Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat

ucsdnews.ucsd.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 131 posts

Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat

#81

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

maxerickson wrote: post #75
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's insane. When I "make an effort" to pay a parking ticket on time and I don't, nobody gives me a shiny sticker star - I have to pay double instead. EDIT: People, I said nothing about children paying parking tickets or about poor people. My comment is an example of a self-inflicted problem that is exacerbated by self-inflicted delay, to which the consequences must be borne by the individual as is the nature of li…

I got a parking ticket for parking on the wrong side of the street during plow season (even days one side, odd the other). I had habitually moved my car on the 31st-1st transition. The judge or magistrate reduced the fine by the maximum amount they could when I explained that I had made a simple error while trying to follow the parking rule.

You proactively took measures to address the ticket in a timely fashion, which is not at all what my comment meant to address. Good on you, though.

Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat

#82

Post by pfarnsworth »

rkowalick wrote: post #4

I have been told that praising a kid for effort vs. results is much more important. As a child, I was told I was smart and basically tried to coast as much as possible. I still have a lot of trouble learning how to do something new, especially because I have kind of internalized that I'm good at everything.

I think it all depends on the person.

Both my wife and I were labelled as "gifted". My wife scored 145 twice on the IQ test, so she's much smarter than me. We were both praised as smart throughout our childhood, but we were also both very competitive. We never had any problems with lacking motivation and working hard. Losing never discouraged us, because winning was always much more motivating.

I was never tempted to cheat, mainly because I always felt that if I lost, I deserved the loss. To me, there's no sense in being competitive if you're going to fabricate your wins, but that's a moral system I developed on my own very young.

My kids are a bit different. They're definitely much smarter than their peers, but I often see them giving up when they lose, when we plays games and such. I definitely stress to them the importance of never giving up, and the value of effort over natural skills and always trying hard. I tell them that just because they're smart doesn't mean that they will always win, and that people who work hard will always beat the lazy smart person. Also, never fear losing because winners always lose more because they're always competing, but it's the big wins that matter more than small losses.

I hope they take this message to heart, because I have friends who fear failure and it's debilitating to them. Even the idea of applying for a new job is too much because they can't handle rejection, which I find extremely sad.

Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat

#83

Post by pfarnsworth »

Pulcinella wrote: post #8

This is anecdotal, but I have also noticed the related inverse problem as well. Students who think they are "one of the dumb kids" do much worse than similar students who do not think that. These students will randomly guess the answer to a multiple choice[1] question if they don't instantly know the answer, even if the answer to the question was basically given in another question on the test. Part of helping this k…

A lot of this is due to self-esteem. Once they've internalized that they are "dumb", they don't even bother trying because they don't think trying will affect the outcome. It's really sad to see. They need to learn to derive some sort of self-esteem from studying, regardless of the outcome, so that's why praising effort and getting these students to acquire self-esteem from effort instead of results is so very important for success. Once they get the self-esteem from trying, then the results will naturally follow and it turns into a virtuous circle.

Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat

#84

Post by lagadu »

xorcist wrote: post #80
bildung wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is people usually get better objective results if you praise their relative effort. Employers are obviously interested in grades that reflect the objective skill level of the to-be-employed. The problem is people subconsciously build up explanations for their observed performance. If a kid routinely has a hard time with maths, its more probable that they develop a causal model that puts themselves in a stat…

> Employers are obviously interested in grades that reflect the objective skill level of the to-be-employed. Employers are hardly interested in grades at all. Do you know anyone that does? Society uses grades as a selector for higher education pretty much exclusively. This is a goal for which we can objectively measure its relevance. I suspect there's a thing or two to learn from that.

Pretty much my impression too. My CV doesn't list my grades and I never got a transcript of records from my university because I've never been asked for one, including in my first couple of jobs. Hell in fact I've never even had to prove to an employer that I finished my studies, it's pointless now that I'm an experienced professional in my mid-thirties but I feel that anyone could get away with it too.

Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat

#85

Post by lagadu »

conductr wrote: post #73
nwah1 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some classes, where grades can be determined purely subjectively, instructors can use effort-based logic as a guiding principle. The problems, however, are multifold. I remember a high school art class where I just had a complete writers-block - or maybe artists-block - and was not able to do much on a large pencil drawing while sitting in class. I just couldn't work while seated in rows with everyone else sketchi…

Seems like a decent life lesson though. I wonder how this would have played out if you communicated with your teacher. Either telling them you were having trouble being productive in class, or When you turned in your work by telling him how much work you put in at home. It's important that you tell people how much effort you spend on things when they don't see it happen. It's true in so many ways; you learned it earl…

> you don't want to let the naturally gifted coast through.

