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My Final Essay

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An image that illustrates different thoughts of a growth mindsets vs. a fixed mindset. Fixed mindsets are the opposing side of growth mindsets.

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Ted Talk with Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck. She discusses the idea of "yet." If we praise the process to success rather than praise the final result, that is building a growth mindset.

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The power of believing that you can improve

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Carol Dweck researches “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain’s capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it … or have you just not solved it yet? A great introduction to this influential field.

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Study that supports the unconscious brain state, states that "we can blame our brains for spending more and saving less." Thoughts and decisions are not always in our full control.

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ITHACA, N.Y. - Despite working hard, Americans are notoriously poor at saving money. The average American working-age couple has saved only $5,000 for retirement, while 43 percent of working-age families have no retirement savings at all, according to a 2016 analysis of a Federal Reserve survey.

A new study by Cornell University neuroscientists suggests that, to some degree, we can blame limited savings on our brains in addition to our bills. According to the study, humans have a cognitive bias toward earning, which makes us unconsciously spend more brain power on earning than on saving. The cognitive bias is so powerful that it can even warp our sense of time.

"Fundamentally it comes down to this: saving is less valuable to our brains, which devote less attentional resources to it," said study co-author Adam Anderson, associate professor of human development. "It's more than a financial problem of making ends meet. Our brains find saving more difficult to attend to."

The paper, "Differential temporal salience of earning and saving," was published July 20 in Nature Communications. Co-author Eve De Rosa is an associate professor of human development and Kesong Hu, a postdoctoral fellow in Anderson and De Rosa's Affect and Cognition Lab, is lead author.

In the study, the researchers created their own experiment in which individuals could earn or save money by responding to how different colors signified these opportunities. They also gave study participants a timing perception task with these same colors, measuring how quickly they processed colors as an implicit index of the potency of earning and saving for the brain.

In the first experiment, 87.5 percent of the participants earned more than they saved. And 75 percent developed warped temporal perceptions of the colors. They reported seeing earning colors appear on the computer screen first when, in fact, the savings colors did. In subsequent experiments, this temporal bias occurred even when color associations with earning or saving were hidden and likely unconscious. The researchers have termed this bias "savings posteriority."

"Even without bills to pay, our brains put a thumb on the scales, making it easier for us to earn than save," Anderson said. "Saving is so devalued and unattended that we perceive events associated with saving as occurring later in time," De Rosa said.

The warped time perception may or may not be a mechanism for the cognitive bias to earn more than save, Anderson said. "At a minimum, it's an indication of how strong this bias is, that it can even warp our perception of time," he said. "Imagine what it could do to our bank accounts."

Even when the researchers changed the economic task to ensure study participants received an equal amount of earnings and savings, the temporal bias persisted. And the bias against saving occurred whether researchers defined saving as preventing the loss of what the participants already earned or as putting away money for future use. Either way, the results were the same: earning beat saving.

The researchers note that those who want to save more could start by trying attentional retraining - that is, practice paying attention to saving. The benefit is not so much in the everyday cash value of what one saves; it's in building the brain's capacity to pay attention to saving, which, like money in the bank, will increase over time.

"It's practicing attention and intention to save, to strengthen the value of it for your brain. It's not the amount of dollars that matters," Anderson said. Added De Rosa: "And you'll probably see other avenues and opportunities as your brain learns to value saving."

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Cornell University has television, ISDN and dedicated Skype/Google+ Hangout studios available for media interviews.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

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Slacking on your savings? Cognitive bias could be to blame

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A new study by Cornell neuroscientists suggests that, to some degree, we can blame limited savings on our brains in addition to our bills. According to the human development professors Adam Anderson and Eve De Rosa, humans have a cognitive bias toward earning, which makes us unconsciously spend more brain power on earning than on saving.

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Carol Dweck is a psychologist. Q & A on why women avoid careers in math and science.

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Carol S. Dweck, a She spoke recently with Vikas Bajaj of The New York Times editorial board about her research and what it says about the underrepresentation of women and minorities in science, technology, engineering and math professions. In the last several decades, women have made great strides in some fields like biology, chemistry and social sciences. But they are still greatly underrepresented in engineering, computer science and other fields. Why do you think that is? psychologist at Stanford University, has done extensive research on why women tend to avoid careers in math and science. Her work has shown that women and girls who think that science and math ability are innate tend to perform worse and have less interest in those fields than females who believe that those skills can be acquired through hard work. As she describes the distinction, one is a "gift" mindset and the other a "growth" mindset.
The harder the science, the stronger the stereotype about women. A stereotype is kind of a fixed mindset label it says this skill is fixed and some people don't have it. We have found in our research that when females buy into a fixed mindset about math and then they encounter stereotyping their grades and their sense that they belong in math suffers. Also, there is a steep decline in their intention to take math in the future. Now, these are the most prepared women in the country. They are at a top university. They have top SAT scores.

There is some stunning research by Andrei Cimpian [of the University of Illinois] and Sarah-Jane Leslie [of Princeton]. They assessed the mindsets of the different STEM disciplines. They gave surveys to professors and graduate students across the country asking them whether they believed that success in their field came from sheer brain power that couldn't be taught or by dedication, passion, hard work over long periods of time. They found a startlingly high correlation between the fixed mindset of the field and the representation of women. [In other words, fields of study where the "gift" mindset was prevalent, like computer science and engineering, attracted fewer women than fields where the "growth" mindset held more sway.]
What is the difference between boys and girls? Does the "gift" mindset apply to both of them?
Males and females can both have a fixed mindset about math and science but it hurts girls more because they are on the negative end of the stereotype. If it's fixed and we have it, then you are not that vulnerable. But if it's fixed and you don't have it, you don't have it.
Can we change the mindset at the individual level or at the school level? And how do we do it?
It can be done at any level. We have done many interventions at the individual level. We have done a lot of it via online interventions for adolescents, and we do see pretty consistent changes in motivation and performance particularly for kids who have been stereotyped in some way.
Can you tell us what these interventions entail?
First, the students learn about the brain and all the wonderful things it does. How it's involved in everything they do and everything they care about. Then they learn that they can grow their brains. Every time they stretch out of their comfort zone, do hard things, stick to hard things, their brains form stronger and stronger connections and over time their abilities can grow. And then we show them how they can apply it to their schoolwork.

Have you found that doing this changes students' interest in science and math?
We have shown that it raises their achievement in math and science, their enjoyment in math and science and their desire to continue and their selection of more advanced courses.

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Credit Alexis Cuarezma for The New York Times

If we made a concerted effort to change students' mindset, would the benefits go beyond girls? Would it help boys, too?
In the short run, boys might protest because they have the advantage. But I think in the long term everybody benefits from the idea that this is a learned set of skills and that your abilities can grow. It makes you more open to learning, more willing to ask for help, more collaborative. We say women have made great strides in biology, in many areas of chemistry, in many places women are now the majority of medical students. But when I began my career that wasn't the case. There were very strong stereotypes in biology and medicine.
How did that change?
How did that change and why didn't everything change? I don't know the answer to that. So, what we are saying is there is no strong gender stereotype or any gender stereotype in many fields. It may be that the harder the science, the later they fall.

When I went into psychology there were very few women.
What kind of stereotypes did you face and how did you overcome them?
When I was in graduate school, my advisor said, what would you like to do? And I said, I would like to teach and do research in a top university. And he said that may not be possible. He said that I was totally qualified and deserved that, but that the world was such that I might not get hired into such a position. I had the great good fortune of getting my Ph.D. in the very first year that universities were actively seeking women faculty. The government was putting pressure on universities to hire more women.
That's interesting because some people argue that women are simply choosing not to go into some science and math fields and we should not try too hard to change that.

Our research and the research of Cimpian and Leslie shows that when a field does not portray itself in fixed-mindset terms women are very interested. You just describe a field in different ways and women's interest varies significantly.
Do you see a parallel between women and minorities, especially blacks and Hispanics?
Absolutely, and there is parallel research showing the same kinds of factors. The stereotypes and the mindset that is endorsed by the field are strongly related to minority representation, as well. Similarly, teaching a growth mindset raises minority achievement, enjoyment and interest in the field.
Some argue that the United States is not falling behind in science and math, pointing to the fact that the country has a thriving technology industry. Why is it important that we try to increase the number of women and minorities in science and math?
We are not at or near the top in math or science achievement. There are many, many jobs that are not being filled in technology, or that are not being filled by Americans. Just from the point of view of our national attainment and our economy, we should be seeking to create conditions where more women and minorities achieve in these areas. And from the perspective of women and minorities, technology fields are exciting, they are growing and they are lucrative. And we know from our research that women and minorities have ample potential to succeed in these fields, and that potential is not being realized.
This interview has been edited and condensed.

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Carol S. Dweck, a She spoke recently with Vikas Bajaj of The New York Times editorial board about her research and what it says about the underrepresentation of women and minorities in science, technology, engineering and math professions. In the last several decades, women have made great strides in some fields like biology, chemistry and social sciences.

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Psychology - 101 Lecture Terms/ Formal Source 

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Psychology - 101 Lecture Terms/ Formal Source 

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My psychology 122 professo,r Arman Catterson, described terms in lecture such as social modeling, SES, and reward system. All relevant psychology terms to relate growth mindsets to how to the brain works.

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I picked my Aunt Liza for a few reasons. She was a single women living in the Bay Area as times changed, still came out on top. She now owns multiple properties, has a successful career, and an amazing outlook on life.

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First study to relate mindsets vs. academic success. Discusses how social economic status plays a large role in the way students think and how successful they will be. Findings show people with growth mindsets are academically more successful.

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Chapter 3: Unconscious Brain State
David Eagleman says its what goes on "under the hood."
Most of our day is done unconsciously, but when a decision has to be made our conscious brain comes out to play. The unconscious brain state plays a much larger role than we think.

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This is a very subjective question. Meaning it always depends on who you're asking. Because none of this has yet to be "proven" people will argue forThis is a very subjective question. Meaning it always depends on who you're asking. Because none of this has yet to be "proven" people will argue for whoever's research and theories they agree with. I can give you some of my own personal (and I try really hard to be objective and steer clear of opinions, but that will always have a role so that's just my warning label of sorts, ha) but because this is such a big topic today it'd help if you were more specific... do you mean subconscious mind just basically like how we make decisions, fears, etc or do you want to go deeper meaning the abnormal subconscious mind and/or subconscious mind of trauma, etc. there are so many good out there. If you want recs let me know, but another good way to find is to do a bit of research online and/or going to a book store and looking at several books that deal with your specific questions... I hope this helps! ...more (less)

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This is a very subjective question. Meaning it always depends on who you're asking. Because none of this has yet to be "proven" people will argue forThis is a very subjective question. Meaning it always depends on who you're asking. Because none of this has yet to be "proven" people will argue for whoever's research and theories they agree with.

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An article based on four mindsets to help save more money. Four strategies, outlooks, or ways of thinking. Growth mindset, System-Based Mindset, Realist Mindset, and Abundance Mindset.
www.simple.com/blog/how-to-save-money-4-mindsets.