Summary of Huberman Lab Podcast Episode: Boost Performance & Learning with a Growth Mindset | Huberman Lab
Podcast: Huberman Lab
8 min. read
— Description —
Discover the power of rewarding effort over identity labels in improving performance Learn how shifting the narrative towards effort can lead to greater success and growth in the long run Embrace stress as an enhancing mindset and unlock your potential for future success.
Boost Performance & Learning with a Growth Mindset | Huberman Lab
Table of contents
Key Takeaways
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Rewarding yourself (and your children) for effort improves performance versus reward based on identity labels which hinder performance
- Parents, teachers, and coaches: be careful when giving feedback to children – feedback praising effort versus labeling a child (e.g., smart, talented) will lead to more success and greater growth in the long run
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Shifting the narrative toward effort instead of the label can help you get better and prevent you from getting worse at something you’re already good at by detaching identity
- Instead of being smart, you’re someone who works hard – you can apply this to any setting instead of shying away from a challenge you might not be ‘smart’ at
- Rewarding effort will shift performance in current tasks and future tasks
- Focus on what you can control: we can all control level of persistence and effort
- “When identity is attached to a sense of ability to engage in an ongoing effort, especially when you receive signals that you are getting wrong or not performing well that is tied to elevated performance.” – Dr. Andrew Huberman
- You can shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset response: it’s ok to take a moment to have an emotional response to underperformance in the seconds to minutes after but then it’s critical to devote resources to understanding and improving through effort
- There’s bad messaging that stress is debilitating, bad, and should be avoided but in reality – stress puts us in forward motion and propels us toward action which can improve a growth mindset
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Benefits of embracing stress as enhancing mindset: shifts focus to understanding why something is going wrong and allocating resources accordingly, physiological processes shift (shorter duration of cortisol, increased stroke volume), takes brain and body away from negative state and toward the positive state, improves the ability to deal with future stressors
- Learning about stress as enhancing mindset and growth mindset can allow you to shift physiology and psychology
Introduction
- Dr. Andrew Huberman, Ph.D. is a Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford University School of Medicine. His lab focuses on neural regeneration, neuroplasticity, and brain states such as stress, focus, fear, and optimal performance.
- In this episode of Huberman Lab, Andrew Huberman discusses how to build and apply a growth mindset to improve learning and performance. Learn about the effect of our internal narrative and feedback, the positive and negative impact of stress on performance, and more.
- Host: Andrew Huberman (@hubermanlab)
What Is a Growth Mindset?
- Growth mindset: the idea that we can get better at things – our abilities are malleable and our brains can learn and change (neuroplasticity) to achieve more
- A growth mindset involves embracing challenges; thinking about the body and brain’s response to challenges in order to optimize performance
- Key feature: develop distance from the performance so identity isn’t solely wrapped in a single endeavor – it’s necessary to attach motivation to the effort itself instead of the outcome
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Mindsets help us simplify complex reality and distill down our core assumptions that shape and orient our thinking and action
- We are constantly bombarded with information – mindset helps us understand how to organize and what to respond to in order to simplify our world
- Mindset includes narratives, which can be overt or without much thought – did narrative arrive externally or internally? Were you told you’re good at something or do you think you’re good at something?
The Role Of Feedback In Growth Mindset
- The feedback we receive sends us down different paths depending on whether it’s positive or negative
- Feedback modifies core beliefs but we can change this with the intention
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Surprisingly, praise can undermine performance in children: intelligence feedback can stunt performance because it leads to selecting easier challenges to ensure success to receive praise
- Intelligence feedback (tied to labels of identity): praise involving telling a child (or someone) they’re good at learning, picking something up easily, etc.
- Effort feedback (tied to verb): praising persistence, praising effort, etc.
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Study: giving intelligence praise reduced performance in children versus effort feedback which improved praise
- Children who receive intelligence praise take on fewer problems overall and limit the challenges they engage in
- Children who receive intelligence praise tend to misrepresent themselves and even lie to make themselves look better than they actually performed (even if they performed well but not perfectly)
- Intelligence is not fixed! Ability can improve through dedicated effort
Leveraging Narrative
- What do you tell yourself you’re good at (positive statement)? What do you think you’re bad at (negative statement)?
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Shift narrative and self-talk toward effort-related narrative instead of labels
- To further improve positive statement – instead of telling yourself ‘I have a great memory’ tell yourself ‘I spend a lot of time with information to build memory’
- To improve negative statement – instead of telling yourself ‘I’m just not good at playing musical instruments tell yourself ‘I haven’t spent a lot of time practicing musical instruments to improve’
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Shifting the narrative toward effort instead of a label can help you get better and prevent you from getting worse at something you’re already good at by detaching identity
- Instead of being smart, you’re someone who works hard – you can apply this to any setting instead of shying away from a challenge you might not be ‘smart’ at
- Focus on what you can control: we can all control level of persistence and effort
Fixed Mindset Versus Growth Mindset
- Fixed mindset: traits remain relatively stable and cannot be changed over time
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The brain actually engages in different patterns of activity in response to hearing they got something wrong or underperformed depending on whether you have a growth mindset or fixed mindset
- Feedback & growth mindset: people-oriented toward understanding what error was, why they got it wrong, and how they can improve the next time
- Feedback & fixed mindset: people tend to have a more emotional response and surprise they were wrong, and are more likely to shy away from challenges to avoid negative feedback
- You can shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset response
- You don’t have shut down emotions; a growth mindset is about processing then shifting energy towards effort
- A growth mindset is connecting motivation to cognition instead of just a feeling (e.g., feeling motivated)
The Role Of Stress
- Negative beliefs can cause negative consequences in the same way positive beliefs can produce positive results
- Stress response is inherent to mobilize us toward or away from something but it’s not inherently good or bad – it can enhance performance and allow you to access a growth mindset
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Study supported evidence for leveraging stress as enhancing mindset
- Condition 1: people are exposed to true information about how stress can diminish performance and then given a task
- Condition 2: people are exposed to true information about how stress can enhance performance when given a task
- Result: people in condition 2 performed better – it’s all about mindset; stress shifts the ability to allocate resources and improve response
- These results have been replicated across many groups in various settings
- What differentiates ‘good’ stress from ‘bad’ stress: the level of stress, the duration of stress, our cognitive understanding of stress
- Stress as a means of mobilizing resources in the body: stress allows us to dampen stress response in real-time, stress heightens focus to pay attention, and allows us to adjust response in the future
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Tools to improve stress as enhancing mindset
- When possible, it’s best for the teacher/student to both adopt stress as enhancing mindset; if you don’t have anyone else, write a letter explaining your growth mindset
- When giving praise or feedback to yourself or others, orient it towards process and verbs instead of labels (this is especially important when you’ve done well)
- When giving feedback about errors, think about what led to those errors instead of emotions related to those errors (take a day or two to process then move on)
- Seek help to analyze errors in performance
- Reframe the idea that the mind is like a muscle; we won’t necessarily feel what it’s like to perform better as we would with exercising the body
Articles
- Praise for intelligence can undermine children’s motivation and performance (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology)
- Why do beliefs about intelligence influence learning success? A social cognitive neuroscience model (Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience)
- Rethinking stress: The role of mindsets in determining the stress response (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology)
- A synergistic mindsets intervention protects adolescents from stress (Nature)
Other Resources
- Dr. Carol Dweck
- Dr. Alia Crum
- Dr. Alia Crum: Science of Mindsets for Health & Performance
- Dr. David Yeager