Ana Tello, undergraduate research on fixed vs. growth mindsets
Ana Tello is a May 2023 psychology graduate from Baylor University. As an undergraduate, she was a research assistant under the Science of Virtues lab. Her research focuses on self-compassion as a moderator for the relationship between fixed versus growth mindsets and mental health outcomes. She has a special interest in self-compassion as a potential treatment option in a clinical setting for at-risk youth populations. She received the Psychology Student of the Year award at Baylor University, graduated summa cum laude, and presented her research at the 2023 Existential Psychology Pre-conference. Currently, she is in the process of applying to PhD programs in Clinical Psychology to continue her educational career.
By David Reed, University of Washington, & Kenneth Vail, Cleveland State University. August 12, 2023.
ISSEP: How did you first become aware of an interested in existentialism and the science of existential psychology?
Ana Tello: I came to it through service. I’m Hispanic, myself, and growing up in the Hispanic community I started doing a lot of work with immigrant youth. Young Hispanic immigrants can face a lot of daunting identity-related challenges—in addition to going to school and being kids, they might have to navigate day-to-day activities on behalf of parents who speak Spanish but not English, they might have younger siblings who need care while their parents work, and so on. It can be tricky, and some people are stiff and inflexible and often have difficulty (psychological symptoms, police interactions, drug use, etc.), whereas others are ready to grow and flexibly adapt to these new challenges. So, there’s a lot of need for both psychological care and legal assistance, and it became my passion to work with these sorts of minority youth communities.
That led me to Baylor University, where I majored in Psychology and minored in Criminal Justice. There, I joined the Science of Virtues Lab, which does a lot of work on virtues, religious development, and similar topics. I also started taking courses on psychotherapy and theories of counseling, and that’s where I first encountered existential psychology. We covered the early pioneers of existential psychotherapy—Medard Boss, Victor Frankl, Ludwig Binswanger, and many others—and that phenomenological work just really called to me. I also really appreciated that we got to learn about it in a structured classroom setting, rather than simply leaving us to poke around and find the information on our own. That training also helped me to realize that much of what we were doing in the lab was addressing some important existential challenges—such as how people do (or do not) grow and the process of “becoming” who we want to be over time.
Once I graduate, I’ll take a gap year to visit England, explore possible programs, arrange some interviews, and hopefully begin graduate level clinical training soon thereafter. I’m hoping to join a PhD program for clinical psychology and would like to work with youth minority populations.
ISSEP: You’ve been doing some great research with fixed and growth mindsets lately. Can you tell us a little bit more about your work?
Up/down from left to right: Medard Boss and his “Existential foundations of medicine and psychology,” Victor Frankl and his “Man’s search for meaning,” and Ludwig Binswanger and his “Being-in-the-world.”
Ana Tello: Absolutely! From my prior volunteering and classroom experiences, I was interested in the effects of fixed (vs. growth-oriented) mindsets on mental health. But I had also been working with the Waco Advocacy Center for Crime Victims and Children, and was wondering if self-compassion might help mitigate any negative effects associated with fixed mindsets—which could be important, because clinicians might be able to target self-compassion in that setting. So, our core research question asked whether a fixed (vs. growth-oriented) mindset would be associated with poor psychological health, and whether self-compassion might help to mitigate that effect.
First, we measured fixed and growth-oriented mindsets. A “fixed” mindset means a person thinks their identity, values, traits, and skills are set in stone and can’t be changed—someone with a fixed mindset might say to themselves, “This is who I am and I’ll always be this way.” A “growth-oriented” mindset means a person thinks that they are flexible, can adapt to new environments and challenges, and that they’re even able to adjust themselves to become who they want to become—they might say to themselves, “this is who I am today, but that can change because I can adjust and grow as a person.” To quantify these mindsets, we had participants use a 6-point Likert-type scale (1 = Strongly disagree, 6 = Strongly agree) in response to 3 survey items from the classic implicit theories instrument (Dweck et al., 1995), such that high scores indicated a fixed mindset whereas low scores indicated a more flexible growth-oriented mindset.
Second, we measured self-compassion using the self-compassion scale (Neff, 2003). For example, participants completed a set of 5 survey items that measured “Self-kindness.” They used a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = Almost never, 5 = Almost always) to respond to items, such as: “I’m kind to myself when I’m experiencing suffering” and “I’m tolerant of my own flaws and inadequacies.”
Lastly, we assessed mental health using the DASS (Henry & Crawford, 2005), which measures depression, anxiety, and stress. Participants used a 4-point Likert-type scale (0 = Never, 1 = Sometimes, 2 = Often, 3 = Almost always) to respond to 7 items measuring depression (e.g., “I felt I wasn’t worth much as a person,” “I felt that life was meaningless.”), 7 items measuring anxiety (e.g., “I was worried about situations”), and 7 items measuring stress (e.g., “I found myself getting agitated,” “I found it difficult to relax”).
The data patterns were similar on the depression, anxiety, and stress outcomes.
Our sample included 532 participants, and data patterns showed main effects such that fixed mindsets were associated with worse mental health outcomes (greater stress, anxiety, and depression), whereas participants who had a more flexible growth-oriented mindset had better mental health. Fortunately, however, we found that self-compassion helped. On each outcome, there was an interaction such that the negative impact of a fixed (vs. growth) mindset was mitigated if participants were also good about being kind and tolerant to themselves.
ISSEP: Do you see areas where popular art and culture has addressed these topics, too?
Ana Tello: Yes! Existentialist views on the relationship between fixed vs. growth-oriented mindsets and mental health show up all over the place in pop culture. One popular question-answer proverbs is:
“Do you know what happens to things that don’t bend? They break!”
