Mindset

Your mindset about risk and adventure may constrain your sense of what's possible. Photo: "Wonderland Walker 2" by kevint3141 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Mindset Definition

Mindset may refer to

1. a person’s or community’s way of feeling, thinking, and acting about a topic
   • a mental framework, a schema, a way of perceiving, interpreting, filtering, and acting in the world
2. a habitual way of feeling, thinking, and acting about a particular topic
3. a narrative, a story one tells oneself, whether consciously or unconsciously, about
   • one’s innate potential to do something
   • one’s rationale for feeling, thinking, or acting in some way
4. a subject of study
   • that investigates how a person’s beliefs, opinions, and feelings influences their interpretive, reasoning and communicative processes
5. groupthink — a discourse community’s shared values, politics, opinions, and prejudices about a topic

A mindset may be rational or irrational. It may be based on custom, habit, folk lore, opinion, belief, a faith, empirical evidence, theory, or hermeneutics. People may be unconscious or unconscious about ways their mindset influences their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. A person’s mindset at any given moment may influence their behavior.

Synonymous Terms

The term mindset is somewhat synonymous to the terms perspective and point of view.

Related Concepts: Balance Believing with Doubting; Habits of Mind; Intrapersonal Competency, Play the Believing Game, Professionalism, Purpose; The Writing Process

Why Does Mindset Matter?

A writer or speaker’s mindset plays a powerful role in their success or failure. People with a growth mindset, for instance, are more likely than people with a fixed mindset to respond positively to tough critiques and to challenges, more generally (Dweck 2006).

Mindset casts a long shadow over the writing process: if people are unduly critical and negative about their potential as a writer, researcher, collaborator or communicator, they may procrastinate when facing school or work-related writing tasks. They may be overly critical of early rough drafts and not give themselves enough time to revise their work.

We develop mindsets as we encounter other people, experiences, events, issues, and objects. We may mimic the mindsets of others. We may join discourse communities that ascribe to particular mindsets and narratives. From informal research and formal research, empirical observation, and reading, we develop representations of how the world works. Over time, we associate feelings and behaviors with recurring rhetorical situations, and, accordingly we compose adopt, draft, and revise personas, rhetorical stances, and arguments.

As a rhetor — a speaker or a writer — you invariably develop habitual ways of interpreting and responding to new rhetorical situations based on your past experiences. In part, our personalities, our identities, are defined by the mindsets we hold. Our character–our sense of self–is defined by the mindsets we hold true and dear to our hearts. Likewise, sometimes we describe our friends and work colleagues based on the mindsets they espouse. For instance, when a friend launches an entrepreneurial venture, we might say “Wow, Yolanda has such a business mindset.” Or when someone is afraid to travel, go on a roller coaster, or be adventurous, we might say, “Ah, Tony’s afraid of his own shadow.” And then there’s always Eeyore: “He’s just so damned negative!”

5 Definitions of Mindset

1. Mindset May Refer to a Person’s or Community’s Way of Feeling, Thinking, and Acting About a Topic

Members of a discourse community may be defined by their shared mindsets. For example, social psychologists have compared the mindsets of different generations (Smith 2021):

Authority in Writing is an important concern for critical readers. Before believing a writer’s or community’s claims, critical readers engage in audience analysis and rhetorical analysis: they try to discern how authoritative the writer’s mindset is — how trustworthy their voice, tone, and persona is — by examining the evidence they provide for claims–and by evaluating the currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose of the information the writer provides to support their claims.

Examples of of Mindsets

2. Mindset May Refer to a Habitual Way of Feeling, Thinking and Acting About a Particular Topic

Mindset may also refer to a habitual way of feeling, thinking, and acting about something–i.e., thought processes that continue to reoccur without cognitive intervention.

People may be consciously aware of some of the mindsets that guide how they interpret and evaluate the behaviors of other people, events, and issues. For instance, someone may recognize they have a social mindset–that they enjoy meeting new friends and exploring new communities. Or, perhaps someone recognizes they having a spending mindset–that they enjoy spending money on themselves and friends.

Perhaps to save time, people can adopt an attitude about something and then let that process run on automatic as a form of habitual thinking. For instance, some people may adopt the mindset that they are not a good writer or that good writers are born and not made. Subsequently, they may avoid writing or sharing their works with others.

People are often unaware of the mindsets they hold and how those mindsets define their thinking and actions. Sometimes being unconscious of one’s mindset(s) is fine or even helpful, especially when the mindset leads to healthy decisions and good outcomes. For instance, consider how someone with a healthy-lifestyle mindset avoids hitting the dessert table at the buffet table. They may not even notice the chocolate mousse pie or decline it based on habit.

