For a teenager who has been bullied, it can feel like everyone is against him, and every comment can turn into a snide remark. Yet research shows middle and high school social dynamics are constantly in flux, and today's victim may be tomorrow's harasser and next Monday's staunch defender. A new study suggests that helping teenagers understand how people change in different situations can reduce their own hostility.
In "Implicit Theories of Personality and Attributions of Hostile Intent...," published this morning in the journal Child Development, researchers led by David Scott Yeager of the University of Texas at Austin, and including Adriana Miu of Emory University and Joseph Powers and Carol S. Dweck of Stanford University, built in part on Dweck's work on how a student's mindset affects how he or she experiences the world.
