Henry Ford got it right. Researchers found that people who feel they can learn from their mistakes have different brain reactions to mistakes than those who think intelligence is fixed.
“One big difference between people who think intelligence is malleable and those who think intelligence is fixed is how they respond to mistakes,” says Jason S. Moser, of Michigan State University, who worked on the study with Hans S. Schroder, Carrie Heeter, Tim P. Moran, and Yu-Hao Lee.
Those who think they can’t get smarter will not take the opportunities to learn from their mistakes. This can cause problems at school, when a student thinks their intelligence is fixed and will not try harder after they fail a test—unlike other students who try to learn from a mistake and figure it out, putting more effort.
