The central im of this program of research is to understand how to praise children for their achievements in ways that will enhance their motivation without undermining their ability to cope with future setbacks. Recent lab-based research has shown that praising children's personal attributes produces motivational decrements, while praising their work process produces motivational benefits. The present research will examine these types of praise when given by children's regular teachers in the ecologically-valid context of the classroom. In a second line of work, the motivational consequences of social-comparisons versus mastery praise will be examined from a developmental perspective. It is hypothesized that, compared to mastery praise and neutral feedback, social-comparison praise will lead upper-elementary children, but not pre-schooled children, to (a) pay attention to normative competence information, even at the cost of valuable information about task mastery and (b) show motivational decrements following normative """"""""failure"""""""", even when they have objectively attained task mastery. Finally, procedures that may minimize the negative effects of (a) person praise and (b) social-comparison praise will be developed and tested. Overall, this research will make theoretical contributions, and will help us to understand in practical terms both how praise an be used most effectively to enhance children's motivation, and hence their psychological adjustment, and how praise may sometimes unwittingly undermine students' motivation and adjustment.
| Henderlong, Jennifer; Lepper, Mark R (2002) The effects of praise on children's intrinsic motivation: a review and synthesis. Psychol Bull 128:774-95 |
