How to Correctly Praise Children to Foster Growth Mindset | Dr. Andrew Huberman
00:00:00.000 | The research paper I'd like to discuss briefly
00:00:04.860 | that beautifully embodies the runway
00:00:07.760 | that led to the discovery of growth mindset
00:00:10.720 | is a paper from Dr. Carol Dweck
00:00:12.960 | as well as her colleague, Claudia Mueller.
00:00:15.360 | And the title of the paper essentially says it all.
00:00:18.440 | The title is "Praise for Intelligence
00:00:20.880 | Can Undermine Children's Motivation and Performance."
00:00:24.540 | That should be surprising
00:00:27.160 | that praise for intelligence can undermine motivation
00:00:30.760 | and performance.
00:00:32.120 | I would have thought,
00:00:32.960 | and I think many people probably believe
00:00:35.800 | that if you tell a child or an adult
00:00:38.480 | that they're really good at something
00:00:39.840 | and you're genuine about that feedback,
00:00:41.880 | meaning they're performing well,
00:00:43.000 | and you say, "Great, you're doing really well.
00:00:44.520 | You're so smart, you're so talented,"
00:00:46.920 | that their performance would continue to improve,
00:00:49.100 | that it would bolster their motivation
00:00:50.520 | to engage in that activity, which hopefully they enjoy.
00:00:53.120 | But regardless, provided that it's a safe activity,
00:00:55.880 | it's educational, or what have you,
00:00:58.160 | that it would serve to encourage them, right?
00:01:01.120 | The kid thinks, "Not only am I engaging in this activity,
00:01:04.320 | but I'm getting positive feedback,
00:01:05.700 | presumably from people that I care about
00:01:07.260 | or whose opinion I care about.
00:01:09.260 | Wouldn't that serve to elevate performance?"
00:01:12.240 | It does not.
00:01:13.080 | In fact, the exact opposite happens.
00:01:14.800 | So I'll just give you a few of the key takeaways
00:01:17.320 | from this study.
00:01:18.200 | The way it was done is very interesting.
00:01:21.620 | They essentially gave feedback about performance
00:01:25.860 | that was linked up with a child's intelligence,
00:01:28.820 | telling kid they're smart, they're talented,
00:01:30.940 | that they can learn things really easily,
00:01:33.900 | or that they're very good at learning, this sort of thing.
00:01:36.940 | And they called that intelligence feedback.
00:01:39.440 | Or they gave them what was called effort feedback.
00:01:43.380 | The simple way to think about effort feedback
00:01:45.060 | is that it's more attached to verbs as opposed to labels.
00:01:48.800 | So effort feedback consists of things like,
00:01:52.380 | "You tried really hard on that problem.
00:01:54.380 | It was great the way that you applied effort.
00:01:56.700 | It was great the way that you persisted.
00:01:58.420 | It was great the way that,
00:02:00.420 | even when you got the wrong answer,
00:02:02.180 | you spent 10 minutes thinking about it,
00:02:03.920 | and then you tried again and again."
00:02:05.820 | Or in some cases,
00:02:06.980 | even if they didn't get the right answer, telling them,
00:02:09.160 | "Well, even though you didn't get the right answer,
00:02:10.820 | it's really terrific that you continue to try."
00:02:12.860 | Okay, so intelligence feedback
00:02:14.920 | was the sort of feedback that was tied
00:02:16.760 | to labels of identity, things like smart, talented, et cetera,
00:02:21.020 | whereas effort feedback was tied to verbs,
00:02:23.840 | choices, behavioral and cognitive choices
00:02:26.260 | that children made in an effort
00:02:28.000 | to learn or get better at something.
00:02:29.600 | So in this study, which included over a hundred children,
00:02:32.320 | they either got the intelligence type feedback
00:02:35.480 | or the effort type feedback,
00:02:37.640 | or there was a control group
00:02:39.600 | that didn't get either the intelligence
00:02:41.440 | or the effort type feedback.
00:02:43.280 | And then they looked at a number of different outcomes.
00:02:44.940 | So I'll just highlight a few examples of what they found.
00:02:47.580 | First of all,
00:02:48.420 | the kids that got the intelligence-based feedback,
00:02:50.700 | when they were then later offered problem sets
00:02:53.480 | that were either challenging
00:02:55.540 | or were of the sort that they knew
00:02:57.620 | they could perform well on,
00:02:59.060 | they tended to select problems
00:03:00.700 | that they knew they could perform well on.
00:03:02.500 | These were what were referred to as performance goals.
00:03:05.020 | In other words, they picked problems
00:03:06.800 | that allowed them to continue to get the praise
00:03:09.300 | that they had received previously
00:03:10.940 | about being smart or talented.
00:03:13.220 | Whereas the kids that got feedback about their strong effort
00:03:17.500 | when later presented with problems
00:03:19.340 | that were either easy or hard,
00:03:22.140 | more often than not, they picked the harder problems
00:03:24.580 | that stood to teach them more.
00:03:26.600 | So that's striking.
00:03:27.520 | It says that if you tell a kid
00:03:28.900 | that they're smart or talented,
00:03:30.180 | and that's the reason why they perform well,
00:03:32.780 | when they encounter challenges,
00:03:34.220 | they are likely to go with the least amount of challenge
00:03:37.100 | so that they can continue to receive that praise or feedback.
00:03:40.620 | Whereas if you receive praise and feedback
00:03:43.100 | for your strong effort,
00:03:45.060 | then later you tend to pick environments,
00:03:48.020 | problem sets, et cetera,
00:03:49.260 | that allow you to exert the very effort
00:03:51.580 | that got you the praise in the first place.
00:03:53.540 | So in both cases,
00:03:54.900 | these children are essentially attached to the praise,
00:03:58.020 | right, in some sense.
