Effects of a Growth Mindset of Personality on Emerging Adults' Defender Self-Efficacy, Moral Disengagement, and Perceived Peer Defending

This study investigated the effects of a brief educational exercise aimed to promote a growth mindset of personality (the belief that personality traits are malleable) on outcomes linked to peer defending. Undergraduates (N = 60) were randomly assigned to complete a learning task designed to foster a growth mindset of personality or to a matching control task. They then read a vignette of a college student victimized by peers and completed paper-and-pencil measures of defender self-efficacy, moral disengagement, and perceived defender behavior, followed by a brief manipulation check. The experimental manipulation was successful, and participants who completed the growth mindset of personality intervention reported higher defender self-efficacy, lower moral disengagement, and higher perceived defending behavior. There was also a significant indirect effect of the experimental manipulation on perceived defending via self-efficacy, suggesting that a growth mindset of personality may influence peer defending through gains in defender self-efficacy. Implications are discussed for bullying prevention, with emphasis on programming for emerging adults at college.