作者：Carol Dweck
出版社：Random House
副標題：The New Psychology of Success
發行時間：2006
來源：下載的 mobi 版本
Goodreads：4.05（41250 Ratings）
豆瓣：8.1（600人評價）

概要

《Mindset》作者 Carol Dweck 通過幾十年的觀察和總結，將人的思維模式劃分為了「成長型」和「僵化型」兩種主要的類型。具有「成長型」思維模式的人，認為事物是一個不斷變化的發展過程，相信依靠自己的努力可以讓事物向美好的方向上發展；具有「僵化型」思維模式的人則相反，傾向于認為事物的變化并不是自己的努力所能決定的，因而并不會積極主動的去尋求問題的解決

Carol Dweck 在 TED 的一個分享，基本涵蓋了全書的核心思想
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-swZaKN2Ic

作者介紹

Carol Dweck 是斯坦福大學的心理學教授，在 Wikipedia 上有她的介紹：
Carol S. Dweck (born October 17, 1946) is a professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Dweck is known for her work on the mindset psychological trait. She graduated from Barnard College in 1967 and earned a PhD from Yale University in 1972. She taught at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the University of Illinois before joining the Stanford faculty in 2004.

個人觀點

Carol Dweck 在 Mindset 方面的工作挑戰了才能天生決定論，認為一個人的思維模式和努力才是一個人成功的關鍵，而一個人的思維模式，大部分是由所受到的教育決定的

是怎么樣的教育呢？主要是大人和孩子的溝通方式，當孩子取得進步的時候，如果大人夸獎他：「你真聰明」，那么孩子就會認為自己的成功和「聰明」有關，如果大人夸獎他：「你一定做了很大的努力」，那么孩子會認為自己的成功和「努力」有關，正式這種還孩子溝通方式的差別，最終造成了人思維模式的不同

前一種溝通方式產生「外控點」，后一種溝通方式產生「內控點」，「內控點」性格的人，會更相信自己的努力可以對事情有所改變，這是一個更容易取得成功的思維模型

摘錄

A little note about grammar. I know it and I love it, but I haven’t always followed it in this book. I start sentences with ands and buts. I end sentences with prepositions. I use the plural they in contexts that require the singular he or she. I’ve done this for informality and immediacy, and I hope that the sticklers will forgive me.

When I was a young researcher, just starting out, something happened that changed my life. I was obsessed with understanding how people cope with failures, and I decided to study it by watching how students grapple with hard problems. So I brought children one at a time to a room in their school, made them comfortable, and then gave them a series of puzzles to solve. The first ones were fairly easy, but the next ones were hard. As the students grunted, perspired, and toiled, I watched their strategies and probed what they were thinking and feeling. I expected differences among children in how they coped with the difficulty, but I saw something I never expected.
Confronted with the hard puzzles, one ten-year-old boy pulled up his chair, rubbed his hands together, smacked his lips, and cried out, “I love a challenge!” Another, sweating away on these puzzles, looked up with a pleased expression and said with authority, “You know, I was hoping this would be informative!”
What’s wrong with them? I wondered. I always thought you coped with failure or you didn’t cope with failure. I never thought anyone loved failure. Were these alien children or were they on to something?
Everyone has a role model, someone who pointed the way at a critical moment in their lives. These children were my role models. They obviously knew something I didn’t and I was determined to figure it out—to understand the kind of mindset that could turn a failure into a gift.

Did you know that Darwin and Tolstoy were considered ordinary children? That Ben Hogan, one of the greatest golfers of all time, was completely uncoordinated and graceless as a child? That the photographer Cindy Sherman, who has been on virtually every list of the most important artists of the twentieth century, failed her first photography course? That Geraldine Page, one of our greatest actresses, was advised to give it up for lack of talent?

Benjamin Barber, an eminent sociologist, once said, “I don’t divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures. . . . I divide the world into the learners and nonlearners.”

We asked people, ranging from grade schoolers to young adults, “When do you feel smart?” The differences were striking. People with the fixed mindset said:
“It’s when I don’t make any mistakes.”
“When I finish something fast and it’s perfect.”
“When something is easy for me, but other people can’t do it.”
It’s about being perfect right now. But people with the growth mindset said:
“When it’s really hard, and I try really hard, and I can do something I couldn’t do before.”
Or “[When] I work on something a long time and I start to figure it out.”
For them it’s not about immediate perfection. It’s about learning something over time: confronting a challenge and making progress.

To Whom It May Concern:
Having completed the educator’s portion of your recent survey, I must request that my results be excluded from the study. I feel that the study itself is scientifically unsound. . . .
Unfortunately, the test uses a faulty premise, asking teachers to make assumptions about a given student based on nothing more than a number on a page. . . . Performance cannot be based on one assessment. You cannot determine the slope of a line given only one point, as there is no line to begin with. A single point in time does not show trends, improvement, lack of effort, or mathematical ability. . . .
Sincerely,Michael D. Riordan

In summary, people who believe in fixed traits feel an urgency to succeed, and when they do, they may feel more than pride. They may feel a sense of superiority, since success means that their fixed traits are better than other people’s.

