Labeling Children Gifted and Talented: Praise and Achievement
This paper examines research by psychologists Claudia M. Mueller and Carol S. Dweck on how different types of praise affect children's academic motivation and performance. Drawing on six studies involving 412 fifth graders, the paper explores how praising children for their intelligence, rather than their effort, leads to performance-oriented thinking, vulnerability to setbacks, and a belief that intelligence is fixed. It also discusses the potential negative consequences of labeling children as "gifted" or "talented," and concludes with recommendations for how parents and educators can better support children's learning through effort-focused praise.
- Introduction: Praise and Academic Performance: Intelligence praise may undermine learning and resilience
- Study Design and Research Methods: Six studies comparing praise types in fifth graders
- Effects of Intelligence Praise vs. Effort Praise: Performance-orientation and vulnerability to failure
- Fixed vs. Developable Intelligence: How praise shapes beliefs about intelligence
- Implications for Girls and Gifted Labels: Gifted labels and gender effects on motivation
- Recommendations for Parents and Educators: Praising effort over ability improves outcomes
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What makes this paper effective
- Anchors every claim in a named empirical study, lending credibility to its conclusions without overstating the research scope.
- Uses direct quotations from the researchers strategically, allowing the primary authors' voices to carry the most critical conclusions.
- Maintains a logical progression from research findings to real-world implications, making the argument accessible to a general audience.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper effectively uses source synthesis to build a cumulative argument. Rather than simply summarizing the Mueller and Dweck study once, it returns to the findings multiple times, each time introducing a new dimension — motivation, gender differences, ethnic comparability, and the gifted label — showing how a single body of research can speak to multiple connected issues.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by introducing the counterintuitive problem — that praising intelligence may backfire — then describes the research design before unpacking specific findings in order of increasing significance. It moves from general effects of praise, to gender and demographic findings, to the specific issue of gifted labeling, and closes with practical recommendations. This funnel structure guides the reader from evidence to application.
Introduction: Praise and Academic Performance
New research suggests that complimenting children for their intelligence and academic performance may lead them to believe that good test scores and high grades are more important than learning and mastering something new. According to research published in the American Psychological Association's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, praising a child's scholastic aptitude is generally meant to boost academic performance; however, it actually leaves the child ill-prepared for coping with setbacks.
Study Design and Research Methods
Six studies of 412 fifth graders were conducted by psychologists Dr. Claudia M. Mueller and Dr. Carol S. Dweck. The researchers compared the goals and achievement behaviors of children who had been praised for their intelligence with children who were praised for their effort and hard work, examining outcomes under conditions of both failure and success.
The psychologists demonstrated, through their studies, that commending children for their intelligence after good performance might backfire by making those children highly performance-oriented, leading to extreme vulnerability to the effects of subsequent setbacks. By contrast, children who were commended for their effort tended to concentrate on learning goals and strategies for achievement.
Effects of Intelligence Praise vs. Effort Praise
According to Dweck, lead author of the study, some of society's basic beliefs concerning how to increase a child's self-esteem and achievement are misguided. Dweck notes, "Praising children's intelligence, far from boosting their self-esteem, encourages them to embrace self-defeating behaviors, such as worrying about failure and avoiding risks." Yet when children are taught the value of concentration, strategies, and hard work when faced with academic challenges, "this encourages them to sustain their motivation, performance, and self-esteem," says Dweck.
The Mueller and Dweck studies revealed that children who are praised for their intelligence learn to value performance, while those who are praised for their effort and hard work learn to value learning opportunities. The findings were virtually identical for boys and girls, as well as for children from different ethnic groups in both rural and urban communities. Moreover, the differing effects that resulted from praise for effort versus praise for ability were unrelated to children's actual ability levels: "children with low test scores were equally likely to stress performance goals at the expense of mastery goals as children with high scores."
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