Knowledge Engagement: The Concept of Mindset and Theoretical Integration

The above diagram uses the “Universal Reference” diagram, the “Kinds of Actors” framework, and a sub-framework of “Ecological Formism” to explore a thematic network around “Mindset” and build a Configurational Theory of “Mindset”.

This diagram goes beyond the original “Universal Reference” diagram and offers us a new creative space for discussing the Concept — Theory Transformation which is part of “the Territory of Concepts”.

This article will focus on Theoretical Psychologists and make a demo of theoretical integration by curating Carol S. Dweck’s version of Mindset theory and Peter Gollwitzer’s version of Mindset theory together.

Contents

1. Mindset: A Great Orienting Concept

2. Kinds of Knowledge Creators

3. How Do Theoretical Psychologists Think

3.1 Theoretical Psychologists’ Points of Observation

3.2 Example: Self-Determination Theory (SDT)

3.3 Example: Fritz Heider’s Formal Theory

3.4 A Hierarchical Meaning Control System

4. How Do Theoretical Psychologists Work

4.1 What’s the relationship between the Concept of Mindset and the Primary Orienting Concepts in the field?

4.2 What’s the relationship between “Mind” and “Mindset”?

4.3 What kind of theory do you want to build?

4.3.1 Example: Developing the concept of “Mental Models”
4.3.2 Example: Developing the concept of “Mindware”

4.4 What’s the relationship between the possible theory and existing theories?

4.4.1 Example: Carol S. Dweck on Implicit Theories, Mindsets, and BEATs
4.4.2 Example: Peter Gollwitzer on Mindset theory of Action Phases (MAP)
4.4.3 Two Views of Mindset and Self

4.5 What’s the unique contribution of the possible theory?

4.5.1 Types of Creative Contribution
4.5.2 The Theory Integration Strategy
4.5.3 An Integrative View of Self
4.5.4 The Mental Tuning Framework
4.5.5 The General Structure of Mindsets

1. Mindset: A Great Orienting Concept

Why do I choose the concept of Mindset as an example to develop the Territory of Theory?

There are two reasons. First, it is a primary theme of a real Thematic Conversation between me and a friend. Our dialogue led to an ambitious project about developing a new psychological theory about Mindset and using it to reframe Mind, Emotion, and Behavior.

Second, “Mindset” is a good Orienting Concept for a theoretical development project because it refers to both subjective meaning (everyone can use the term) and objective meaning (there is a scientific field behind it).

The term “Orienting Concepts” was coined by the sociologist and social theorist Derek Layder.

Derek Layder suggested using Orienting Concepts as the starting point to guide research, “Two important features of orienting concepts are their ‘two-sided’ nature and their reference to social processes. The Two-sided nature of orienting concepts concerns their dual reference to objective and subjective aspects of social life. A concern with social processes focuses on their ability to trace social activity and events over time and space.” (1998, p.101)

A great example of orienting concepts is “Career”, Layder pointed out, “The twin virtues of the concept of career stem from its theoretical relevance and the breadth of its empirical applicability. The empirical scope of the concept derives from its use outside as well as inside the context of work and occupations…the concept of career is potentially capable of addressing certain problems in social analysis. In particular, it could help to overcome certain divisions such as that between macro and micro analysis and between interpretive and institutional analysis (‘interactionist’ or ‘structural’ sociology). This is because, as I have said, the concept of career is capable of reaching into both objective and subjective aspects of social life. In these senses, the concept uniquely expresses the intertwining of individual experience and the collective forces that constitute what we generally mean by the term ‘society’. Thus, career is a step towards overcoming the false distinction implicit in the old argument about the ‘individual versus society’.”(1993, pp.131–132)

In 2020, I followed Layder’s suggestion and used “Project” as an Orienting Concept for the book Project-oriented Activity Theory.

2. Kinds of Knowledge Creators

In Nov 2022, I followed sociologists’ distinction between Actors and Researchers and developed a new typology of actors for the Creative Life Curation project. See the diagram below.

The above diagram is based on a diagram called Universal Reference. The Vertical group refers to the Degrees of Abstraction of “Knowledge”.

The “Theory — Practice” dimension is shared with the following pairs of concepts:

• The “Heaven — Earth” dimension
• The “Langue — Space” dimension
• The “Episteme — Empeiria” dimension

The “Langue — Space” dimension is inspired by Ferdinand de Saussure’s structural linguistics. Langue and parole is a theoretical linguistic dichotomy distinguished by Ferdinand de Saussure in his Course in General Linguistics. Langue refers to the abstract system of language while parole means concrete speech. The “Langue” refers to universal concepts or vocabulary while “Space” refers to spatial structure and immediate embodied experience.

Four kinds of actors were inspired by Ping-keung Lui’s theoretical sociology. According to Lui, “There are three kinds of theories in sociology, namely, social theory, sociological theory, and theoretical sociology. ”

• Social theories are speculations about the social world. They constitute the speculative project of sociology.
• Some social theories are amenable to positivistic investigation under certain specific conditions. I call them sociological theories.
• Also, some other social theories, being very ambitious, attempt to recruit as many as they can sociological theories supporting themselves. I call them theoretical sociologies. They compete against each other. The winner becomes the paradigm of sociology, and its supporting sociological theories become exemplars of the paradigm. In this way, theoretical sociologies and sociological theories constitute the scientific project of sociology.

Lui used “Langue (Language)” to refer to his theoretical sociology while “Parole (Speech)” refers to all empirical sociologies.

In this way, Lui presented a typology of actors:

• Actors
• Empirical Sociologists
• Theoretical Sociologists

I added Curators to expand Lui’s typology for the Creative Life Curation framework. There is also an implicit similarity between Curators and Theoretical Sociologists. However, the above Universal Reference diagram doesn’t display it. We need to develop a new diagram. The final result is the diagram below.

I use “Linguistic Formism” as a label to describe Theoretical Sociologists, especially Lui’s approach.

Lui also uses “empirical sociology” to refer to “theory about some specific thing” and “theoretical sociology” to refer to “abstract theory”. He also illustrates the connections between the ruling paradigms, theoretical sociologies, empirical sociologies, and data, in the following diagram:

Source: Ingold’s Idea of Making — A View from Theoretical Sociology (Ping-keung Lui 2020, p.13)

Since Curators have to deal with Actors’ life experiences, their frames have to be suitable for sensemaking with actions and projects. So, I called it “Ecological Formism”.

The similarity between Curators and Theoretical Sociologists is “Formism” while their difference is between the Ecological approach and the Linguistic approach.

The above discussion is about sociological knowledge creators. Now we can apply the same logic to discuss psychological knowledge creators.

• Theoretical Psychologists
• Empirical Psychologists
• Intervenors
• Actors

While Theoretical Psychologists and Empirical Psychologists are working on producing public knowledge, Intervenors and Actors are working on solving mental problems or optimizing subjective experience by using psychological knowledge.

These four types of knowledge creators have different perspectives and behavioral patterns because they have different construal levels, practical interests, points of observation, methodological preferences, and expressive conventions (or language habits).

3. How Do Theoretical Psychologists Think

In general, Theoretical Psychologists tend to think and work with the following perspective.

• Construal Levels: Meta-theory or the most abstract level
• Practical Interests: The progress of the discipline as a meaningful whole
• Points of Observation: The “Concept — Theory” Move
• Methodological Preferences: Concept Analysis and Formal Representation
• Expressive Conventions: Mathematical formulas or Conceptual frameworks

3.1 Theoretical Psychologists’ Points of Observation

Let’s use the Knowledge Discovery Canvas to discuss Theoretical Psychologists’ Points of Observation. You can find more details about the Knowledge Discovery Canvas in Knowledge Discovery (Book).

The Knowledge Discovery Canvas is divided into four areas: THEORY, PRACTICE, END, and MEANS. Let’s use the “Home — Away” terms as metaphors to describe Points of Observation.

We can assign these areas as Home for four types of creators.

