Even when the fixed-minded try, they don’t get as much from the experience as those who believe they can grow. In one experiment, Dweck scanned the brains of volunteers as they answered hard questions, then were told whether their answers were right or wrong and given information that could help them improve. The scans revealed that volunteers with a fixed mindset were fully engaged when they were told whether their answers were right or wrong but that’s all they apparently cared about.
