Hamlet and the Power of Beliefs to Shape Reality
by Maria Konnikova

... beliefs and construals can actually alter our reality. ... As an example, take intelligence, something that many people believe to be a genetically predetermined entity. ...
... If you are an incremental theorist, you believe that intelligence is fluid. If you work harder, learn more, apply yourself better, you will become smarter. If, on the other hand, you are an entity theorist, you believe that intelligence is fixed. Try as you might, you will remain as smart (or not) as you were before. ... how someone performs, especially in reacting to failure, largely depends on which of the two beliefs he espouses. An incremental theorist sees failure as a learning opportunity; an entity theorist, as a frustrating personal shortcoming that cannot be remedied. ...
...At the end, I keep coming back to Hamlet, ..., “Why then ’tis none for you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” To Hamlet, Denmark is a prison; to his companions, it is no more so than the world at large. How they see it affects how it is—not inherently good or bad, but good or bad as perceived through their own frame of mind...: our world is what we perceive it to be, and our place in it, how we imagine it.
If we think of ourselves as able to learn, learn we will—and if we think we are doomed to fail, we doom ourselves ... To view full article CLICK HERE

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