The Inverse Power of Praise-Part One

As promised, this week I want to give you some sound bytes for a book called Nurture Shock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.

Bronson and Merryman were researching the subject of adult motivation when they stumbled across some information that took them by surprise.  This information became the subject of a Feb., 2007 New York Magazine article.

What was it they discovered that was so profound? That telling kids they were smart was backfiring.

Case in point:  Thomas, a fifth-grade student in New York City.  Precocious, with an intellect statistically confirmed, Thomas was praised by everyone.  But, rather than making him more confidant, this praise began to backfire.   “Thomas didn’t want to try things he wouldn’t be successful at,” his father said,  “Some things canme very quickly to him, but when they didn’t, he gave up almost immediately, concluding, ‘I’m not good at this.’”

Praising children is a good thing, right?  “Early and often,” said one mother.  Kids get notes of encouragement in their lunchboxes and star charts on the frig.  According to Bronson and Merryman, the assumption is that if a child thinks he is smart, he will approach new academic challenges with confidence.  Growing research, on the contrary, shows that calling children ‘smart’ may cause underperformance.

One group tested 400 fifth graders, dividing them into two groups, one praised for their intelligence and one praised for their effort.  A second test was given and the children given the option between a harder test which would teach them a lot and an easier test, like the first one.  90% of the children praised for their effort chose the harder test.  The majority of the children praised for intelligence chose the easier one.  Researcher Dr. Carol Dweck explains the reason:  “When we praise children for their intelligence, we tell them that this is the name of the game:  look smart, don’t risk making mistakes.”  The children who picked the easier test were doing just this, choosing to look smart rather than risk looking embarrassed.

Tomorrow:  Fifteen Ways to Encourage Children, Nurture Shock style