Chapter 14. Praise Properly
2006, researchers divided school children into groups and gave them a simple IQ test. One group was told it got high scores, and therefore must be very smart. The other group was told that they did very well, and that they must have worked hard. So…one group was praised for their intelligence, the other was praised for hard work.
Then the students were asked if they wanted to take a slightly harder test. The kids who were praised because they were smart were reluctant. Of the group that was praised for their hard work, 90% were eager for greater challenge.
On the final test, the group praised for hard work scored significantly better than the group praised for intelligence.
In a finding that surprised almost everyone, children’s performance goes down when they are told how smart they are.