Do we believe people can change? The impact of growth mindset on beliefs in rehabilitation for the Earth and incarcerated individuals

Abstract

This series of studies examines the concept of growth mindset in two separate but equally as important contexts: climate change and incarceration. Study 1 investigates the relationship between growth mindset and hopefulness about climate change, and Study 2 investigates the relationship between growth mindset and beliefs in rehabilitation for incarcerated people. Both studies were conducted via survey. The data was collected via Prolific, and the samples were mostly caucasian, but evenly split between male and female genders (N = 209 for Study 1, N =208 for Study 2). The only significant finding was the mediating effect of perceived personal warmth on beliefs in rehabilitation for one of the three vignettes in the measure for beliefs in rehabilitation for incarcerated people. More research should be done examining the role of optimism, which was a control variable in all analyses, and showed to be a strong predictor in many of them.