MEASURING PEOPLE'S THEORIES

In our studies, we measure peoples’ theories by asking participants to rate their agreement with statements such as “Everyone is a certain kind of person and there is not much that can be done to really change that” or “People can always substantially change the kind of person they are.” On average, approximately 40 percent of participants agree with statements indicating that people are fixed and 40 percent agree with statements indicating that people are change­able.

One might ask which theory is correct. Is the basic type of person you are something fixed or something that can be improved? There is no straightforward answer to this question, and individual traits likely differ in the degree to which they are changeable. That said, psychotherapy is founded, in part, upon the notion that individuals are able to change important aspects of their personal­ity. Further, psychologists are increasingly adopting the view that even intelli­gence, an aspect of the self that some consider quite stable, is indeed modifiable (Brown and Campione, 1996; Perkins, 1995; Resnick, 1983; Sternberg, 1985).

Our own focus, however, is on what people believe and on the powerful impact of that belief.

Pinning Labels on People

People holding an entity theory demonstrate a willingness to label others as good or bad, or as moral or immoral, on the basis of little evidence (Chiu, Dweck, Tong, and Fu, 1997; Erdley and Dweck, 1993). For example, in a study by Chiu and colleagues (1997), entity theorists were far more likely to report that even insignificant behaviors (such as whether people made their bed in the morning) were a good basis for judging moral character. Beyond that, entity the­orists were more willing to decide that a man was guilty of murder based on his appearance (Gervey, Chiu, Hong, and Dweck, 1999).

If entity theorists can condemn others based on relatively inconsequential behavior such as bed making or apparel choice, then we can legitimately expect them to assign even stronger and more rigid negative traits to people they view as a threat or as having done real harm to them. If conflict resolution involves step­ping into the other’s shoes and finding a way to compromise, then seeing the other as unalterably immoral (or incompetent) will surely be an obstacle to this.

Pinning Labels on Groups

Often, conflict is not between individuals but between groups—each composed of many and varied individuals. No nation, for example, consists of all evil peo­ple or all incompetent people. Yet group stereotypes tend to portray an entire group as suffering from the same deficiency. One group is called untrustworthy, another lazy, another greedy, another intellectually inferior. Is it entity theorists who are more likely to rely upon these group stereotypes?

Just as entity theorists brand individuals with labels more quickly, they also seem more ready to characterize groups in sweeping terms both in studies with children (Levy and Dweck, 1999) and college students (Levy, Stroessner, and Dweck, 1998).

Those who held an entity theory formed more sweeping stereotypes of both the positive and the negative groups. They also saw the groups as being highly homogeneous, even though an appreciable number of the group members did not perform the stereotyped behavior. Finally, when asked about an unknown group member, entity theorists just assumed he would be bad or good like the rest of the group. Thus, it appears that, once entity theorists form a group impression, few who belong to that group are considered free from the stereo­type. Instead, the group is seen as uniformly untrustworthy, greedy, lazy, or unintelligent—including members who did nothing wrong.

Labels Dehumanize

Unfortunately, pinning a label on the whole group has the effect of dehumanizing the group members. In research by Levy and Dweck (1999), children who had an entity theory decided that they had little in common with the group members once they decided that a group was bad. No longer were the group members reg­ular children with the usual needs and preferences. Instead, entity theorists believed that the children in that group did not like the same toys and games that they themselves did and did not share the same worries and concerns. In other words, those children now belonged to a separate (and inferior) class of people— one with which they had no desire to interact.

In contrast, the children who held an incremental theory did not see the group as all bad, even though they were certainly not pleased with the children who acted in negative ways.

The tendency on the part of entity theorists to treat individuals as walking embodiments of a group’s stereotypes leads them to behave in ways likely to bring out the negative behavior they expect. We saw this clearly in a study by Levy, Freitas, and Dweck (1996) in which college students participated in a pris­oners’ dilemma-type game. In this game, participants have a choice between cooperating and competing with another person. If a participant cooperates and the other person does too, both parties benefit. However, if the participant coop­erates and the other person decides to compete, nearly all of the resource goes to that other person. Both entity theorists and incremental theorists tended to cooperate when they knew nothing about the other party. When students were told that their opponent was a law student, however, we saw a large shift in the behavior of entity theorists (but not incremental theorists). Succumbing to the stereotype of lawyers and law students as competitive, entity theorists over­whelmingly chose to compete with them. Presumably, they were cutting off the law students’ opportunity to get the better of them. At the same time, they were minimizing the opportunity for a mutually beneficial outcome.

