“We were surprised when we saw those differences emerge in the smaller condition,” Howe told me. “One reason for it might be that if someone rejects you without even getting to know you first, you might wonder if there is some quality about you that is so obviously undesirable that a virtual stranger would say, ‘No, no thanks, not interested.’”
Because these findings were correlational(相关的), Howe and Dweck conducted a fifth study to try to establish causality(因果关系). They primed 121 subjects to adopt a certain mindset before thinking about a hypothetical rejection: One group read articles describing how personality traits seem set in stone after young adulthood (i.e., “3 Critical Factors That Shape Who You Are”); the second group read about how these traits can be developed anytime (“3 Key Ways to Shape Who You Are”).
You can probably guess the results. People induced(引导) to adopt fixed mindsets were more concerned that the fake rejection would change how they and others saw themselves. They reported feeling worse about themselves, and they thought rejection would happen again. This, the researchers say, suggests causal evidence that even being exposed to the idea that personality traits are fixed can make it harder for people to recover from rejection.
Two other things are worth noting from the study. First, perhaps surprisingly, no consistent gender effects appeared throughout the experiments. Second, life satisfaction was uncorrelated with implicit theories and self-esteem, suggesting that people with a more fixed mindset are not generally more discontent(不满意的;不满足的=unsatisfactory) than others.
Of course, romantic rejection is very different from other kinds of rejection, but could these findings still apply to rejections we experience in our careers and social circles? Howe said they did think the findings could generalize(普遍化) more broadly, perhaps in other types of social relationships (with friends and family, for example) and in contexts that aren’t interpersonal (academic or career failures), but they’d have to conduct actual studies in those domains to know for sure.
“Imagine you’re rejected for a job that you’re really interested in. You might start asking yourself, ‘What skills do I lack? What things don’t make me a good employee? I thought I was well suited for this position, but I guess I was wrong. What does this say about me?’” Howe said. “I think it could play out similarly, but we’d have to do work to confirm that.”
It also isn’t clear whether people always have the same mindset. Howe said that some research shows it can be domain-specific — so you might have a fixed theory of intelligence and a growth theory about personality. (豪认为，一些研究表明思维模式可能是场景决定的--因此，就智力而言，你可能持固定理论，就个性而言，你可能持成长理论。) Researchers are still studying how we develop these mindsets.
But the important thing to remember is that it seems like people can change how they think about personality traits, as the fifth study attests to(证实 =confirm, testify). “I think a lot of us have a gut instinct to question ourselves in the face of rejection,” Howe said, “but we’ll be better off pausing and taking a moment to think about what happened that wasn’t about us. What were the situational factors that might have led to this outcome? What was going on with the timing or with the other person?” (豪说：“我认为面临被拒绝时，许多人的第一直觉就是怀疑自己，然而，如果我们停下来稍微想一想发生的事情跟我们是谁无关会更好。导致这种解决的环境因素有哪些?是不是时机或者别人有问题?)
Vocabulary
for the most part 就绝大多数而言
resilient 有弹性的
differentiate 区分
mechanism 机制
implicit 隐含的
malleable 可以锻造的;可以改变的
chronically 长期地
stall 避免;拖延
assess 评估;评价
impact 冲击力;影响力
alter 改变
endorse 同意;签署
reminisce 回忆
pessimistic 悲观的
scenario 场合;场景
correlational 互为相关的
causality 因果关系
induce 引导;诱使
discontent 不满足的
generalize 使泛化;归纳
attest to... 证实
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