The Mentor Mindset
At the most basic level the mentor's mindset is holding high standards while providing high support.
In practice it comes from beliefs and manifests as behaviors, interventions, and actions that give respect, hold the standard high, and provide the support and resources needed to meet or exceed those high standards.
Required beliefsFive
As David Yeager says:
Your beliefs about young people shape your style. If you think they're unruly, you become an enforcer. If you think they're fragile, you become a protector. But if you believe they have great potential under the right conditions, you become a mentor. David Yeager, 10 to 25
19 techniques for motivating young people
Source: David Yeager's book 10 to 25
There is no single right answer here, only better and worse ones. Use these techniques as guide posts for your relationship building and coaching.
Nothing matches that. Try a word from the situation, or a technique name.
Feedback and correction
Ifgiving hard feedback01 · Wise feedback
ThenGive wise feedback — name the high standard, and say you know they can reach it.
What it looks like
The work isn't good enough, they know you've read it, and they are braced.
Say this
“I'm giving you these comments because I have very high standards and I know that you can reach them.”
Why
Nineteen words, attached to feedback that was otherwise identical. Revision rates went from 17% to 71% among Black seventh-graders; among those with low trust in their teachers, from 0% to 82%. Cohen, Steele & Ross 1999; Yeager et al. 2014, three double-blind randomized field experiments. Engelland's version with draft picks is the same shape — tell them the shot is fundamentally good, then ruthlessly refine the details. That is how Kawhi Leonard got his.
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Ifcorrecting something they just did02 · No negative, only support
ThenAsk how it went. No negative, only support — never characterise the person.
What it looks like
They've done it wrong and they're waiting for you to say so.
Say this
“How did that feel?” Chip Engelland
“Can you tell me how you got this answer?” Sergio Estrada
“Can you tell me where you're getting stuck and what you've tried so we can fix the problem?” Stef
Why
Never open with wrong. Address the work, the situation or the feeling — never the person. The standard stays exactly where it was; only the insult goes. Socrates answered an insult with a question rather than an answer, and it is the same move.
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Ifthey just failed at something03 · Assure long-term commitment
ThenAssure long-term commitment — the standard hasn't moved, and neither have you.
What it looks like
Silence, or “I told you I couldn't do it.”
Say this
Before it happens
“You're going to hit a wall on this at some point. When you do, come find me. I'm not going to decide you can't do it — we'll just figure out what you're missing.”
After it happens
“That didn't go the way either of us wanted. The standard is still the standard, and I'm still here. What do you want to try next?”
Why
State the commitment before it's needed, not after the failure — said afterwards it reads as consolation, said beforehand it reads as a fact about you. Jen did this at the end of every morning meeting: she told Yeager to try the plan and come back if he got stuck, before he had gotten stuck. Afterwards, name the thing that hasn't changed.
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Ifyou lost your temper, or broke the standard yourself09 · The do-over
ThenRun a do-over — name what you did, name the standard, then hand them the floor.
What it looks like
You raised your voice, or said the enforcer line, and you knew it as it left your mouth.
Say this
“I want to redo yesterday. I raised my voice at you in front of everyone, and that's not the standard here — not for you and not for me. That one's on me.”
“Can you tell me what that was like on your end?”
Why
Three parts: name what you did, name the standard you broke, then hand them the floor. The apology isn't the technique on its own — the question after it is. From Lorena Seidel, the parent coach. Implementation failure is guaranteed, which is what makes this the most realistic tool in the book; even Sergio Estrada failed spectacularly before he adopted the mentor mindset.
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Getting them to do something
Ifyou need them to do something they don't want to do07 · The four moves of a respectful request
ThenMake a respectful request — ask, honor their status, validate, presume agency.
What it looks like
You are about to assign it, and you can already hear how that lands.
Say this
Opening — say who you are and why you're here
“Hey, I'm James, I'm one of the guides here. I wanted to talk to you about the next unit.”
1 · Ask, don't tell
“I wanted to ask whether you'd consider taking the placement test this week.”
2 · Honor their status, don't invoke yours
“You've been running your own schedule all semester, so I figured I'd just explain why this matters rather than assign it.”
Middle — name the hard part before they do
“Some people find this test frustrating because it puts you back on things you thought you were done with.”
