[By the way, the cover image is of the proportion of children in different countries who have a growth mindset (darker red is more). The data was taken from PISA 2019 and I constructed the image using Python. Grey countries are those for which I didn't have data.]

I was initially a huge supporter and admirer of Carol Dweck's work on fixed vs. growth mindset. The very first episode of the podcast was about her book, and I mentioned it many times afterwards, talking about how amazing it was.

Then a couple of years ago I lost confidence. Angry about being misled by advocates of constructivist, project-based, or discovery learning, and pessimistic about psychology as a whole with my recent discovery of the degree to which studies would have completely different results depending on cultural sample, I heard that Dweck's work was having trouble replicating. In episode 100, I spoke about my concerns with mindset, which was particularly bitter since I'd once been such a strong advocate of it. It just seemed like the entire field of psychology was collapsing around me and there was nobody I could trust.

Since then, a listener of the podcast asked me to elaborate on my position regarding mindset. Why had I changed my view? What do I currently think? I decided to take a deeper look at what had been happening in the mindset scene, and this episode is the product.