The current study utilized resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine how two important non-cognitive skills, grit and growth mindset, are associated with cortico-striatal networks important for learning. Whole-brain seed-to-voxel connectivity was examined for dorsal and ventral striatal seeds. While both grit and growth mindset were associated with functional connect...

Aim: Illness may impact the positivity of a person’s mindset. However, patients with visual impairment, such as uveitis, may struggle to complete questionnaires. The aim of this study was to validate a brief and simple measure of positive mindset in people with uveitis. Method: This study was a cross-sectional survey of 200 people with uveitis. The Positive Mindset Index (PMI) questionnaire use...

Do people feel better or worse about themselves when working with someone who is better than they are? We present the first replication of the work of Stapel and Koomen (2005), who showed that being in a competitive vs. cooperative mindset moderates the effects of social comparison on self-evaluation. In Experiment 1, we present a close replication of Stapel and Koomen (2005, Study 2). Particip...

We examine the influence of the self-assessment and self-enhancement motives on the choice of comparison organizations. Study 1 shows that: (1) self-assessment generally prevailed over selfenhancement, guiding decision-makers to choose organizations that were more similar and had better performance; (2) self-enhancement was more pronounced under conditions of low performance, leading participan...

Debates about human nature often revolve around what is built in. However, the hallmark of human nature is how much of a person's identity is not built in; rather, it is humans' great capacity to adapt, change, and grow. This nature versus nurture debate matters-not only to students of human nature-but to everyone. It matters whether people believe that their core qualities are fixed by nature ...

Four studies examined how mental abstraction affects how people perceive their relationships with other people, specifically, how these relationships may be categorized in social groups. We expected that individuals induced to think abstractly would report fewer more global social groups, compared to those induced to think concretely, who would report more specific groups. However, induced abst...