DOI: 10.3886/e102262v1
title: Guiding people to interpret their experienced difficulty as importance highlights their academic possibilities and improves their academic performance - Frontiers in Psychology, Oyserman et al.

description: Does experiencing difficulty bolster or undermine future
self-images, strategies to get there and actual performance? We build on four
insights from prior research to predict that accessible interpretation-of-experienced-difficulty
mindset shapes identity and performance. First, people have two different
interpretation-of-experienced-difficulty mindsets available in memory; their
difficulty-as-impossibility mindset focuses attention on difficulty as implying
low odds and their difficulty-as-importance mindset focuses attention on difficulty
as implying high value.  Second, people are
sensitive to contextual cues as to which mindset to apply to understand their
experienced difficulty. Third, people apply the mindset that comes to mind
unless they have reason to question why it is “on-the-mind.” Fourth, social class
can be thought of as a chronic context influencing how much people endorse each
interpretation-of-experienced-difficulty mindset. We used subtle primes to guide
participants’ attention toward either a difficulty-as-importance or a
difficulty-as-impossibility mindset (N=591). Participants guided toward a difficulty-as-importance
mindset performed better on difficult academic tasks (Studies 1, 2) than
participants guided toward a difficulty-as-impossibility mindset; whether they had
more school-focused possible identities and linked strategies depended on
sample (Studies 3, 4). The effect of guided
interpretation-of-experienced-difficulty mindset was not moderated by how much
participants agreed with that mindset. In college student samples (Studies 1,
3, 4), participants mostly disagreed with a difficulty-as-impossibility mindset,
but making that mindset accessible undermined their performance and sometimes
their possible identities anyway.  In
contrast, middle school students (a younger and lower social class sample) were
more likely to agree with a difficulty-as-impossibility mindset. In this sample
(Study 2), we found an effect of mindset endorsement: agreeing that difficulty
implies importance and disagreeing that difficulty implies impossibility
improved performance. This study had a control group. Control group participants
not guided to use a particular interpretation-of-experienced-difficulty mindset
performed no differently than participants guided toward a difficulty-as-impossibility
mindset. Results suggest that people may chronically act as if they are using a
difficulty-as-impossibility mindset and may benefit from being guided to
consider that experienced difficulty might imply task importance. Effect of
accessible mindset on salience of academic possible selves was not stable,
accessible mindset mattered in one university sample but not the other.
description: Detailed in Oyserman, D., Elmore, K., Novin, S., Fisher, O., & Smith, G. C. (in press). Guiding people to interpret their experienced difficulty as importance highlights their academic possibilities and improves their academic performance. Frontiers in Psychology.
description: Response Rates: Detailed in Oyserman, D., Elmore, K., Novin, S., Fisher, O., & Smith, G. C. (in press). Guiding people to interpret their experienced difficulty as importance highlights their academic possibilities and improves their academic performance. Frontiers in Psychology.
description: Presence of Common Scales: Detailed in Oyserman, D., Elmore, K., Novin, S., Fisher, O., & Smith, G. C. (in press). Guiding people to interpret their experienced difficulty as importance highlights their academic possibilities and improves their academic performance. Frontiers in Psychology.
description: web-based survey~~
description: Middle school and college students
description: Detailed in Oyserman, D., Elmore, K., Novin, S., Fisher, O., & Smith, G. C. (in press). Guiding people to interpret their experienced difficulty as importance highlights their academic possibilities and improves their academic performance. Frontiers in Psychology.