3 · Validate and explain, don't diminish
“You might find it helps to think of that frustration as the part where you find out exactly what's still shaky, which is the whole point.”
4 · Presume agency
“Thanks for considering it. Let me know what you decide.”
Why
This is Yeager's Figure 1.3, the respectful and disrespectful scripts from the Vegemite study set side by side. Respectful got 66% compliance, dismissive 47%; with extra testosterone the split widened to 68% and 32%. Every move turns on one small word — consider, might, helps, decide. On the fourth move Yeager adds: acknowledge they'll make up their own mind, then make clear you're rooting for the good choice, and point out that their actions carry consequences beyond themselves.
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Ifthey say they can't, and they're scared05 · Don't accept excuses, don't dismiss fears
ThenBelieve the fear and keep the demand — then ask what would make it possible.
What it looks like
“I can't present on Thursday. I freeze up in front of people.”
Say this
1 · Believe the fear
“I believe you. That's a real thing and it's not going to feel good.”
2 · Keep the demand
“You're still presenting Thursday. What would make it possible?”
3 · Hand them the problem
“— Maybe if I didn't have to go first.” “You can go third. What else?”
Why
Allow the discomfort without removing the expectation. Anxiety, frustration, even tears can mean a young person is stretching toward something that matters rather than failing at it — what decides which is whether the distress comes with support or with shame. Note the third move: they solve it, not you, which is also why the solution sticks.
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Ifthey're doing the work well, consistently04 · Give responsibility
ThenGive responsibility — hand over a piece of your own support work, one EDGE step at a time.
What it looks like
Nothing is wrong. They have been reliable for weeks — which is exactly why it is easy to leave them exactly where they are.
Do this
Not a sentence — a hand-over. Give them a piece of your support work, the part you have been doing on their behalf, and keep giving away more as each piece holds.
Explain
Say what the piece is and why it matters, so they know what they're taking on.
Demonstrate
Do it once in front of them, talking through what you're doing and why.
Guide
They do it, you're beside them. Help when asked. Let them repeat it until it's theirs.
Enable
Step back and watch. This is the rung most adults never get to, and it is the only one that changes who owns the outcome.
Then start again one level up. At Camp Champions, the players don't attend the basketball camp and help out — they lead it.
Why
There are three rungs — respect their autonomy, presume their agency, then give them responsibility — and a student doing consistently good work has outgrown the first two. The common objection is that this costs you time. Yeager's publisher puts it the other way round: through back-and-forth conversations young people feel empowered and managers transfer responsibility, so the people using the mentor mindset end up with more time, not less. The four steps above are the Boy Scouts' EDGE method — Explain, Demonstrate, Guide, Enable — which is the same hand-over written as a procedure.
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Ifthey're stuck, or the plan is unrealistic07 · Ask, don't tell — Jen's four questions
ThenAsk, don't tell — run the four questions and let them talk themselves into a real plan.
What it looks like
A plan that obviously won't work, and you can see exactly why.
Say this
“What are you planning to work on today?”
“Which part of that matters most right now?”
“Do you have what you need to do that part?”
“If I got you that, how much could you finish today?”
“Try it and come find me if you get stuck.”
Why
Jen met Yeager for fifteen minutes every morning of a twelve-week internship. He arrived each day with an unrealistic plan and she never once corrected it — he talked himself into a real one every time. He finished his list by 3pm daily and the project weeks early, and calls what she gave him a manager in the head. His own read on why it worked: the questions sounded curious and authentic rather than judgmental. Instead of getting angry, get curious.
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Ifyou want to tell them to stop06 · Prohibition raises the status of the thing
ThenDon't prohibit it — show them who profits and let them decide.
What it looks like
Vaping, or whatever you were about to forbid.
Say this
“The companies making those hired the same people who sold cigarettes to your grandparents. They picked the flavors specifically for people your age. Do you want to be their easiest customer?”
Why
Telling youth no often increases the limited thing — the classic “say no to drugs” programmes raised usage. Prohibition hands the behaviour status, and status is the thing they are optimising for. Alex Bogusky's “Truth” campaign was the most successful youth anti-smoking campaign ever run, and it worked by painting the kids as potential high-status heroes rather than as children being told what to do.
