A mindset (also known as mentality especially when considered as biased and closed-minded) refers to an established set of attitudes of a person or group concerning culture, values, philosophy, frame of reference, outlook, or disposition. Person A is said to have a theory of mind (ToM) about person B, relating mindset research to ToM. This may also develop from a person's worldview or beliefs about the meaning of life. A mindset could create an incentive to adopt (or accept) previous behaviors, choices, or tools, sometimes known as cognitive inertia or groupthink. When a prevailing mindset is limiting or inappropriate, it may be difficult to counteract its grip on analysis and decision-making. In cognitive psychology, mindset is the cognitive process activated in a task. In addition to the field of cognitive psychology, the study of mindset is evident in the social sciences and other fields (such as positive psychology). Characteristic of this area of study is its fragmentation among academic disciplines.
History Numerous scholars have identified mindset history as being a critical gap in contemporary literature and also in current approaches to mindset education and training.
Research Mindset research is an interdisciplinary field of inquiry. Some of the earliest studies to explicitly include mindset as an area of focus were conducted in the 1910s and 1920s, primarily within a psychology and education context. This includes studies by scholars including Thaddeus Lincoln Bolton (1909), Edward Kellogg Strong and Margaret Hart Strong (1913), Edward Lee Thorndike (1913), Alexander James Inglis (1918), William Heard Kilpatrick (1921), and more. Between the 1980s and 2000s, mindset research and its applications began to expand into other areas, including Glen Fisher's (1988) studies in international relations, Ellen Langer's (1989) research on mindfulness, Peter Gollwitzer's (1989) psychology of action phases, Donella Meadows' (1991) theory of systems change, Stephen Rhinesmith's (1992) work on global mindsets, Ronald Heifetz's (1994) practice of adaptive leadership, Carol Dweck's (2006) concept of implicit theories, and Robert Kegan's and Lisa Lahey's (2009) theory of adult development.
Politics A political example is the "Cold War mindset" in the U.S. and the USSR. This mindset reflects how people globally perceived the levels of security between the two nations. This mindset suggested that if one nation grew in strength and power, the other was threatened and vice versa. The main goal of the Cold War Mindset was to strengthen one's own nation's military and alliances while keeping the other nation's power limited. Also included in this mindset is the belief in game theory, in a chain of command in control of nuclear materials, and in the mutual assured destruction of both in a nuclear war. This mindset prevented an attack by either country, but deterrence theory has made assessments of the Cold War mindset a subject of controversy. Modern military theory attempts to challenge entrenched mindsets in asymmetric warfare, terrorism, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These threats are "a revolution in military affairs", requiring rapid adaptation to new threats and circumstances.
Systems theory Building on Magoroh Maruyama's concept of mindscape, mindset includes a cultural and social orientation: hierarchical and egalitarian individualism, hierarchical and egalitarian collectivism, hierarchic and egalitarian synergism, and hierarchical and egalitarian populism.
Collective mindset Collective mindsets are described in Edwin Hutchins's Cognition in the Wild (1995) and Maximilian Senges' Knowledge Entrepreneurship in Universities (2007). Hutchins analyzed a team of naval navigators as a cognitive unit or computational system, and Senges explained how a collective mindset is part of university strategy and practice. Erik H. Erikson's analysis of group-identities and what he calls a "life-plan" is relevant to a collective mindset. Erikson cites Native Americans who were meant to undergo a reeducation process to instill a modern "life-plan" which advocated housing and wealth; the natives' collective historic identity as buffalo hunters was oriented around such fundamentally different motivations that communication about life plans was difficult. An institution is related to collective mindset; an entrepreneurial mindset refers to a person who "values uncertainty in the marketplace and seeks to continuously identify opportunities with the potential to lead to important innovations". An institution with an entrepreneurial philosophy will have entrepreneurial goals and strategies. It fosters an entrepreneurial milieu, allowing each entity to pursue emerging opportunities. A collective mindset fosters values which lead to a particular practice. Hitt cites the five dimensions of an entrepreneurial mindset as "autonomy, innovativeness, risk taking, proactiveness, and competitive aggressiveness".
Theories The study of mindsets includes definition, measurement, and categorization. Scholars in the same discipline differ.
Mindset agency Sagiv and Schwarts defined cultural values to explain the nature, functions, and variables which characterize mindset agency. They posited three bipolar dimensions of culture, based on values: cognitive (embedded or autonomous), figurative (mastery or harmony), and operative (hierarchical or egalitarian).
Mindscape theory The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) measures psychological functions which, paired with social attitudes, combine to generate personality types that may be evaluated by exploring individual preferences. Maruyama's mindscape theory measures individuals on a scale of characteristics and places them into one of four personality categories.
Fixed and growth mindsets
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