Growth Mindset and Happiness

Do you know what it means to have a growth mindset? Essentially having a growth mindset means that one holds the belief that one can change their realities. These individuals believe that they can change their personal realities by increasing their talent through practice, effort, and/or gaining more knowledge. In contrast, having a fixed mindset is when one holds the belief that people cannot change.

As may be obvious, previous research has demonstrated that having a growth mindset can be beneficial. For example, a growth mindset has been shown to improve one’s self-esteem and ability to turn challenges into opportunities. Unfortunately, what hasn’t been examined is having what is coined as a dual-growth mindset–which is having a growth mindset about oneself and one’s job. Fortunately, a group of researchers recently set out to study this phenomenon.

A group of researchers (Berg et al., 2022) recently conducted two experiments. In these experiments, the participants received an intervention designed to facilitate a self-growth mindset, a job-growth mindset, or a dual-growth mindset. The results suggested that those study participants who received either of the single-growth mindset interventions had periods of happiness that was very short-lived. However, those who received the dual-growth mindset intervention had increases in happiness that lasted six months after the intervention!

Why is this the case? Well, the researchers noted that this lasting happiness may be due to the job crafting being a part of the dual-growth mindset intervention. With job crafting, employees take the initiative to change the scope of their work activities to make improve the fit between one’s self and one’s job.

Practically speaking, fostering a dual-growth mindset may allow employees to take advantage of their ability to engage in job crafting. This, subsequently, may allow employees to experience lasting happiness. Considering this, organizations may want to consider training initiatives that are designed to facilitate a dual-growth mindset. Doing so is likely to pay off in dividends of happiness for the months to come.

Reference
Berg, J. M., Wrzesniewski, A., Grant, A. M., Kurkoski, J., & Welle, B. (2022). Getting unstuck: The effects of growth mindsets about the self and job on happiness at work. Journal of Applied Psychology. Advance online publication.