Good et al., 2003: Learning about the malleability of intelligence and attributing failure to novel social situations improved math standardized scores among girls and reading scores among low-income seventh graders
Reference:
Good, C., Aronson, J., & Inzlicht, M. (2003). Improving adolescents' standardized test performance: An intervention to reduce the effects of stereotype threat. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 24(6), 645-662
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7th grade students in a rural, low-income, and predominantly Hispanic and Black population were matched with a college student mentor with whom they had two in-person 90-minute meetings plus email exchanges. In a treatment condition, the mentor taught students about how the brain is capable of forming new neural connections throughout life and that it functions like “a muscle; the more you use it, the stronger it grows.” Together with students in an attributional retraining condition and as compared to a randomized control condition, girls (but not boys) earned higher math scores on a state test while both girls and boys earned higher reading scores.
Psychological Process:
What Desired Meaning is At Stake?
What is the Person Trying to Understand?
Selves (My Own and Others')Approach to Desired Meaning
What about it?
Promoting growth-mindsets: Representing psychological qualities as capable of changeHow?
Psychological Question Addressed
Is intelligence fixed or can it growIs intelligence fixed or can it growPsychological Question Addressed
Is intelligence fixed or can it growPsychological Process 2:
Psychological Process 3:
Social Area:
Education
Intervention Technique:
Prompting with information