To better understand your temperament, read Mindset by Carol Dweck and Learned Optimism by Marty Seligman.

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She points to research by Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck, Ph.

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When I was a graduate student at Columbia, my mentor Carol Dweck and another student, Claudia Mueller, conducted a study looking at the effects of different kinds of praise on fifth-graders.

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Melissa Kamins, who worked with Dr. Dweck, discovered that children who primarily receive personal praise ("how smart you are") rather than kudos for their efforts are more likely to develop fixed views of intelligence.

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