00:03:59.100 | I mean, we like to think that they enjoy these activities
00:04:01.140 | and they're benefiting from them as well.
00:04:03.300 | But in both cases,
00:04:04.580 | the praise really serves to reinforce
00:04:06.860 | a certain pattern of behavior.
00:04:08.580 | But in the case of giving intelligence feedback,
00:04:11.100 | the kids are really just trying to reinforce
00:04:12.820 | being told that they're smart or talented
00:04:14.660 | as opposed to reinforcing the engagement in the activity
00:04:18.220 | that got them the praise in the first place.
00:04:20.860 | And the converse is also true.
00:04:22.300 | When kids are told,
00:04:23.300 | hey, you really tried hard and that's great,
00:04:25.700 | or I like how you persisted,
00:04:27.260 | or you're so persistent,
00:04:28.620 | I can really see how persistent you are
00:04:30.660 | in trying to get the right answer,
00:04:32.460 | even if you don't get the right answer.
00:04:34.220 | Well, then when you present those kids
00:04:35.580 | with additional challenges,
00:04:36.980 | they work very hard to stay in challenge.
00:04:39.760 | And guess what?
00:04:40.600 | No surprise.
00:04:41.940 | The kids that are rewarded for effort
00:04:43.780 | and that continue to pick harder problems
00:04:46.220 | outperform the kids that are given the intelligence praise
00:04:49.040 | and feedback by a large margin.
00:04:52.000 | So what does this tell us?
00:04:52.900 | This tells us that the narratives that we hear from others,
00:04:55.340 | of course, reinforce certain patterns of behavior.
00:04:59.180 | What else does this tell us?
00:05:00.300 | This tells us that if you're a parent or teacher,
00:05:02.860 | you have to be very careful
00:05:04.820 | about giving feedback to a child
00:05:07.020 | that is attached to their identity around an endeavor,
00:05:10.940 | especially if they're performing well at that endeavor.
00:05:15.020 | Now, of course, if a child
00:05:16.220 | is not performing well at something,
00:05:18.200 | you also don't want to tell them that they're stupid.
00:05:20.820 | You don't want to tell them that they're deficient.
00:05:23.620 | But that's a rare occurrence in the classroom,
00:05:25.940 | one would hope.
00:05:26.960 | That's a rare occurrence on the field, one would hope.
00:05:29.600 | But what's very common, very, very common,
00:05:33.260 | is that when we see children or adults performing well,
00:05:36.180 | we tend to give them identity labels
00:05:37.860 | as a way to try and reinforce
00:05:39.300 | whatever behavior we observe and we like.
00:05:42.140 | Now, the other thing they looked at in this study,
00:05:43.700 | besides whether or not these kids
00:05:45.100 | would pick hard or easier challenges down the line,
00:05:48.780 | were the actual raw performance on cognitive problems.
00:05:53.780 | And these data, I must say, are just so interesting.
00:05:56.600 | They took the kids
00:05:58.700 | and they gave them all the same problem sets.
00:06:01.340 | And all the kids across the board,
00:06:03.200 | whether or not they were getting intelligence praise
00:06:05.480 | or effort praise, or they were in the control group,
00:06:07.700 | were performing more or less the same way.
00:06:10.080 | They were getting some of these questions right,
00:06:11.620 | some of these questions wrong.
00:06:13.540 | Then they gave them praise
00:06:15.500 | after they completed those problems.
00:06:18.400 | They either got intelligence praise,
00:06:20.180 | you're so smart, you're so talented,
00:06:21.580 | or they got effort praise.
00:06:22.620 | You tried so hard, you really persisted, that's fantastic.
00:06:25.700 | Then later, they gave them another set of problems
00:06:27.940 | and they looked at performance.
00:06:28.900 | Now, remember, the first time around,
00:06:30.640 | all the kids got some of the questions right
00:06:32.460 | and some of the questions wrong.
00:06:33.880 | So there's room for improvement for everybody.
00:06:36.540 | What they found was absolutely striking.
00:06:39.300 | The kids that were in the control group,
00:06:41.220 | so they didn't get any specific form of praise,
00:06:43.700 | they perform more or less the same way as they did before.
00:06:46.940 | So if they were getting 75% of the answers right
00:06:49.700 | the first time, they got 75% of the answers right
00:06:52.440 | the second time, 25% wrong in both cases.
00:06:55.100 | The kids that were in the intelligence praise group,
00:06:58.380 | the you're so smart, you're so talented praise group,
00:07:01.180 | their performance went down significantly.
00:07:04.860 | Whereas the kids that were in the effort praise group,
00:07:08.060 | their performance increased significantly, okay?
00:07:11.320 | So this is a bi-directional effect
00:07:13.540 | where giving intelligence praise reduces performance
00:07:17.380 | and giving effort praise improves performance,
00:07:20.140 | which is absolutely striking
00:07:22.100 | and tells you everything you need to know,
00:07:24.020 | which is if you're a parent, you're a teacher,
00:07:26.380 | and of course, as we all give ourselves feedback,
00:07:31.180 | rewarding yourself for effort
00:07:33.860 | is the best way to improve performance.
00:07:36.020 | Rewarding yourself based on identity labels,
00:07:38.540 | so smart, so talented, you're a great athlete, et cetera,
00:07:41.380 | all of that stare in the mirror
00:07:42.780 | and do self-affirmation stuff
00:07:44.580 | can actually undermine performance.
00:07:46.580 | And in fact, it does undermine performance.
00:07:48.900 | It may not do it right away, but eventually it does.
00:07:52.140 | (upbeat music)
00:07:54.720 | (upbeat music)
00:07:57.300 | (upbeat music)