The Right Kind of Early Praise Predicts Positive Attitudes Toward Effort

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130212075109.htm

Feb. 12, 2013 — Toddlers who hear praise directed at their efforts, such as "your worked hard on that" are more likely to prefer challenging versus easy tasks and to believe that intelligence and personality can improve with effort than do youngsters who simply hear praise directed at them personally, such as "you're a good girl," new research at the University of Chicago reveals.

"The kind of praise focused on effort is called 'process praise' and sends the message that effort and actions are the sources of success, leading children to believe they can improve their performance through hard work," said Elizabeth Gunderson, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Temple University and lead author on the study conducted while she was a graduate student at the University of Chicago.

Another form of praise called "person praise" is focused on the child's characteristics. Parents using person praise might say "you're a big boy," for instance.

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Short-term laboratory studies have found that process praise results in greater persistence and better performance on challenging tasks, while person praise, which sends the message that a child's ability is fixed, results in decreased persistence and performance.

In the new study the scholars found that the percentage of process praise parents used when their children were one to three years old significantly predicted whether children welcomed challenges, had strategies for overcoming failure, and thought intelligence and personality were malleable five years later.

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