week 10 notes from lecture

Study of beliefs about why things happen

Is behavior fixed or malleable? How do people tend to explain things? Personal awesomeness or outside forces?

Two types of attitudes:

• Situational: external cause
  • caused by context
  • often used to explain own failures
• Dispositional: internal cause
  • caused by who we are
  • often used to explain failures of others

Actor-observer effect: we tend to attribute our behavior to the situation and others' behavior to traits

Fixed mindset and growth mindset -- an attitude. Fixed: the way people are is the way they are; people can grow, but there's a baseline capacity. More likely to quit/not persevere in the face of failure. Growth: believe their capabilities are not fixed. Have the capacity to exceed any particular limits.

Hard work pays off with both mindsets. General perspectives. Not cognitions.

NOT THE SAME AS LIMITED/UNLIMITED?????

Related to locus of control -- where do we think control is.