Is it Wrong to Crave Praise?
Praise,
As I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, No Stupid Questions with Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth, the topic of praise perked my ears. We talk about the power of praise all the time in the Prosocial Lab.
Here is an excerpt from their discussion:
DUCKWORTH: The sturdy finding from social science, when it comes to feedback, is that process-directed as opposed to person-directed feedback, whether it’s positive or negative, is usually more helpful. But I keep doing it. And I actually don’t even know why I keep slipping up to that, “You’re a great intuitive psychologist,” “Oh, God, you’re such a terrible planner.” Why do I keep doing it when I know I should be talking about the process?
DUBNER: If you look back at the first time you started doing and saying those kinds of things, were you patterning your behavior on someone else?
DUCKWORTH: Now you’re psychoanalyzing me, which I like, actually. I do think that maybe one of the reasons why I keep gravitating back to what I know is suboptimal feedback is that, first of all, when I am praised as a person, it may set me up for fragility later. But it does feel so damn good. “Oh, you’re such a good speaker,” “You’re a great writer.”
DUBNER: And what do you say when they say that to you?
DUCKWORTH: I usually awkwardly say thank you. I think I’m just so distracted by the warm glow that I’m feeling. Now, I think that’s partly why I praise other people in that way. I know it will make them immediately feel good. The problem, of course, being later when they have a more fragile self-concept because, oh, God forbid I now show Angela my writing, and I’m now not the good writer that she thought. But in the short term, it feels good.
So you see, even a famous psychologist like Angela Duckworth, can forget to do the psychologically wise thing. There are a few things to correct in the conversation – telling someone they have a warm heart or are thoughtful – does not make them fragile (this concept of fragility is based on Carol Dweck’s work).
Nonetheless, listen to the entire podcast episode, it’s good.
Just remember the bottom line = In Prosocial Education, we encourage teachers to offer person-specific praise because it can build upon the student’s self-identity. When you tell a student they are moral, compassionate, and helpful they will come to believe it and live up to that belief (Bergin, 2018, p. 110).
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ProsocialEd strategies were developed and studied by the nation’s premiere Prosocial Development & Education Research Lab at the University of Missouri (MU). Based on 50 years of developmental psychology research, we show that how adults interact with children influences their development of self-control, empathy, and prosocial behavior.
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