Sometimes, however, not being reflective about one’s mindset can lead to faulty communications.

The problem with mindsets is that they are working hypotheses, yet sometimes we drink the kool aid and consider them to be substantiated knowledge claims. It’s possible for people to embrace a mindset so strongly that that may overlook contrary evidence. Sometimes, as human beings, we engage in confirmation bias — i.e., we ignore disconfirming evidence and selectively perceive evidence that confirms our mindset or argument. To one degree or another, we all share an urge at times to prove our position. This can lead to close-mindedness, the antithesis to rhetorical reasoning and critical literacy.

As an example of this dynamic, consider how people’s mindset — in this case that the assumption that U.S. Democrats were exaggerating the coronavirus for political purposes — led Fox News journalists to underestimate the significance of the coronavirus when it first emerged in 2020:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a behavioral treatment that presumes people can control their thinking by controlling their Mindset.

3. Mindset May Refer to a Narrative About One’s Innate Potential or Actions

Mindset may also refer to a narrative, a story one tells oneself, whether consciously or unconsciously, about one’s innate potential to do something or about one’s rationale for feeling, thinking, or acting in some way.

4. Mindset May Refer a Subject of Study

How the mind works, how people change their minds (persuasion), how people of like-minds cluster together, how people strive for consensus in group situations (group think)–these topics have fascinated researchers across academic disciplines for generations. Cognitive psychologists, learning theorists, communication researchers, management and leadership specialists have all researched ways a person’s beliefs, opinions, and felt sense about a topic influence their thoughts, feelings and actions.

Learning Science Research on Mindset

Cognitive psychologists have proposed a variety of models to account for how people can break through negative mindsets to become more open, growth-orientated, and wiser. The work of Carol S. Dweck, a psychology professor at Stanford, has been particularly transformative. Dweck’s hypothesis is that people’s orientation to learning (whether they hold a Growth Mindset or a Fixed Mindset) predicts their learning and success in school and work contexts more than any other factor.

Angela Duckworth, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania and recipient of the MacArthur Genius Award, has developed a scale to measure “Grit” and associated this trait as a predictor of success. Grit is most similar to Conscientiousness (efficient/organized vs. easy-going/careless). Duckworth’s research determined that Grit was a better measure of success than IQ.

STEM Education Research

The STEM community views mindset to be an intrapersonal competency:

• ““Intrapersonal competencies involve self-management and the ability to regulate one’s behavior and emotions to reach goals” (“National” 2012).

The National Research Council (2012) and The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2017) are curious about the correlations between intrapersonal competencies (e.g., grit, perseverance, and self-regulation) and learning, retention in school, and professional success. In Education for Life and Work (2012), the National Academies of Sciences asserts that the following three personality traits influence a student’s mindset and opportunities for success:

1. Intellectual Openness (Openness to Experience)
2. Conscientiousness (efficient/organized vs. easy going/careless)
3. Neuroticism (sensitive/nervous vs. secure/confident).

Humanities Research on Mindset

The “Psyche” of the writer (or “Temperament” or “Character”) has been a popular theme in the humanities. One excellent example of this is the Paris Review, a literary magazine that has been interviewing writers and poets. Since the 1950s, thousands of interviews have been conducted of successful writers. Typically the interviews address the artists’ creative processes and habits of mind.

Writing Studies Research on Mindset

According to the Council of Writing Program Administrators, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the National Writing Project (2011), curiosity, openness, engagement, creativity, persistence, responsibility, and flexibility are habits of mind that are “essential for success in college writing”:

Source: Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing (2011)

4. Mindset May Refer to Groupthink

An individual or a group of people — a discourse community — may adopt a particular mindset about something. For example, between May 26/21, and June 1/22 , “about 70% of Republican voters suspect election fraud:”

FAQs

How can knowledge of mindsets help me become a better communicator?

Your mindset, your attitude and psyche, influences how you communicate. You may choose to affirm and invest in yourself and assume responsibility over your learning and development as a writer.

You can best meet your potential as a communicator by

• adopting a growth mindset as opposed to a fixed mindset;
• being open to new ways of composing, collaborating, and working with critique (see Intellectual Openness);
• thinking metacognitively about ways to improve their research, collaboration, writing, and feedback strategies;
• adopting the Work Ethic associated with Professionalism in the workplace;
• being Resilient when faced with difficult writing projects, teams, and deadlines;
• engaging in Self-Regulation.