Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Childrenstrongsstrong Motivation.pdfVIP

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Copyright 1998 by the American Psychological Association, Inc . 1998, Vol. 75 , No . 1, 33-5 2 0022-3514/98/S3.00 Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Childrens Motivation and Performance Claudia M. Mueller and Carol S. Dweck Columbia University Praise for ability is commonly considered to have beneficial effects on motivation. Contrary to this popular belief, six studies demonstrated that praise for intelligence had more negative consequences for students achievement motivation than praise for effort. Fifth graders praised for intelligence were found to care more about performance goals relative to learning goals than children praised for effort. After failure, they also displayed less task persistence, less task enjoyment, more low- ability attributions, and worse task performance than children praised for effort. Finally, children praised for intelligence described it as a fixed trait more than children praised for hard work, who believed it to be subject to improvement. These findings have important implications for how achievement