• The THEORY Area: The Home of Theoretical Psychologists
• The PRACTICE Area: The Home of Actors
• The END Area: The Home of Empirical Psychologists
• The MEAN Area: The Home of Intervenors

For each type of creator, the other three types of creators’ Home means Away.

Each type of creator can do their homework in their Home, they can also visit other types of creators’ Home to run the thematic conversation for collaborative knowledge creation.

What do Theoretical Psychologists’ Home look like? See the diagram below.

At the Construal Level, Theoretical Psychologists work at the most abstract level of psychological science. While Empirical Psychologists are busy with the Hypothesis — Data Gap, Theoretical Psychologists think and work as Philosophers in the field of Psychological Science.

The primary Practical Interest of Theoretical Psychologists is to accelerate the progress of the discipline as a meaningful whole. They work on reflecting the historical development of the field and anticipating the strategic intent of the whole field.

Theoretical Psychologists tend to use Concept Analysis and Formal Representation as their primary methods and use Empirical Psychologists’ creative works as their raw materials. This particular method also leads to unique Expressive Conventions: they often use Mathematical formulas or Conceptual frameworks to represent their final outcomes.

For the present discussion, we pay attention to the Concept — Theory transformation and ask the following question:

Could we turn the concept of Mindset into a brand-new psychological theory?

The primary orienting concepts in a fiend refer to a series of foundational themes of the field. I select the following concepts as examples for the field of psychological science.

• Self
• Mind
• Emotion
• Behaviors
• Motivation
• Personality
• Relationships

Which concept should be considered as a primary orienting concept of psychological science? What are the relationships between these primary orienting concepts? Different Theoretical Psychologists have different answers to these two questions.

These differences come from the same deep cognitive structure of theoretical approaches.

• Philosophical Orienting Views
• Theoretical Traditions
• Formal Theories
• Theoretical Approaches

3.2 Example: Self-Determination Theory (SDT)

Let’s use Self-Determination Theory (SDT) as an example to understand the structure.

• Theoretical Approach: Self-Determination Theory (SDT)

SDT is an established psychological theory about human motivation and personality development. SDT claims that there are three basic psychological needs for human beings.

• Philosophical Orienting Views: an Organismic perspective

We can find the original source from Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness (Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci, 2017)

SDT is an organismic perspective, approaching psychological growth, integrity, and wellness as a life science. SDT specifically assumes that humans have evolved to be inherently curious, physically active, and deeply social beings. Individual human development is characterized by proactive engagement, assimilating information and behavioral regulations, and finding integration within social groups.

From infancy on (when in need supportive environments), people manifest intrinsic tendencies to take interest in, deeply learn about, and gain mastery with respect to both their inner and outer worlds. These inclinations include the inherent propensities to explore, manipulate, and understand associated with intrinsic motivation and the propensity to assimilate social norms and regulations through active internalization and integration.

SDT focuses on the circumstances under which these two deeply ingrained developmental processes optimally proceed, as well as how contexts ca interfere with or compromise them (p.4, 2017).

• Theoretical Traditions: The attribution traditions of Heider (1958) and de Charms (1968)

Extending the attribution traditions of Heider (1958) and de Charms (1968), SDT defines the self, first and foremost, phenomenologically. SDT is thus focused on the experience underlying autonomous actions, those involving a sense of volition and self-endorsement, rather than on people’s self-concept, identities, or self-evaluations and appraisals. In turn, acting with a sense of autonomy requires integration, as experiences of full volition are characterized by lack of inner conflict and willing engagement (p.8, 2017)

In order to introduce SDT to the field of psychological science, Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci highlight the phenomenological and clinical aspects of SDT and connect it to two figures, Fritz Heider and Richard de Charms.

Heider (1958) was concerned with how people perceive themselves and each other in the context of everyday interpersonal events and how those perceptions play a determinative role in behavior. He attempted to articulate the commonsense principles, or naive psychology, by which people make sense of their own or others’ actions. He argued that it is this naive psychology that “we use to build up our picture of the social environment and which guides our reactions to it” (p.5).

… Heider emphasized that subjective variables such motives, beliefs, and interpretations shape behavior and thus are, in their own right, appropriate objects of scientific inquiry… Heider’s perspective does not suggest that causal analyses — for example, of the physiological underpinnings of cognitions or motives — are without scientific interest. Rather, he was highlighting that they do not supplant or preclude the importance of a phenomenal analysis in scientific discourse and, further, that the latter is unlikely to be meaningfully reduced to the former. As we suggested in Chapter 1, it is the phenomenal level of analysis that forms the theoretical bedrock of the SDT propositions, many of which have been examined in causal analysis.

Among the most central and important constructs without naive psychology is that of perceived locus of causality (PLOC). Specifically, Heider (1958) argued that action and/or its outcomes could be perceived as either intentional and thus personally caused or nonintentional and thus impersonally caused. The inference of intentionality, which is critical for personal causation, depends upon evidence of both ability and effort toward some end… In contrast, impersonal causation involves non-intentionality, which is inferred from the absence of ability or initiation and exertion with regard to an action or its outcomes. Thus, believing an outcome to be impersonally caused means that one thinks it was not within the person’s control to bring it about (or to prevent it).

…

De Charms (1968) subsequently extended and applied Heider’s work, arguing that intentional (personally caused) action is itself not always freely chosen or self-initiated. In fact, he argued that people often perform intentional actions precisely because they feel pressured or coerced to do so by external agents…

To clarify the differences between freely performed and externally induced intentional actions, de Charms therefore proposed a distinction that he believed applied within Heider’s category of personally caused behavior. Specifically, he suggested that some intentional acts are accompanied by an internal perceived locus of causality (I-PLOC), whereas other intentional acts are characterized by an external perceived locus of causality (E-PLOC). Only the former, I-PLOC, category concerns actions that are truly volitional and for which one experiences oneself as an origin of action. The latter, E-PLOC, category represents instances in which one feels made to behave, in which one is a pawn intends the behaviors and their effects, so they are personally caused, but one experiences the behaviors not as chosen, but rather as compelled or impelled by either external or introjected forces (pp.65–66, 2017).

SDT is an empirical approach that relies on hosting psychological experiments in labs. Its theoretical development doesn’t use Formal Theories as theoretical resources.

3.3 Example: Fritz Heider’s Formal Theory

Formal Theories are represented with Mathematical Formulas or Conceptual Diagrams. We can see an example from Fritz Heider’s works.

In his autobiography, Fritz Heider mentioned his mentor Kurt Lewin’s creative visualization for theoretical thoughts, “He had always been concerned with the way in which we think about psychological processes and how we represent such processes in our theories. He had learned from the philosopher Ernst Cassirer about the importance of mathematical language in the natural sciences, and he had found a kind of mathematics called topology that he believed would fit psychological problems. I remember when he first told me about his use of topology: it was a cold winter evening, and some snow had fallen. While we waited for a tram, he used the tip of his umbrella to trace a small circle enclosed by a larger oval on the snow-covered pavement. He explained that these figures represented the person within his own life space. Then he drew a little plus sign within the oval — that was the person’s goal — and a line separating the person from the goal, which was a barrier. Thus he was able to represent many situations by means of topological mathematics. These symbolic diagrams were very convincing. They also provided an admirable method for thinking about different kinds of action and life situations and for discussing them with others. By offering a language more rigorous than that of everyday life, they were helpful in suggesting new theoretical formulations for study.” (1983, p.79)

Kurt Lewin is a German-American psychologist, known as one of the modern pioneers of social, organizational, and applied psychology in the United States. Several years ago, I read his 1936 book Principles of Topological Psychology and I was shocked by his creativity in using diagramming to describe complex theoretical ideas.

He adopted geometric topology which is a Formal Theory to develop a brand new psychological theory called Topological Psychology with a series of diagrams. I consider his diagrams a great example of a Diagram System which means a set of diagrams share the same visual identity and the same conceptual ideas.

