Possibility Mindset: A Theory of Motivation Under Constraint, with Neurodivergence as a Revealing Interpretive Case

Growth mindset has reshaped how educational psychology explains persistence under challenge by showing that self-change beliefs influence how students interpret difficulty and respond to setbacks—particularly when learning conditions make improvement feasible. For disabled and neurodivergent learners, however, effort and strategy often cannot fully remove high-impact barriers, raising questions about how motivation operates under enduring constraint. This article introduces possibility mindset as a complementary construct for understanding motivation in such contexts. Possibility mindset is defined as a learner’s context-specific appraisal of “room to move,” grounded in three belief dimensions: self-change beliefs (can I develop in ways that matter here?), environment-change beliefs (will this setting adapt reliably in practice?), and pathway-flexibility beliefs (are there multiple legitimate routes to valued goals?).Although especially salient for disabled and neurodivergent learners, the framework applies more broadly to educational contexts where effort alone cannot reliably secure access. The central claim is one of translation: self-change beliefs sustain engagement most reliably when learners also expect environments to respond and pathways to remain viable. The article specifies predicted belief configurations, outlines a staged research agenda for measurement and incremental validity testing, and proposes “aligned” interventions that combine psychological messages with visible structural flexibility. Drawing on attributional traditions, the contribution is not to displace existing motivation theory, but to specify how attributions about systems—rather than solely about the self—shape motivational decisions under enduring constraint.