The Inverse Power of Praise (2007)
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The Inverse Power of Praise (2007)
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Re: The Inverse Power of Praise (2007)
#2As someone who's received praise on being smart as a child, I don't think it's necessarily all that bad, depending on the mindset the child already has. If they already realize that working hard will lead to them doing better in school, then it probably won't have as debilitating as an effect.
Re: The Inverse Power of Praise (2007)
#3wait what... cursive penmanship is a thing? i thought it was just a joke from cartoons.
Re: The Inverse Power of Praise (2007)
#4Overall a well written article with some solid points and data . However, to my understanding, the article claims that if we praise our kids for their smartness, we are implicitly teaching them not to value hard work and efforts.
It even goes that far by claiming "Giving kids the label of “smart” does not prevent them from underperforming. It might actually be causing it."
Human beings are complicated. Talk about kids; it complicates the situation further. I am a father and I believe in praising with the right attitude. That attitude is "Yes you are good but you are still like many others. Keep going and you are doing a great job". I will go as far as to say that if your kids are under performing even though they are smart, it has nothing to do with your praising but more to do with overall values that are being taught to them by the parents. So go ahead, praise away but teach them the right values by example.
Re: The Inverse Power of Praise (2007)
#5As someone who's received praise on being smart as a child, I don't think it's necessarily all that bad, depending on the mindset the child already has. If they already realize that working hard will lead to them doing better in school, then it probably won't have as debilitating as an effect.
But when adults (not only parents, but other family, even strangers) recognize and praise "smartness" long before the child can understand that hard work is involved? I'd say this is the problem. And it seems to be so for praise of most any attribute: praise a child constantly for their looks and they seem to have similar self-confidence problems later in life as well.
Re: The Inverse Power of Praise (2007)
#6I used to be this way, grew up being told I was smart, scored extremely high on standardized tests with minimal effort... I viewed those who had to work extremely hard as lesser individuals, thinking that I could work as hard as them at any time if I wanted to truly showcase my ability.
The truth is that actually putting in the time and effort when the time came proved to be far more difficult than I had believed all along. It took something that I wanted desperately to be good at, but couldn't just pick up in a weekend to make me change my views. Programming was/is it for me. There's more to learn than I could ever hope to understand and it has been a humbling experience to say the least.
Everyone is an incomplete person in some way. I think my flaws are characteristics inherent in my being that would have been that way had people told me I was smart or not. I knew pretty early on that things came quickly to me; the validation may have inflated my ego, but I don't know that it outright caused me to run from challenges along the way. I did that on my own. Sigh.
Re: The Inverse Power of Praise (2007)
#7Overall a well written article with some solid points and data . However, to my understanding, the article claims that if we praise our kids for their smartness, we are implicitly teaching them not to value hard work and efforts. It even goes that far by claiming "Giving kids the label of “smart” does not prevent them from underperforming. It might actually be causing it." Human beings are complicated. Talk about kid…
I don't think the article necessarily says NOT to praise your children. It just says to praise them for specific things in their own control (e.g., hard work or listening to instructions) rather than praising them for things out of their control (e.g., being smart).
Re: The Inverse Power of Praise (2007)
#8Should have (2007) in title, as this has been submitted here before, and by now there ought to be some follow-up journalism on this issue, perhaps even from the keyboard of the same author. (As a parent, I am continually revising my opinions about parenting, and I hope the author is too.)
Among the several previous submissions,[1] the submission with the most comments seems to come from a follow-up piece.[2] But the print-formatted story with that submission doesn't seem to load properly, and a lot of the comments look like they came from people who didn't read the story (as I cannot read that story just now).
Carol Dweck[3] is one of the main researchers on attributional style and what that does to motivation.
[1] https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=Praise...
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2237874
[3] http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?articl...
Re: The Inverse Power of Praise (2007)
#9As someone who's received praise on being smart as a child, I don't think it's necessarily all that bad, depending on the mindset the child already has. If they already realize that working hard will lead to them doing better in school, then it probably won't have as debilitating as an effect.
Nor do the study authors propose that "it's necessarily all that bad." It's a population trend. Eg, in the first experiment 90% of those praised for their intelligence chose the easier test while "a majority" of those praised for their effort chose the harder test. This suggests that 10% of the first group weren't "debilitated" by praise.
Similarly, on page 4 "Of the kids praised for their intelligence, 40 percent lie, inflating their scores. Of the kids praised for effort, few lie." Again, it's doesn't have a universal negative effect.
Re: The Inverse Power of Praise (2007)
#10Should have (2007) in title, as this has been submitted here before, and by now there ought to be some follow-up journalism on this issue, perhaps even from the keyboard of the same author. (As a parent, I am continually revising my opinions about parenting, and I hope the author is too.) Among the several previous submissions,[1] the submission with the most comments seems to come from a follow-up piece.[2] But the…
Here is Dweck's book. Have heard great things about it, but still sitting in my inbox.
http://www.amazon.com/Mindset-The-New-Psychology-Success/dp/...