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1. trucklessbob Says:
   February 9th, 2010 at 11:45 am

   Very fast delivery to NZ – took just over a week from ordering the book. In excellent condition. Thanks
   Rating: 5 / 5

2. Anonymous Says:
   February 9th, 2010 at 1:47 pm

   Yes I would definitely say it is reader friendly. Why? I sat and read through and what kept me reading it to end was that it is comprehensible. THere was nothing new in the sense that her subjects were everyday people – students, there were no those statistics that hardly made a sense to a layman like me, it was thought provoking – made me ponder over what really went wrong with my kid and myself, gave me some idea on how to tackle future problems concerning my kid’s attitude towards schoolwork, and most of all it was presented in a captivating manner. It’s like reading a storybook. I didn’t have to put on a thinking cap to make myself intelligent to understand her message. I definitely would recommend to my friends who are housewives.
   Rating: 5 / 5

3. french1 Says:
   February 9th, 2010 at 3:43 pm

   Though I haven’t yet finished reading this book, it was used as the basis of a professional develpment lecture in my school district. The theories mentioned in the lecture were intriguing, so I’m anxious to read about them first hand.
   Rating: 4 / 5

4. Anuja Sharma Says:
   February 9th, 2010 at 4:02 pm

   Extremely insightful book about how we think and what we define as success. A must read for everyone.
   Rating: 5 / 5

5. Michael Fletcher Says:
   February 9th, 2010 at 6:20 pm

   Carol Dweck’s work Self-Theories. She has written another book, written for a more general, less academic readership called Mindsets, in which she applies the entity/incremental construct to a broad range of domains: business, interpersonal relationships, etc. I’ve read both. In Self-Theories Dweck’s target are academic or educational contexts in which she argues that the difference in academic performance can plausibly be explained by distinguishing between two conceptions of ability, the entity theory and the incremental theory. According to the incremental spin, the abilities you possess are of a certain quantity which is FIXED (for all time) and therefore unalterable; which is to say your abilities cannot really be altered or changed; they are not really responsive to EFFORT. On the incremental view, abilities you possess are not FIXED and ARE RESPONSIVE TO EFFORT over time. One huge payoff, which Dweck points out frequently, is that in voluntarily adopting an incremental view of ability, you put yourself in a position to be FAR less vulnerable to self-blame, helplessness patterns, and self-despair in the event of failure, which can futher undermine your ability to execute your abilities. People of a more perfectionistic turn of mind have MUCH to gain by adopting a incremental spin on ability for the reasons just mentioned. “An ability is only as good as its execution”–Bandura.

   Dwecke’s an exceptionally lucid writer, and even her more academic work, “Self-Theories” is not written in academese but in language so clear and informal, you almost begin to wonder whether this is a professor in psychology at Columbia University. She’s that good, at least I think so. (Bandura’s prose is also clear, and conceptually rigorous, but his prose bears an elegant conciseness or compactness of insight, which would not incline me to describe as informal. But I digress. Long story short, the answer to your question is, I think, ‘yes’, Dweck’s work is closely related to Bandura’s.

   I’m not sure if Dweck’s work should be seen as “derived” from Bandura’s, however. Dweck draws three key distinctions:

   a) between learning goals and performance goals,
   b) between helplessness pattern and task-orientedness
   c) between incremental and entity theory of ability

   Dweck’s claim is this: People who hold an entity view of their abilities TEND to also to be people who adopt performance goals over learning goals. A performance goals is one which is more concerned about “looking or appearing smart” than in taking steps to insure greater informedness at the cost of looking stupid or uninformed. Thus, adopting a performance goal is AT CROSS PURPOSES with a learning goal. Second, entitiy theorists, when persuaded of their own failure, have MUCH REASON TO DESPAIR over their failed performances because performance failure (for them) JUST IS a demonstration of the fact that they do not possess (and what’s more NEVER can possess) the capacities required to succeed; for they believe that their abilities are FIXED structures inhering in them which are not alterable by effort. Knowing this, you’d expect that, prior to performance, entity theorists SHOULD FEEL GREAT anxiety about their future performances and ABOUT THE THREAT OF FAILURE AND WHAT IT IS DIAGNOSTIC OF. Failure is a PERMANENT DIAGNOSIS for which NATURE HOLDS NO APPELLATE COURT. If you fail at math once, twice. You’re a math idiot. If you fail at a relationship; you’re no good at love and romance. Period. The awareness of these prospects can’t help intrude on one’s performances, and keep on from doing anything which could be contrued (in your eyes) as failure, even if that means that, in the short term, you have to admit incompetence or admit nonknowledge in a subject matter, or nonunderstanding. And this is self-defeating. The situation is according to Dweck much different for those people who hold an incremental theory about ability. For these people, failure is not diagnostic of something – a wanted capability to produce desired effects in a cared-about domain of human life – which they can’t EVER possess; no, failure doesn’t MEAN (for them) that whatever it is in people taht allows them to produce exceptional EFFECTS in the world, in any cared-about domain of performance–that thing, call it an “ability”–is something whose possess and “size” or quantiy or magnitude is something over which you can exercise some control over and the way you can do this is through EFFORT. The entity theorist does not see personal exertion as diagnostic of LOW ability; she sees it as the MEANS to ACQUIRE greater capabilities, a means to enhance her personal causation. By contrast, the entity theorist views exertion as diagnistic of Low ability; like a doctor who sees a patient and says “Those spots mean measles,” the entity theorist views exceptional effort to mean “low ability. ”

   Bandura’s view (in SE) is, similar to Dwecks, in that he thinks that it is functionally optimal to view abilities as developmentally responsive to effort. Abilities ARE things one possesses – powers one can personally exericise to produce desired effects in the environment – but for learners it is self-limiting to think of abilities as innate or in-born capabilities rather than as things which can be obtained though “acquireable means” and guided mastery. Bandura’s general approach to learning seems to be that complex or difficult performances can be decomposed into simpler tasks; learners can learn and gain competence at the simpler tasks (increasing perceived self-efficacy incrementally as they go), then, once actually in possesion of those simpler skills, move on to tackle more difficult tasks, and so on until they actually possess the skills to perform the complex performances. This is what goes on in med schools, trade schools, most all graduate schools. On B’s view, abilities are entities you possess, but the trick is to incrementalize your ACQUISITION OF THEM, using your skills acquired at lower and medium levels to boot youself up to higher levels. But of course, this means your conception of your ability has to be adequate to get you to the highest level of performance, or you have to locate the means and strategies which will elevate your performances to higher levels, and once these are identified you have to acquire them. And acquiring competency in the simpler tasks, lower skills, are, so far as I can tell from SE, the means to acquiring the skills to perform at higher levels; which is as much to say they are the means to acquiring greater abilities.

   Rating: 5 / 5

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