The Recursive Cycle of Perceived Mindset and Psychological Distress in College

College students are experiencing a significant mental health crisis, with rising rates of psychological distress. To help understand this trend, this study examines recursive relationships in the classroom between perceived mindset beliefs—that is, whether students perceive others in their classroom to view intelligence as malleable or fixed—and psychological distress. Across three time points, 288 undergraduates taking a physics course completed measures of perceived classroom mindset and psychological distress. Random intercept cross-lagged panel analyses, which controlled for demographic factors and students’ own mindset beliefs, revealed that perceiving the classroom culture as more fixed-minded early in the semester was associated with increased psychological distress later. Likewise, increased psychological distress early in the semester was associated with perceiving the classroom culture to be more fixed-minded later. These findings suggest that perceived mindset and distress are mutually reinforcing, highlighting the importance of addressing both in interventions aimed at alleviating student distress.