In the cultural context of dialectical thinking and the Yin Yang model in Chinese society, people may be more likely to hold both stress-is-enhancing (SIE) and stress-is-debilitating (SID) mindsets simultaneously. This implies that academic SIE and SID mindsets may coexist. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore Chinese adolescent students' stress mindsets in academic contexts from a person-centered perspective, as well as to investigate how these mindsets would be related to their emotional and behavioral learning responses. Data were collected from 498 Chinese adolescent students. Latent profile analyses revealed five profiles (i.e., enhanced-, debilitating-, indifferent-, mixed-, and extreme- mindsets) based on the levels of the SIE and SID mindsets. Students in different profiles displayed diverse learning responses. Enhanced- and indifferent- mindsets exhibited the most adaptive responses—lower anxiety and burnout, more proactivity, greater challenge seeking, and less self-handicapping. Debilitating-mindset showed the most maladaptive responses, including the lowest proactivity and highest self-handicapping. Mixed- and extreme- mindsets generally fell in between. Emotionally, enhanced- and indifferent- mindsets reported less anxiety and burnout than the other three profiles, while debilitating-mindset exceeded mixed-mindset. Behaviorally, enhanced-mindset surpassed mixed- and debilitating- mindsets on proactivity and challenge seeking; indifferent-mindset lay between without significant differences. Extreme-mindset resembled other profiles on proactivity and challenge seeking but showed elevated self-handicapping. These findings deepen understanding of stress mindset theory in academic settings by revealing the coexistence—and joint influence—of Chinese adolescent students' academic SIE and SID mindsets. The study highlights the importance of academic stress mindsets for students' learning responses.