Gunderson Et et al (2013)

Aim of the study

Aimed to identify if different types of praise affect children's motivational framework years later, and to identify if parents were more likely to give a specific kind of praise based on their child's gender

Types of praise (2)

Person praise and process praise

Person praise

Praising the individual and their ability when a task is completed

Process praise

How well the individual performed during the task and the effort they put in

What can person praise cause

May lead a child to believe that they have or lack some essential abilities and can affect later behaviour

An example of this

For example, a child regularly praised for schoolwork and good grades early on in their education may feel as if they are gifted and not study so hard. They may have difficulties later on when effort becomes more important than innate ability. Although innate ability will get you far, the ability to study becomes very important later on in education.

What is entity motivational framework

A fixed mindset - If they fail, they will think it is a personal failing

What does process praise help the child acknolage

It acknowledges that anyone can do a good job if they put in the effort. 

What is incremental motivational framework

An adaptable mindset - encourages a healthy motivational framework and lead to more effort being put into things such as schoolwork

Who did they study

The study recruited 29 boys and 24 girls, along with their caregivers.

How often did the researchers visit the children

From 14 months every four months, the researchers visited the children at their homes. 

What did thereserchers ask the parents to do when they visited and for how long

The interactions between parents and their children were recorded for 90 minutes, and they were asked to continue doing their usual daily tasks. These recordings were transcribed.

What were the children asked to do at ages 7-8

They completed a questionnaire that measured their motivational frameworks regarding morality and intelligence. Two questionnaires were completed three months apart. 

What sort of questions did the questionnaire contain

The questionnaire included their thoughts on trait stability, their preference toward learning or performance, what they believed was the cause of success or failure, etc.  

Results of the study

It was found that, of all the communication recorded between parent and child:

• About 3% was praise of any kind. 

• 18% of this praise was process praise, and 16% was person praise. 

• Boys also received significantly more process praise(24.4%) than girls (10.3%). 

• There was no significant difference between genders and frequency of person praise. 

What did the results not show?

They did not show a link between receiving person praise and developing an entity motivational framework.

What did the study indicate

That a relationship between children receiving process praise in their early years and developing an incremental motivational framework. This suggests that the more process praise received as a child, the more likely an incremental motivational framework will be developed.