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Over the past decade, mindset research has increasingly moved beyond the individual, examining how beliefs about ability are shaped and reinforced by the broader social context. This paper extends that work by focusing on peers, a powerful but underexplored influence in adolescent development. We introduce a theoretical framework for understanding peer mindset culture: the shared beliefs that peers hold and communicate about whether ability is fixed or can grow. We argue that fixed mindset peer cultures can erode students’ sense of belonging by (a) triggering identity threats (e.g., stereotype threat, perceived mismatch with peers’ beliefs, or social contagion of fixed norms), and (b) weakening social connection (e.g., peer selection and low support). We argue that these dynamics are especially consequential for students from minoritized backgrounds, those who are struggling academically, and those who personally endorse a growth mindset. Finally, we outline principles for designing peer-focused mindset interventions. Our goal is to provide avenues for future research and practical strategies to support all students in developing a strong sense of belonging in their learning environments. 

Abstract Socioeconomic disparities in academic progress have persisted throughout the history of the United States, and growth mindset interventions—which shift beliefs about the malleability of intelligence—have shown promise in reducing these disparities. Both the study of such disparities and how to remedy them can benefit from taking the “long view” on adolescent development, following the tradition of John Schulenberg. To do so, this study focuses on the role of growth mindsets in short‐term academic progress during the transition to high school as a contributor to longer‐term educational attainment. Guided by the Mindset × Context perspective, we analyzed new follow‐up data to a one‐year nationally representative study of ninth graders (National Study of Learning Mindsets,n = 10,013; 50% female; 53% white; 63% from lower‐SES backgrounds). A conservative Bayesian analysis revealed that adolescents' growth mindset beliefs at the beginning of ninth grade predicted their enrollment in college 4 years later. These patterns were stronger for adolescents from lower‐SES backgrounds, and there was some evidence that the ninth‐grade math teacher's support for the growth mindset moderated student mindset effects. Thus, a time‐specific combination of student and teacher might alter long‐term trajectories by enabling adolescents to develop and use beliefs at a critical transition point that supports a cumulative pathway of course‐taking and achievement into college. Notably, growth mindset became less predictive of college enrollment after the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic, which occurred in the second year of college and introduced structural barriers to college persistence. 

Group-based educational disparities are smaller in classrooms where teachers express a belief that students can improve their abilities. However, a scalable method for motivating teachers to adopt such growth mindset–supportive teaching practices has remained elusive. In part, this is because teachers often already face overwhelming demands on their time and attention and have reason to be skeptical of the professional development advice they receive from researchers and other experts. We designed an intervention that overcame these obstacles and successfully motivated high-school teachers to adopt specific practices that support students’ growth mindsets. The intervention used the values-alignment approach. This approach motivates behavioral change by framing a desired behavior as aligned with a core value—one that is an important criterion for status and admiration in the relevant social reference group. First, using qualitative interviews and a nationally representative survey of teachers, we identified a relevant core value: inspiring students’ enthusiastic engagement with learning. Next, we designed a ~45-min, self-administered, online intervention that persuaded teachers to view growth mindset–supportive practices as a way to foster such student engagement and thus live up to that value. We randomly assigned 155 teachers (5,393 students) to receive the intervention and 164 teachers (6,167 students) to receive a control module. The growth mindset–supportive teaching intervention successfully promoted teachers’ adoption of the suggested practices, overcoming major barriers to changing teachers’ classroom practices that other scalable approaches have failed to surmount. The intervention also substantially improved student achievement in socioeconomically disadvantaged classes, reducing inequality in educational outcomes. 

Abstract BackgroundSingle‐session interventions have the potential to address young people's mental health needs at scale, but their effects are heterogeneous. We tested whether themindset + supportive contexthypothesis could help explain when intervention effects persist or fade over time. The hypothesis posits that interventions are more effective in environments that support the intervention message. We tested this hypothesis using the synergistic mindsets intervention, a preventative treatment for stress‐related mental health symptoms that helps students appraise stress as a potential asset in the classroom (e.g., increasing oxygenated blood flow) rather than debilitating. In an introductory college course, we examined whether intervention‐consistent messages from instructors sustained changes in appraisals over time, as well as impacts on students' predisposition to try demanding academic tasks that could enhance learning. MethodsWe randomly assigned 1675 students in the course to receive the synergistic mindsets intervention (or a control activity) at the beginning of the semester, and subsequently, to receive intervention‐supportive messages from their instructor (or neutral messages) four times throughout the term. We collected weekly measures of students' appraisals of stress in the course and their predisposition to take on academic challenges. Trial‐registration: OSF.io; DOI: 10.17605/osf.io/fchyn. ResultsA conservative Bayesian analysis indicated that receiving both the intervention and supportive messages led to the greatest increases in positive stress appraisals (0.35SD; 1.00 posterior probability) and challenge‐seeking predisposition (2.33 percentage points; 0.94 posterior probability), averaged over the course of the semester. In addition, intervention effects grew larger throughout the semester when complemented by supportive instructor messages, whereas without these messages, intervention effects shrank somewhat over time. ConclusionsThis study shows, for the first time, that supportive cues in local contexts can be the difference in whether a single‐session intervention's effects fade over time or persist and even amplify. 

Behavioral science interventions have the potential to address longstanding policy problems, but their effects are typically heterogeneous across contexts (e.g., teachers, schools, and geographic regions). This contextual heterogeneity is poorly understood, however, which reduces the field’s impact and its understanding of mechanisms. Here, we present an efficient way to interrogate heterogeneity and address these gaps in knowledge. This method a) presents scenarios that vividly represent different moderating contexts, b) measures a short-term behavioral outcome (e.g., an academic choice) that is known to relate to typical intervention outcomes (e.g., academic achievement), and c) assesses the causal effect of the moderating context on the link between the psychological variable typically targeted by interventions and this short-term outcome. We illustrated the utility of this approach across four experiments (total n = 3,235) that directly tested contextual moderators of the links between growth mindset, which is the belief that ability can be developed, and students’ academic choices. The present results showed that teachers’ growth mindset-supportive messages and the structural opportunities they provide moderated the link between students’ mindsets and their choices (studies 1 to 3). This pattern was replicated in a nationally representative sample of adolescents and did not vary across demographic subgroups (study 2), nor was this pattern the result of several possible confounds (studies 3 to 4). Discussion centers on how this method of interrogating contextual heterogeneity can be applied to other behavioral science interventions and broaden their impact in other policy domains.