The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids – New York Magazine – Précis
By Po Bronson 07/05/2007
Thomas is a fifth-grader on West 84th. Thomas is one of “the smart kids” and since he could walk, he has heard constantly that he’s smart, from his parents and many adults. He scored in the top one percent of the top one percent when he applied to kindergarten.
But this self-awareness that he’s smart hasn’t always translated into fearless confidence when attacking his schoolwork. In fact, Thomas’s father noticed just the opposite. “Thomas didn’t want to try things he wouldn’t be successful at,” his father says. “Some things came very quickly to him, but when they didn’t, he gave up almost immediately, concluding, ‘I’m not good at this.’
Why does this child lack confidence about his ability? A large percentage of all gifted students severely underestimate their own abilities. They adopt lower standards and expect less of themselves. They underrate the importance of effort and they overrate how much help they need.
When parents praise their children’s intelligence, they believe they are providing the solution to this problem.
But a growing body of research strongly suggests that giving kids the label of “smart” does not prevent them from underperforming. It might actually be causing it.
Psychologist Carol Dweck studied the effect of praise on 400 fifth-graders in a dozen New York schools. Some were praised for their intelligence. They were told, “You must be smart at this.” Other students were praised for their effort: “You must have worked really hard.”
Of those praised for their effort, 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles in a non-verbal IQ test. Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy test. The “smart “ kids took the cop-out.
“When we praise children for their intelligence,” Dweck wrote, “we tell them: Look smart, don’t risk making mistakes – avoid the risk of being embarrassed.”
Those praised for their effort got very involved, willing to try every solution. They significantly improved. Those praised for their smarts assumed their failure was evidence that they weren’t really smart at all and did worse than they had at the very beginning – by about 20 percent.
“Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,” she explains, “Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control.” Those who think that innate intelligence is the key to success begin to discount the importance of effort. I am smart, the kids’ reasoning goes; I don’t need to put out effort.
Dweck found this effect of praise on performance held true for students of every socio-economic class, hitting both boys and girls – the very brightest girls especially.
Teachers at the Life Sciences Secondary School in East Harlem could pick out students who had been taught that intelligence could be developed. The students improved their study habits and grades after they had been told that the brain is a muscle and that giving it a workout makes you smarter.
Dr. Roy Baumeister will soon publish an article showing that for college students on the verge of failing in class, esteem-building praise causes their grades to sink further. To be effective, praise need to be specific. Sincerity of praise is also crucial.
According to psychologist Wulf-Uwe Meyer, by the age of 12 children believe that earning praise from a teacher is not a sign you did well – it’s actually a sign you lack ability and the teacher thinks you need extra encouragement. Teens believed that it’s a teacher’s criticism that really conveys a positive belief in a student’s aptitude.
Once children hear praise they interpret as meritless, they discount not just the insincere praise, but sincere praise as well.
Scholars from Reed and Stanford determined that praised students become risk-adverse and lack perceived autonomy. The students had “shorter task persistence, more eye-checking with the teacher and inflected speech that answers have the intonation of questions.”
Dweck’s research on overpraised kids strongly suggests that image maintenance becomes their primary concern – they are more competitive and more interested in tearing others down.
Students turn to cheating because they haven’t developed a strategy for handling failure. The problem is compounded when a parent ignores a child’s failures and insists he’ll do better next time. Michigan scholar Jennifer Crocker explains that the child may come to believe failure is something so terrible, the family can’t acknowledge its existence. A child deprived of the opportunity to discuss mistakes can’t learn from them.
The ability to repeatedly respond to failure by exerting more effort - instead of simply giving up – is a well-studied trait. People with this trait of persistence, rebound well and can sustain their motivation through long periods of delayed gratification. Persistence is more than a conscious act of will; it’s also an unconscious response, governed by a circuit in the prefrontal cortex part of the brain. This circuit monitors the reward center of the brain and it intervenes when there’ s a lack of immediate reward. When it switches on, it’s telling the rest of the brain, “Don’t stop trying. There’s dopa [ the brain’s chemical reward for success] on the horizon.”
“The brain has to learn that frustrating spells can be worked through,” say Dr. Robert Cloninger at Washington University, “A person who grows up getting too frequent rewards will not have persistence, because they’ll quit when the rewards disappear.”
I (the author) had thought “praise junkie” was just an expression – but it seemed as if I could be setting up my son Luke’s brain for an actual chemical need for constant reward.
I try to use the specific-type praise that Dweck recommends. I praise Luke for concentrating without asking to take a break when he does his math homework and after soccer games, I praise his effort if he works hard to get the ball.
This focused praise helped him see strategies he could apply the next day. It was remarkable how noticeably effective this new form of praise was.
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