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Trust, and the opening move
Ifapproaching a kid, or opening a hard conversation08 · Transparency statement
ThenOpen with a transparency statement — say your intention before anything else.
What it looks like
They can see you coming and they don't know why, so they're already guessing.
Say this
The shape
“Hi — ___ is my intention here.”
Before a hard conversation
“Before we start — my intention here is to figure out what's getting in the way, not to get you in trouble. I'm not writing anything down.”
Why
Kyle Dobson's policing study: officers who approached civilians with no explanation left 70% of them feeling threatened. The same officers, opening with one sentence of intent — “I'm walking around trying to get to know the community” — had conversations twice as long, far more positive, and built real rapport. This is Belief 04 turned into a sentence: whatever you don't say gets guessed at, and the guess runs negative.
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Ifyou keep having the same fight10 · Treaties in the war of meaning
ThenMake a treaty, not a truce — run the six questions.
What it looks like
The third time this month, and it always ends the same way.
Say this
Their meaning
“What does this mean to you?”
“How is that meaning making you feel?”
“Is that serving your goals?”
Another meaning
“What is something else it could mean?”
“How would it make you feel if you thought that?”
“Would that serve your goals?”
Why
From Lorena Seidel. Make treaties, not truces — a truce just ends the fighting. A treaty means both sides assessed their needs, both know what the other needs in order to thrive, both agreed the terms, and either can reopen them. “The generational divide is a war of meaning,” and you don't win a war of meaning by being right.
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Ifyou don't know what they actually want16 · Mix of motives
ThenKeep asking “what else?” until you have the whole mix of motives.
What it looks like
They gave you a reason, you took it, and the conversation stalled anyway.
Say this
“What else matters to you here?”
“What else does this mean to you?”
Why
As Adam Grant argues in Give and Take, the biggest winners hold other people's goals and feelings high and do the same with their own, then find the answer that meets both. Kids want that too. So when you're working on a young person's purpose, learn all the motives rather than the first one they hand you — which is Warren Buffett's “what else?” doing the same job in a negotiation.
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When they doubt themselves
Ifa student is stressed, and worried about being stressed11 · Stress reappraisal
ThenDo stress re-appraisal — the pounding heart is the body getting them ready, not a warning.
What it looks like
Racing heart, shallow breath, ten minutes before it starts.
Say this
“Your heart pounding right now — that's not a sign you're going to fail. That's your body pushing more oxygen to your brain. It's getting you ready. People who feel that usually do better, not worse.”
Why
Note what is not said: calm down. The arousal stays exactly where it is; what changes is what they think it means — a threat response becomes a challenge response. And the claim is true, which is why it survives a student who is sceptical of pep talks. Jamieson et al. 2010: GRE maths 705 → 770. Jamieson et al. 2016, 93 community-college developmental maths students across five semesters — and the control group there was told to ignore their stress, which is the comparison reappraisal beat. In stressful situations demands exceed resources, so the mentor raises the resources rather than lowering the standard.
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Ifthey say they're not smart enough12 · Synergistic mindsets
ThenRun synergistic mindsets — validate, then a growth reframe, then stress re-appraisal.
What it looks like
“I don't think I'm good enough for the next level.”
Say this
Validate
“I'm glad you said that out loud. Most people are thinking it and don't ask.”
Growth mindset
“The next level isn't a test of how smart you are. It's where you build the thing you don't have yet.”
Stress reappraisal
“And it's going to feel bad while you're building it. That feeling isn't evidence you were right about yourself — it's what learning something hard feels like from the inside.”
Why
Neither half does much alone. Teach that ability can grow without teaching that the strain of growing it is useful, and the difficulty itself reads as proof they can't. That is the whole finding. Yeager, Bryan, Gross, Murray, Krettek Cobb, Santos, Graveling, Johnson & Jamieson 2022, Nature 607(7919), 512–520. Yeager's Box 7.6 is the full worked script with each move labelled inline.
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Ifthey feel like they don't belong17 · The belonging story, in four beats
ThenHand them a previous student's belonging story, in four beats.
What it looks like
“Everyone else already knows how this works.” They go quiet rather than ask.
Say this
You don't say it — a previous student does, in writing, and this one reads it.
