Carol Dweck, a renowned developmental psychologist at Stanford University, and her team have spent the last 10 years studying the effects of praise on children. They did a long-term study of 20 New York schools with 400 fifth-graders, and the results of this study shocked the academic community. In the experiment, they had the children work independently on a series of intellectual puzzle tasks. First, the researchers called out only one child at a time from the classroom for the first round of IQ tests. The test questions were very simple puzzles, and almost all of the children were able to complete the tasks fairly well. After each child completed the test, the researchers would tell him the score and attach 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, 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 was only one compliment given? In response, Dweck explained, “We wanted to see how sensitive the children were to praise or encouragement. I had a hunch at the time that one word of praise would be enough to see the effect.” The children then took a second round of puzzle tests, with two different levels of difficulty to choose from, and they were free to choose which one to take. One was harder, but would learn something new during the test. The other was a simple test similar to the previous round. The results found that 90 percent of those children who were praised for their effort in the first round chose the harder 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 the 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” kids in the experiment did: they avoided the risk of making a fool of themselves to keep looking smart. A third round of testing followed. This 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 received different compliments reacted to the failure with great variation. Children who had previously been praised for their effort believed they had failed because they had not tried hard enough. Dweck recalled, “These kids were so engaged in the test and worked so hard to solve the problems in a variety of ways that several told me, ‘This is my favorite test.'” And the children who were praised for their intelligence believed that they failed because they weren’t smart enough. They were nervous throughout the test, scratching their ears and feeling frustrated when they couldn’t do the questions. For the third round of testing, the Dweck team deliberately subjected the children to frustration. Next, they gave the children a fourth round of testing, this time with questions as easy as the first round. Those children who were praised for their effort improved their scores on this test by about 30 percent over the first. Those children who were praised for their intelligence, on the other hand, regressed by about 20 percent in their scores this time compared to the first time. Dweck has always suspected that praise doesn’t always work well for children, but the results of this experiment, nonetheless, greatly surpassed her expectations. She explained: “Encouragement, that is, praising the child for working hard, will give the child a sense of being in control. 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 the good-achieving girls, suffered the greatest degree of blow. Even preschoolers are the same, and such praise can harm them. Encouragement means to encourage but support, while praise means to show and proclaim an event or character. Encouragement is usually about process and attitude. Daddy is proud of you for seeing how hard you’ve worked this semester! Praise is usually for the results and effectiveness. Dad sees your grades improve and is happy for you more encouragement, less praise; more description, less evaluation, can prevent children from being kidnapped by praise, or losing and doing whatever it takes to achieve the goal.