The character arc of Carol Dweck

A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record

Born on 17 October 1946 in New York City. Between then and now sit Barnard in 1967, a Yale doctorate in 1972, posts at Illinois, Harvard and Columbia, a chair at Stanford in 2004, Mindset in 2006, election to the National Academy of Sciences in 2012 and the Yidan Prize in 2017. The line below draws the story so far, in order.

Tap the line to pluck it. Hover or tap any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of her life; the sources are at the foot of the page.

Who is Carol Dweck?

Two words changed how schools talk.

She graduated from Barnard College in 1967 and took her doctorate in psychology at Yale in 1972. Her early question was a narrow one and a good one: why do some children, faced with a problem they cannot yet solve, try harder, while others simply stop? The answer she kept finding was not about ability. It was about what the child believed ability was.

She worked at the University of Illinois, went to Harvard's Laboratory of Human Development in 1981, returned to Illinois in 1985, joined Columbia in 1989, and in 2004 became the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford. The 1988 paper she wrote with Ellen Leggett, a social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality, is the formal statement of the theory.

Mindset, published in 2006, put it into ordinary language and into schools. A fixed mindset treats ability as a fixed quantity you either have or do not; a growth mindset treats it as something that develops with effort and method. The phrase is now used by people who have never read the book. The research has since been tested at scale, and replication work has found the classroom effects smaller than the early reports suggested, which is a normal and healthy thing to happen to a large idea. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2012 and awarded the Yidan Prize for Education Research in 2017.

The moments

Carol Dweck's timeline.

The 1960s

Jun 1967

Barnard College

Milestone, and it changed her direction. A New York childhood, and a New York college.

The 1970s

Jun 1972

A Yale doctorate

Milestone, and it changed everything. The question she took away with her: why do some children stop trying?

The 1980s

~1981

Harvard, then back

Milestone. Two moves in four years, and the work carried between them.

~1988

The theory, written down

Milestone, and it changed everything. The formal statement of what she had been finding for fifteen years.

~1989

Columbia

Milestone. Back in New York, and closer to the schools the work would reach.

The 2000s

~2004

A chair at Stanford

Milestone, and it changed her direction. A named chair, and the platform from which the book went out.

1 Jun 2005

Write for the field, or for parents

Crossroads, decided.

The paths laid out: write a general book, taken, or stay in the journals. The phrase reached schools worldwide, and the simplification she risked is exactly what later replication work had to untangle.

28 Feb 2006

Mindset

Milestone, and it changed everything. Thirty years of research, written so a parent could act on it.

~2009

The Thorndike Award

Milestone. The field's own recognition, given for a career in educational psychology.

The 2010s

~2012

The National Academy

Milestone, and it changed her direction. Election to the Academy, which is as far as an American scientist's formal record goes.

26 Sep 2017

The Yidan Prize

Milestone, and it changed everything. The largest prize in education in the world, for a question she first asked in the 1970s.

The 2020s

~2020

Fellow of the association

Milestone. Two awards in two years, one of them for the students she raised.

The line reaches today still adding to itself, which is why it is drawn now rather than at the end. What it has set moving is a sentence that a great many people needed: ability is not a fixed quantity you were handed, it is something that grows with the right kind of effort.

What she wrote

Books by Carol Dweck

2006
Mindset
The new psychology of success. Thirty years of research on fixed and growth mindsets, written so a parent could act on it.

Your turn

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Hers began with one narrow question about children who stop trying. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.

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Carol Dweck: frequently asked questions

What people ask about her line.

What is Carol Dweck's character arc?

A psychologist who asked one narrow question in the 1970s, why some children stop trying when a problem gets hard, spent thirty years answering it in laboratories, and then wrote the book that put the answer into schools worldwide.

What is Carol Dweck's growth mindset?

Her term for treating ability as something that develops with effort and method, as against a fixed mindset that treats it as a quantity you either have or do not. Mindset, published in 2006, sets out both.

Has Carol Dweck's research been challenged?

Yes. Large replication studies have found the classroom effects smaller than early reports suggested. This page records that as a fact about how the research has been tested, and does not settle the argument either way.

Where does Carol Dweck teach?

She has been the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University since 2004. Before that she held posts at the University of Illinois, at Harvard's Laboratory of Human Development and at Columbia University.

What prizes has Carol Dweck won?

The E. L. Thorndike Award in 2009, election to the National Academy of Sciences in 2012, the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award in 2013, and the Yidan Prize for Education Research in 2017, which is the largest education prize in the world.

Where did Carol Dweck study?

She graduated from Barnard College in 1967 and took her doctorate in psychology at Yale University in 1972. The question that became her career was already forming while she was a graduate student.

What is Carol Dweck's most important paper?

A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality, published in 1988 with Ellen Leggett. It is the formal statement of the theory that Mindset later translated into ordinary language for a general readership.

Where does this timeline of Carol Dweck's life come from?

From the public record. Character Arc drew every moment on this line from the sources listed at the foot of the page, and the kind and weight of each moment are our editorial reading. Carol Dweck isn't a Member of Character Arc and has no connection with it, and no feeling is attributed to her.

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Sources

Carol Dweck, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
Stanford University, Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology.
Yidan Prize Foundation, 2017 laureate for education research.