Can parent's intelligence mindset predict perception of their child's self-esteem and academic performance?

Abstract

Although recent research has found that a parent’s intelligence mindset may not directly impact the type of mindset their child develops, it is still unclear if the mindset of a parent can influence other outcome variables in their children. Along with a measure of parents’ mindset, mothers’ perception of both the academic performance and self-esteem of their children was assessed, as these two variables are often highly correlated with each other and with intelligence mindsets. It was first hypothesized that parents’ mindset would predict both academic performance and perceived child’s self-esteem, and that academic performance would be predictive of self-esteem. Results showed that parents’ mindset was correlated with perceived self-esteem, but not academic performance. Academic performance, however, was significantly correlated with perceived self-esteem. It was also hypothesized that academic performance would act as a moderator in the relationship between parental mindset and perceived child’s self-esteem, although this hypothesis was not supported by the results. Unexpectedly, when examining a moderation model with performance in math specifically, a more fixed mindset significantly predicted lower levels of perceived self-esteem when perceived performance in math was either average or above average. Possible explanations for these unexpected findings, limitations, and several future research directions are also discussed.