In our work with adolescents and college students, those with a fixed mindset say, “The main thing I want when I do my school work is to show how good I am at it.” When we give them a choice between a challenging task they can learn from and a task that will make them look smart, most of them choose to look smart. Because they believe that their intelligence is fixed and they have only a certain amount, they have to look good at all times. Those with a growth mindset, on the other hand, say “It’s much more important for me to learn things in my classes than it is to get the best grades.” They care about grades, just as athletes care about winning the game, but they care first and foremost about learning. As a group, these are the students who end up earning higher grades, even when they may not have had greater aptitude originally.