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Reflection Paper On Intelligence

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During high school, I read world renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck’s research on achievement and success and I have been immediately fascinated by her growth versus fixed mindset findings. Dweck conducted research where she gave fifth graders problems that were too hard for them and monitored their reactions; some students understood that they weren’t good at the problems yet, but they would learn from the challenge. Other students felt their intelligence had been up for judgement and they didn’t believe they could improve so they failed. I became intrigued by why some students possess a view that intelligence is incremental based on effort and some believe that intelligence is unchanging. I came to the realization that I was one of the students with a fixed mindset and worked incredibly hard to adopt a growth mindset.
Now, as a college student, I’ve read the research by Leah Lessard, Andrew Grossman, and Maggie L. Syme on “Effects of Gender and Type of Praise on Task Performance Among Undergraduates”, which led me to acknowledge the relationship between praise, intrinsic versus extrinsic motivators, and growth versus fixed mindsets. I began to register that receiving person praise my whole life was what led me to develop a fixed mindset, I didn’t accept that intelligence was incremental due to being told I was smart from the start of my educational journey. Lessard, et. al conducted an experimental study using 48 undergraduates who completed puzzles and

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