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- Key study: Gunderson et al. (2013) parent praise
Key study: Gunderson et al. (2013) parent praise
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Can the way parents praise toddlers shape how those children think about learning years later? Gunderson and colleagues followed families for five years to find out.
Aim and procedure
Aim: to see whether the type of praise parents give children aged 1 to 3 predicts the children's motivational frameworks (mindsets) five years later, and whether boys and girls receive different praise.
Sample: 53 children (29 boys, 24 girls) and their parents in Chicago, from a larger study on language development.
Procedure: a longitudinal study. Families were filmed at home for 90 minutes when children were 14, 26 and 38 months old. Praise was coded as:
Process praise: praising effort or actions ('you worked hard').
Person praise: praising the child ('good girl', 'you're so smart').
Other praise: general ('wow', 'good').
At age 7 to 8, children answered questionnaires about their beliefs, for example whether intelligence can be changed and whether they prefer challenges.
Sample: 53 children (29 boys, 24 girls) and their parents in Chicago, from a larger study on language development.
Procedure: a longitudinal study. Families were filmed at home for 90 minutes when children were 14, 26 and 38 months old. Praise was coded as:
Process praise: praising effort or actions ('you worked hard').
Person praise: praising the child ('good girl', 'you're so smart').
Other praise: general ('wow', 'good').
At age 7 to 8, children answered questionnaires about their beliefs, for example whether intelligence can be changed and whether they prefer challenges.
Results and conclusion
Results: about 18% of praise was process praise and 16% was person praise; most was 'other' praise. Boys received more process praise than girls.
Children who received more process praise as toddlers were more likely to have an incremental (growth) framework at 7 to 8: believing ability can improve and preferring challenge.
Conclusion: process praise in early childhood predicts a growth-type motivational framework later. This supports Dweck's mindset theory.
Children who received more process praise as toddlers were more likely to have an incremental (growth) framework at 7 to 8: believing ability can improve and preferring challenge.
Conclusion: process praise in early childhood predicts a growth-type motivational framework later. This supports Dweck's mindset theory.
Strengths and weaknesses
Strengths: longitudinal, so it could track the same children over five years. Filmed in natural home settings. Coders checked each other's coding, showing good inter-rater reliability. Parents were told the study was about language, which reduced the chance they changed their praise to look good.
Weaknesses: a fairly small sample from one city, so it may not generalise. Parents knew they were filmed, so their behaviour may still have changed. It is correlational, so it cannot prove praise caused the mindset.
Weaknesses: a fairly small sample from one city, so it may not generalise. Parents knew they were filmed, so their behaviour may still have changed. It is correlational, so it cannot prove praise caused the mindset.
A parent says, 'You kept trying until the tower stayed up!' Which type of praise is this, and what did Gunderson et al. find about it?
- The parent is praising the child's effort and actions.
- This is process praise.
- Process praise at 14 to 38 months predicted a growth (incremental) framework at 7 to 8.
Answer: Process praise, which predicted a growth-type mindset later.
Gunderson et al. filmed 53 Chicago families when children were 14, 26 and 38 months old. More process praise predicted a growth-type mindset at age 7 to 8. Boys got more process praise. The study is longitudinal and natural but small and correlational.
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