Abstract: Carol Dweck, a leading developmental psychologist at Stanford University, and her team have spent the last 10 years studying the effects of praise on children. Their long-term study of 400 fifth-graders in 20 New York schools has shocked the academic community with its findings. People often confuse “praise” with “encouragement,” believing that they are both motivators to keep moving forward, but the test results from Stanford University are shocking. “The results of the Stanford University test were shocking. It is crucial to distinguish between the two. Parents must know how to educate their children! 1. How sensitive are children to praise or encouragement? One sentence will set the watershed. First, children were asked to complete a series of intellectual puzzles independently. The researchers called out only one child at a time from the classroom for the first round of IQ testing. The test questions were very simple intellectual puzzles, and almost all children completed the tasks fairly well. After each child completed the test, the researchers would tell him his score and include a word of encouragement or praise. The researchers randomly divided the children into two groups, and one group received a compliment about intelligence, i.e., praise, such as, “You’re very talented at puzzles, and you’re very smart.” The other group of children received a compliment about effort, i.e., encouragement, such as, “You must have worked really hard just now, so you did a great job.” Why give only one compliment? In response, Dweck explained, “We wanted to see how sensitive the children were to praise or encouragement. I had a hunch at the time: one word of praise was enough to see the effect.” 2. A second round of puzzle testing showed gradual differences in results! The children then took a second round of puzzle tests, with two different difficulty levels to choose from, and they were free to choose which test to take. One is harder, but will learn something new during the test. The other was a simple test similar to the previous round. The results found that 90% of those children who were praised for their effort in the first round chose the more difficult task. Those children who were praised for being smart, on the other hand, chose mostly easy tasks. This shows that children who think they are smart do not like to face challenges. Why is this so? Dweck wrote in his study, “When we praise children for being smart, we are telling them not to take the risk of making mistakes in order to stay smart.” That’s what the “smart” children in the experiment did: they avoided the risk of making a fool of themselves in order to keep looking smart. 3. The test continued and the difference grew. For the third time, all the children took the same test, with no choice. This time the test was hard, a first-year level test. Predictably, the children all failed. The children who had previously been praised differently reacted to the failure with great variation. Those children who had previously been praised for their effort believed that they had failed because they had not tried hard enough. In this test, the Dweck team deliberately subjected the children to setbacks. Next, they gave the children a fourth round of testing, this time with the same easy questions as the first round. Those children who were praised for their effort improved their scores on this test by about 30% over the first. Those children who were praised for their intelligence, on the other hand, regressed about 20% in their scores this time compared to the first time. 4, shocking results Dweck has always suspected that praise does not necessarily work well for children, but the results of this experiment, or greatly surprising to her. She explained: “Encouragement, that is, praise for the child’s efforts to work hard, will give the child a sense of being in control of their own. The child will believe that success is in their own hands. Conversely, praise, that is, praising a child for being smart, is the same as telling them that success is out of their hands. Thus, when they are faced with failure, they are often helpless.” In later follow-up interviews with the children, Dweck found that those who believed that talent was the key to success unconsciously downplayed the importance of effort. These kids would reason like this: I’m smart, so, I don’t have to work as hard. They even believed that effort was silly and tantamount to admitting to everyone that they weren’t smart enough. Dweck’s experiment was repeated many times. She found that no matter what kind of family background a child has, he or she cannot stand the feeling of defeat that comes from being praised for being smart and then suffering a setback. Boys and girls are the same, especially good-achieving girls, suffered the greatest degree of blow. Even preschoolers are the same, and such praise can harm them. 5, parents must know Encouragement refers to encouragement and support, praise refers to the praise of a thing or character. Encouragement is usually directed at the process and attitude, “Daddy saw your efforts this semester and is proud of you!” Praise is usually for results and effectiveness, “Daddy is happy for you to see your grades improve!” More encouragement and less praise; more description and less evaluation can prevent children from being kidnapped by praise, or losing and doing whatever it takes to get what they want before they get there.