Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
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Quick answers
Does this atlas rank groups by IQ, race or nation?
No. Pathways and evidence stay individual. Scores are browsing aids — never group biological or racial ranks.
What did Mueller and Dweck 1998 show?
Children praised for intelligence later avoided challenges more than children praised for effort, in their experiments. Later replications have been mixed.
What did Sisk et al. 2018 find?
Two meta-analyses: mindset–achievement correlations were small on average; interventions had small average effects, with some larger effects for students at higher risk.
What did Li and Bates report?
Failures to replicate core praise effects in their samples. The debate is about robustness and moderators, not about whether beliefs can ever matter.
Did Binet already think intelligence was educable?
Yes. Binet’s original project was instructional. Dweck often cites that history against later “fixed IQ” folklore.
Is growth mindset the opposite of giftedness?
No. Gagné’s talents develop. A gifted label plus incremental theory is a common, coherent pairing. Entity giftedness (“I am a genius, so I must not struggle”) is the failure mode.
Practice means designed work with feedback — Ericsson’s construct, not Gladwell’s hour ticket.
Where Macnamara et al. 2014 published domain bands (games ~26%, music ~21%, sports ~18%, education ~4%), this page uses those rounded figures and does not invent new precision.
Steps
- Drop essence praise
Strike “you are so smart” as a reflex.
The 1998 handle.
- Name a strategy
What to try next, in words.
Effort needs content.
- Public first draft
One low-stakes share.
Hide-work is the enemy.
- Retest after teaching
Show that the score can move.
Binet’s original spirit.
- Inspect the system
Tracking, load, who gets help.
Li & Bates do not cancel this step.
- Retire the miracle story
Tell staff the meta-analytic size.
Sisk’s average is small.
Checklist
- No essence praise default — Smart/dumb as identity.
- Strategy named — Effort is not a cloud.
- Struggle is public — Mistakes visible in the room.
- Teaching attached — A next problem exists.
- Load checked — Message ≠ cruelty.
- Access checked — Who can actually practise?
- Effect-size humility — Not a miracle d.
- Replication awareness — Li & Bates are on the reading list.
Drills
- Praise rewrite — Take five comments and remove entity adjectives.
- Yet-audit — If “yet” is the only tool, replace it with a strategy.
- Failure story from an adult — A teacher’s revised work, dated.
- Challenge-choice menu — Offer a harder optional item after success.
- Climate vote — Anonymous: can I look stuck here?
Pitfalls
- Poster-only rollout — The brand without the climate.
- Victim-blame mindset — “She has a fixed mindset” as a character attack.
- Ignoring Sisk — Selling large grade jumps the meta-analysis did not find.
- Praising empty hours — Effort without design is not the treatment.
Tools
- Sisk et al. 2018 — The sizing paper staff should see.
- Yeager 2019 summary — Scale, small average, moderators.
- Work-in-progress walls — Climate made visible.
- This atlas’s practice page — The hour still has to be designed.
Growth mindset: design the hour; retire the poster. Education is not a diagnosis.
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