Monday, October 4, 2010

The Inverse Power of Praise

In the first chapter of NurtureShock, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman present significant research about the damaging effects of praise on children—in particular, praise intended to build self-esteem focused on innate intelligence as opposed to effort. “The Inverse Power of Praise” begins with a descriptive portrait of Thomas, a boy in a gifted program in New York City. Thomas has a high IQ and for years has been told that he is smart. Contrary to what one might expect, Thomas is risk-averse when facing novel tasks, giving up easily or even avoiding challenges. It seems that he has divided the world into two categories, things he is good at and things he isn’t, and sees his abilities and intelligence as fixed, not subject to effort. Accordingly, he avoids situations that compromise this perception.

One researcher in particular, Carol Dweck of Stanford University and previously of Columbia University, has devoted years to evaluating the consequences of telling children that they are “smart” rather than emphasizing effort. Her findings, which have been reproduced by other researchers, demonstrate that children will avoid more challenging work after receiving praise that ties their success to innate abilities—“You must be smart at this,” for example. In contrast, students who are praised for effort seem to do better than expected even as academic tasks become more challenging.

So what does this mean for us as parents and educators? Does it mean that parents and teachers should not praise our children and students? Not exactly. It does suggest that we should think about the ways in which we praise children. Telling children that they are intelligent and smart instead of telling them that they are hard-working and thus are reaping the benefits of diligence could lead children to avoid challenging work and, in some circumstances, lie and cheat to avoid feeling dumb.

At St. Patrick’s, we began examining this phenomenon several years ago when many of our faculty read Carol Dweck’s book Mindset and engaged in conversations about the kind of language we use with students. While we can always call into question research like that presented in the first chapter of NurtureShock, there does seem to be an important thread for us to follow as parents and teachers. Perhaps we won’t completely stop telling the children that they are smart (neither did Po Bronson, by his own account), but we can refocus on effort and save praise for specific, legitimate moments of good work in order to help our children become better able to handle challenges when they face them.

In a nutshell, “The Inverse Power of Praise” suggests that:

  • children who are praised as “smart” become risk-averse and lack perceived autonomy;

  • children who are praised for their effort improve their performance on academic tasks;

  • praise is okay, but it needs to be specific, sincere, and credible, not general and not about innate ability; and,

  • students who are highly praised as smart may become more interested in image maintenance and may work to tear others down or even cheat.

No comments:

Post a Comment