Dweck's Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset

We’ve recently been discussing how Ego Depletion has failed a big replication study. Carol Dweck previously (around 2011) expressed skepticism of Ego Depletion and gave an alternate story, about willpower’s depletability being a self-fulfilling prophesy. Ie, that willpower is depletable only if you think it is. That story fit my own biases but Slate Star Codex convinced me, in a series of eye-opening posts, to look at all Dweck’s results more critically:

  1. No Clarity Around Growth Mindset… Yet
  2. I Will Never Have The Ability To Clearly Explain My Beliefs About Growth Mindset
  3. Growth Mindset 3: A Pox On Growth Your Houses
  4. Growth Mindset 4: Growth Of Office

This post is mostly here so I have a single link for “Slate Star Codex’s take on (or take-down of) Carol Dweck”.

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Can you provide a short summary, please?

“Growth mindset is all wrong and we can ignore it”?

Actually the best I’ve got right now is the title of the first Slate Star Codex post: “No clarity around growth mindset… yet” :slight_smile: Thinking out loud: maybe there’s some similarity to the “willpower is a muscle” research. Namely, at some intuitive level it’s pretty reasonable (“don’t let your identity get wrapped up in being ‘the smart kid’” and “exerting willpower can be mentally exhausting”) but it can quickly go off the rails (“all so-called talent is mere self-fulfilling prophecy!” and “eat cookies all day if you have a lot of studying to do!”).

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Whats praticical application of it?