1 · Struggle is normal
“My first few weeks I thought I was the only one who didn't get it. Everyone else seemed to already know how the whole thing worked, and I didn't want to say anything and look like I didn't belong.”
2 · Change was possible
“Then I noticed my guide asked questions instead of just telling people they were wrong, and I figured maybe not knowing was allowed here.”
3 · What they actually did
“So I started saying when I was stuck. I asked another student to walk me through the app. I started going to my guide with what I'd already tried instead of waiting to be asked.”
4 · Snowball
“By the spring I was the one other people came to. It's still hard. It's just not lonely anymore.”
Why
Competence and belonging are tightly bound: normalize, then change is possible, then action steps, then a snowball — and a happy ending that doesn't promise the struggle ends. Yeager's Figure 9.4 annotates a real UT student's version, and the instructive part is the proportion: struggle takes roughly half the story, the pivot is a single sentence, and the action steps are three ordinary requests for help. Collect 3–8 of these from interviews with previous students. Walton & Cohen 2011, Science, N = 92 — the Black–white GPA gap cut 52% over three years, from one hour.
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Ifthey're carrying a grudge from being hurt18 · People can change
ThenChange the belief that character is fixed — people can change.
What it looks like
Someone bullied or excluded them, and they are still carrying it.
Say this
Tell the story first: an adult runs into the person who bullied them in high school. The bully has changed — they regret it, they still think about it, and they ask to be understood as someone who did it in a misguided attempt to gain status. That encounter lets the adult realise people can change, and the hatred and shame start turning into something closer to pity, which doesn't consume them.
Then the four steps
1. Adolescence is a time of seeking status and respect, and that drive leads some young people to do harmful things. Bullying is a status move, not evidence of character.
2. Kids who bully need to learn different ways of behaving — a missing skill, not a fixed trait.
3. As the brain matures they learn to change, often by finding more productive outlets for the same appetite for status, like leadership. The drive doesn't go away; it gets redirected.
4. People who are shy and have few friends can also change, once they feel comfortable. So even if some peers exclude them now, they can still have a good social life later.
Why
It never asks anyone to forgive anyone. It changes one belief — that character is fixed — and lets the emotion follow. Hatred requires believing the person is permanently that way; remove the belief and the emotion has nowhere to sit. And watch step 4, which turns the whole thing around: steps 1–3 are about the person who hurt them, step 4 is about them. If character isn't fixed, that applies to their own social standing too — which is the part they were actually worried about.
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When they don't see the point
Ifthey ask why they have to learn this13 · Purpose now, and make the argument broad
ThenGive purpose now, not later — and make the argument broad.
What it looks like
“When am I ever going to use this?”
Say this
Broad, not narrow
“Maths and writing make your brain stronger, and a stronger brain is how you get to fix things that are actually broken.”
Now, not later
“Study this bit of history hard because on Thursday you're interviewing someone who lived through it.”
Why
Future payoffs don't move adolescents; present meaning does. And narrow relevance excludes most of the room — “you'll use this in a sales or finance job” is an argument for the four kids who want that job and a reason to switch off for everyone else. One caution from the book: don't cause anxiety while encouraging purpose. It is not an all-or-nothing proposition, and a student who hasn't found a cause yet hasn't failed at anything.
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Ifthey see no reason for any of it15 · Purpose intervention
ThenRun a purpose intervention — and they write it, not you.
What it looks like
They're settled, they're fine socially, and they still won't work.
Say this
“Read these three. Then write your own — what's something wrong in the world that you'd want to be able to fix, and what would you need to know to fix it? Write it for whoever's sitting in your seat next year.”
Why
Same delivery as belonging — the student writes it, not you — but aimed at a different question. Belonging answers do I fit here; purpose answers why does this matter. A student can feel entirely at home and still see no reason to do the work, and running the wrong one wastes the intervention, so diagnose before you pick. Yeager, Henderson, Paunesku, Walton, D'Mello, Spitzer & Duckworth 2014, JPSP 107(4): self-transcendent purpose, d = 0.21 for low performers, 0.06 and not significant for high performers.
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Ifthey're behind, and you want to lower the bar19 · Inclusive excellence
ThenInclusive excellence — hold the bar exactly where it is and raise the support.
