“Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our power of judgment are more completely exposed by being over praised than by being unjustly underestimated.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
Although this research about the perils of too much praise on children’s learning is not new, it is so important that it bears repeating. Here’s the punchline: praise may do more harm than good.
One of the leaders of this inquiry is psychologist Carol Dweck at Stanford University. Her original article entitled “Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children’s Motivation and Performance” was published with Claudia Mueller from Columbia University and created quite a stir since the prevailing belief was that praise helped increase motivation.
Contrary to this idea, the authors found that praise for effort–not success– is what matters. Since then, ongoing research about praise and about the importance of mindsets continues to flourish at universities around the world.
What is a Growth Mindset?
Mindset is a simple idea conceived of by Carol Dweck through decades of research on achievement and success. Those with a fixed mindset believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are fixed traits. They believe that talent alone creates success—without effort and therefore spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of working harder to become accomplished.
In contrast, those with a growth mindset believe their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. Innate gifts are just the starting point. This second view creates a love of learning and the resilience needed for great accomplishment. Check out the video on mindsets, a great dialogue between a parent and a psychologist describing Dweck’s concepts.
If you’re like most parents, you tell your kids how smart they are to boost your child’s self-esteem and performance. Unfortunately, this is not the way to build motivation or achievement in the long run.
Dweck’s original research found that many of the kids who had been labeled smart performed far worse than those who were praised for their hard work, regardless of their results on a particular task. Another important finding was that 90 per cent of the kids praised for their effort were eager to go on to a more challenging task.
This research has now been repeated with hundreds of kids from all socioeconomic backgrounds. Kids who receive the wrong kind of praise are less likely to take risks, are highly sensitive to failure and are more likely to give up when faced with a challenge.
You have brought up some crucial differences. The field of psychology has recently awakened to the realization that simply increasing our kids self-esteem through constant praise has actually created some serious problems.