History Ellen Leggett developed implicit theories of intelligence in 1985. Her paper "Children's entity and incremental theories of intelligence: Relationships to achievement behavior" was presented at the 1985 meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association in Boston. As a result, Dweck and her collaborators began studying how individuals unknowingly (or implicitly) assess their own intelligence and abilities through interaction and interpretation of their environment. These assessments ultimately influence the individual's goals, motivations, behaviors, and self-esteem. The researchers began by looking at students who were highly motivated to achieve, and students who were not  . They noticed that the highly motivated students thrived in the face of challenge while the other students quit or withdrew from their work, but critically, a student's raw intelligence did not predict whether a student was highly motivated or not. Rather, they discovered that these two groups of students held different beliefs (or implicit theories) about intelligence,  which affected their classroom performance. Entity theory vs. incremental theory Researchers have identified two different mindsets regarding intelligence beliefs. The entity theory of intelligence refers to an individual's belief that intelligence and ability are fixed traits. For entity theorists, if perceived ability to perform a task is high, the perceived possibility for mastery is also high. In turn, if perceived ability is low, there is little perceived possibility of mastery, often regarded as an outlook of "learned helplessness" (Park & Kim, 2015). However, the incremental theory of intelligence proposes that intelligence and ability are malleable traits which can be improved upon through effort and hard work. For incremental theorists, there is a perceived possibility of mastery even when initial ability to perform a task is low. Those who subscribe to this theory of intelligence "don't necessarily believe that anyone can become an Einstein or Mozart, but they do understand even Einstein and Mozart had to put in years of effort to become who they were". This possibility of mastery contributes in part to intrinsic motivation of individuals to perform a task, since there is perceived potential for success in the task. Self-esteem Incrementalist individuals generally have positive and stable self-esteem and do not question their intelligence in the face of failure, instead remaining eager and curious.Dweck, C.S. (1999). Self-Theories: Their role in motivation, personality and development. Philadelphia: Taylor and Francis/Psychology Press. Individuals with entity beliefs  attribute failure or having to exert effort to a lack of ability. Therefore, if they do not succeed at some task, they are unlikely to seek similar tasks or  quit trying. They believe that putting in effort will undermine their competence because if they were smart enough to begin with, they would not need to put in effort. These individuals will limit themselves to situations where they believe they will succeed and may limit themselves in the face of negative feedback, which they will likely interpret as a personal attack on their ability. These individuals' self-esteem as well as their enjoyment of a task may suffer when they encounter failure and the associated feelings of helplessness. Many children who see failure as a reflection of their intelligence will even lie about their scores to strangers to preserve their self-esteem and competence, since they connect their judgments of self to their performance. Students who see the value of effort do not show such a tendency. The best students are often most concerned with failure.Leggett, E. L. (1985, March). Children's entity and incremental theories of intelligence: Relationships to achievement behavior. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Boston Students who achieve a great deal of academic success early on might be most likely to believe their intelligence is fixed because they so frequently have been praised regarding their intelligence. They may have faced fewer opportunities for setbacks and do not have much experience persisting through errors. Longitudinal research shows that individuals who endorse entity beliefs experience decreasing self-esteem throughout their college years, while individuals who endorse incremental beliefs experience an increase. College-aged students One consequence for individuals experiencing the stereotype threat (or worrying about conforming to a negative stereotype associated with a member of one's group) is that they will also experience an entity mindset. College students are able to overcome this negative impact after participating in an incremental thinking intervention . Afterwards, they report higher levels of happiness  . Success in school and on tests An individual's implicit theory of intelligence can predict future success, particularly navigating life transitions that are often associated with challenging situations, such as moving from elementary to middle school. Students followed throughout their middle school careers showed that those who possessed growth mindset tendencies made better grades and had a more positive view on the role of effort than students who possessed fixed mindset tendencies with similar abilities, two years following the initial survey. Those with  entity beliefs worry more about tests even in situations where they have experienced some success, spend less time practicing before tests, and thus have shown reduced performance on IQ tests relative to those with incremental beliefs . If the situation is framed in a manner that emphasizes learning and process rather than success, mindset can be altered. Individuals with fixed mindsets may engage in less practice in order to allow themselves an excuse besides low ability for potentially poor performance in order to preserve their egos. Students who have learning goals (associated with incremental beliefs) are more internally motivated and successful in the face of a challenging college course. After the first test in a course, those who possess learning goals are likely to improve their grades on the next test whereas those with performance goals did not. "Easily learned = easily remembered" heuristic Individuals who believe their intelligence can grow think about information in their world differently even outside of academic challenges, seen by use of a different heuristic when making judgments of learning (JOLs), or estimates of learning. Those with entity views are generally guided by the principle "easily learned" means "easily remembered," which means that when learning information, these individuals will make low JOLs when a task is difficult. Those with incremental views did not follow this "easily learned" means "easily remembered" principle and gave higher judgments to more difficult tasks, perhaps believing that if more effort is put into the learning because it is harder, those items will be better remembered.
