Book
Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation and Performance
by Claudia Mueller și Carol Dweck · 1998 · 1 reading card
1 card
Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation and Performance · 1998
Praise what they did, not what they are, and never with a 'but' after it.
The four rules, with their traps. One, immediate: reinforcement arriving the next day links nothing to anything; it is said at the moment the behaviour happens. Two, descriptive rather than evaluative: "you went back to the problem three times and changed method" says what to repeat; "you are clever" says nothing repeatable. Three, on what they control: effort, strategy, persistence, choice — never intelligence, talent or looks. Mueller and Dweck's experiment shows why: praised for a trait, the child protects the trait and avoids the hard task where it could be lost. Four, a ratio of at least five to one between what you notice going well and what you correct — not out of politeness, but because attention is the resource that reinforces, and if the only way to get it is a mistake, that is how it will be got. The reward trap, called overjustification: if you pay a child for something they did for pleasure — reading, drawing — the pleasure drops and the price remains; rewards are for starting an unpleasant habit, then made unpredictable, then withdrawn. What works without money: your attention, telling the story of what they did in front of another family member, time they choose, extra responsibility. And one rule of silence: never spoil praise with "but".
“Children praised for intelligence chose the easy task next. Children praised for effort chose the hard one. The same praise, two different words, two different trajectories.”