For the past 10 years, psychologist Carol Dweck at Columbia (now Stanford) has studied the effect of praise on children. Her seminal study on 400 fifth-graders sheds light on the stuff that people are made of. Students were administered a series of IQ tests. After the first test, one group of students was praised for their intelligence, while the other group was praised for their efforts.
The second group – those praised for their efforts not talents – consistently proved to be more ambitious when offered a choice between an easy test and a more difficult test. They took responsibility for their failings when unbeknownst to them were given a test beyond their abilities. And, fascinatingly, they did 30% better on follow-up tests than their original test. In contrast, those praised for being smart alone, ironically did 20% worse on follow-up tests than the initial control test they took.
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