BELIEFS AND GOALS THAT AFFECT PERFORMANCE
In our research, we have examined the impact of two classes of goals (perform-
ance goals vs. learning goals) and of the beliefs that give rise to them (students’
fixed vs. malleable theories about their intelligence). A performance goal is the
goal of validating one’s ability through one’s performance, that is, the goal of
looking smart and not dumb.^1 In contrast a learning goal is the goal of increas-
ing one’s ability, that is, the goal of getting smarter. These goals create very dif-
ferent mindsets, which we will see, have many ramifications.
Although both goals can be important in achievement settings, some stu-
dents are overly concerned with performance goals, while others focus pre-
dominantly on learning goals. Why might this be? We have found that stu-
dents’ theories about their intelligence orient them toward one class of goals
or the other (see Dweck, 1999; Dweck & Leggett, 1988). When students be-
lieve that their intelligence is a fixed trait (an entity theory of intelligence), it
becomes critical to for them to validate their fixed ability through their per-
formance. In contrast, when students believe that their intellectual skills are
something that they can increase through their efforts (an incremental theory
of intelligence), they become less concerned with how their abilities might be
evaluated now, and more concerned with cultivating their abilities in the
longer term.
In some of the studies described below, we used measures of students’
goals or theories of intelligence to predict their cognitive strategies and intel-
lectual performance. In other studies, we manipulated students’ goals or the-
ories of intelligence to produce different patterns of cognitive strategies and
intellectual performance. Let us now turn to the studies.
MOTIVATIONAL EFFECTS ON COGNITIVE
STRATEGIES
In a study by Farrell and Dweck (1985), junior high school students were
taught a challenging new unit in their science class. Before beginning the unit,
we assessed, for each student, whether he or she had chiefly performance
goals or learning goals for the unit. Those who endorsed performance goals
agreed that their goal was to look smart or avoid mistakes, whereas those
42 DWECK, MANGELS, GOOD
1 1 Performance goals are sometimes defined as competitive goals (wanting to outdo others) or
as simply seeking successful outcomes (such as high grades). We and others have not found these
other goals to create the same vulnerabilities as the performance goal of validating ability (Grant
& Dweck, 2003; Harackiewicz & Elliot, 1993; Kanfer & Ackerman, 2000). Throughout
this chapter we use the term performance goals to refer to the goal of validating ability through
performance.