Have you ever felt like it's truly important for your efforts to be recognised if you are to succeed? This is quite a common feeling, and it's the basis of Gundersen et al. (2013) study. Gundersen wanted to learn more about how the type of praise a young child receives affects their motivation to learn and improve, specifically how praise can affect a child's motivational framework and how different types of praise can elicit different responses. 

Parent Praise to 1-3 Year-Olds Predicts Children’s Motivational Frameworks 5 Years Later Study

As we are all well aware, the environment we grow up in influences our later behaviour, and our role models play a special part in this. Gunderson et al. (2013) suggested that the type of praise a child receives affects how a child combats setbacks and reacts to challenging tasks. Before we look at the study, let's discuss the different types of praise and how they relate to motivational frameworks. 

 Person Versus Processes Praise

 The two different types of praise are person praise and process praise.

Person praise focuses on praising the individual and their ability when a task is completed. Process praise focuses on how well the individual performed during the task and the effort they put in.

Person praise may lead a child to believe that they have or lack some essential abilities and can affect later behaviour.

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.

 If they fail, they will think it is a personal failing; this is called an entity motivational framework, a fixed mindset.

Process praise focuses on complimenting the individual based on the effort they make during the process rather than the end result. It acknowledges that anyone can do a good job if they put in the effort. 

 Given that some factors, such as how much effort has been put in, tend to be better predictors of how well a task is performed, this can encourage a healthy motivational framework and lead to more effort being put into things such as schoolwork. This is called an incremental motivational framework, an adaptable mindset.

Aim of the Gunderson et al. 2013 study

 The Gunderson et al. (2013) 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. 

Study Procedure

The study recruited 53 children and their primary caregivers to participate; 29 of these were boys, and 24 were girls. Participants were located in Chicago, and the researchers attempted to collect an ethnically diverse participant pool from various backgrounds. 

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

• The researchers analysed praise when children were 14, 26 and 38 months old. 

• 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. 

When the children reached the age of seven to eight, they completed a questionnaire that measured their motivational frameworks regarding morality and intelligence. Two questionnaires were completed three months apart. 

Some of the items measured in 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.  

The type of praise and how frequent the participants received them were measured using the transcripts from the recordings.

Results

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.  

 Moreover, when the type of praise participants received over the years was analysed, it was revealed that from the age of 14 to 38, participants significantly received less person praise. But, from 14 to 26, the number of process praise increased, which then plateaued. 

 A correlation was found between how much a child was praised and the motivational frameworks. When the recordings were compared to the results of the questionnaire taken by the children, it was found children who received more process praise in their early years were more likely to develop an incremental motivational framework. This suggests that these individuals were more likely to believe that ability is a result of effort and time put into skills or abilities. 

However, the results did not show a link between receiving person praise and developing an entity motivational framework.

Gunderson et al. (2013) Study Conclusion 

The results indicated 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. 

The results did not indicate that children were more likely to develop an entity motivational framework when participants received more person praise. 

The results also suggest that boys are more likely to receive process praise than girls. From this, it can be inferred that boys may be more likely to develop an incremental motivational framework than girls.