Dr. Alia Crum

Or do you believe it's malleable?

It can grow, it can improve, it can change.

The work that we do in our lab is looking at mindsets about things related to our health.

So take stress.

Do you believe that stress is going to kill you or is it going to make you stronger?

What's your belief about healthy food?

Do you believe healthy foods are the disgusting and depriving option?

Or do you believe healthy foods are actually indulgent and delicious?

What about cancer?

Do you believe that cancer is an unmitigated catastrophe?

Or might cancer be manageable?

Might it even be an opportunity to make positive changes in your lives?

So these mindsets, Mel, they're not true or false.

They're not right or wrong.

They're oversimplified, highly evaluative judgments about the nature of these things.

But they matter in shaping our lives.

In fact, they create our realities.

And they create our realities not through some kind of magic, but by design.

So our mindsets change what we pay attention to.

If you believe the world is dangerous, you're going to see more danger in the world.