114 / Rotman Management Spring 20 19

Q

&A

Describe how mindsets affect our everyday behaviour.

Mindsets are our fundamental understanding of how hu-

man attributes like intelligence and personality work. The

specific mindsets that I study fall along two dimensions. The

first is ‘malleability’ — whether people believe that things

like intelligence and personality are stable or fluid. Stanford

Professor Carol Dweck’s terms for this are a ‘fixed mindset’

vs. a ‘growth mindset’. The second dimension of mindsets

that I study involves how people think potential is distrib-

uted across the general population — whether they believe

high levels of potential are constrained among a select few

or are distributed more widely.

How might mindsets explain why some people are more

likely to confront everyday prejudice in the workplace?

In my research with Prof. Dweck on mindsets and confront-

ing overtly- biased statements, we were interested in under-

standing why minorities or women might confront some-

one who has said something offensive. In some ways, it is

a miracle that anyone ever confronts blatant bias, because

it is such an overtly negative experience for the person

being targeted. That’s why I felt our first question ought

to be, Why do people choose to confront overt bias? I felt

that peoples’ mindsets about how malleable people are in

general might shape their motivation to confront or not

to confront.

I indeed found that people who view others as ‘mal-

leable’ are more likely to confront a biased statement. More

recently, I found that people who hold growth mindsets

show a relatively less negative outlook towards the person

An expert on inter-group

relations discusses the

mindsets that promote be-

longing and achievement

in the face of stereotypes.

Interview by Manini Sheker

QUESTIONS FOR Aneeta Rattan, Professor, London Business School