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The Motivated Fluidity of Lay Theories of Change

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The Science of Lay Theories

Abstract

People vary in their chronic beliefs about the malleability of human attributes such as intelligence and morality. These lay theories of change can play a powerful role in people’s self-regulation, person perception, and decisions. Although we acknowledge that people may have a lay theory to which they predominantly turn, we consider the ways that people may actively shift their endorsement of lay theories depending on the context and their goals. Drawing on a motivated reasoning perspective, we describe how people sometimes selectively gravitate toward a lay theory of change or stability depending on which viewpoint allows them to support their desired position or to satisfy an underlying motivation. We consider how people’s goals may influence their selective preference for lay theories in the context of personal, social, intergroup, and societal-level judgments.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Once a thief, always a thief; a leopard cannot change its spots.

  2. 2.

    However, it is also possible that people do not even hold the same implicit theories about self and others, although the general person scale seems able to predict both personal and other judgments. Some recent research developed a self-theories version of the implicit theories scale based on the recognition that people might have one belief about how malleable intelligence is in general, and a different view of their own personal intelligence. On average, people reported that they themselves were more malleable than others, and self-theories were a better predictor of students’ own personal academic motivation and responses (De Castella & Byrne, 2015). Likewise, Aneeta Rattan and colleagues demonstrated that people may not apply the same theory of mutability to all people or groups. People who believe that the capacity for improvement is universal are more likely to support policies that promote equal opportunity, while those who believe that only some people have the capacity to become highly intelligent are less inclined to support such measures (Rattan & Georgeac, this volume; Rattan, Savani, Naidu, & Dweck, 2012).

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  1. Psychology Department, Wilfrid Laurier University, 75 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3C5, Canada

    Anne E. Wilson & Jaslyn A. English

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  1. Anne E. Wilson
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Correspondence to Anne E. Wilson .

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  1. Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA

    Claire M. Zedelius

  2. Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Barbara C. N. Müller

  3. Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA

    Jonathan W. Schooler

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Wilson, A.E., English, J.A. (2017). The Motivated Fluidity of Lay Theories of Change. In: Zedelius, C., Müller, B., Schooler, J. (eds) The Science of Lay Theories. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57306-9_2

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