It is not difficult to see how tarring a whole group with the same brush might stand in the way of resolving intergroup conflicts. The prisoner’s dilemma game is meant to be a proxy for the sorts of conflicts that we see in the real world. Entity theorists are likely to approach interactions with individuals about whom they hold negative stereotypes with an air of mistrust and, as a consequence, to behave so as to guard against bad actions by the other party. In so doing, they are more likely to elicit the very behavior they expect than they are to find a way to resolve conflict.

Indelible Labels

The tendency for entity theorists to base consequential decisions on rapidly formed judgments is particularly problematic because, once formed, entity the­orists are less likely to revise their judgments even in the face of substantial contrary evidence. Across a number of studies, participants with an entity the­ory were far less likely to change their initial view of a person’s competence or character, even when the person gave clear evidence of changing. This phe­nomenon has been shown for managers toward employees (Heslin, Latham, and VandeWalle, 2005), teachers toward students (Butler, 2000), and students toward other students (Erdley and Dweck, 1993; Plaks, Stroessner, Dweck, and Sherman, 2001). In contrast, incremental theorists updated their impressions in step with the information they were receiving (Erdley and Dweck, 1993; Plaks, Stroessner, Dweck, and Sherman, 2001; compare Hong and others,

2004). In fact, incremental theorists sought to hold accurate views about others, as evidenced by their heightened sensitivity to both positive and negative changes in people’s behavior (Butler, 2000; Heslin, Latham, and VandeWalle,

2005).

Entity theorists do not merely fail to seek out information that might dis­confirm their views. Instead, Plaks, Stroessner, Dweck, and Sherman (2001) found that entity theorists went so far as to block out evidence that contradicted their initial impression. In several studies, these researchers monitored the atten­tion of the participants as they received evidence that confirmed or discon­firmed their view of an individual’s intelligence or character. While incremental theorists paid special attention to information that challenged their existing view (and that perhaps provided them with a more nuanced and accurate view), entity theorists diverted their attention in ways that minimized their receipt of this information.

A reluctance to revise impressions of others, once formed, makes conflict res­olution particularly difficult because misunderstanding the other plays such a large role in inciting and exacerbating conflict. This is why those who seek to reduce conflict strive to bring members of both sides together, to educate each side about the others’ cultures and histories, and to combat stereotypes and prejudice between groups. As Moshe Davan said, “If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.” Through this process, mistaken impressions are often dissolved and each party gains a better under­standing of the other side’s perspective. Past research suggests that having even one out-group friend can reduce prejudice toward the other group (for review, see Brown and Hewstone, 2005), even among groups embroiled in intractable conflict such as Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland (Hewstone, Cairns, Voci, McLernon, and Neins, 2004). The openness that incremental the­orists demonstrate toward new information is particularly conducive to pro­moting understanding between parties and resolving conflict. In contrast, the rigidity that entity theorists tend to demonstrate can leave these methods inef­fective and, ultimately, can hinder reconciliation.

Are Incremental Theorists Always Open and Accurate?

Are incremental theorists infallible information processors, always open to new information? Do they not have vulnerabilities as well? Plaks, Grant, and Dweck (2005) addressed this question and found that there are some kinds of infor­mation that incremental theorists do not like. Although incremental theorists are open to seeing evidence of performance decline (Heslin, Latham, and VandeWalle, 2005), they are not very open to evidence that contradicts their belief that people are capable of change. They are, in fact, threatened by such evidence (Plaks, Grant, and Dweck, 2005).

This suggests that incremental theorists might be too ready to forgive and compromise with people who look as though they are trying to change, even if true and lasting change is not forthcoming. In such cases, incremental theorists may too readily agree to a resolution that does not turn out to be in their interest.