Daeun Park

Math anxiety is a negative affective reaction to situations involving math. Previous work demonstrates that math anxiety can negatively impact math problem solving by creating performance-related worries that disrupt the working memory needed for the task at hand. By leveraging knowledge about the mechanism underlying the math anxiety-performance relationship, we tested the effectiveness of a short expressive writing intervention that has been shown to reduce intrusive thoughts and improve worki

Although students’ motivational frameworks (entity vs. incremental) have been linked to academic achievement, little is known about how early this link emerges and how motivational frameworks develop in the first place. In a year-long study (student N = 424, Teacher N = 58), we found that, as early as 1st and 2nd grade, children who endorsed an incremental framework performed better on a nationally normed standardized math test than children who held an entity framework (i.e., believe ability is

Prior research has shown that adverse events in the lives of adolescents precipitate psychological distress, which in turn impairs self-control. This study (N = 1,343) examined the protective effects of stress mindsets-beliefs about the extent to which stress might be beneficial or strictly detrimental. The results confirmed that increasing the number of adverse life events across the school year predicted rank order increases in perceived distress, which in turn predicted rank order decreases i

Previous research has shown that when confronted with failure, individuals with a fixed view of intelligence (entity theorists) perform worse on subsequent tasks than those with a malleable view of intelligence (incremental theorists). This study finds that entity theorists perform worse than incremental theorists only when they believe that a subsequent task measures the same ability as the task they previously failed. However, when individuals believe that the subsequent task measures an abili

Numerous studies have shown that individuals' help-seeking behavior increases when a computerized helper is endowed with humanlike features in nonachievement contexts. In contrast, the current research suggests that anthropomorphic helpers are not universally conducive to help-seeking behavior in contexts of achievement, particularly among individuals who construe help seeking as a display of incompetence (i.e., entity theorists). Study 1 demonstrated that when entity theorists received help fro

Prior research shows that when parents monitor, check, and assist in completing homework without an invitation, their children's motivation and academic achievement often decline. We propose that intrusive support from parents might also send the message that children are incompetent, especially if they believe their intelligence is fixed. We tested whether children's mindsets moderate the negative link between parents' intrusive homework support and achievement among first- and second-grade stu

Persistence is a critical factor that significantly predicts life outcomes. Although individual differences in persistence emerge early in life, the knowledge of effective strategies for cultivating persistence in young children remains limited. Based on these two studies, we suggest that emotional validation, defined as the acceptance of emotions without judgment, is a beneficial technique for promoting persistence in the wake of frustration. Study 1 examined 150 parents of children aged 4-6 ye

INTRODUCTION: Self-control predicts academic achievement and social outcomes in adolescents. Despite the increased role of peers in the lives of adolescents, little is known about whether peers' views of an individual's self-control have predictive validity for academic and social outcomes. METHOD: = 13.74), we examined whether peer nomination of self-control provides incremental predictive validity over and above self-reports for rank-order changes in academic achievement and friendship (i.e.,

Generic statements about the abilities of children's social groups (e.g. 'Girls/Boys are good at this game') negatively impact children's performance - even if the statements are favorable towards children's own social groups. We explored the mechanism by which generic language impairs children's performance. Across three studies, our findings suggest that generic statements influence children's performance by creating an entity belief (i.e. a belief that a fixed ability determines performance).