Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570
Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Mar 9;118(10). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2011832118.
Does stunted upward mobility in an educational system impede beneficial psychological processes of learning? We predicted that growth mindsets of intelligence, a well-established psychological stimulant to learning, would be less potent in low-mobility, as compared to high-mobility, learning environments. An analysis of a large cross-national dataset and a longitudinal experiment accumulated converging evidence for this hypothesis. Study 1 examined data from 15-y-old students across 30 countries ( = 235,141 persons). Replicating past findings, growth mindsets positively predicted students' math, science, and reading literacy. More importantly, the country-level indicator of educational mobility (i.e., the percentage of children from low-education households to graduate from tertiary education) moderated the effect of growth mindsets. Depending on the subject, the gain in predicted academic performance from a one-unit increase in growth mindsets was reduced by 42 to 45% from a high-mobility to a low-mobility country. Results were robust with or without important covariates. Study 2 experimentally manipulated people's perception of mobility in a carefully constructed learning environment. The moderating role of educational mobility was replicated and extended to learning behavior, which subsequently predicted performance. Evidence further suggests that in high-mobility environments, both advantaged and disadvantaged learners benefited from growth mindsets, albeit likely through diverging mechanisms; when the effect of growth mindsets was attenuated in low-mobility environments, the potential for the disadvantaged to overcome the performance gap was also limited. Implications for galvanizing the upward mobility of the disadvantaged, evaluating the effectiveness of mindset interventions, and conceptualizing social mobility from a psychological perspective are discussed.
在教育体系中，上升通道受阻是否会阻碍有益的学习心理过程？我们预测，智力的成长心态——一种经过充分验证的学习心理促进因素，在低流动性而非高流动性的学习环境中，其效力会降低。对一个大型跨国数据集和一个纵向实验的分析为这一假设提供了一致的证据。研究 1 考察了来自 30 个国家的 15 岁学生的数据（n=235141 人）。研究结果复制了以往的发现，即成长心态积极预测了学生的数学、科学和阅读素养。更重要的是，教育流动的国家层面指标（即来自低教育家庭的儿童完成高等教育的比例）调节了成长心态的作用。根据不同的学科，成长心态每增加一个单位，对学业成绩的预测增益从高流动国家到低流动国家降低了 42%到 45%。无论是否存在重要的协变量，结果都是稳健的。研究 2 在精心构建的学习环境中，通过实验操纵人们对流动性的感知。在高流动性环境中，教育流动的调节作用得到了复制和扩展，并应用于学习行为，随后预测了表现。有证据进一步表明，学习行为，这随后预测了表现。有证据进一步表明，在高流动性环境中，优势和劣势学习者都从成长心态中受益，尽管可能通过不同的机制；当成长心态的效果在低流动性环境中减弱时，劣势者克服表现差距的潜力也受到限制。讨论了激发劣势者向上流动的意义、评估心态干预的有效性以及从心理学角度理解社会流动。
