Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance - U.S. Department of ...

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problems, manage time, monitor progress, and change course when necessary. Recent reports
released by the Stupski Foundation (Snipes et al., 2012) and written by Yeager & Walton (2011)
provide reviews of interventions that target mindsets and strategies, and their available evidence
to date. We also discuss interventions that provide children and adults with robust toolkits of
strategies for solving problems and coping with difficult situations and emotions—key protective
psychological factors that support resilience in the face of challenging circumstances.
Academic mindsets. Over the last several years, there has been a movement in social
psychology to use empirically based theoretical principles to design short and focused
interventions (e.g., 2 to 10 hours) that target specific academic mindsets. Early evidence based
on experimentation in school settings suggests that these interventions have the potential for
powerful impacts on the psychological resources that can directly affect perseverance, as well as
academic achievement. Snipes and colleagues (2012) review several types of mindset
interventions:
• Teaching students the “growth mindset.” These interventions address the mindset, “My
ability and competence grow with my effort.” The “growth mindset” is perhaps the most
fundamental to grit, tenacity, and perseverance in academic pursuits, as it has been found that
students are more likely to persist through academic challenges when they believe the effort
will make them smarter and lead to success. Snipes and colleagues reviewed four
interventions that address this mindset. Three interventions targeted middle school students
and showed positive impacts on academic achievement. In each one, students were explicitly
taught that intelligence is malleable and that the brain can grow like a muscle with effort.
Training was in several different modalities: a workshop (Blackwell et al., 2007), the
interactive software Brainology (Paunesku, Goldman, & Dweck, n.d.) (see more detail
below), and a mentoring program (Good, Aronson, & Inzlicht, 2003). An intervention for
college students was delivered in the form of a pen pal activity (Aronson, Fried, & Good,
2002).
More generally, in our interview with Stanford University Psychologist Carol Dweck, she
emphasized that a fundamental practice for teachers and parents is to praise students for
effort they put into academic tasks, not for their ability.
• Shifting students’ explanations for academic and social challenges from personal failure
to temporary external factors. With the intention of stopping a common negative cycle of
self-blame and doubt that can undermine persistence, these interventions are intended to help
students learn to attribute challenge to external factors that are “bumps in the road” rather
than to personal failure or lack of belonging in a rigorous academic community. These
interventions address the mindsets, “I can succeed at this,” “Challenge is inevitable for
success,” and “I belong in this academic community.” Snipes and colleagues discuss three
interventions, all for college age students. One intervention, using video and school records,
was intended to shift freshmens’ mindset about setbacks and challenges so that they
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