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Say the right praise

Effective praise can motivate a person.

...Dweck did (a series of experiments) with four hundred new York fifth graders...It's goal was to see how much a tiny signal - a single sentence of praise - can affect performance and effort, and what kind of signal is most effective. First, Dweck have every child a test that consisted of fairly easy puzzles. Afterward the researcher informed all the children of their scores, adding a single six-word sentence of praise. Half of the kids were praised for their intelligence ("You must be smart at this."), and half were praised for their effort ("You must have worked really hard"). The kids were tested a second time, but this time they were offered a choice between a harder test and an easier test. Ninety percent of the kids who'd been praised for their effort chose the harder test. A majority of the kids who'd been praised for their intelligence...chose the easy test. Why? "When we praise children for their intelligence," Dweck wrote, "we tell them that's the name of the game: look smart, don't take risk making mistakes." The third level of tests was uniformly harder; none of the kids did well. However, the two groups of kids -- the praised-for-effort group and the praised-for-intelligence group -- responded very differently to the situation. "(The effort group) dug in and grew very involved with the test, trying solutions, testing strategies," Dweck said. "They later said they liked it. But the group praised for its intelligence hated the harder test. They took it as proof they weren't smart. The experiment then came full circle, returning to a test of the same difficulty as the initial test. The praised-for-effort group improved their initial score by 30 percent, while the praised-for-intelligence group's score declined by 20 percent. All because of six short words. Dweck was so surprised at the results that she reran the study five times. Each time the result was the same. - Daniel Coyle

Read the full research here.

So never praise other people for their intelligence. That means we need to get creative in praising so that it will bring benefit to other people.

From insidework.net
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