Can Thinking Become the Truth? Only if One Believes

Iris Zhou 

30 December 2024 

In recent decades, the power of mindset has been considered unproven pseudoscience. In fact, this has not been unreasonable to think. Taking manifestation as an example, some claims like in Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, such as those about the power of the laws of attraction and visualization, are untested (Dixon et al. 49). Instances like this one reflect the reality that different studies and contexts have shown heterogeneous results, as some experiments have found that mindsets have an effect while others have failed to; explaining much of the skepticism (Yeager and Dweck 1-2).

However, doubt of the power of mindset is largely due to the lack of academic attention that this topic has received despite it becoming increasingly relevant (Dixon et al. 49). Although the power of mindset has frequently been considered pseudoscience in earlier decades, recent research suggests that a mindset impacts physical and mental health resulting in different lifetime achievements and capacity to be happy. 

Different mindsets impact the development and severity of physical medical conditions. A negative mindset, for instance, is a factor in injuries and overall health progressing negatively, and may undermine the effectiveness of certain treatments, causing increased pain. When a standardized four millimeter punch biopsy was administered to each person in a group of men to simulate getting a wound, those who were categorized as healing slowly versus quickly were significantly more pessimistic (Scheier and Carver 5). As suggested, those with a negative mindset are more likely to heal slowly, putting them more at risk of prolonged injury that may

lead to further health problems. Specifically, mindsets involving a high level of stress can be so detrimental to physical health to the point of a shortened life, as “reporting a lot of stress and perceiving that stress affected one’s health a lot increased the risk of premature death by forty-three percent” (Keller et al. 7). When facing a chronic disease or a life-threatening injury, the effect of negative stress may be especially harmful as it, as demonstrated, greatly increases risk of premature death. The extent of the impact of stress on health not only shows that mindset can determine whether a disease develops or diminishes, but that a non-harmful mindset is crucial for a longer life. Further, a negative mindset can cause pain to increase even when a person interacts with neutral stimuli, causing some treatments to become ineffective. When tactile non-painful stimuli as well as electric painful stimuli were separately administered to a group of healthy volunteers together with the verbal suggestion that these stimuli would cause increased pain, all of those who expected a negative outcome or an increase in pain experienced intensified pain. Tactile non-painful stimuli caused pain even though they were not inherently painful to touch, and the electric painful stimuli caused a higher intensity of pain than they would have otherwise caused. Several of the pain-related regions of the brain (the anterior cingulate cortex, prefrontal cortex, insula, and hippocampus) in the volunteers were all activated when pain was expected, proving this (Benedetti et al. 341-342). Receiving verbal suggestions influences a person’s perception of a treatment – modeled by the stimuli, and when they mentally interpret it as bad, they may feel the consequences when experiencing pain. If their perspective is consistently a negative one, where the person is constantly surrounded by suggestions that predict things getting worse, they are likely to feel increased pain and discomfort in the context of physical health.

On the other hand, a positive mindset can activate placebo treatments, reduce pain, and reduce the negative impact of a disease. Amongst people with Parkinson’s disease, when people expected improvement in their physical condition during a placebo treatment, the release of dopamine occurred in their brains and their motor performance improved (Atlas and Wager 10). Positive mindsets are crucial for placebo treatments to be effective, in this instance causing the release of dopamine, allowing the brain to pick up a reward learning signal that effectively treated their disease and caused a beneficial result. Knowing that the expectation of good results is correlated to the effectiveness of placebo treatments, pain reduction can therefore also be linked back to a positive mindset. During pain, placebos caused increased functional magnetic resonance imaging responses as well as increased opioid and dopamine activity – both in the nucleus accumbens–ventral striatum, a brain region that is associated with positive emotions, motivational engagement, and self-regulation-caused reduction of pain (Atlas and Wager 9). When placebo treatments are effective, they end up increasing the chance of beneficial results, specifically by activating brain regions that improve a person’s emotions and allow them to self-regulate their own experience of pain. This may also explain the fact that those who are optimistic are less likely to develop new cases of congenital heart disease (CHD), less likely to die from CHD, and nine to thirty percent less likely to die from all other causes (Scheier and Carver 6). Mindsets can not only change the direction of how a disease is progressing, but may contribute to a better life in the long-term, demonstrating that those who do think positively are immensely benefited. 

In addition to having an effect on physical health, the way one thinks also reflects one’s mental health. On one hand, negative mindsets play a role in exacerbating negative thinking patterns, increasing the risk of mental conditions. For example, in one study, in a period of six months during the COVID-19 pandemic, those who believed that the pandemic was a “catastrophe” experienced more negative effects throughout that time compared to those who had optimistic mindsets: worse well-being in addition to more frequent feelings of isolation and meaninglessness (Zion et al. 6). This indicates that a negative mindset amidst a difficult event causes that event to affect a person more negatively than it may have otherwise. Furthermore, from a general perspective, those with fixed mindsets were also more at risk for mental health issues. “The association between youth fixed mindset and mental health problems remained regardless of type of mental health issue” (Kapasi and Pei 65). Poor mental health is undeniably linked to negative thinking. 