Source: Principles of Topological Psychology (1936, p.64)

The above diagram visualizes an example of the vocational goal of a sixteen-year-old boy (P) is to become a physician from the perspective of topological psychology. According to Lewin, “The ‘path’ to this goal (G) leads through definite stages: college-entrance examinations (ce), college ©, medical school (m), internship (i), establishing a practice (pr). The boy may have a fairly clear idea of college. Medical school and the following stages may constitute a more or less undifferentiated region ‘beyond’ which lies the goal of being a physician. Of this the boy may have a false but nevertheless a clear picture.” (1936, p.64)

While Lewin’s theory is about individual psychology, Fritz Heider works on social psychology. The success of Lewin’s psychology in representing action inspired Heider to search for his own method of visualization and Formal Theories. Heider points out that in order to make progress in science, one has to find some way of fashioning a systematic representation of the material with which one is trying to deal.

However, he realized that topology doesn’t match his account, “I soon saw that topology, as it had been developed by Lewin, did not help much with the description of processes going on between persons: there we often have to deal not with just one life space but with the relations and interactions between two or more life spaces. Frequently it is important to describe what one person thinks about another person’s beliefs, hopes, and fears, or even to describe the effect of A’s thoughts about what B thinks about C’s wishes. I once described my difficulties with topology to Lewin; but he could not solve my problems; so I discarded topology.” (1983, p.144)

Finally, Heider found his own way of visualization. What kind of diagrams did he make? See the pictures below.

Source: The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations (1958, p.108)

Source: The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations (1958, p.109)

Source: The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations (1958, p.208)

What’s the difference between Heider’s diagrams and Lewin’s diagrams? Both of them are guided by mathematical thinking. However, Lewin’s diagrams contain conceptual spaces which refer to a person’s psychological state while Heider’s diagrams focus on lines that refer to relationships between entities.

3.4 A Hierarchical Meaning Control System

Why do Theoretical Psychologists think in this way?

A simple answer is what theoretical sociologist Thomas J. Fararo and his student John Skvoretz called “a hierarchical meaning control system” in an article titled Methods and Problems of Theoretical Integration and the Principle of Adaptively Rational Action (1993).

According to Fararo and Skvoretz, “Calling this a meaning control hierarchy is intended to emphasize that higher levels constitute commitments that ‘inform’ — enable and constrain — the lower level activities or discoveries.”

Different theorists have different models of their “hierarchical meaning control system” with different terms. For example, Fararo and Skvoretz suggested four levels:

• General presuppositions
• Representation principles
• Theoretical Models
• Invariants

I use different terms for four levels in the above discussion:

• Philosophical Orienting Views
• Theoretical Traditions
• Formal Theories
• Theoretical Approaches

Basically, we can use “Meta-theory” and “Theory” to describe the “hierarchical meaning control system”.

The benefits of using the same “hierarchical meaning control system” for theoretical creators in the same field are invaluable and critical to growing public knowledge because it offers a systematic view, logical coherence, and a common language for making, sharing, and curating abstract theoretical knowledge.

4. How Do Theoretical Psychologists Work

Now we can visit the Home of Theoretical Psychologists and invite them to join a thematic conversation about a possible theory of Mindset.

They would like to ask us the following questions:

• What’s the relationship between the Concept of Mindset and the Primary Orienting Concepts in the field?
• What kind of theory do you want to build?
• What’s the relationship between the possible theory and existing theories?
• What’s the unique contribution of the possible theory?

Usually, Theoretical Psychologists tend to reject ambitious proposals to establish a new theoretical concept and build a brand-new theoretical approach. Unless the creator could offer reasonable answers to the above questions.

4.1 What’s the relationship between the Concept of Mindset and the Primary Orienting Concepts in the field?

We can use SDT as a reference to help us answer this question. See the chart below. Though this is a rough comparison, we can learn a primary insight from it.

The major difference between SDT and the possible “Mindset Theory” is “Self vs. Mind”. While SDT considers “Self” as the primary concept, the possible “Mindset Theory” selects “Mind” as the primary concept.

The secondary difference between SDT and the possible “Mindset Theory” is their practical interests. SDT is a theory about Motivation, Personality, and Relationships. In contrast, the possible “Mindset Theory” cares about Emotions and Behaviors.

This doesn’t mean the possible “Mindset Theory” doesn’t have any relationship with Motivation, Personality, and Relationships. We will consider these themes in sub-frameworks of the theory.

The comparison between SDT and the possible “Mindset Theory” is about making sense of External Relations. We also have to pay attention to Internal Relations.

4.2 What’s the relationship between “Mind” and “Mindset”?

The concept of “Mind” is a complicated challenge. See the screenshot of “Mind” at Wikipedia.

We are going to use “Mindset” as a basic unit of “Mind”. See the diagram below.

In this way, we avoid complicated philosophical debates and directly move to empirical research of Mindsets.

4.3 What kind of theory do you want to build?

There are several paths to develop the possible “Mindset Theory”.

• Path 1: Develop a theory about a particular Mindset that is related to a significant issue such as mental health
• Path 2: Develop a general theory of Mindset that curates specific theories of Mindset together with a unified theoretical framework
• Path 3: Develop a new theory about Mind by developing a general theory about Mindset
• Path 4: Develop a new psychological theory in which the concept of Mindset is part of the theoretical framework
• Path 5: …

Theoretical Psychologists have nothing to do with Path 1 because it belongs to Empirical Psychologists’ homework.

Path 2 is part of Theoretical Psychologists’ responsibility because theory curation is a type of theoretical integration.

Path 3 is a radical strategy while Path 4 is a conservative strategy. Both strategies depend on the creators’ visions and resources. It’s also related to the strategic intent of developing the concept of “Mindset”.

Theoretical Psychologists would like to suggest two examples as references for Path 3 and Path 4.

• Path 3: Developing the concept of “Mental Models”
• Path 4: Developing the concept of “Mindware”

The following two sections will offer more details of these two examples.

4.3.1 Example: Developing the concept of “Mental Models”

In contemporary cognitive science, the concept of “Mental Models” is associated with Mental Representation and real-world phenomena. The historical development of the concept of Mental Models has been reviewed by Nancy J. Nersessian in her 2008 book Creating Scientific Concepts.

• 1943, Kenneth Craik hypothesized that in many instances people reason by carrying out thought experiments on internal models of physical situations, where a model is a structural, behavioral, or functional analogue to a real-world phenomenon (Craik 1943)…Craik made this proposal at the height of the behaviorist approach in psychology, and so it received little notice.
• Since the early 1980s, a “mental models framework” has developed in a large segment of cognitive science. This explanatory framework posits models as organized units of mental representation of knowledge that are employed in various cognitive tasks, including reasoning, problem solving, and discourse comprehension.
• In the early 1980s, several largely independent strands of research emerged introducing the theoretical notions of “mental model” and “mental modeling” into the cognitive science literature.
• One stand introduced the notion to explain the effects of semantic information in logical reasoning (Johnson-Laird 1983). Another strand introduced the notion to explain the empirical finding that in reasoning related to discourse comprehension, people seem to reason from a representation of the structure of a situation rather than from a description of a situation (so-called “discourse” and “situation” models, Johnson-Laird 1982; Perrig and Kintsch 1985). Both of these strands focused on the nature of the representations constructed in working memory during reasoning and problem-solving tasks.
• Yet another strand introduced the notion in relation to long-term memory representations of knowledge used in understanding and reasoning, in particular about physical systems… Much of the pioneering research in the third strand is represented in the edited collection Mental Models (Gentner and Stevens 1983), which appeared the same year as Johnson-Laird’s (1983) monograph of the same name that brought together the strands on working memory.

