Carol Dweck has no current financial interest in or income from Mindset Works.
I think the key word here is "current." This being Silicon Valley, it is extremely likely that she has shares in this company and stands to profit if it is acquired or goes public. Besides, if there was no interest in profits, why not form a non-profit foundation instead? In addition, there are the $20-30K-per-shot speaking fees. I continue to see a financial conflict of interest.
Some may say that an accusation/allegation of conflict of interest against a psychologist is a strong statement. Although asked, you've not provided a source for your information, therefore your repeated statements about conflict of interest appear to be conjecture/hypothetical/unfounded.
Did she just have a growth mindset about getting her fingers into her mouth? Did my month-old son have a growth mindset about reaching for objects? Did they both have growth mindsets about paying attention to the world around them, consistently, from birth? Why do so many people here report the same things, while so many others in the population are surprised by what HG+ newborns do?
In the video shared upthread, Dr. Dweck opens with: comments on the natural curiosity of babies, then shows bored kids in school, what happened?
You've distorted what I wrote in a Dweckian way --- link an obvious statement (curiosity in little kids) to a dodgey idea or a valid point (mine, curiosity) and use the obvious one to promote or disparage the linked one. There should be a formal logical fallacy named for that. If not, I choose to call it
the Dweckian distortion fallacy.
Possibly I see things more simply and do not see the argument. Possibly we just disagree. If you believe there was a distortion, please feel free to clarify your point.
HG+ kids are often described as meeting milestones well before neurotypical or even MG kids. This is observed as early as the day of birth and throughout the newborn period. It therefore cannot be attributed to "nurture" or "praise" or anything else except innate cognitive abilities in the newborn.
Agreed. Infants have varying amounts of innate abilities. For some infants, advanced abilities may be evident on day 1. This may depend upon several things including
- what the infant is doing,
- who may be watching,
- what the watcher's knowledge of milestones may be.
For other babies, advanced abilities may not be noticed until they are several months old. In some cases, the baby could have been doing the same things as the infant, at the same age as the infant, however these actions may have gone unobserved, and/or significance may not have been placed on them possibly due to being unaware of milestones, therefore unaware that the baby's actions were advanced, and that this may be an indicator of high IQ.
For some preschoolers, advanced abilities may have been occurring but also gone unnoticed and/or the child may receive negative responses to his/her precocity.
Similarly for some elementary school children, advanced abilities may be demonstrated but remain unacknowledged and/or unappreciated.
The idea that this ability may naturally disappear is effectively equivalent to the statement, "they all even out by third grade."
In the examples, we do not see the infant's abilities disappear, however we begin to see advanced abilities recognized in more children over time, as they may be observed by more individuals and/or the individuals observing them may become more familiar with milestones.
In many ways, Dweck denies the reality of being highly gifted --- as though it's just some brain-muscle growth-thing that you can drive with hard work ...
Do you have examples of Dweck denying the reality of being highly gifted?
Her ideas are very disrespectful of a small segment of the population.
Dweck is a gifted person herself, and shares anecdotes of teachers with fixed mindset and the impact of those teachers upon the students... therefore I do not believe that she intends to offend or be disrespectful of gifted individuals.
In fact, I appreciate her caution that gifted individuals may stop taking appropriate risks in order to always be seen as smart, thereby choosing to keep-up-appearances rather than embracing possible learning experiences in which they may be exposed as not already knowing something.
Unfortunately, children may develop this defensive/protective stance when subject to unrealistic statements and intentional belittlement along the lines of... if they are smart/gifted/advanced they should know (or be able to do) ___
xyz___ (fill in the blank). This seems to ring true to many posts on the forum. In the book
mindset, Dweck points out harmful messages given to children by parents, teachers, coaches... so that children may receive more beneficial messages.
But if she were to write a more nuanced view, she wouldn't book so many lecture dates or sell so many subscriptions to Brainology (tm).
Have you read the book
mindset? Are there specific passages/excerpts on specific pages which you might point to, as the source for the understanding you seem to take away from mindset? These passages/excerpts may form the basis for insightful questions the OP may pose to the author...
