The book that put beliefs about ability on the corporate agenda — and the one whose claims have been most tested since.
Dweck's distinction between fixed and growth beliefs about ability gave leaders a way to talk about something they had noticed but could not name: how differently people respond to difficulty. The chapters on praise, and on what happens when you tell a child they are clever, remain the most useful part for anyone giving feedback.
Two decades of replication work have complicated the picture. Meta-analyses find weak associations with achievement and small average intervention effects, stronger among students at academic risk. The concept has also been widely diluted into a slogan about positive attitude, which is not what the research examined.
The Times Take: Still worth reading, with the replication literature open beside it. The praise research holds up better than the intervention promise.
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House. Find it
