Abstract
Self-tracking technologies aim to offer a better understanding of ourselves through data, create self-awareness, and facilitate healthy behavior change. Despite such promising objectives, very little is known about whether the implicit beliefs users may have about the changeability of their own behavior influence the way they experience self-tracking. These implicit beliefs about the permanence of the abilities are called mindsets; someone with a fixed mindset typically perceives human qualities (e.g., intelligence) as fixed, while someone with a growth mindset perceives them as amenable to change and improvement through learning. This paper investigates the concept of mindset in the context of self-tracking and uses online survey data from individuals wearing a self-tracking device (n = 290) to explore the ways in which users with different mindsets experience self-tracking. A combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches indicates that implicit beliefs about the changeability of behavior influence the extent to which users are self-determined toward self-tracking use. Moreover, differences were found in how users perceive and respond to failure, and how self-judgmental vs. self-compassionate they are toward their own mistakes. Overall, considering that how users respond to the self-tracking data is one of the core dimensions of self-tracking, our results suggest that mindset is one of the important determinants in shaping the self-tracking experience. This paper concludes by presenting design considerations and directions for future research.
Highlights
Self-tracking tools collect behavioral and bodily data and provide feedback to the user
We tested two hypotheses; (H1) we expected that users with a growth mindset would be more autonomously motivated toward the use of self-tracking than those with a fixed mindset and (H2) that people with a growth mindset would be more self-compassionate toward themselves when faced with a disappointing performance
To arrive at a fixed vs. growth mindset dichotomy, we split our complete sample based on z-scores of the mindset measurement with a z-score = 0 as a cut-off point, creating two groups: people with a positive z-score are grouped as growth mindset (n = 120) and people with a negative z-score are grouped as fixed mindset (n = 170)
Summary
Self-tracking tools collect behavioral and bodily data and provide feedback to the user. Despite the rising popularity of self-tracking tools and practices, very little is known about whether and to what extent the implicit beliefs users hold about the changeability of their own behavior influence how they evaluate and respond to selftracking data. Such implicit beliefs, or mindsets, refer to the attitudes an individual holds in regard to the extent to which human qualities or abilities are malleable [3]. The findings from recent studies, including those of Yeager et al [4], who performed a preregistered study, and a meta-analysis conducted by Mindset and Self-Tracking
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