Title of the original study: Why do beliefs about intelligence influence learning success? A social cognitive neuroscience model — by Mangels et al. (2006)
The role of students’ beliefs and goals in shaping their academic success has long been recognized. Advancements in cognitive neuroscience have allowed us to deeper understand how these beliefs influence learning outcomes. In this article, we will explore the fascinating relationship between students’ beliefs about intelligence and their responses to feedback, using event-related potentials (ERPs) to uncover the underlying neural mechanisms.
Beliefs About Intelligence: Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset
Students’ beliefs about intelligence can be categorized into two main camps: those who see intelligence and mindset as a more or less fixed entity (entity theorists) and those who view it as malleable and improvable (incremental theorists). These beliefs have a profound impact on their learning goals and responses to challenges.
Entity theorists, which have a so called fixed mindset on intelligence tend to have “performance goals,” which prioritize outperforming others and often lead to disengagement from challenging learning opportunities. On the other hand, incremental theorists lean towards “learning goals,” emphasizing personal growth and resilience in the face of failure.
Using ERPs to Study Beliefs and Attention
Cognitive neuroscientists employ event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate how students’ beliefs influence attention and error correction during learning tasks. ERPs allow us to observe the brain’s electrical activity and provide insights into the neural pathways of learning processes. ERPs are basically thinking caps or hoods with a bunch of electrodes sticking out, measuring a persons brain activity. The analysis focused on the first 200 trials for comparability.
The study
Participant characteristics and Goal differences
The study involved undergraduate students from Columbia University, with a representative sample of both entity and incremental theorists. These two groups were well-matched on demographic and affective measures. While both groups value a positive achievement outcome, their goals and responses to challenges differ significantly.
Participants answered general knowledge questions from various academic domains and then rated their confidence in their answers. So first they answered the question and then how confident they are, that the answer they gave is correct.
A feedback sequence followed, providing performance-relevant and learning-relevant feedback, so two sets of feedback. First came the feedback of their trivia questions and then of their given confidence about their answer. The experiment consisted of two phases: an initial test (with feedback) and a surprise retest on incorrect answers.
Continuous EEG was recorded during the initial test, with data reduction procedures applied. ERPs were analyzed based on accuracy and confidence levels.
Results: Behavioral and Electrophysiological
Entity and incremental theorists exhibited similar initial performance, but incremental theorists showed greater improvement on retest. Errors were more likely to be corrected when participants expressed higher confidence in their responses. Electrophysiological results indicated that the amplitude of the frontal P3 component was greater for higher-confidence responses. P3 is a little blip in neural activity correlated when people were told, they got something (in this case: the answer) wrong.
The Frontal P3: A Key Indicator
In studies focusing on general knowledge testing, researchers have observed an enhanced anterior frontal P3 in entity theorists when they receive negative performance feedback. This phenomenon suggests that entity theorists pay heightened attention to negative feedback, which aligns with their goal of proving their ability. The frontal P3 serves as a crucial indicator of how beliefs can shape cognitive processes and attention allocation.
Learning-Relevant Feedback and Memory
The study also examined how beliefs influence the processing of learning-relevant feedback. Researchers analyzed memory-related activity, specifically an inferior fronto-temporal Dm effect. This effect is associated with deep conceptual processing and is crucial for retaining information. Entity theorists and incremental theorists may differ in how they process such feedback, potentially impacting their ability to correct errors on retests.
Responses to Negative Feedback
Beliefs about intelligence strongly influence how students respond to negative feedback. Entity theorists tend to find negative feedback more salient and threatening to their goal of proving their ability. In contrast, incremental theorists are more likely to engage in proactive strategies and corrective actions when faced with academic challenges.
Entity theorists are also expected to focus more on negative performance-relevant feedback, potentially leading to repeated errors. The frontal P3 response, in particular, is predicted to be greater for entity theorists when they receive negative performance feedback.
Importance of Growth Mindset
It may seem obvious, but adapting a growth mindset is very important for learning succes and cognitive performance. Believing that one can get better at things, actually leads to getting better at these particular things, as the study showed when the participants were taking the retest. People with this mindset tend to direct their attentional resources toward understanding what the error was and why they made the error, leading to a higher possibility of not making the error again.
However implementing a growth mindset is not as easy as it sounds. You might be thinking: I tend to make mistakes and not fix them sometimes or quite often even. There is some embarrassment or shame involved, which accompanies the error, that would make us want to forget the error. But if we just take a step back and devote our intentional resources to figuring out what went wrong, why the error has been made, that process alone can help shift from a fixed to a growth mindset.
Maybe we can not control our mindset initally, but what we can control is our effort and attention to finding the error and correcting it. That is growth mindset in action!
Implications
Just thinking about growth mindset and knowing that it exists and how it benefits performance and learning processes, helps to adapt it. Also asking for feedback, from different people and in different scenarios, as well as going over the feedback alone or with the feedback-giver, helps to implement a growth mindset.
Incorporating cognitive neuroscience into the study of students’ beliefs and goals offers valuable insights into how these factors impact learning success. Beliefs about intelligence play a pivotal role in shaping goals and responses to feedback. By understanding the neural mechanisms underlying these processes, educators and researchers can create more effective strategies for promoting learning success among students, contrary to just promoting outcomes and grades.
More information about (the importance of) mindsets can be found in the following articles:
Great resources for this topic are also Neuroscientists Dr. Alia Crum and Dr. Andrew Huberman (https://hubermanlab.com/)
