@article {28535,
	title = {Can a brief intervention alter genetic and environmental influences on psychological traits? An experimental behavioral genetics approach},
	journal = {Learning and Motivation},
	volume = {72},
	year = {2020},
	abstract = {Mindset interventions are designed to encourage students to adopt a\&nbsp;<em>growth mindset</em>, reflecting the belief that one{\textquoteright}s intelligence can be improved in an effort to increase academic achievement. How do these interventions exert their effects? We assessed the effects of an online mindset intervention on mindset and four outcome variables, grit, locus of control, challenge-seeking behavior, and cognitive ability test performance in a sample of 1668 twins in 840 families. The mindset intervention successfully induced a growth mindset, but had no effect on the outcome variables. Biometric modeling of self-reported mindset before and after the intervention further revealed that this mean change in mindset was accompanied by changes in its etiology. At baseline, nonshared environmental contributions to individual differences in mindset predominated, while additive genetic contributions were small-to-moderate and shared environmental contributions were negligible. After the intervention, there was an increase in additive genetic contributions to individual differences in mindset. In other words, despite its very brief nature, our simple environmental intervention acted to increase the heritability of mindset. Such findings suggest that interventions may sometimes exert their effects by altering the genetic influences on a trait.},
	author = {Alexander P Burgoyne and Sarah Carroll and D Angus Clark and David Z Hambrick and Kathryn S Plaisance and Kelly L Klump and S Alexandra Burt}
}