As someone who isn't in the arts field at all, so please bear with my probable ignorance: why do you not want to let them coast through?

Each class has a set of requirements that need to be passed and the pupil's level of performance at it graded; if someone is gifted at it then they're already at a high performance level.

To put it in a way that's more related to me: I'm a software engineer and lets say that I decide to go take some first year software engineering classes again, particularly the ones related to learning how to program: I will blow through the classes in 1/5th of the time while playing a game on another monitor and still do very well. Shouldn't I get a high grade despite the fact that I put a lot more effort into my invasion of the Soviet Union while playing Japan on Hearts of Iron while I was also developing?

Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat

#86

Post by [deleted] »

lagadu wrote: post #85
conductr wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a decent life lesson though. I wonder how this would have played out if you communicated with your teacher. Either telling them you were having trouble being productive in class, or When you turned in your work by telling him how much work you put in at home. It's important that you tell people how much effort you spend on things when they don't see it happen. It's true in so many ways; you learned it earl…

> you don't want to let the naturally gifted coast through. As someone who isn't in the arts field at all, so please bear with my probable ignorance: why do you not want to let them coast through? Each class has a set of requirements that need to be passed and the pupil's level of performance at it graded; if someone is gifted at it then they're already at a high performance level. To put it in a way that's more rela…

[deleted]

Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat

#87

Post by TremendousJudge »

lagadu wrote: post #85
conductr wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a decent life lesson though. I wonder how this would have played out if you communicated with your teacher. Either telling them you were having trouble being productive in class, or When you turned in your work by telling him how much work you put in at home. It's important that you tell people how much effort you spend on things when they don't see it happen. It's true in so many ways; you learned it earl…

> you don't want to let the naturally gifted coast through. As someone who isn't in the arts field at all, so please bear with my probable ignorance: why do you not want to let them coast through? Each class has a set of requirements that need to be passed and the pupil's level of performance at it graded; if someone is gifted at it then they're already at a high performance level. To put it in a way that's more rela…

My guess is that kids are different than adults. You don't want kids sitting bored in class because it's easy for them. It's awful (speaking from experience here). They either turn inside and do nothing, or disturb the class. You don't want the smart kids to learn less, you want them to learn more

Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat

#88

Post by EGreg »

nwah1 wrote: post #51
charlesdm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit of both is probably good. For example: in Belgium, in recent years a lot of kids are (often) given points for effort so they can pass a certain grade. More and more the case. I talked to a teacher friend about this, and while he thinks its great, I think it's ridiculous. Do we want a society of people who put in some effort yet achieve nothing? Now, not that I think the educational system shouldn't be flexible…

In some classes, where grades can be determined purely subjectively, instructors can use effort-based logic as a guiding principle. The problems, however, are multifold. I remember a high school art class where I just had a complete writers-block - or maybe artists-block - and was not able to do much on a large pencil drawing while sitting in class. I just couldn't work while seated in rows with everyone else sketchi…

Might I suggest that, like Full Time Employment, the Classroom setting is trying to be too many things to too many people and is too one-size-fits-all?

Rather than make this a long comment, here is what I think should be done:

http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=158

Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat

#89

Post by AceyMan »

Having read the current child psych lit extensively, I can provide a boot-camp education on raising young'uns in one sentence:

"Your children don't want to be praised; they want to be noticed."

'Dad/mom look at me / watch me do this / see what I did in class', etc, etc. all signify this — praise isn't what their psyche thirsts for, merely plain old attention. Done earnestly, giving attention takes time, and so has a 'cost' in adult's life that may be greater than you'd assume — see, the subtext of the tune "Cat's Cradle" — but the payoff is immeasurable.

/George's Dad

Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat

#90

Post by Klockan »

This surprises me since I wouldn't have guessed that 3 year olds know what "smart" means not to mention knowing that being smart is unrelated to effort. Could this effect actually be due to something else than growth vs innate mindset? My guess is that the teachers experience different emotions depending on word usage and that kids are affected by those emotions.

Previously I believed in these studies but this result makes me question the others as well since they could suffer from the same problem.

Post reply on HN