What it looks like
They're behind, they know it, and the kind thing looks like an easier version.
Say this
“The bar doesn't move for you. What moves is how much support you get to reach it. Here's what's available, and here's how much of it I think you should take.”
Why
Uri Treisman's version is the sharpest. He found the Berkeley calculus students who were failing weren't short on ability or motivation — they were studying alone. So he built structured group work that was harder than the regular course. The fix was more difficulty plus more company, not less difficulty. Keivan Stassun's Fisk–Vanderbilt Master's-to-PhD Bridge Program became the largest US producer of Black and Latino PhDs in physics and astronomy with no lowered admissions standard.
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The nineteen techniques
The same material indexed by name, for when you already know what you're looking for. Each one opens to the detail that doesn't fit on a card.
Feedback and correction
01Wise feedback“I have high standards and I'm giving you this feedback because I know you can reach them.”
Yeager's exact nineteen-word formulation from the seventh-grade experiment: “I'm giving you these comments because I have very high standards and I know that you can reach them.” Revision rates 17% → 71% among Black students; among Black students with low trust in their teachers, 0% → 82%. Cohen, Steele & Ross 1999; Yeager et al. 2014, JEP: General, three double-blind randomized field experiments.
Use it at
02No negative, only supportNever demean the person or their performance. Address the work, the situation or the feeling.
Chip Engelland's whole correction is “How did that feel?” Socrates answered an insult with a question rather than addressing the man. The standard is untouched — only the characterisation goes.
Use it at
03Assure long-term commitmentState the commitment before it's needed, not after the failure.
Jen did this at the end of every morning meeting — she told Yeager to try the plan and come back if he got stuck, before he had gotten stuck. Afterwards, the move is to name the thing that hasn't changed: the standard is still the standard, and you are still here.
Use it at
09The do-overGo back, apologise for not upholding the standard, then ask curious, authentic questions.
From Lorena Seidel. Three parts — name what you did, name the standard you broke, hand them the floor. The apology alone isn't the technique; the question after it is. Implementation failure is guaranteed, which is what makes this the most realistic tool in the book.
Use it at
Getting them to act
04Give responsibilityThree rungs — respect autonomy, presume agency, give responsibility. Only the third changes who owns it.
The players lead the basketball camp, they don't attend it (Camp Champions). And the objection that mentoring costs time runs backwards: through back-and-forth conversations young people feel empowered and responsibility transfers, so mentors end up with more time, not less.
The hand-over has a procedure, and it isn't Yeager's — the Boy Scouts formalised it in the 1970s as EDGE: Explain what it is and why it matters, Demonstrate it once while narrating, Guide them through it as they practise, then Enable — step back and watch. Each step gives away more of the support work until none of it is yours.
Use it at
05Don't accept excuses, don't dismiss fearsBelieve the fear. Keep the demand. Then ask what would make it possible.
Allow discomfort without removing expectations. Anxiety, frustration, even tears can mean a young person is stretching toward something meaningful rather than failing — what decides which is whether the distress arrives with support or with shame.
Use it at
06Telling youth no often increases the thingProhibition raises the status of what's prohibited. Saying no to drugs increased usage.
Alex Bogusky's “Truth” campaign was the most successful campaign ever run at getting youth not to smoke, and it worked by painting them as potential high-status heroes rather than as children being instructed.
Use it at
07The four moves of a respectful requestAsk don't tell · honor their status not yours · validate and explain don't diminish · presume agency.
Yeager's Figure 1.3 (p. 50) sets the respectful and disrespectful Vegemite scripts side by side with the four moves labelled in the margin. Respectful got 66% compliance against 47%; with extra testosterone, 68% against 32%. Every move turns on one small word — consider, might, helps, decide.
Yeager's instruction on the fourth move: acknowledge the young person will make up their own mind, then make clear you're rooting for them to make the good choice. Pointing out that their actions carry broader consequences is also part of presuming agency.
Ask, don't tell, applied elsewhere
Never open a correction with wrong. Engelland: “How did that feel?” Estrada: “Can you tell me how you got this answer?” Stef: “Can you tell me where you're getting stuck and what you've tried so we can fix the problem?” Jen's four questions ran a twelve-week internship without a single correction. Related terms from the book: authentic questions, questions with uptake, collaborative troubleshooting. Instead of getting angry, get curious.