There is a variety of research about Mental Models, see examples below:

• AI models of qualitative reasoning about causality in physical systems (Bobrow 1985)
• Representations of intuitive domain knowledge in various areas, such as physics and astronomy (Vosniadou and Brewer 1992)
• Analogical Problem Solving (Gentner and Stevens 1983)
• Deductive and inductive reasoning (Holland et al. 1986; Johnson-Laird and Byrne 1993)
• Probabilistic inference (Kahneman and Tversky 1982)
• “Heterogeneous” or “Multimodal” reasoning (Allwein and Barwise 1996)
• Model logic (Bell and Johnson-Laird 1998)
• Narrative and discourse comprehension (Johnson-Laird 1982; Perrig and Kintsch 1985)
• Scientific thought experiments (Nersessian 1991, 1992)
• Cultural Transmission (Shore, 1997)

Is there a single unified theory of “Mental Models”?

No.

Nancy J. Nersessian pointed out that a consensus view has not developed among these areas of research, “The preponderance of research into mental models has been involved with specifying the content and structure of long-term memory models in a specific domain or with respect to specific reasoning tasks or levels of expertise, and not with addressing the more foundational questions raised above. Most importantly, clarification is needed on basic issues as to the nature of the format of the model and the processing involved in using a model.” (pp.94–95, 2008)

There is no clear answer to the following questions:

• What is a “Mental Model”?
• How is it represented?
• What kinds of processing underlie its use?
• What are the mental mechanisms that create and use mental models?
• How does mental modeling engage external representations and processes?

Nancy J. Nersessian claimed that these issues are not often addressed explicitly in the literature, “…there is as yet no consensus that might serve as a theory of mental models.” Thus, she decided to use the word “framework” to characterize a wide range of research.

What the positions within this framework share is a general hypothesis that some mental representations of domain knowledge are organized in units containing knowledge of spatiotemporal structure, causal connections, and other relational structures (p.93, 2008)

Theoretical Psychologists would like to claim that the concept of “Mental Models” has occupied a thematic space in the field of psychological science. Though it didn’t lead to a general theory, it could serve the field as an orienting concept for finding research directions.

4.3.2 Example: Developing the concept of “Mindware”

The term Mindware was initially coined by the Harvard cognitive development psychologist David Perkins in the 1995 book Outsmarting IQ: The Emerging Science of Learnable Intelligence. Later, the cognitive scientist Keith E. Stanovich adopted the term for his model of cognitive architecture.

According to Stanovich, “The knowledge, rules, procedures, and strategies that can be retrieved and used to transform decoupled representations have been referred to as ‘mindware’…The mindware available for use during cognitive simulation is, in part, the product of past learning experiences.” (2016, p.34)

Keith Stanovich and his co-workers developed a tripartite theory of mind which introduces three types of mind: Autonomous mind, Algorithmic mind, and Reflective Mind.

Source: The Rationality Quotient (2016, p.36)

The tripartite theory of mind suggests that there are two types of mind for Type 2 processing: Algorithmic mind (individual differences in fluid intelligence) and Reflective mind (individual differences in thinking dispositions or cognitive styles). According to Stanovich, “Many thinking dispositions concern beliefs, belief structure, and, importantly, attitudes toward forming and changing beliefs. Other thinking dispositions that have been identified concern a person’s goals and goal hierarchy.” (2016, p.25)

Stanovich points out that there are five types of reasoning errors (2016, p.49). One of these errors is about Contaminated Mindware. The reason is very simple if we misunderstand some knowledge, rules, procedures, and strategies, this learned mindware is not original mindware.

What’s the uniqueness of Stanovich’s framework about Intelligence/Mind?

It suggests a new theory of Intelligence and rejects the popular IQ (Intelligence Quotient) test. The distinction between the Algorithmic mind (individual differences in fluid intelligence) and the Reflective mind (individual differences in thinking dispositions or cognitive styles) indicates the lack of IQ test because it doesn’t cover the Reflective mind.

The concept of “Mindware” is a component of Stanovich’s theory.

4.4 What’s the relationship between the possible theory and existing theories?

Unlike the concept of “Mental Models”, the concept of “Mindset” is not popular in the field of psychology. We will start with two major research projects about the concept of “Mindset” in the field of psychology:

• Carol S. Dweck on Implicit Theories, Mindsets, and BEATs (1988, 2006, 2017)
• Peter Gollwitzer on Mindset theory of Action Phases (MAP) (1990, 2012)

4.4.1 Example: Carol S. Dweck on Implicit Theories, Mindsets, and BEATs

Originally, Carol S. Dweck and her co-workers didn’t use the concept of “Mindsets” for their research papers. In 1988, they published a paper titled A Social-Cognitive Approach to Motivation and Personality and introduced a theory about Implicit Theories and their impact on goals and behaviors.

In the 1970s, Carol S. Dweck and her co-workers discovered two major patterns of cognition-affect-behavior: the maladaptive “helpless” response and the more adaptive “mastery-oriented” response. The helpless pattern is characterized by an avoidance of challenge and a deterioration of performance in the face of obstacles. The mastery-oriented pattern, in contrast, involves the seeking of challenging tasks and the maintenance of effective striving under failure.

What does this difference come from?

In order to explain this phenomenon, they proposed that the goals individuals are pursuing create the framework within which they interpret and react to events. In a 1983 paper, they identified two classes of goals in the domain of intellectual achievement: Performance Goals (in which individuals are concerned with gaining favorable judgments of their competence) and Learning Goals (in which individuals are concerned with increasing their competence).

Why would individuals in the same situation pursue such different goals?

This question led them to a general conceptualization of individuals’ Implicit Theories which refer to people’s implicit conception about the nature of ability. According to the authors, “Some children favor what we have termed an incremental theory of intelligence: They believe that intelligence is a malleable, increasable, controllable quality. Others lean more toward an entity theory of intelligence: They believe that intelligence is a fixed or uncontrollable trait. Our research consistently indicates that children who believe intelligence is increasable pursue the learning goal of increasing their competence, whereas those who believe intelligence is a fixed entity are more likely to pursue the performance goal of securing positive judgments of that entity or preventing negative judgments of it.” (1988)

The above table clearly shows the structure of their theoretical framework:

• Implicit Theory of Intelligence — Goal Orientation — Behavior Pattern

The authors also expand the framework to discuss self-concept and self-esteem.

The two theories about one’s personal attributes may be seen as fundamentally different ways of conceptualizing the self. That is, entity and incremental theories represent two different forms of self-concept. Within a generalized entity theory, the self would be conceptualized as a collection of fixed traits that can be measured and evaluated. Within an incremental theory, the self would be seen as a system of malleable qualities that is evolving over time through the individual’s efforts.

As a consequence of the different self-concepts, the processes that generate and maintain self-esteem (i.e., feelings of satisfac- tion with one’s attributes) will differ (see Damon & Hart, 1982, for a discussion of the important distinction between self-concept and self-esteem). Indeed, the different goals allied with each theory may be seen as the means of generating self-esteem within that self-concept. For the entity theorist, self-esteem will be fed by performance goals. Outcomes indicating the adequacy of one’s attributes will raise and maintain self-esteem. However, for the incremental theorist, self-esteem will be acquired and experienced via learning goals. Pursuit of, progress on, and mastery of challenging and valued tasks will raise and maintain self-esteem.

Moreover, they also generalized the model to discuss external attributes such as characteristics of other people, places, things, or the world in general.

In 2006, Carol S. Dweck published a book titled Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. In order to introduce her academic theory to ordinary readers, she selected the term “mindset” to rename Implicit Theory. In the Introduction of the book, Dweck also used the term “beliefs”.

My work is part of a tradition in psychology that shows the power of people’s beliefs. These may be beliefs we’re aware of or unaware of, but they strongly affect what we want and whether we succeed in getting it. This tradition also shows how changing people’s beliefs — even the simplest beliefs — can have profound effects.

In this book, you’ll learn how a simple belief about yourself — a belief we discovered in our research — guides a large part of your life. In fact, it permeates every part of your life. Much of what you think of as your personality actually grows out of this “mindset.” Much of what may be preventing you from fulfilling your potential grows out of it. (Introduction, 2006)

The incremental theory of intelligence was renamed the Growth mindset while the entity theory of intelligence was replaced with the Fixed mindset.

