Black Box Thinking: Growth Mindset and the Secrets of High Performance

by Matthew Syed

I first saw self-handicapping in action during my final year at Oxford University. We were about to take our final exams and we had all prepared well for the big day. Most of us were apprehensive, but also relieved that the waiting was finally over. Over the previous twenty-four hours the majority of us spent our time going through our revision notes for a final time. But one group of students did something very different. They sat outside in the garden area frolicking and drinking cocktails, didn’t take a single look at their notes, and made sure that everyone knew that they were going to a nightclub later that evening. They all looked pretty relaxed, joking about the coming exams. To me, it didn’t make sense. Why jeopardise three years of work for the sake of a night on the town? What could they possibly hope to gain by arriving at the first exam, one of the most important days of their lives, with a hangover? The most surprising thing of all was that many were among the brightest students, who had worked diligently for the preceding three years. It was only years later, when reading about cognitive dissonance and the Fixed Mindset, that the pieces fell into place: they were so terrified of underperforming, so worried that the exam might reveal that they were not very clever, that they needed an alternative explanation for possible failure. They effectively sabotaged their own chances in order to gain one.