And so many novels, TV, films, and stage plays explore stories where the various characters navigate the world with either fixed or growth-oriented mindsets… to wildly different mental health outcomes!
Another area, which someone recently suggested to me, is the act of creativity itself. For example, the music producer Rick Rubin just published a book called The creative act: A way of being (2023) in which he talks about the importance of being flexible, ready to go with the flow, and willing to grow as a person, not only for being musically creative but also for being mentally healthy.
And then there’s Dr. Kristin Neff, one of the pioneers in self-compassion research (and the author of the self-compassion scale we used in my research!). She’s gotten involved in pop-culture through her social media; her Instagram is full of tidbits about the importance of self-compassion and recommend good podcasts on the topic as well. I think the positive reception to that sort of thing also highlights a generational cultural shift around mindsets, self-compassion, and mental health. My sense is that, compared to prior generations, the younger generations are much more open to personal change/growth and are much more open to the idea of being kinder to themselves when things get difficult.
ISSEP: What do you think are some of the remaining issues for this research topic, and what do you see as the most important next steps toward better understanding these experiences?
Ana Tello: From a clinical perspective, I’m thinking about next steps toward interventions to help people adopt a more growth-oriented mindset, and it would also be worthwhile to explore ways to teach self-compassion for the times when people are not really in a place where they want to change and grow. I definitely see some possibilities for both existential growth orientation and self-compassion through Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which I recently learned about in my psychotherapy course. ACT emphasizes psychological flexibility and encourages the client to take a more mindful and compassionate approach to their own emotions and cognitions.
ISSEP: You’ve attended, and presented research at, the Existential Psychology Pre-conference. How has your experience been with that, and what are some of your favorite parts of the event?
Ana Tello: The Existential Psychology conference was so much fun and so interesting—definitely one of my highlights of my undergrad career!
It was the first conference that I ever attended, so that was a bit daunting and I was kind of scared. But a few people in my lab were going, and they were very encouraging. Also, the fact it was online was the perfect way to get introduced; it felt sort of like dipping your toes in the water. Because it was through Zoom, the typed chat option made it super easy (and low pressure!) to ask questions with the main speakers; that made it super easy to engage and there were a ton of great questions. Also, I loved having the breakout rooms for my poster presentation. After I would share about my research, I would ask: “How does your research overlap with mine?” or “What do you find interesting?”, and that got a lot of cool conversations going and we could see the connections with other folks who were working on different but related topics.
“The Existential Psychology conference was so much fun and so interesting—definitely one of my highlights of my undergrad career!”
ISSEP: What is some advice you would give to people who want to follow in your footsteps, so they too can make innovative contributions to the science of existential psychology?
Ana Tello: I’ve got two bits of advice.
First, if you can, take some formal classes in stats coding, such as R or SPSS syntax. You’ll thank yourself later.
“There’s no particular timeline that we all have to follow. Life is not a race.”
Second, there's always so much you can do in terms of getting your research hours and clinical experience; it can be daunting, and it’s easy to feel like you have to do it all as fast as possible in order to keep up with everyone. But (this going to sound very self-compassion-ey) remember that you’re human, don’t expect too much of yourself, and be kind to yourself. There's no particular timeline that we all have to follow. Life is not a race. If you want to take your time to discover your interests, develop your passion, and let that lead you—it's okay. If you want to take a gap year—it's okay. If you want extra time to learn stats—it’s okay. If you make plans, and it doesn’t pan out the way you planned—it's okay. I feel like that leads to a lot of anxiety in undergrads, but the world's not going to end and the field will still be here waiting for you when you’re ready.
ISSEP: Outside of work/research context, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself?
Ana Tello: Before college, I did a lot of volunteering at my local church. I started off just helping with the youth groups, but then eventually I had spent so much time there that they let me run my own group. So, I planned my own groups, and ultimately was running youth group sessions with about 75 kids. From there, I recruited a group of other older teens in my high school to lead it with me. We called it Journey, because the idea was to help kids along their journey from teens to young adults. I miss that a lot.
Nowadays, I love going to different coffee places, trying different kinds of coffee. And I'm a big reader—mostly fantasy books.
I also love live music, so I’m always looking for the next concert to attend. I usually go to one concert a month; if not, I'm looking for one. I’m also into collecting vinyl and posters and other music stuff. It’s a great feeling to already have something in common with other people at concerts; we can always talk about how we like the same music.
ISSEP: What music are you listening to lately, and what would be your top track to share?
Ana Tello: I love, love, love, love Harry Styles. It’s silly, but I’ve been following him since I was about 9 years old—definitely a superfan! Taylor Swift is another major favorite; I really enjoy her Folklore and Evermore albums, because the lyrics are really deep and sort of sad. I’m also a big fan of Gracie Abrams and Conan Gray. They're both less well-known artists, but their music is chill and descriptive; I can clearly imagine what they sing about, and I love that. Those four would be my main ones.
I'm a lyrics person. I find it fascinating that people can have these really detailed experiences, write a song about it, and so many other people can immediately relate to it. So, one of my favorite things to do is look for music that has deep and emotional lyrics. I even have a journal in which I write out my favorite songs’ lyrics and then annotate them; there’s something to that, the lyrics unite us.
You know what else is fun? I make playlists for each month of my life. I can tell you what I was listening to during the first semester of college, when I moved in the dorms, and stuff like that. So, for the poster I presented as the Existential Psychology Preconference, for example, I know exactly what I was listening to while I was making it: the albums “Folklore” by Taylor Swift and “This is What it Feels Like” by Gracie Abrams.