Honors Theses

Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Stephanie Miller

Relational Format

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

Motivation literature regarding children's academic achievement is quite extensive and can typically be separated into two mindsets: growth mindset and fixed mindset, which vary on their level of persistence (i.e., effort toward a task, Dweck, 2006). Individuals with a growth mindset find persistence is useful because they believe their abilities can change through hard work. Individuals with a fixed mindset find persistence is not useful because they believe their abilities cannot change with hard work. In the domain of creative achievement there is a lack of research on mindset and persistence during creative performance. Research shows that adults underestimate the value of persisting in their own creative performance (Lucas & Nordgren, 2015). However, this has not been examined in conjunction with mindset or in a younger sample. The aim of this study was to determine if children also show this underestimation of persistence and if children who are more growth minded will value persistence during their own creative performance. Children of all age groups undervalued their persistence in a creativity task, but children who were more creative did a better job in estimating their persistence. Mindset was not related to children's value of persistence for their own creative performance, nor did mindset interact with age. These results suggest children are doubtful of persistence as a valuable strategy in their own creative performance for creative achievement.

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Mindset Checkup

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