What do you think about your own intelligence? Can you make yourself smarter over time, or are you stuck with the smarts you were born with? Your answer could reflect a key personality trait — namely, self-confidence — and whether you might want to help yourself to a big slice of humble pie.

It turns out, if you view your brainpower as a fixed, innate capacity, you’re also more likely to be … overconfident. This was suggested in a recent three-part study led by Joyce Ehrlinger of Washington State University. It found that students with a so-called “fixed mind-set” were more likely to overestimate their performance on a test than those with a “growth mind-set” (a belief that intelligence can change over time).

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Ozy Magazine

How do parents’ cultural values affect their babies’ temperament?

Maria (Masha) Gartstein, professor of psychology, is on a multi-year quest to find out.

For the past five years, Gartstein has compared the behavior of babies from around the globe to learn how parents’ values and expectations influence the development of their toddlers’ behavior and overall temperament.

A greater understanding of these values and their impact on temperament development will help psychologists devise fine-tuned approaches to prevent infant temperament issues from becoming behavioral problems later in life.

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