Mindset types: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Mindset types are like a field of wildflowers. Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.

An interesting phenomenon has been occurring over the past century in the field of mindset, whereby many people have named a specific type of mindset, and they have shared their views on that type. Typically, people named these specific types of mindset by placing a descriptive word in front of the word “mindset”. Some examples include a wellbeing mindset, a colonial mindset, an entrepreneurial mindset, a sustainability mindset, a global mindset, a growth mindset, and so on.

As part of my studies into the field of mindset, I am currently undertaking and writing up a systemic review and meta-analysis of the different mindset types that have been named throughout history. To my knowledge, this is the first time anyone in the field has undertaken such a study.

Here is a link to the preprint: Mindset types: A systematic review and meta-analysis

A preview of what I found is that 1,882 different mindset types have been named in the title of scholarly publications, with a small number of these types becoming quite dominant in the field. A word cloud showing the preliminary results for the years 1990 to 1999 are shown in figure 1, with the word size representing the number of publications that referred to that type during this period (please refer to the preprint for more word clouds)

Figure 1: Mindset types 1990–1999

A metaphor I’ve found to be useful in making sense of these results, is that if the field of mindset is kind of like a landscape, mindset types are kind of like a field of wildflowers growing in this landscape. 🌻 🪻🌷

At the same time, it was also evident in my research that the mindset types seldom acknowledge the existence of one another, and they also seldom studied how all mindset types are interrelated. Consequently, it appears that this landscape of mindset types is also quite fragmented, with most types only offering a silo view of their type, rather than offering a systems view that is inclusive of all types.

I undertook this research because I believe that a comprehensive and inclusive view of mindset psychology and mindset theory would acknowledge all possible types, and not privilege or be limited to a select few of them. Everyone in the field of mindset is invited to work together to break down any scholarly silos that exist, and to widen their circle of acknowledgement, so they can embrace a diverse and comprehensive view of mindset theory that is inclusive of all possible mindset types.

If you have any constructive feedback to share on this research, you can reach me here. If you are the editor of a journal and would like to publish this research, please reach out.