In recent years, there has been a growing fascination with decentralized systems and self-organizing phenomena. Increasingly, people are choosing decentralized models for the organizations and technologies that they construct in the world, and for the theories that they construct about the world. But even as decentralized ideas spread through the culture, there is a deep-seated resistance to su...

Researchers in the field of adaptive behavior are quite familiar with the idea of higher-order complex global patterns emerging from the lower-level simple local interactions of components in a distributed system. Our artificial ants form colonies and self-organized foraging expeditions; our robots and simulated birds flock and cooperate on tasks; our genetic algorithm populations form species ...

This article describes 3 studies that explore the role of mindsets in the context of stress. In Study 1, we present data supporting the reliability and validity of an 8-item instrument, the Stress Mindset Measure (SMM), designed to assess the extent to which an individual believes that the effects of stress are either enhancing or debilitating. In Study 2, we demonstrate that stress mindsets ca...

A global mindset is argued to be critical for managers to develop their firms’ current and future international success. An international assignment is considered to be one of the most powerful means of developing a global mindset. The skill sets, cognitive complexity, and expanded networks resulting from an international assignment provide expatriates with unique and often tacit knowledge. Yet...

We investigated processes of truth validation during reading. Participants responded to 'true' and 'false' probes after reading simple true or false sentences. Compatible sentence/probe combinations (true/'true', false/'false') facilitated responding compared with incompatible combinations (true/'false', false/'true'), indicating truth validation. Evidence for truth validation was obtained afte...

► Person perception often involves comparing individual targets to reference points. ► Past work argues that difference versus similarity focus yields less stereotyping. ► We suggest this could reverse if self, rather than group, representations are focal. ► In two studies, we manipulate comparison mindset and activated representation. ► We find an interaction: impact of comparison mindset depe...

Abstract The purpose of this study was to explore adolescent self-views singing ability through both implicit theories (i.e., fixed mindset and growth mindset) self-concept meaning systems in the context a choral hierarchy. Using survey instrument modified from Dweck (1999) measure self-theories ability, I gathered data middle high school participants currently enrolled hierarchical structure. ...

Finding creative new ideas requires both release from fixation and a productive search mindset. Recent research has shown that messy desks, walking, and mind-wandering can lead to more new uses for old objects. Here we show that a humancentric mindset is superior to mind-wandering for generating more alternative uses and more creative uses because it provides both release from fixation and an e...

According to the Rubicon Model of Action Phases (in: J. Gollwitzer, 1996), Motivation, volition, and action, Enzyclopedia of psychology, series "motivation and emotion", Vol. 4, Hogrefe, Göttingen, 1996, pp. 531-582), different stages in goal pursuit are accompanied by different mindsets that enhance processing of mindset-congruous information. Before people engage in action, they usually delib...