Use it at
Trust
08Transparency“Hi, ___ is my intention here.” Explain why you're giving feedback, don't just give it.
Kyle Dobson's policing study: officers who approached civilians with no explanation left 70% feeling threatened. The same officers opening with “I'm walking around trying to get to know the community” had conversations twice as long, far more positive, and built real rapport. This is what gets you over the barrier of mistrust.
Use it at
10Creating treaties in the war of meaningSix questions in two halves — their meaning, then an alternative one.
From Lorena Seidel. What does this mean to you? How is that meaning making you feel? Is that serving your goals? Then: What is something else it could mean? How would it make you feel if you thought that? Would that serve your goals?
A treaty, not a truce: both sides assess needs, both are aware of what the other needs in order to thrive, both mutually agree the terms, and either can renegotiate with the lines of communication kept open. “The generational divide is a war of meaning.”
Use it at
16Mix of motivesLearn all the motives, not the first one they hand you. “What else matters to you here?”
As in Adam Grant's Give and Take, the greatest winners in life hold others' goals and feelings high and do the same with their own, then find answers meeting both requirements. Kids want this too. Warren Buffett's “what else?” is the same instrument in a negotiation.
Use it at
Meaning and purpose
13Connect to meaning and purpose now, not in the futureMake broad arguments, not narrow ones. And don't cause anxiety while encouraging purpose.
Study hard for a future job, versus study history hard because you're interviewing someone interesting. Instead of “you may use maths in a sales or finance job,” try “maths and writing make your brain stronger, which helps you improve the world.” Purpose is not an all-or-nothing proposition and shouldn't be delivered as one.
Use it at
14Values-alignment interventionsAlign the behaviour with autonomy, status and fairness — what they already value — not a future benefit.
Make the adult the ally against a manipulator rather than the manipulator. The study version had students graffiti fast-food posters to make them actually true statements: high status plus rebellion against control. Bryan, Yeager, Hinojosa et al. 2016, PNAS 113(39) — double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, 536 eighth-graders, the entire eighth grade of a Texas middle school.
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15Purpose interventionsThe student writes it. Belonging answers “do I fit here”; purpose answers “why does this matter”.
Students identify a problem in the world they care about, read short accounts from other students describing how caring about something beyond themselves made them work harder, then write their own version addressed to future students. Running the wrong one — belonging when they needed purpose — wastes the intervention.
Yeager, Henderson, Paunesku, Walton, D'Mello, Spitzer & Duckworth 2014, JPSP 107(4). Self-transcendent purpose: d = 0.21 for low performers, 0.06 and not significant for high performers.
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Belief change
17Competence is very related to belongingNormalize → change is possible → action steps → snowball. Four beats, written by a previous student.
Struggle is normal, so they are not alone or uniquely deficient. An example of how change was possible. What actions the student took once they saw it. How those steps snowballed — a happy ending that doesn't promise the struggle ends.
Yeager's Figure 9.4 (p. 242) annotates a real UT student's example with the four beats marked in the margin, and the instructive part is the proportion: struggle takes roughly half the story, the pivot is a single sentence, and the action steps are three ordinary requests for help — a lab mate, a friend, office hours. Collect 3–8 such stories from interviews with previous students, then edit them into the right order. Walton & Cohen 2011, Science, N = 92; the Black–white GPA gap cut 52% over three years.
Use it at
18People can changeA separate intervention from the belonging story, though they sit close together in the chapter. p. 248.
What they did
High schoolers were told a story about an adult who ran into someone who had bullied them back in high school. The former bully had changed — they regretted it, admitted they still think about it, and asked to be understood as someone who had done it out of a misguided attempt to gain status. The story then explained how that chance encounter helped the adult realise that people can change, and how that realisation let them process what they had been carrying; the hatred and shame started turning into something closer to pity, which didn't consume them.
Then the science of how people change
1. Adolescence is a time of seeking status and respect, and that drive can lead some young people to do harmful things. Bullying gets explained as a status move, not as evidence of character.
2. Kids who bully need to learn different ways of behaving. The problem is framed as a missing skill.
3. As the brain matures, young people learn to change their behaviour — for example by finding more productive outlets for the same appetite for status, such as leadership. The drive doesn't go away; it gets redirected.
