Progress-focused

One of the most influential papers by Carol Dweck and her colleagues is the Mueller & Dweck (1998) paper entitled Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation and Performance . Over the years, this study has been criticized or disputed from various quarters, sometimes largely justified , sometimes largely unjustified. Knowing these criticisms, I argue that Mueller & Dweck (1998) is a classic publication that has lost little or nothing of importance. Here you can read a brief description of that research.

A new book has been published on the psychology of complimenting: Psychological perspectives on praise (Brummelman (Ed.), 2020). Complimenting is a technique we use often and often with the best of intentions. But the psychology of praise is quite complex.  The effects of compliments are not always what we expect from them. In this book, 36 researchers in 16 chapters analyze praise from different theoretical perspectives such as the self-enhancement theory, the self-verification theory, the attribution theory, and the self-determination theory. Below I briefly discuss two interesting chapters from the book.

Teachers’ perceptions and actions can have a great impact on students’ beliefs, motivation, effort and performance. One way in which teachers affect their students is in the way they evaluate students’ performance. Falko Rheinberg (1980) showed that some teachers tend to compare students with each other – this is called a social reference norm orientation (social RNO) – while other teachers tend to compare a student’s current learning outcomes with his or her previous performance – this is called an individual reference norm orientation (individual RNO).

Frequently, I have heard people say: "I'd rather not ask for help. I think I have to solve this myself." This way of this thinking surely has something admirable and sympathetic about it. Probably, people saying such things have a strong sense of responsibility. They think they should be able to solve their problem on their own without bothering other people. But I think it is good to be aware of another way of viewing asking for help. Asking for help can have many benefits, especially for yourself, but also for other people. Here are a few benefits of asking for help: