Time to move on? When entity theorists perform better than incremental theorists

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Social Psychology

Background:

• Individuals hold either a fixed (entity) or malleable (incremental) view of intelligence.
• Previous research indicates entity theorists perform worse after failure compared to incremental theorists.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how task ability relevance influences performance differences between entity and incremental theorists following failure.
• To examine the role of task choice in moderating the effects of failure on performance.

Main Methods:

• Five experimental studies were conducted.
• Participants completed an initial task, experienced failure, and then chose and completed a subsequent task.
• Task ability relevance (same vs. different) and participants' implicit theories of intelligence were manipulated and measured.

Main Results:

• Entity theorists performed worse than incremental theorists only when the subsequent task measured the same ability.
• When the subsequent task measured a different ability, incremental theorists performed worse than entity theorists.
• Entity theorists were more likely to choose a different-ability task and performed better on it.

Conclusions:

• The impact of failure on performance depends on the perceived ability relevance of subsequent tasks.
• Entity theorists strategically select different-ability tasks post-failure to protect self-perceptions.
• Understanding implicit theories of intelligence is crucial for predicting responses to failure and task engagement.