The problem was that these stories made it into an either–or. Either you have ability or you expend effort. And this is part of the fixed mindset. Effort is for those who don’t have the ability. People with the fixed mindset tell us, “If you have to work at something, you must not be good at it.” They add, “Things come easily to people who are true geniuses.”

Equally moving is the parallel story about Seabiscuit’s author, Laura Hillenbrand. Felled in her college years by severe, recurrent chronic fatigue that never went away, she was often unable to function. Yet something in the story of the “horse who could” gripped and inspired her, so that she was able to write a heartfelt, magnificent story about the triumph of will. The book was a testament to Seabiscuit’s triumph and her own, equally.

No! It’s true that effort is crucial—no one can succeed for long without it—but it’s certainly not the only thing. People have different resources and opportunities. For example, people with money (or rich parents) have a safety net. They can take more risks and keep going longer until they succeed. People with easy access to a good education, people with a network of influential friends, people who know how to be in the right place at the right time—all stand a better chance of having their effort pay off. Rich, educated, connected effort works better.
People with fewer resouces, in spite of their best efforts, can be derailed so much more easily. The hometown plant you’ve worked in all of your life suddenly shuts down. What now? Your child falls ill and plunges you into debt. There goes the house. Your spouse runs off with the nest egg and leaves you with the children and bills. Forget the night school classes.

Edison was no na?ve tinkerer or unworldly egghead. The “Wizard of Menlo Park” was a savvy entrepreneur, fully aware of the commercial potential of his inventions. He also knew how to cozy up to the press—sometimes beating others out as the inventor of something because he knew how to publicize himself.
Yes, he was a genius. But he was not always one. His biographer, Paul Israel, sifting through all the available information, thinks he was more or less a regular boy of his time and place. Young Tom was taken with experiments and mechanical things (perhaps more avidly than most), but machines and technology were part of the ordinary midwestern boy’s experience.
What eventually set him apart was his mindset and drive. He never stopped being the curious, tinkering boy looking for new challenges. Long after other young men had taken up their roles in society, he rode the rails from city to city learning everything he could about telegraphy, and working his way up the ladder of telegraphers through nonstop self-education and invention. And later, much to the disappointment of his wives, his consuming love remained self-improvement and invention, but only in his field.
There are many myths about ability and achievement, especially about the lone, brilliant person suddenly producing amazing things.
Yet Darwin’s masterwork, The Origin of Species, took years of teamwork in the field, hundreds of discussions with colleagues and mentors, several preliminary drafts, and half a lifetime of dedication before it reached fruition.
Mozart labored for more than ten years until he produced any work that we admire today. Before then, his compositions were not that original or interesting. Actually, they were often patched-together chunks taken from other composers.
This chapter is about the real ingredients in achievement. It’s about why some people achieve less than expected and why some people achieve more.

Here’s what this means: Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn’t mean that others can’t do it (and sometimes do it even better) with training. This is so important, because many, many people with the fixed mindset think that someone’s early performance tells you all you need to know about their talent and their future.

Listen for the messages in the following examples:

“You learned that so quickly! You’re so smart!”
“Look at that drawing. Martha, is he the next Picasso or what?”
“You’re so brilliant, you got an A without even studying!”

If you’re like most parents, you hear these as supportive, esteem-boosting messages. But listen more closely. See if you can hear another message. It’s the one that children hear:

If I don’t learn something quickly, I’m not smart.
I shouldn’t try drawing anything hard or they’ll see I’m no Picasso.
I’d better quit studying or they won’t think I’m brilliant.

We can praise them as much as we want for the growth-oriented process—what they accomplished through practice, study, persistence, and good strategies. And we can ask them about their work in a way that admires and appreciates their efforts and choices.

“That homework was so long and involved. I really admire the way you concentrated and finished it.”
“That picture has so many beautiful colors. Tell me about them.”
“You put so much thought into this essay. It really makes me understand Shakespeare in a new way.”
“The passion you put into that piano piece gives me a real feeling of joy. How do you feel when you play it?”

One more thing about praise. When we say to children, “Wow, you did that so quickly!” or “Look, you didn’t make any mistakes!” what message are we sending? We are telling them that what we prize are speed and perfection. Speed and perfection are the enemy of difficult learning: “If you think I’m smart when I’m fast and perfect, I’d better not take on anything challenging.” So what should we say when children complete a task—say, math problems—quickly and perfectly? Should we deny them the praise they have earned? Yes. When this happens, I say, “Whoops. I guess that was too easy. I apologize for wasting your time. Let’s do something you can really learn from!”

When Benjamin Bloom studied his 120 world-class concert pianists, sculptors, swimmers, tennis players, mathematicians, and research neurologists, he found something fascinating. For most of them, their first teachers were incredibly warm and accepting. Not that they set low standards. Not at all, but they created an atmosphere of trust, not judgment. It was, “I’m going to teach you,” not “I’m going to judge your talent.”

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