Growth mindset and well-being during the pandemic

Growth mindset, the belief that abilities and attributes are changeable,
has been implicated in better mental health and health behaviors and may
be especially critical during challenging life events. One goal of this
prospective longitudinal study was to investigate the role of growth
mindset in adults’ mental health (i.e., depression, well-being, and
adjustment of daily routines) over two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. We
also examined this relationship in older adults who had participated in a
prior learning intervention, including growth mindset training (compared
with those who had not). Adults ages 19 to 89 from ethnically diverse
backgrounds in Southern California (n = 454) were surveyed at three
timepoints between June 2020 and September 2022. In Study 1, focusing on
this wide age range (n = 393), we found that a growth mindset was
associated with lower levels of depression and higher levels of well-being
and adjustment, after accounting for various sociodemographic factors.
Study 2, which focused on older adults (n = 174), largely replicated the
findings from Study 1. Furthermore, the conducive effect of a growth
mindset on well-being was marginally greater among those who had
participated in the intervention, and those who had participated in the
intervention showed an increase in well-being over time, while well-being
scores decreased in the control group. Together, our findings suggest that
a growth mindset may be an important protective factor for mental health
during challenging times.