In a recent project, Dweck worked on developing a broad theory that puts motivation and the formation of mindsets (or beliefs) at the heart of social and personality development. The outcome was published in a 2017 paper titled From Needs to Goals and Representations: Foundations for a Unified Theory of Motivation, Personality, and Development.

In the 2017 paper, Dweck developed a new concept called “BEATs” to explain how children construct mental representations that serve as guides to the fulfillment of their needs. See the screenshot below.

What’s the difference between “Mindset” and “BEATs”?

The concept of “Mindset” (Implicit Theory) is only about individuals’ beliefs. However, the concept of “BEATs” is formed with three building blocks of mental representations: 1) beliefs, 2) emotions, and 3) action tendencies.

The diagram below represents the new theory’s perspective on motivation and personality.

The new theory can be seen as a new version of the “Implicit Theory of Intelligence — Goal Orientation — Behavior Pattern” framework.

From the 1970s to 2017, it was a long journey of theoretical development!

I’d like to claim that what Deweck developed is not a theory about “Mindset”, but a grand theory about mental beliefs and behavior patterns.

4.4.2 Example: Peter Gollwitzer on Mindset theory of Action Phases (MAP)

“There are times when people need to make decisions, and there are times when the decisions made have to be implemented. From the perspective of effective action control in everyday life, then, it seems helpful to activate the respective cognitive procedures that facilitate goal setting and goal implementation when making decisions versus acting on them is at issue.”

Peter Gollwitzer started the conclusion with the above piece in a 2012 paper in which he reflected on his journey of exploration of the course of action with the concept of “Mind-set” from the 1970s to 2010s.

Let’s quickly browse his journey with significant themes:

• 1970s: Symbolic Self-Completion
• 1980s: The Rubicon Model of Action Phases
• 1980s: The Mindset notion (the deliberative mindset vs. the implemental mindset)
• 1990s: Cognitive Tuning, Biased Inferences, Open-mindedness
• 1990s: Implementation Intentions (if — than planning)
• 2000s: Mental Contrasting, MCII (Mental Contrasting+Implementation Intentions)

In the late 1970s, Peter Gollwitzer was a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin. He started his journey of knowledge creation with a distinction between self-knowledge and self-completion.

We thought that people can very well set themselves goals to become a good parent, a brilliant scientist, or a great athlete. If one takes this perspective, the self of a person is no longer just something to understand (self-concept) and like (self-esteem) but something to be achieved (identity goal). We turned to the writings of Kurt Lewin (1926) and his students, whose tension system theory of goal pursuit, with its notion of substitution, was very helpful to developing our theory of symbolic self-completion.

In the early 1990s, Peter Gollwitzer joined the newly founded Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research at Munich to start a research unit called Motivation and Action with Heinz Heckhausen. They found an interesting insight that the difference between their theoretical approaches to motivation indicates a distinction between motivation and volition. This insight led to the Rubicon Model of Action Phases.

We quickly realized that we had a directly opposed conceptual view of motivation. Whereas Heinz Heckhausen’s motivation was that of an expectancy-value theorist in the tradition of Atkinson (1957) and Heckhausen (1977) and was thus fueled by the perceived feasibility and desirability of a given action, my motivation was that of Lewin’s (1926) tension system and was resting in the determination or commitment a person holds with respect to the action goal at hand. Apparently, in the research on self-completion I had been studying issues of goal striving (i.e., thoughts and behavior directed toward existing goals), whereas Heinz Heckhausen in his work on achievement motivation (Heckhausen, 1977) had focused on issues of goal setting (i.e., what goals people find attractive and feasible, and thus choose for themselves).

They decided to use the term Volition to name the goal-striving-related motivation while keeping the term Motivation for the goal-setting-related motivation. Based on this distinction, they developed the Rubicon model of action phases. See the diagram below.

The Rubicon model of action phases (Heckhausen, 1987; Heckhausen and Gollwitzer, 1987)

The model of action phases represents four distinct phases: the predecisional phase, the preactional phase, the actional phase, and the postactional phase. These phases are separated by three clear boundaries or transition points: the making of a decision, the initiation of respective actions, and the conclusion of these actions.

The Rubicon model inspired them to explore the different principles behind each action phase. They did several experiments and found a surprise, “… the results were just opposite to what we had predicted. The deliberating participants showed an increase in their short-term memory capacity, compared with both their own prior span and the span of the planning participants.” (2012)

Later, Gollwitzer turned to Gerhard Strube, at the time a cognitive psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research. Strube recommended the classic concept of mindset as originally advanced at the turn of the century by the German psychologists Kulpe (1904), Marbe (1915), Orth (1903), and Watt (1905), all members of the Wurzburg school.

Gollwitzer realized that the Mindset notion was really useful in explaining the unexpected findings. Thus, he named two types of mindsets: the deliberative mindset and the implemented mindset (2012).

These early cognitive psychologists had discovered that becoming intensively involved with performing a given task activates exactly those cognitive procedures that help task completion. The created mindset (i.e., the sum total of the activated cognitive procedures) is the cognitive orientation most conducive to successful task performance.

The mindset notion allows interpreting the observed noun span data as follows: deliberating between potential action goals activates cognitive procedures (the deliberative mindset) that facilitate the task of the predecision phase, which is to set preferences. As undecided individuals do not know yet in which direction their decisions will finally take them, a heightened receptiveness to all kinds of information (open-mindedness) seems appropriate and functional to task solution. Similarly, planning out the implementation of a chosen goal should activate cognitive procedures (the implemented mindset) that facilitate the task of the reaction phase (i.e., getting started on the chosen goal).

In fact, Gollwitzer introduced four types of mind-sets in a 1990 paper.

• Deliberative Mind-Sets
• Implemental Mind-Sets
• Actional Mind-Sets
• Evaluative Mind-Sets

Later, he used the term “Mindset” to replace “Mind-set” and focused on research projects about the Deliberative Mindset and the Implemental Mindset.

In the 1990s, Gollwitzer went deeply with a series of sub-themes about the Mindset theory of Action Phases (MAP). For example, the theme of “Cognitive Tuning” refers to the relationship between mindsets and information processes. The theme of “Biased Inferences” is about feasibility-related information and desirability-related information. He also noticed that deliberative and implemented mindsets differ in openness to information.

The deliberative versus implemental mindset distinction had an impact on various theoretical discussions in social psychology. In the mid-1990s, Gollwitzer started to apply the mindset theory to facilitate behaviors. He developed a new concept called “Implementation Intentions” and a related method called “If-then planning” as a meta-cognitive strategic tool (2012).

As we had induced the implemented mindset by asking research participants to list a series of steps toward goal attainment and then specify for each individual step exactly when, where, and how one wants to realize it, we wondered whether people could facilitate goal striving by planning out goal-directed action in this fashion. We referred to this type of planning as forming implementation intentions.

Whereas goals (or goal intentions) merely specify desired end states (“I want to achieve goal X!”), implementation intentions in the format of “If situation Y arises, then I will initiate behavior Z!” additionally specify when, where, and how a person intends to strive for the goal. Implementation intentions thus delegate control over the initiation of the intended goal-directed behavior to a specified situational cue by creating a strong mental link between this cue and a goal-directed response.

…

The mental links created by implementation intentions were assumed to facilitate goal attainment on the basis of psychological situation (i.e., enhanced activation of the mental representation of the situation specified in the if-part of the plan) and the intended behavior (i.e., automatic initiation of the response specified in the then-part of the plan once the critical situation is encountered).

In the 2000s, Gollwitzer worked with his wife Gabriele Oettingen to develop a systematic solution for the self-regulation strategy. They realized that there are some prerequisites for utilizing the power of implementation intention. They discovered a solution called Mental Contrasting (2012).

What is mental contrasting and how does it work? When people mentally contrast, they first imagine a desired future (e.g., to improve one’s health behavior), and then reflect on the present reality that stands in the way of reaching this desired future (e.g., feeling the urge to give in to temptation). Thereby, mental contrasting turns desired futures that are perceived as feasible into strong goal commitments.

