Praising Intelligence might Undermine Development

Yes, you read that right. Praising intelligence may not evolve the thinking ability, but rather have quite the opposite effect, possibly halting it all together. This startling discovery was recently publicized by Claudia M. Mueller, Carol S. Dweck from Columbia University and Sheri R. Levy, Stanford University.

The study compares the performance of children after they’ve been praised for their intelligence (“you must be smart”) versus their effort (“you must have put a lot of effort into that”). The kids were asked to perform a task, and upon completion they were praised in one of the two manners. After this they where then given a series of harder problems to try to solve.

The kids who where praised for their effort increased in the number of problems they solved. However, those who where told that they were smart showed a frightening decrease.

What’s the difference? Those being told that they’re smart are taught that abilities are fixed. If you’re finding a puzzle hard, then it must be because you’re not very good at that, and you should try something else. Kids taught that results are based on effort see the hard puzzles as something they can learn to do, and then they do so.

In a second set of tests, kids were asked what type of puzzles they like to solve, and then given four options. The first three were pretty similar: “problems that aren’t too hard, so I don’t get many wrong,” “problems that are pretty easy, so I’ll do well,” and “problems that I’m pretty good at, so I can show that I’m smart.” 

However the last option is different: “problems that I’ll learn a lot from, even if I won’t look so smart.”

The first three options are “performance” options, they’re all about looking good, or getting things right. The last option is a “learning” option, and it values knowledge and growth over performance.

The study concluded that children often selected puzzle-options based upon the type of praise they had previously gotten. Children praised for their intelligence choose tasks which are easy and make them look good, but children praised for their effort choose tasks which are hard, and which will teach them more.

Do you think about praise and feedback, and how you direct it? Comment below...