World Famous Comics: Self-theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development (Essays in Social Psychology)
Self-theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development (Essays in Social Psychology)
By: Carol Dweck Publisher: Psychology Press Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Psychology Press Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 212 Publication Date: January 01, 2000
Product Description: This book sheds light on how people work-why sometimes they function well and sometimes they behave in ways that are self-defeating or destructive. Toward this end, Carol Dweck presents her groundbreaking research on adaptive and maladaptive cognitive-motivational patterns, showing: how these patterns originate in people's self-theories; their consequences for the person-for achievement, social relationships, and emotional well-being; their consequences for society, from issues of human potential to stereotyping and intergroup relations; the experiences that create them.
Throughout, Dweck shows how examining people's self-theories illuminates basic issues of human motivation, social cognition, personality, the self, mental health, and development.
100 GIGA-Watt Light-Bulb From my perspective, "Self-Theories," is incredible. Fascinating, absolutely fascinating! I guarantee that if you are not familiar with Dr Carol Dweck's work you will have the equivalent of an epiphany when you read this. It is hard to believe that these theories have escaped popular culture and remained hidden.
Carol Dweck would deny it, but she is a genius. The proof of her theories are borne out in these pages. The light-bulb part is that when you read them; it's a real "Ah-Ha!" moment. It is something that we see glimpses of in ourselves but precious few have truly understood. Things become clearer and clearer with each chapter.
The crux of it is that there are people, children and adults, which have an attitude of mastery or growth mindset. These people shrug off failures, mistakes and difficulty with subjects and work at incremental growth. They develop their abilities. The rest of us, have this belief in their abilities and an attitude that if you are gifted then things will come naturally. These people have a tendency to dislike effort, struggles and incremental growth because they see it as a weakness. For the growth mindset people they see the big picture and develop new strategies to overcome.
It is similar to the two different schools of economic theory; either you believe that economies are STATIC and there is only so much wealth to go around and so legislate to equalize wealth; or you believe economies are DYNAMIC and grow, therefore increasing wealth through successful strategies and encourage risk and experimentation. The static would be equivalent to ability or scarcity mindset and the dynamic would be equivalent to the mastery or growth mindset.
The thing is, when you look at raising children we all want them to succeed at whatever they try. Parents look for any sign that their child might be gifted and have some inborn ability that shines above their peers. But this is folly, because they praise the exact opposite of what they should. They praise the child's ability and not their effort. From this the child gets the message that, "I am good at this without effort, and people like me for it." The problem arises when it is time to move on from their juvenile abilities and grow stronger and more able, but they hold back. They hold back because they don't want to destroy their image of a "natural" they don't want to loose the praise they once had. This turns out to be a death spiral for any real gifts they might have had. Too bad too, all it takes is a slight change of the phrases used with young people.
Parents, teacher and coaches alike should read and re-read this work. It is the clinical stuff but in my opinion it is better than Mindset. Mindset is also excellent stuff but is more anecdotal and less about the cases and discovery in the studies.
Great service Very fast delivery to NZ - took just over a week from ordering the book. In excellent condition. Thanks :-)
Absolutely a Fascinating Read - a review of "Self-theories" This is a fascinating book. And while I'm just a mom with no particular background in psychological research, I found I had no difficulty either understanding the procedures of the research, or finding `everyday' applications for the profound information that Carol Dweck and associates provide.
In fact I wish I had read this book earlier because it has a great deal to teach about how children devise concepts of themselves (self image) and how we might avoid the pitfalls of rearing a child who `gives up' too easily.
Five Stars. Very interesting. The other reviewers are right. This is a fast paced, good read that explains Carol Dweck's research into personality, motivation and development. As a mom of a 3 and 5 year old, I wish that I had come across this book earlier.
As Amazon's `Search inside this book' feature only lists page one of the Table of Contents, I've typed out the second page for your info.
Chapter 14 -- How Does It All Begin? Young Children's Theories About Goodness and Badness
Chapter 15 -- Kinds Of Praise And Criticism: The Origins Of Vulnerability
Chapter 16 -- Praising Intelligence: More Praise That Backfires
Chapter 17 -- Misconceptions About Self-Esteem and About How To Foster It
Chapter 18 -- Personality, Motivation, Development, and The Self: Theoretical Reflections
Chapter 19 -- Final Thoughts On Controversial Issues
References Appendix: Measures Of Implicit Theories, Confidence, and Goals Index
Scary title, great book! I was intimidated by the title of this book, and was afraid it was going to be highly academic. However, the book is completely accessible and fascinating. Dr. Dweck describes her remarkable studies on motivation and achievement, and shows that a fixed view of intelligence (meaning: either you're born smart or you're not) sells us short. Her work has enormous implications for both childrearing and teaching. This book should be required reading for all parents and teachers.
Reader-friendly Yes I would definitely say it is reader friendly. Why? I sat and read through and what kept me reading it to end was that it is comprehensible. THere was nothing new in the sense that her subjects were everyday people - students, there were no those statistics that hardly made a sense to a layman like me, it was thought provoking - made me ponder over what really went wrong with my kid and myself, gave me some idea on how to tackle future problems concerning my kid's attitude towards schoolwork, and most of all it was presented in a captivating manner. It's like reading a storybook. I didn't have to put on a thinking cap to make myself intelligent to understand her message.I definitely would recommend to my friends who are housewives.
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