The beneficial effects of mental contrasting evince in various domains (achievement, interpersonal, and health), for cognitive (e.g., making plans), affective (e.g., feelings of anticipated disappointment in case of failure), motivational (e.g., feelings of energization, systolic blood pressure), and behavioral indicators of goal commitment (e.g., invested effort and actual achievement such as obtained course grades), directly after or weeks later.

The final self-regulation strategy is called MCII which refers to the integration of Mental Contrasting and Implementation Intentions. See the diagram below.

In 2015, Gabriele Oettingen published a book titled Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation and introduced the MCII method to ordinary readers. This event marks a significant milestone of the Mindset theory of Action Phases (MAP).

According to Peter Gollwitzer, “the course of action is understood to be a temporal, horizontal path starting with a person’s desires and ending with the evaluation of the achieved action outcome… It raises questions concerning how people choose action goals, plan and enact their execution, and evaluate their efforts.” (1990)

It’s clear that the MAP theoretical framework and the MCII method offer a systematic solution to understand the complexity of the course of action.

4.4.3 Two Views of Mindset and Self

From the 1970s to the 2010s, Carol S. Dweck and Peter Gollwitzer independently developed two psychological theoretical frameworks by following different theoretical traditions. They also chose two different paths for their knowledge enterprises.

• Carol S. Dweck: Moving up
• Peter Gollwitzer: Moving down

In the 1988 paper titled A Social-Cognition Approach to Motivation and Personality, Dweck started the journey from the Implicit Theories of Intelligence and moved up to the higher level of the hierarchical meaning control system. She generalized the model and expanded it to cover other domains. She also generalized the model beyond the Self and expanded it to cover external attributes such as other people, places, and the world in general.

The 2017 paper titled From Needs to Goals and Representations: Foundations for a Unified Theory of Motivation, Personality, and Development also marked a new milestone of the moving up path. She actually made a grand psychological theory.

In contrast, Peter Gollwitzer took the opposite direction. He started with a theoretical model and moved down to the lower level of the hierarchical meaning control system. He continuously discovered theoretical problems and conducted experiments to verify hypotheses. Finally, he moved from theoretical development to applied method development.

While they both used the concept of “Mindset” for their theories. They didn’t take the same path to develop the conceptual meaning of the concept. As mentioned above, Carol S. Dweck used “Implicit Theories” for her initial theoretical model and changed it to “Mindset” in order to publish a book for ordinary readers. Peter Gollwitzer discovered the concept of “Mindset” from the Wurzburg school in Germany.

The difference between Dweck’s version of Mindset and Gollwitzer’s version of Mindset indicates a fundamental psychological view.

• Carol S. Dweck: Mindset = Belief = Content of Thoughts
• Peter Gollwitzer: Mindset = Cognitive procedures = Processes of Thoughts

They also have different conceptual frameworks for understanding motivations and actions. While Gollwitzer made a distinction between motivation and volition and defined different phases of actions, Dweck focused on basic psychological needs, need-fulfilling goals, and mental representations.

As mentioned above, there is a distinction between self-knowledge and self-completion.

• Self-knowledge: The Self of a person refers to something to understand (self-concept) and like (self-esteem), etc
• Self-completion: The Self of a person refers to something to be achieved (identity goal).

While Carol S. Dweck chose the “Self-knowledge” view, Peter Gollwitzer selected the “Self-completion” view. This fundamental difference led to two different accounts of Mindset theory.

What’s the relationship between our theory of Mindset and these two accounts?

Can we unify these two different accounts, and should we?

This leads to the last question about our ambitious vision of developing a general theory of Mindset.

4.5 What’s the unique contribution of the possible theory?

As mentioned above, we have at least four paths to develop a theory about “Mindset”.

• Path 1: Develop a theory about a particular Mindset that is related to a significant issue such as mental health
• Path 2: Develop a general theory of Mindset that curates specific theories of Mindset together with a unified theoretical framework
• Path 3: Develop a new theory about Mind by developing a general theory about Mindset
• Path 4: Develop a new psychological theory in which the concept of Mindset is part of the theoretical framework
• Path 5: …

Each path could make a unique contribution to the field of psychological science.

4.5.1 Types of Creative Contribution

In a general sense, I adopt the creativity researcher Robert J. Sternberg’s Propulsion Model of Creative Contributions (1999) as a tool for discussing “Contribution”.

According to Sternberg, a creative contribution is defined as something that is (1) relatively original and (2) high in quality with some purpose. Scholars and researchers have developed many approaches to classify different types of creative contributions.

In 1999, Sternberg developed the Propulsion Model of Creative Contributions and suggested seven types of contributions. In 2001, he expanded the original model to eight types. See the diagram below.

The eight types of creative contributions are:

• Replication: The creative contribution represents an effort to show that a given field is where it should be. The propulsion is intended to keep the field where it is rather than moving it.
• Redefinition: The creative contribution represents an effort to redefine where the field currently is. The current status of the field thus is seen from a new point of view.
• Forward Incrementation: The creative contribution represents an attempt to move the field forward in the direction in which it already is moving, and the contribution takes the field to a point to which others are ready to go.
• Advance Forward Incrementation: The creative contribution represents an attempt to move the field forward in the direction it is already going, but the contribution moves beyond where others are ready for the field to go.
• Redirection: The creative contribution represents an attempt to move the field from where it is toward a new and different direction.
• Reconstruction/Redirection: The creative contribution represents an attempt to move the field back to where it once was (a reconstruction of the past) so that the field may move onward from that point, but in a direction different from the one it took from that point onward
• Reinitiation: The creative contribution represents an attempt to move the field to a different and as yet not reached starting point and then to move the field in a different direction from that point.
• Integration: The creative contribution represents an attempt to move the field by putting together aspects of two or more past kinds of contributions that formerly were viewed as distinct or even opposed. The result of the integration is to place the field at some new place — intermediate between former places the field was — that would not have been predictable in advance. This type of contribution shows particularly well the potentially dialectical nature of creative contributions, in that it merges into a new Hegelian type of synthesis two ideas that formerly may have been seen as opposed (Sternberg, 1999a)

You can find more details in The Propulsion Model of Creative Contributions Applied to the Arts and Letters.

4.5.2 The Theory Integration Strategy

Now we can return to Path 2 which echoes the #8 type of creative contribution: Theory Integration.

• Path 2: Develop a general theory of Mindset that curates specific theories of Mindset together with a unified theoretical framework

The above discussion also offers two opposite theoretical frameworks for our Theory Integration project. This is a great starting point!

How does the theory integration project work? How is it possible to unify two frameworks that differ or even contradict each other?

The Theoretical sociologist Thomas J. Fararo and his student John Skvoretz asked the same question in their paper titled Methods and Problems of Theoretical Integration and the Principle of Adaptively Rational Action (1993).

What are their answers?

They suggested a multiple-episode approach to theoretical integration and used two examples to showcase the approach. See the diagram below.

Source: Methods and Problems of Theoretical Integration and the Principle of Adaptively Rational Action (1993)

Let’s see the details of Episode 2 because this case is similar to the above two accounts of Mindset theory.

Research traditions can be bridged when theories in distinct frameworks can be integrated. Fararo and Skvoretz (1987) offer an example in which a theoretical method (biased networks) is used (a) to formalize a theory in the social network tradition, Granovetter’s (1973) weak ties theory; (b) to formalize a theory in the microstructural tradition, Blau’s (1977) differentiation theory; and then (c) to construct a third theoretical model that formally links the first two and captures them as special cases.

What can we learn from the above summary of Episode 2?

We can use “Moving between the hierarchical meaning control system in order to find similarities and differences for theoretical curation” to describe this strategy.

The essential interest of this case is the common representation principle without which the integration could not proceed. The principle is that social systems are biased networks. A network is described in probabilistic terms but is only a “random net” when the social structural “biases” are not present. The bias parameters are of various types, but two are important to the integration. One, the homophily bias, relates to the common empirical finding that actors’ associations tend to be (at a greater than chance level) with those like themselves on relevant social dimensions. It makes more probable than chance that a relationship will be between persons in the same group or stratum. The other bias parameter applies to triads and is called the closure bias. It makes more probable than chance that two actors who are each known by a third will themselves be acquainted.