4. People who are shy and have few friends can also change. They can learn to be more social once they feel comfortable, so even if some peers exclude them now, they can still have a good social life later.
Step 4 turns the intervention around. Steps 1–3 are about the person who hurt them; step 4 is about the student themselves — if character isn't fixed, that applies to their own social standing too, which is the part they are actually worried about.
What it's doing
It isn't asking anyone to forgive anyone. It changes one belief — that character is fixed — and lets the emotion follow. Hatred requires believing the person is permanently that way. Remove the belief and the emotion has nowhere to sit.
Use it at
Stress and the standard
11Stress re-appraisalDemands exceed resources, so raise the resources. Never “calm down”.
Threat response versus challenge response. The arousal stays exactly where it is; what changes is what the student thinks it means — and the claim is true, which is why it survives a student sceptical of pep talks.
Jamieson, Mendes, Blackstock & Schmader 2010, “Turning the knots in your stomach into bows,” JESP 46(1), 208–212 — GRE maths 705 → 770. Jamieson, Peters, Greenwood & Altose 2016, SPPS — 93 community-college developmental maths students across five semesters, where the control group was told to ignore their stress. See also the TSST, the Trier Social Stress Test.
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12Synergistic mindsetsGrowth mindset and stress reappraisal together. Neither alone does much.
Teach that ability can grow without teaching that the strain of growing it is useful, and the difficulty reads as proof they can't. Yeager's Box 7.6 is a full worked script — a student asks whether they're good enough for college and the reply moves through validation, then a growth reframe, then stress reappraisal, with each move labelled inline. Yeager, Bryan, Gross, Murray, Krettek Cobb, Santos, Graveling, Johnson & Jamieson 2022, Nature 607(7919), 512–520.
Use it at
19Inclusive excellenceMore opportunity to get better, never a lower bar. p. 258.
Uri Treisman — Berkeley calculus. He found Black students weren't failing from lack of ability or motivation but from studying alone, and built structured group work harder than the regular course. More difficulty plus more company, not less difficulty.
Keivan Stassun — the Fisk–Vanderbilt Master's-to-PhD Bridge Program, which became the largest US producer of Black and Latino PhDs in physics and astronomy with no lowered admissions standard. He has been published in Nature thirteen times.
Use it at
Sources
Every technique, every name and every piece of evidence on this page is David Yeager's, from 10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People. The tool is mine; the content is his. If any of this is useful, buy the book — it is considerably better than a web page.
- Wise feedback — Cohen, Steele & Ross 1999; Yeager et al. 2014, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Three double-blind randomized field experiments with seventh-graders.
- The Vegemite study and the four moves — Yeager's Figure 1.3, p. 50.
- Transparency statement — Kyle Dobson's policing field study.
- Values alignment — Bryan, Yeager, Hinojosa et al. 2016, PNAS 113(39). Double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, 536 eighth-graders.
- Belonging — Walton & Cohen 2011, Science. N = 92; the Black–white GPA gap cut 52% over three years, from one hour. The four beats are Yeager's Figure 9.4, p. 242.
- Purpose — Yeager, Henderson, Paunesku, Walton, D'Mello, Spitzer & Duckworth 2014, JPSP 107(4). d = 0.21 for low performers; 0.06 and not significant for high performers.
- Stress reappraisal — Jamieson, Mendes, Blackstock & Schmader 2010, JESP 46(1), 208–212; Jamieson, Peters, Greenwood & Altose 2016, SPPS.
- Synergistic mindsets — Yeager, Bryan, Gross, Murray, Krettek Cobb, Santos, Graveling, Johnson & Jamieson 2022, Nature 607(7919), 512–520.
- People can change — p. 248. Inclusive excellence — p. 258.
- The do-over and the six questions — Lorena Seidel.
- The alternative to the incompetence model — Ron Dahl; The Promise of Adolescence, National Academies, 2019.
- EDGE is the one thing here that is not Yeager's — Explain, Demonstrate, Guide, Enable was formalised by the Boy Scouts of America in the 1970s. It appears on this page because it is the clearest existing procedure for the hand-over that “give responsibility” asks for.
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