A Mindset Theory of Career Success

Mindsets are assumptions about the malleability of the personal attributes that guide human behavior. In this paper we propose that mindsets influence how people perceive situational cues in the workplace, enact their careers, their propensity to experience negative emotions, and how they evaluate their career experiences and outcomes in ways that either set the stage for - or undermine - their experience of career success. The substantial literature on dispositional trait antecedents of career success (e.g., conscientiousness and extraversion) implies that having low levels of such traits leads to mediocre careers. To address when this might not necessarily be the case, we theorize about how mindsets may prime career facilitating behavior by interacting with individual differences via shaping how trait-relevant contextual cues are perceived. We also describe how the perceptual and behavioral dynamics that stem from mindsets can lead to objective career outcomes both directly, as well as indirectly via the acquisition of human capital. We illustrate how mindsets may influence subjective career success by shaping the nature of the criteria people use to evaluate their careers, in addition to the extent to which they experience the negative emotions that can undermine both objective and subjective career outcomes. Our theory thus proposes that recurring perceptual, behavioral, affective, and evaluative dynamics mediate the influence of mindsets on career-related behaviors and outcomes. Career contextual boundary conditions are specified. Implications for mindsets and career theory, research, and practice aimed at enabling the experience of career success are discussed.