In all, 510 Europeans completed an online questionnaire rating their beliefs about personal change, including the established Dweck Mindset measure. Their ratings of 27 characteristics from BMI to sexual preference factored into 5 interpretable factors labelled Personality, Beliefs and Habits, Health, Social Status and Physical. Correlation indicated beliefs about change were most related to religious beliefs but also sex and age. Dweck ratings of ability and personality growth were logically related to beliefs about change on the five factors and also to religious beliefs and self-rated optimism. Regressions indicated that being religious was the most consistent predictor about change, as well as age and education. Many beliefs about change were in direct contraction to the academic literature on the topic. Implications and limitations are acknowledged.
Keywords: Ability; Change; Growth; Mindset; Personality.
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