Praise That Undermines

   My entire life, people have been calling me “smart.” I know they mean it as a compliment… but I don’t want it. When people would say stuff like this, as a kid my thought was always, “What does that matter? What about my hard work?” 

   I got so tired of being “the smart kid” that by my sophomore year I had completely opted out of any effort. I went from straight A’s to doing just enough not to fail. I had grown so resentful of the idea, feeling as if my identity as “the smart kid” was determining so much in my life. My actions. Others actions. My perspective of myself and others. 

   Since childhood, I was intuiting certain realities I am only just now grasping the scope of, after reading some of the research itself.

   There is a fascinating series of experiments from 1998 that explored the effects of praise for intelligence versus praise for effort. The paper, titled “Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children’s Motivation and Performance,” shows how the narratives we and our environment create around identity really can determine our actions, perspectives, and achievements in life. 

   Researchers tasked over 400 children with a series of logic puzzles, dividing them into several groups. One was praised for intelligence (e.g. “You must be smart at this”), another for effort (e.g. “You must have worked hard”) and an unlucky control group that got no praise. 

    Initially, all children performed similarly well on a relatively simple puzzle. However, the type of praise they received seriously influenced their responses to subsequent challenges.

   When given a much harder set of puzzles designed to ensure failure, stark differences emerged. Intelligence-praised kids were more likely to view failure as evidence of low ability, and that led to less enjoyment and persistence. 

   In contrast, effort-praised children attributed the difficulty to the need for more effort, persisting longer and keeping a more positive attitude. Scores for intelligence-praised children dropped by 20% in later tasks, but effort-praised children improved their scores by 30%.

   Next, the kids tackled puzzles similar to the initial set. Effort-praised children had significant improvements, while intelligence-praised children struggled to recover. 

   Then, given a choice between a challenging task (offering growth opportunities) or an easier task, 92% of effort-praised kids picked the challenge, but only 33% of intelligence-praised children opted for the harder task, with the majority favoring the easier option.

   The researchers also figured out that intelligence-praised kids are more likely to adopt a fixed mindset, seeing abilities as unchangeable or at least not easily. Meanwhile, effort-praised children embraced a growth mindset, becoming more open to learning and self-improvement. 

   And as an interesting aside, 38% of intelligence-praised kids misrepresented their scores to peers, compared to only 13% of effort-praised children. What’s up with that? Craziness, I tell you. 

   Because this study doesn’t simply pertain to children. They’re easier to study in this regard because our minds are more plastic at a young age,  but neuroplasticity is a feature of the human brain, a function which persists throughout our lives. 

   This study shows how the stories we internalize about ourselves and our abilities can dramatically impact our interactions with the world. The stories we tell ourselves, and those told to us, shape how we approach life. 

   Across our journey, we constantly hear the phrase, “I could never.” And a person never can if they cling to that story. This mindset becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s why we should hold our self-assigned identities, and those we assign to others, very very loosely. If we rigidly cling to limiting beliefs about ourselves, we stunt our potential. 

   Even to know this, I struggle to be aware of all of the opinions that might be influencing me in some subtle way. 

   There are a variety of things that we can do to make sure that we are acting according to our potential as opposed to a limiting belief.

   You can take real time to train in an appropriate effort relative to the task at hand, and actually test your limits. 

   You can regulate your environment so that you’re not subjected to these kinds of limiting opinions, (but that can be incredibly difficult, depending on what you want to pursue for your goals, such as us with our walk).

   And regardless of whether you incorporate anything else, you can become mindful of the ways that you’re being influenced by the people around you, constantly asking yourself, “How did that make me feel? What am I doing with that information? What is my motivation right here? Why do I believe I can or cannot do this?” 

   Hope this has been useful! It seems like an incredibly useful bit of information, if we want to reach our full potential!