but also as a spring board for collaboration between our members. 

The Society for Personality and Social Psychology promotes scientific research that explores how people think, behave, feel, and interact. With more than 7,500 members, the Society is the largest organization of social and personality psychologists in the world.

Brian Nosek

Brian Nosek is a Professor at the University of Virginia and the Executive Director of the Center for Open Science. Dr. Nosek earned his degree from Yale University and has been a member of SPSP since 1997. More information about Nosek and his work can be found here


 

Why did you join SPSP?

I am a social psychologist. How could I not?

What led you to choose a career in social psychology?

I was a computer engineering major until my 4th year of undergrad.  I took some psychology courses "for fun" as a break from the engineering classes.  My engineering grades started to drop as I spent all my time thinking about psychology.  I decided psychology was the future, and computer engineering was not.  It was the mid-90's.  

Briefly summarize your current research, and any future research interests you plan to pursue. 

I study the gap between values and practices.  What we want to do versus what we actually do.  My present emphasis is applying this general interest to scientific values and scientific practices.  I am studying it with an emphasis on interventions - how can we better align our practices with our values?

What is your most memorable SPSP Annual Convention experience?

Sitting in a session listening to a speaker suggest that my colleagues and I were unethical for the research that we were doing on implicit bias.  Perhaps that is not quite what you have in mind for this question - but it was memorable!

How has being a member of SPSP helped to advance your career?

It is important to have an identity that links me to a social group.  I am a social psychologist.  That helps me define myself.  

Do you have any advice for individuals who wish to pursue a career in social psychology?

It is never risky to do the right thing. All theories are wrong in some important way, so don't get caught up in defending yours.  The best person to take down your theory and replace it with something better is you.  In writing, lead with the evidence, follow with the explanation.  Explanations will change over time, evidence persists. Getting a positive result may be the key incentive in the present academic culture, but you may learn more from your negative results. Innovation blossoms from when our expectations are violated, not when they are confirmed. Find ways to share all your results, positive or negative, beautiful or ugly, and how you obtained them.  Someone, perhaps your future self, will thank you later.

Outside of psychology, how do you spend your free time?

There is a common saying that one can have a job, a career, or a calling.  For me, this work is a calling.  I feel great opportunity and great responsibility to make a positive contribution to our field and to science.  So, I don't perceive having "free time" - but that is not a complaint.  It is just that I am motivated to use the time that I have to contribute to my discipline, be a good dad and spouse, and cheer hard for my brother's basketball team.  Beyond that, there isn't much.