However, positive mindsets promote a healthier outlook on life and are correlated to a lower risk of mental health issues. In the same COVID-19 pandemic study, those who were able to see the pandemic as an “opportunity” detailed fewer feelings of isolation and meaningless, more positive experiences, and better quality of life throughout the six month period (Zion et al. 5). These reports demonstrate how different outlooks – one seeing the pandemic in a positive light, one seeing the pandemic in a negative light – potentially change one’s mental health drastically. Additionally, in a different study conducted on a group of students that all reported low well-being in sixth grade; students with growth mindsets were more likely than students with fixed mindsets to report an increase in well-being by the end of eighth grade (Kapasi and Pei 66). This illustrates how a positive mindset not only correlates to better mental health in general, but also a better ability to improve mental health over time. Lastly, this ability to maintain one’s well-being is also connected to a lower risk of depression, as middle schoolers with growth mindsets towards their emotional states – believing they were in control of their emotions – reported less depressive symptoms (Kapasi and Pei 66). The impacts of mindset are far reaching

in the context of mental health issues such as depression and a person’s overall ability to move past difficult events. 

Mindset’s effect on health eventually transfers to the levels of success a person is able to achieve at different stages in life. In students, different mindsets reflect healthier or unhealthier approaches to learning, impacting academic success. Students with fixed mindsets are more likely to be unable to face challenges and failure as well as focus heavily on outcome versus process, which is linked to them usually having worse academic performance overall than students with growth mindsets (Kapasi and Pei 60-61). Fixed mindsets often end up leading to an unhealthy focus on outcome, which detracts from seeing learning as a journey instead – using healthy learning strategies and showing perseverance. In contrast, since students with positive mindsets show greater capacity to persevere, they see increased academic success. During the COVID-19 pandemic, students with a growth mindset were more resilient to challenges as they were more likely to use adaptive coping strategies like planning, positive reframing, and self-distraction instead of maladaptive coping strategies (Janssen and Van Attenveldt 9-10). Students with growth mindsets usually show less focus on outcome, allowing them to seek healthy strategies. In the end, growth mindsets are linked to higher grades and achievement (Kapasi and Pei 60). 

Throughout life, mindsets also affect overall happiness. Manifestation is the belief that one can bring about one’s success through positive thinking, visualization, and acting as if one’s desires have come true (Dixon et al. 49). In the same way positive mindsets affect physical and mental health as well as academics, manifestation does not necessarily promise success but instead increases one’s chances of approaching events with an accepting, growth-oriented attitude. Therefore, though believing in manifestation can be thought of as having a positivemindset, if one believes too strongly in this way of thinking without regard for its possible flaws, and focuses too heavily on the outcome, belief in manifestation can function the same way as a negative mindset. For instance, believers are more likely to trust unrealistic information they are told by those who promise unlikely success schemes or advertisements (Dixon et al. 62). In addition, “manifesters were more likely to have a stronger preference for risk-taking, have riskier investments (i.e., cryptocurrency versus traditional stocks), and have been bankrupt” (Dixon et al. 61). However, belief in manifestation still furthered people’s ability to believe in themselves, and to consistently seek success despite obstacles, even though manifestation did not always promise immediate material success. Positive mindsets are linked to viewing oneself positively, believing in one’s chance of success, and believing in the ability to achieve one’s life goals, even if they seem unattainable (Dixon et al. 61). Most importantly, long-term happiness is the most valuable result from having a good financial situation. Activating the parasympathetic system through manifestation can lead to “eudaimonia happiness”, a deep, long-lasting feeling (“How to Manifest”). Ultimately, instead of a perfect path to financial success, mindsets can be seen as an indicator of how likely a person is to grow throughout their journey to achieve their life goals, as well as an indicator of how happy they are while doing so. 

Mindsets are not only significant in determining physical and mental health, but affect academic success and most importantly satisfaction throughout life. These newer conclusions about the power of mindset are an important step forward in discovering more accessible medical treatments for diseases, understanding how mental conditions develop, and promoting a better quality of life for all people, especially with the fast pace of and tendency to reinforce the negative as opposed to the positive in modern society. Future research regarding mindsets may also continue to support the notion that “mindsets are neither universally good or bad, but rather relate to different patterns of behaviors, emotions, and well-being over time” (Zion et al. 6). Though mindsets do fluctuate, it is important for one to keep in mind that if one chooses to try to see life positively – intentionally having good expectations, seeing obstacles as opportunities for growth, and believing in one’s potential – even the most unlikely of outcomes may become reality.

Works Cited 

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"How To Manifest Your Future Using Neuroscience, with James Doty." Big Brains, episode 140, 24 May 2024. University of Chicago News, 

news.uchicago.edu/manifest-your-future-using-neuroscience-james-doty. Accessed 17 Sept. 2024. 

Janssen, T.W.P., and N. Van Attenveldt. "Coping styles mediate the relation between mindset and academic resilience in adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic: a randomized controlled trial." Scientific Reports, vol. 13, 13 Apr. 2023. Nature, 

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-33392-9. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024. 

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Keller, Abiola, et al. "Does the Perception that Stress Affects Health Matter? The Association with Health and Mortality." Health Psychology, vol. 31, no. 5, 26 Dec. 2011, pp. 674-88. Pub Med, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3374921/. Accessed 3 Oct. 2024. 

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