The common representation principle is a specific type of similarity. In this case, the principle is “social systems are biased networks”. We also have to notice that the authors emphasized two important types of bias parameters. Here we see a move between two levels of meaning of Biased Networks: the general whole and its two sub-types.

The homophily bias relates to what Blau (1977) calls the salience of a dimension of social differentiation. The closure bias relates to what Granovetter (1973) treats as a probability-one idealization: two persons strongly tied to a third will become linked. When we relax the idealization, we obtain Granovetter’s basic theory in quantitative form, and, similarly, the biased network concept permits a formal representation of Blau’s theory.

The common image emphasizes differentiation of ties into strong and weak and differentiation of nodes by group or status membership as both features impact simultaneously and concrescently on the formation and location of ties between nodes. The key step in the unification of the two subtraditions is the construction of theoretical models that specify in details the means or mechanisms through which the effects postulated by the two theories come about.

Instead of directly combining Granovetter’s account and Blau’s account, the authors 1) built two theoretical models at the higher abstract level, and then 2) combined two theoretical models together.

• Theoretical Model 1 (TM1): Strength of Work Ties Principle, closure bias parameter
• Theoretical Model 2 (TM2): Macro homophily bias parameter
• Integrated Theoretical Model: combines TM1 and TM2, each as a special case

Fararo and Skvoretz emphasized that unification is a process which occurs in episodes and involves recursion, “…the outcome of any one integrative episode may enter into further such episodes. Also, any one episode may be only a partial unification of the entities brought into integrative connection, so that there is almost always a sense of ‘more to be done’.”

They didn’t mention the failures of episodes. The rest of the article will try our first episode.

4.5.3 An Integrative View of Self

As mentioned above, there is a distinction between self-knowledge and self-completion.

• Self-knowledge: The Self of a person refers to something to understand (self-concept) and like (self-esteem), etc
• Self-completion: The Self of a person refers to something to be achieved (identity goal).

While Carol S. Dweck chose the “Self-knowledge” view, Peter Gollwitzer selected the “Self-completion” view. This fundamental difference led to two different accounts of Mindset theory.

Our journey of theoretical integration chooses this distinction as the starting point of the first episode.

In a broad sense, there are two views of Self in the field of Psychology:

• Self-as-object
• Self-as-subject or Self-as-process

This typology was developed by Dan P. McAdams in his 1990 book The Person: An introduction to personality psychology. In a 2017 book titled Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness, authors Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci review various views of self in chapter 3 titled Human Autonomy: Philosophical Perspectives and the Phenomenology of Self.

They start with the following piece:

The term self carries quite distinct meanings in different psychological theories, and there is a particularly salient contrast between its meaning within social-cognitive perspectives and in organismic approaches. Most social-cognitive views can be traced to the tradition of the looking-glass self (Cooley, 1902; Mead, 1934), in which the term self is primarily employed to represent an object of one’s own perceptions.

In this tradition, the self is understood as a constructed concept, image, or representation (viz., self-concept) accompanied by a collection of mechanisms for governing action (viz., self-schemas) that are usually oriented toward verifying, enhancing, or protecting this representation. Thus the self referred to in the constructs of self-concept, self-perception, self-esteem, and many other hyphenated self- terms concern what McAdams (1990) referred to as self-as-object.

As Harter (2012) recently summarized, most of the attention in empirical psychology has historically been on this self-as-object or “me-self” idea, and it continues to be an active focus of research (e.g., Oyserman, Elmore, & Smith, 2012; Sedikides & Gaertner, 2001).

By contrast, the self of organismic psychologies has typically (though with some notable exceptions) concerned what McAdams (1990) characterized as the self-as-subject and what we refer to as self-as-process (Ryan, 1995; Ryan & Rigby 2015) — that is, the self that is phenomenally experienced as both a center of experience and as the initiator and regulator of volitional behavior.

(p.52)

It’s clear that we can claim that the “self-knowledge” view belongs to the Self-as-Object camp and the “self-completion” view belongs to the Self-as-Process camp.

In an article titled TALE: A Possible Theme Called “Life (Self)”, I used the “Universal Reference for Knowledge Engagement” diagram to curate the knowledge about the concept of “Self” in the field of psychology. Now we can see this landscape of “Self” knowledge as an integrative view of “Self”.

The Vertical group refers to the Degrees of Abstraction of “Knowledge”.

The “Theory — Practice” dimension is shared with the following pairs of concepts:

• The “Heaven — Earth” dimension
• The “Langue — Space” dimension
• The “Episteme — Empeiria” dimension

The “Langue” refers to universal concepts or vocabulary while “Space” refers to spatial structure and immediate embodied experience.

Langue and parole is a theoretical linguistic dichotomy distinguished by Ferdinand de Saussure in his Course in General Linguistics. Langue refers to the abstract system of language while parole means concrete speech.

From the view of “Self-as-Object”, there are a set of terms which is called “Self-concept”. We can place these self-concepts in the layer of “Langue (language).”

From the view of “Self-as-Process” (Self-as-Subject), the self can be seen in a process of dynamic development. At different times, we see a concrete content of an abstract Self-concept. So, we can place “Self-as-Process” in the layer of “Parole (speech)”.

Moreover, we can see a distinction between Researchers and Actors. While Researchers only care about the above two views, Actors only consider the third view: “Myself”.

From the perspective of researchers, “Myself” is a mystery for scientific work. They have to build a “DATA — HYPOTHESIS” formula in order to turn the “Myself” from original experience into scientific knowledge such as “Self-as-Process” or “Self-as-Object”.

From the perspective of a particular actor, “Myself” is not a mystery. He/she has his/her own Spontaneous Concept System of “Myself”. However, “Self-as-Process” and “Self-as-Object” refer to a large Scientific Defined Concept System.

These two types of concept systems don’t need to fully fit at all times.

The Horizontal group refers to the Situations of Activity of “Engagement”. In the diagram of the landscape of “Self” Knowledge, the Horizontal group refers to a person’s real “Life”.

The “Means — End” dimension is shared with the following pairs of concepts:

• The “Birth — Death” dimension
• The “Attach — Detach” dimension
• The “Self — Other” dimension

The “Means — End” dimension is adopted from Activity Theory.

The “Birth — Death” dimension refers to the “alive” status of things. Actions and Activities are only “alive” when we are acting. At the end of an activity, the thing we worked on is produced. It’s done. It’s no longer alive. If we use it in a new activity, it becomes alive again.

The “Attach — Detach” dimension considers the reference space as a container. People attach their minds to the reference space and detach their minds from the reference space.

The “Self — Other” dimension is about the “Self — Other” Relevance.

These dimensions indicate that “Life” is the container of “Self”. We can’t understand the “Self” without understanding the “Life”.

This is an ambitious solution of theoretical integration because it doesn’t only offer a solution to connect two opposite theoretical accounts of Self, but also gives a bridge to connect THEORY and PRACTICE.

This article will only discuss the first challenge of Theoretical Integration.

4.5.4 The Mental Tuning Framework

Based on the above notion of Life(Self), we can develop the following schema:

• Life = Behavioral System
• Self = Mental System
• Life(Self) = Behavior System (Mental System)

At this moment, we need to adopt a theory about “Systems” as the meta-theory to support our theoretical development.

Since I am familiar with Robert Rosen’s Anticipatory Systems theory, I’d like to try it in this episode. There are three types of systems theories. There are many ways to develop a typology, we can adopt Niklas Luhmann’s approach as a starting point.

Source: The Making of Strategic Realities (Jan-Peter Vos, 2002)

According to Luhmann, there are two types of systems: open system and self-referential system. The above diagram shows the major difference between these two types of systems is the relationship between system and environment. For open systems, the system is part of its environment. However, for self-referential systems, the system and environment are exclusive. The term “Welt” refers to a new whole of “system + environment” within the self-referential systems theory.

