The relationship between intelligence and mindset

Intelligence mindset refers to one's belief that either intelligence is a malleable trait that can improve with effort—a “growth” mindset—or is a relatively stable trait—a “fixed” mindset. According to proponents of mindset theory, holding a growth mindset is beneficial (e.g., greater academic persistence) while holding a fixed mindset is detrimental. Is there a relationship between one's intelligence mindset and one's intelligence? Proponents of mindset theory suggest that the answer is yes, and that this relationship differs by gender, with more intelligent females holding more of a fixed mindset (aka, the “bright girl effect”). However, investigations of all three factors—measured intelligence, intelligence mindset, and gender—have only been conducted with children and adolescents. Therefore, we tested whether, among adults, women have more of a fixed mindset than men, and whether women with higher intelligence are more likely to hold fixed mindsets. We found no evidence for women holding fixed mindsets more so than men. We found very limited evidence for a “bright woman effect”: Three-way interactions between age, gender, and intelligence predicting mindset emerged, however, the relationships were not consistently driven by brighter women (young or old) holding more of a fixed mindset than their less intelligent female counterparts or men. Furthermore, we did not find evidence to support the notion that holding more of a growth mindset results in greater academic persistence. We conclude that neither gender nor intelligence is consistently associated with mindset.