When It Comes to Prejudice, a Growth Mindset Can Cut Both Ways

Four swords on a wooden background.

Aimed at integrating cutting-edge psychological science into the classroom, columns about teaching Current Directions in Psychological Science offer advice and how-to guidance about teaching a particular area of research or topic in psychological science that has been the focus of an article in the APS journal Current Directions in Psychological Science.


Hoyt, C. L., & Burnette, J. L. (2025). How Mindsets Can Mitigate or Sustain Prejudice. Current Directions in Psychological Science0(0).

Psychology teachers are in a unique position to introduce students to psychological concepts important to society. Take, for example, prejudice—negative attitudes toward social groups. Initially, students may view this concept as simple: We receive negative messages about a social group (maybe from our parents), and we incorporate them into our belief systems, thus increasing our prejudice toward that group. However, in their Current Directions article, Hoyt and Burnette demonstrate that it is not that simple. Instead, our mindset about the changeability or controllability of traits that other people possess can play a big role in whether we develop prejudice toward them or not. 

Typically, researchers have discussed mindset in terms of being fixed or growth-oriented in nature and have considered a growth mindset to be more adaptive (Dweck, 2006). Seeing traits like intelligence as changeable and under one’s control (a growth mindset) predicts better academic outcomes and healthier responses to setbacks (Dweck & Yeager, 2020). But what about stigmatized traits related to a social group? If we hold a growth mindset about addiction or obesity, then we might view those traits as changeable or controllable. In this way, growth mindsets are less likely to lead us to believe that groups have a social essence that defines them, and we are more likely to consider situational factors influencing behavior. As a result, we are less likely to assign individual blame, thus reducing our prejudice toward members of those groups. For example, with a growth mindset, one might consider the impact of access to healthy food on obesity and not just focus on the will power of the individual. The authors refer to this as the stigma reduction model.  

As with many aspects of psychology, however, the full story is a bit more complicated. Although a growth mindset might reduce prejudice by facilitating perceptions that traits aren’t set in stone, such a mindset may simultaneously encourage blame for a group member’s situation. For example, if we view alcoholism through a growth mindset, we might ask ourselves why a person with alcoholism has not overcome their addiction and blame them for their situation. Hoyt and Burnette call this paradoxical finding about growth mindset and prejudice the double-edged sword model and have demonstrated it with a number of stigmatized groups (e.g., Hoyt et al., 2023, 2024).  

Hoyt and Burnette argue that these models have important implications for public health messages aimed at reducing stigma. In the classroom, thinking about the development of prejudice in a more nuanced way shows students just how complex our belief systems are and provides an opportunity to enhance their critical-thinking skills around an issue with important social consequences. 

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Additional References 

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House. 

Dweck, C., & Yeager, D. (2020). A growth mindset about intelligence. In G. M. Walton & A. J. Crum (Eds.), Handbook of wise interventions: How social psychology can help people change (pp. 9–35). The Guilford Press.

Hoyt, C. L., Burnette, J. L., Billingsley, J., Becker, W., & Babij, A. D. (2023). Mindsets of poverty: Implications for redistributive policy support. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy (ASAP), 23(3), 668–693. https://doi.org/10.1111/asap.12367 

Hoyt, C. L., Burnette, J. L., Marston, A., Moore, M., Rosen, S., & Lavine, I. (2024). The role of health campaigns in stigma toward those with anorexia nervosa. Stigma and Health. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/sah0000563 


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