However, we have more than one choice in the Self-referential Systems theory. According to Roberto Poli, “The theory of autopoietic systems is possibly the best-known result connected with the problem of system’s reproduction. In this regard, it is worth considering that the theory of autopoietic system is itself in need of further generalizations. The simplest generalization of these is well represented by Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems. The second possibility is well represented by Robert Rosen, who some twenty years before the birth of the theory of autopoietic systems proposed what he called (M, R) — systems (from Metabolism and Repair), which subsequently developed into the theory of anticipatory systems [Rosen 1985]. As it results, Rosen’s theory is both more general and more precise than the theory of autopoietic systems.” (The complexity of Self-reference, 2010)

So, we see three types of systems theories:

• Open systems theory
• Niklas Luhmann’s theory of Social Systems
• Robert Rosen’s theory of Anticipatory Systems

Poli also points out the challenge of the application of Luhmann and Rosen’s theories, “The realization of life into actual organisms requires many more details extending beyond (M, R) — systems. The same applies to Luhmann’s social system theory, which addresses only the most basic, the deepest, aspect of social systems. Many more details are needed in order to understand this or that concrete system.”

I have connected Anticipatory System Theory and Activity Theory and moved from the abstract level to the concrete level. The outcome is a framework called the “Anticipatory Activity System (AAS)” framework and a book (draft) titled Advanced Life Strategy: Anticipatory Activity System and Life Achievements.

However, the “Anticipatory Activity System (AAS)” framework is inspired by Activity Theory. It only focuses on the “Project” level and the “Activity” level.

This time I am going to apply Anticipatory Systems Theory to the “Action” level.

The above diagram is the basic model of Anticipatory Systems Theory. Let’s apply it to our framework.

• Life = Behavioral System = Natural System
• Self = Mental System = Formal System

A core idea of Anticipatory System Theory is the Predictive Model. According to Robert Rosen, “An anticipatory system is a natural system that contains an internal predictive model of itself and of its environment, which allows it to change state at an instant in accord with the model’s predictions pertaining to a later instant.” In contrast, a reactive system only reacts, in the present, to changes that have already occurred in the causal chain, while an anticipatory system’s present behavior involves aspects of past, present, and future.

For the present discussion, I claim that the Mindset is the Predictive Model of Behavior System (Mental System).

• Life = Behavioral System = Natural System
• Self = Mental System = Formal System
• Mindset = Predictive Model

So far, we have a rough core idea. I’d like to say this idea is a significant insight because it is a Configurational Theory of Mindset. It defines the core of the possible theory of Mindset.

Let’s continuously do the job of Conceptual Elaboration. We need some secondary concepts to join the episode in order to build a theoretical framework that could answer the following questions:

• How to connect the Behavioral System and the Mental System?
• How to define the Mindsets (the Predictive Model)?
• What’s the relationship between Mindsets and the Behavioral System?
• What’s the relationship between Mindsets and the Mental System?

These questions inspired me to make a new framework. See the diagram below.

The above diagram has three parts. The blue part refers to the Mindsets and Mental System. The green part refers to the Behavioral System. The pink part refers to the connection between the Mental System and the Behavioral System.

The difference between Dweck’s version of Mindset and Gollwitzer’s version of Mindset indicates a fundamental psychological view.

• Carol S. Dweck: Mindset = Belief = Content of Thoughts
• Peter Gollwitzer: Mindset = Cognitive procedures = Processes of Thoughts

Our framework will put these two views of Mindset together. In other words, these two views are the two aspects of the Mindsets which mean the Predictive Model of the Mental System.

On the other side, I use “Life Domains” and “Life Experiences” to represent the Behavioral System. Both Dweck’s version of Mindset and Gollwitzer’s version of Mindset emphasize the connection between Mindset and particular life domains. However, they didn’t use “Life Domains” as a theoretical concept.

I’d like to use the concept of “Life Domains” to emphasize the Objective aspect of the Behavioral System. For example, Gollwitzer’s four phases of action can be understood as a specific type of objective structure of life domains.

According to Peter Gollwitzer, “the course of action is understood to be a temporal, horizontal path starting with a person’s desires and ending with the evaluation of the achieved action outcome… It raises questions concerning how people choose action goals, plan and enact their execution, and evaluate their efforts.” (1990)

It’s clear that we can find other types of Objective Structures of life domains. Moreover, some specific life domains have their own Unique Structures.

The diversity of Life Domains requires a general theory of Mindset.

The concept of “Life Experiences” is used to emphasize the subjective aspect of the Behavioral System. This aspect is very important to understanding the Formation of Mindsets, especially the “content of thoughts” which refers to the “Belief” part of Mindsets. We have to notice that “Life Experiences” is also related to the Activation of Mindsets.

The middle part of the new framework is defined by a new term called “Mental Tuning” which is inspired by Gollwitzer’s term “Cognitive Tuning”.

As mentioned above, Gollwitzer went deeply with a series of sub-themes about the Mindset theory of Action Phases (MAP) in the 1990s. For example, the theme of “Cognitive Tuning” refers to the relationship between mindsets and information processes. The theme of “Biased Inferences” is about feasibility-related information and desirability-related information. He also noticed that deliberative and implemented mindsets differ in openness to information. However, the relationship between Mindset and Emotions was not clear in his 2012 paper.

In contrast, Dweck discussed the relationship between goals and affect in her 1988 paper.

Within a performance goal, experiencing failure or effort exertion warns of a low-ability judgment and thus poses a threat to self-esteem. Such a threat might first engender anxiety, and then, if the negative judgment appears increasingly likely, depressed affect and a sense of shame may set in…All of these emotions — anxiety, depressed affect, boredom, defiance — were apparent among the helpless subjects in the Diener and Dweck (1978, 1980) studies as failures accrued.

Within a learning goal, however, the occurrence of failure simply signals that the task will require more effort and ingenuity for mastery. This creates, for some, the opportunity for a more satisfying mastery experience, producing the heightened positive affect noted earlier.

…

In summary, because of their different meanings in the context of the two goals, events that produce negative or depressed affect within one goal may produce positive affect and heightened engagement within the other.

In order to cover the connection between emotions and mindsets, I used “Mental Tuning” to define an abstract concept which is the parent category of “Cognitive Tuning”.

In a general sense, “Mental Tuning” refers to active self-regulation strategic techniques that aim to improve particular psychological functions that are related to Life Domains. For example, MCII (Mental Contrasting and Implementation Intentions) is a particular technique.

I also list some psychological functions as examples:

• Attention
• Information Processing
• Thought Production
• Emotional Feeling
• Behavioral Performance

The above discussion describes a rough abstract general theoretical framework that can capture Dweck’s version of Mindset and Gollwitzer’s version of Mindset as its two concrete cases.

4.5.5 The General Structure of Mindsets

While we consider “Content of Thoughts” and “Processes of Thoughts” as two aspects of Mindsets, the above discussion also leads to an insight into the structure of Mindsets.

• Objective aspect: Life Domain Orientation
• Subjective aspect: Life Experience Principle
• Strategic aspect: Mental Tuning Techniques

Life Domains could differ by Categories, Structures, and other aspects. These differences require different Mindsets. We can use Life Domain Orientation to name this objective aspect of Mindsets. For example, Dweck’s version of Mindset is oriented by the domain of Intelligence (a category of Life Domain). Gollwitzer’s version of Mindset is oriented by action phases (a specific type of Structure of Life Domains).

For a particular Life Domain, a particular person could form his/her principles of mindset. These principles come from beliefs, knowledge, and experience. For example, Dweck’s version of Mindset — the Growth mindset and the Fixed mindset — can be seen as two types of Principles of mindset.

For a particular Life Experience Principle, a person could develop relevant strategic techniques in order to execute the “Mental Tuning” process. For example, Gollwitzer’s version of Mindset uses the MCII method as a strategic technique to improve a Mental Tuning process about the Implementation Mindset.