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Comment by TheGRS | Hacker News Reader

Never seen anyone get so worked up about the idea of growth mindset. This seems like some wildly misplaced animosity toward the concept. Especially in regard to trying to shift away from calling kids "intelligent". Author here neglected the whole point of that, which is that we typically used to say "you're so gifted, you're so intelligent". The theory is that many kids would take failures poorly after hearing that a lot and decide "I wasn't gifted enough to solve this problem" and would give up. I'm not here to say whether that's panned out or not, it seems very new in the child psychology space, but I think the idea makes sense. Give kids the encouragement to keep striving instead of believing they were just built a certain way.

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this guy gets worked up for a living. i dont think his nontechnical invective belongs here on hn

> This seems like some wildly misplaced animosity toward the concept. Especially in regard to trying to shift away from calling kids "intelligent". […] I'm not here to say whether that's panned out or not, it seems very new in the child psychology space, but I think the idea makes sense.

That's the entire point of the elaboration that TFA goes into on the research in this area: while the idea feels like it "makes sense", it actually doesn't, and the research appears to confirm that it is just junk science.

The larger point is that it's just C-suite grift, and they're just shoveling bull to appear as if they're knowledgeable leaders.

The article is criticising the “you can be anything you want” mindset and highlighting the lack of reproducibility in research around student academic results.

But the reason a multinational like Microsoft might promote a growth mindset are different. Employees who are open minded are able to work with others and collaborate more effectively. Employees who actively seek new data and try to invalidate their preconceptions can be more successful in large sprawling organisations.

The animosity isn't toward all these feel-good intentions you mention. The animosity is toward the minor detail where it's a *lie*. People on this forum generally don't like lies.

"The theory is that..."

Yeah, we know. But the theory is false. Facts don't care about your feelings, and the replicability crisis doesn't care whether you "think the idea makes sense".

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