History Ellen Leggett developed implicit theories of intelligence in 1985. Her paper "Children's entity and incremental theories of intelligence: Relationships to achievement behavior" was presented at the 1985 meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association in Boston. As a result, Dweck and her collaborators began studying how individuals unknowingly (or implicitly) assess their own intelligence and abilities through interaction and interpretation of their environment. It was assumed that these assessments ultimately influenced the individual's goals, motivations, behaviors, and self-esteem. The researchers began by looking at students who were highly motivated to achieve, and students who were not , though the levels of self-achievement were not clarified . They noticed that the highly motivated students thrived in the face of challenge while the other students quit or withdrew from their work, but critically, a student's raw intelligence did not predict whether a student was highly motivated or not. Rather, they discovered that these two groups of students held different beliefs (or implicit theories) about intelligence, categorized as entity or incremental theories, which affected their classroom performance. Entity theory vs. incremental theory Carol Dweck identified two different mindsets regarding intelligence beliefs. The entity theory of intelligence refers to an individual's belief that intelligence and ability are fixed traits. For entity theorists, if perceived ability to perform a task is high, the perceived possibility for mastery is also high. In turn, if perceived ability is low, there is little perceived possibility of mastery, often regarded as an outlook of "learned helplessness" (Park & Kim, 2015). However, the incremental theory of intelligence proposes that intelligence and ability are malleable traits which can be improved upon through effort and hard work. For incremental theorists, there is a perceived possibility of mastery even when initial ability to perform a task is low. Those who subscribe to this theory of intelligence "don't necessarily believe that anyone can become an Einstein or Mozart, but they do understand even Einstein and Mozart had to put in years of effort to become who they were". This possibility of mastery contributes in part to intrinsic motivation of individuals to perform a task, since there is perceived potential for success in the task. Self-esteem Incrementalist individuals generally have positive and stable self-esteem and do not question their intelligence in the face of failure, instead remaining eager and curious.Dweck, C.S. (1999). Self-Theories: Their role in motivation, personality and development. Philadelphia: Taylor and Francis/Psychology Press. Individuals with entity beliefs mostly attribute failure or having to exert effort to a lack of ability. Therefore, if they do not succeed at some task, they are unlikely to seek similar tasks or will quit trying. They believe that putting in effort will undermine their competence because if they were smart enough to begin with, they would not need to put in effort. These individuals will limit themselves to situations where they believe they will succeed and may limit themselves in the face of negative feedback, which they will likely interpret as a personal attack on their ability. These individuals' self-esteem as well as their enjoyment of a task may suffer when they encounter failure and the associated feelings of helplessness. Many children who see failure as a reflection of their intelligence will even lie about their scores to strangers to preserve their self-esteem and competence, since they connect their judgments of self to their performance. Students who see the value of effort do not show such a tendency. The majority of what are considered "best students" are often concerned with failure.Leggett, E. L. (1985, March). Children's entity and incremental theories of intelligence: Relationships to achievement behavior. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Boston Students who achieve a great deal of academic success early on might be most likely to believe their intelligence is fixed because they so frequently have been praised regarding their intelligence. They may have faced fewer opportunities for setbacks and do not have much experience persisting through errors. Longitudinal research shows that individuals who endorse entity beliefs experience decreasing self-esteem throughout their college years, while individuals who endorse incremental beliefs experience an increase. College-aged students One consequence for individuals experiencing the stereotype threat (or worrying about conforming to a negative stereotype associated with a member of one's group) is that they will also experience an entity mindset. College students are able to overcome this negative impact after participating in an incremental thinking intervention , afterwards reporting higher levels of happiness according to the theory . Success in school and on tests An individual's implicit theory of intelligence can predict future success, particularly navigating life transitions that are often associated with challenging situations, such as moving from elementary to middle school. Students followed throughout their middle school careers showed that those who possessed growth mindset tendencies made better grades and had a more positive view on the role of effort than students who possessed fixed mindset tendencies with similar abilities, two years following the initial survey. Those with theoretical entity beliefs worry more about tests even in situations where they have experienced some success, spend less time practicing before tests, and thus have shown reduced performance on IQ tests relative to others in their environment . If the situation is framed in a manner that emphasizes learning and process rather than success, mindset can be altered. Individuals with fixed mindsets may engage in less practice in order to allow themselves an excuse besides low ability for potentially poor performance in order to preserve their egos. Students who have learning goals (associated with incremental beliefs) are more internally motivated and successful in the face of a challenging college course. After the first test in a course, those who possess learning goals are likely to improve their grades on the next test whereas those with performance goals did not. "Easily learned = easily remembered" heuristic According to theory, individuals who believe their intelligence can grow think about information in their world differently even outside of academic challenges, seen by use of a different heuristic when making judgments of learning (JOLs), or estimates of learning. Those with entity views are generally guided by the principle "easily learned" means "easily remembered," which means that when learning information, these individuals will make low JOLs when a task is difficult. Those with incremental views did not follow this "easily learned" means "easily remembered" principle and gave higher judgments to more difficult tasks, perhaps believing that if more effort is put into the learning because it is harder, those items will be better remembered.
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