Psychology professor Carol Dweck gave two groups of schoolchildren a whole-day tutorial on the brain, according to the Guardian.
She told the first group that parts of the brain are determined within days of conception, no new nerve cells are produced in adulthood, and the anatomy of the human brain is similar to a rat’s.
With the other group she focused on how the brain is always changing and remodeling itself, and how every experience affects connections in the brain.
She followed the two groups of students, who had been given equally true, but different, pictures of the brain.
A year later, the group that thought that the brain changes over time were doing much better across the board at school than those who believed the brain is fixed.
Dweck concluded that the second group were studying harder at subjects they were improving at rather than things they were already good at. Perhaps stressed students – and parents – should take note.