Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat
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Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat
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Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat
#2[deleted]
Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat
#3Praise them for trying hard instead, or (as the article says) for doing very well this time.
Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat
#4I 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.
Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat
#5Sick now I have something to blame for my chronic lying, thus clearly releasing me from any blame for my own mis-deeds. All makes sense to me though, I felt severe pressure for fitting into what I perceived as my 'role' growing up, and constantly being called smart created massive pressure to continue to be viewed that way.
Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat
#6Being praised for being smart begets cheating because of the pressure to continue to be perceived as smart ("The researchers believe that praising ability is tied to performance pressure in a way that praising behavior isn’t."). The behavior praise stressses the past while the ability praises uphold an idea of permanent ability; perhaps the phrasing of the praise is significant too ("'You are so smart' vs 'You did very well this time.'") because the behavior praise adds a reference to the action; while, the ability praise does not yet implies so.
Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat
#7Definitely don't tell your kids that they are "talented". I took piano lessons for 10 years and hated every moment of it, because I was "talented."
Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat
#8This 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 kind of student is also praising them for effort rather than "smartness" and teaching them how to be good test takers (e.g. How to use the test against itself, how to "guess" wisely, etc).
[1] Debate on the pedagogical value of multiple choice tests is left as an exercise to the reader.
Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat
#9A couple of weeks ago someone introduced me to the idea not only asking your kids if everything is ok, but also ask what went wrong or failed.
At first i was a little afraid asking my kids those kind of things, but until now their reaction has been quite positive.
Re: Kids Praised for Being Smart Are More Likely to Cheat
#10I 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.
Similar experience, but I blame it on my own never learning how to learn effectively (as it was too easy through high school).
I doubt it was the wording of the praise, but rather the lack of my own effort and application in learning things that were hard for other students.