1: Do you believe that all meaningful problems are deeply rooted and difficult to change?
David Yeager, a mindset researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, shares a story that reveals how deep people’s skepticism can run about the power of short interventions to improve people’s lives.
This week we’re examining multiple studies that show your mindset, or how you think about something, can have a profound impact on your well-being, longevity, and physical health, as shared by Kelly McGonigal in The Upside of Stress.
On Monday, we looked at students who participated in a one-hour workshop where they learned that if you feel like you don’t belong, you aren’t alone; most people feel that way in a new environment; and over time, this will change.
The one-time intervention improved the students’ academic performance, physical health, and happiness over the next three years, compared with students who had not been randomly selected to receive the intervention.
On Tuesday, we explored research showing that people with a positive attitude toward aging live 7.6 years longer.
Yesterday, we learned about housekeepers who participated in a 15-minute session where they learned they were burning 300 calories an hour by doing their work, the equivalent of weight lifting, water aerobics, or walking at 3.5 miles per hour. Over the next four weeks, they lost weight, had lower blood pressure, and even liked their jobs more.
What’s the common thread? In every study, changing how people thought changed how they lived.
2: David’s story involves the second-lowest-income high school in the San Francisco Bay Area.
“The school had some of the lowest test scores in the state. Almost three-quarters of its students were eligible for a free school lunch. Many of them had gang affiliations, and 40 percent said they did not feel safe at school,” Kelly writes.
David taught a group of high school freshmen about the “growth mindset—the belief that people can change in significant ways.”
He did this by having the students read a short article introducing a few key ideas: Who you are now is not necessarily who you will be later in life; how people treat you or see you now is not necessarily a sign of who you really are or who you will be in the future; and people’s personalities can change meaningfully over time.
The students also read first-person accounts by upperclassmen that reflected this message of change. Lastly, the students were asked to write a story about their own experiences of how people, including themselves, can change over time.
The intervention had a profound and lasting impact.
“At the end of the school year, students who had received the intervention were more optimistic and less overwhelmed by the problems in their lives. They had fewer health problems and were less likely to become depressed than students who had been randomly assigned to a control group.
“A full 81 percent of the students who received the intervention passed their ninth-grade algebra class,” she notes, “compared with only 58 percent of students in the control group.
“The effect of the intervention on academic achievement,” Kelly writes, “was strongest for those whose mindset had changed the most. On average, these students began freshman year with a 1.6 GPA (equivalent to a C–) and ended with a 2.6 GPA (B–).”
David is passionate about education. Prior to becoming a researcher, he taught middle school English in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
He gave the school district all the materials needed to continue offering the mindset intervention, but many schools failed to act. The idea that a thirty-minute intervention could alter the trajectory of a person’s life was too unlikely.
“People just don’t believe it’s real,” David said.
3: “That’s the thing about mindset interventions: They seem too good to be true,” Kelly observes.
“They contradict a deeply held cultural belief about the process of change itself. We believe that all meaningful problems are deeply rooted and difficult to change.”
Yes, many problems are deeply rooted, and yet the data is clear: “Small shifts in mindset can trigger a cascade of changes so profound that they test the limits of what seems possible,” says Kelly.
“You are used to believing that you need to change everything about your life first, and then you will be happy, or healthy, or whatever it is you think you want to experience.
“The science of mindsets says you have it backward,” she explains. “Changing your mind can be a catalyst for all the other changes you want to make in your life.”
More tomorrow.
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Reflection: What belief about yourself or your future might be holding you back more than the circumstances you’re facing?
Action: Identify one limiting belief you’ve accepted as permanent, then ask yourself what might change if you viewed it as temporary and capable of growth.