Can people gain intelligence, or do we all just stay the same level we were born at?
In elementary school, I was pretty smart and consequently was bullied by students and even sometimes teachers. At first, I struggled with the idea that being smart made me an outcast. Then, by the time I got to high school, I realized I could choose to be less smart.
Don’t get me wrong. I still did well, but I purposely dumbed down enough to not be a target. My high school was no bastion of intellectualism, and I learned to hide my smarts by actually being dumber, which caused my high school to treat me as less-bright. Obligingly, I became more so, and downward I went. My college, though, was indeed a bastion of intellectualism, and while it took me a while to wise up and gear up, I was able to meet the challenge.
I can see now that my intelligence was variable and that I could consciously choose my level of intelligence to match the given culture. This isn’t a matter of just playing dumb or smart to accommodate a circumstance. It is about actually being so. Also, note that by “intelligence” I don’t mean “learning,” which is a process, not a quality. Learning, though, can be a major contributor to increased intelligence, which is what a growth mindset is all about.
The notion of mindset change has emerged as almost a commonplace among educators in the decade and a half since Carol Dweck published her landmark book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. On a continuum, one can lean toward a fixed mindset, meaning a belief that intelligence is innate and immutable, or a growth mindset, meaning an understanding that effort and learning can enhance one’s intelligence. The advantage of the growth mindset seems pretty obvious when you put it that way, and we can thank Dweck for finally breaking the back of the widely held belief that we are born either on the smart end of the scale or on the stupid end with little hope for change.
As an educator, I am troubled to admit that I long bought into that old idea of fixed intelligence. In my defense, so did pretty much everyone else because it was the only model we knew. My colleagues and I would consciously and unconsciously sort students into buckets of bright and not-so-bright, which no doubt affected their ability to learn. When a presumptively bright student failed, I would, in the back of my mind, blame it on a lack of effort. When a seemingingly not-so-bright student succeeded, I would be surprised and chalk it up as a fluke.
Shame on me.
The first time I heard an explanation of Dweck’s growth mindset, it made intuitive sense to me, though. Despite my assumptions about student wherewithal, I knew deep down that students could get smarter. I had seen it. I had personally experienced it. In the past I would have said that they had innate talent all along that just needed to be brought out. How patronizing is that? In reality, they were likely applying themselves to learning and were actually becoming more intelligent.
At its worst, the fixed mindset fixation has been used forever to justify oppressing and subjugating individuals and groups. You can still hear it touted rather loudly by those in our society and the world who seek to dominate others. It echoes in the notion that the poor are lazy, that the rich can do no wrong, and that individuals are lesser than just because of their identity group.
Scarcity and Abundance
In the business world we talk about a separate but similar mindset continuum: the scarcity-abundance mindset continuum. We know that people who have a scarcity mindset will sink or at best maintain but will never grow without some shock to the system. Those with an abundance mindset will tend to succeed. The differentiation can be one of life or death for entrepreneurs such as myself, and I struggle with it mightily.
To be clear here, this is not woo-woo. It’s not a matter of wishful thinking, positive thinking, or magical affirmations. The growth mindset and it’s business partner, the abundance mindset, both require commitment and work. Remember, you don’t get smarter by believing you can get smarter. You get smarter by committing to that belief and acting on it. You have to know you can learn, want to learn, and do the hard work of learning. It is the same for the abundance mindset. Dreaming about abundance without action will never be more than a dream.
What I always find interesting is how challenging it can be to fight your way toward intellectual growth and an attitude of abundance and how quickly a fixed mindset or a scarcity mindset can undo you. It is remarkably easy to dumb down. I know. I did it. It is remarkably easy to descend into scarcity. I know, I once worked for a whole college that is sadly still stuck there, denying itself available resources.
In contrast, smarting up and resourcing up require continuous intent, effort, and struggle. Learners and growers operate outside their comfort zones. If you operate in an intellectual, cultural, or even political bubble — avoiding anything that challenges your beliefs and assumptions — you have a fixed mindset. You are choosing to limit the expansion of your intellect. You are refusing the possibility of abundance. You are hindering growth.
To be clear, though, having a fixed or growth mindset neither determines the level of your intelligence nor predicts success. Mindset is an attitude or an internalized paradigm that leads to certain behaviors and outcomes. Highly intelligent and educated people can have a fixed mindset just as a well-heeled chief executive or entire corporation can have a scarcity mindset. Your circumstances do not dictate your mindset. Your choices do.
If you are fixed in place by a fixed mindset, you can choose to grow with a growth mindset. If you are scarred by a scarcity mindset, you can choose dance with an abundance mindset. Your mindset is one of the few things entirely within your control, so take control. All you need to start is change your mind.
Where are you on the continuum of fixed and growth mindsets? Where are you on the continuum of scarcity and abundance mindsets?
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