Incremental mindsets and the reduced forgiveness of chronic failures

Holding an incremental, rather than fixed, mindset confers wide-ranging benefits. Such benefits may, however, be accompanied by increased judgmental harshness of others' shortcomings. Across 3 studies (Studies 1, 2a, 2b; N = 416), after an induction of either an entity or incremental view of empathy, aggression, or motivation, participants were asked to imagine someone continually failing to show, or showing in abundance, the particular trait, and were then asked how blameworthy/praiseworthy each of these individuals was. Incremental-induced participants blamed a person showing consistently maladaptive levels of the trait more than did entity-induced participants. Increased blame was mediated by increased perceived control over behavior. Study 3 (N = 107) extended findings regarding lay theories of empathy to protagonists in short narratives. Study 4 (N = 184) attempted to reconcile our findings with previous research, showing that increased blame attribution by incremental theorists occurs for continual, but not single failures. Overall results suggest that the benefits of an incremental mindset may be partially offset by greater judgmental harshness of others.