beliefs about intelligence

I got a lot of feedback about this morning's post about the effects of the kind of praise you give a child after he succeeds. In short, when a child is told, "You must be smart at this," he's likely to choose an easy task the next time, as opposed to a more challenging task, for fear that he might not look smart. On the other hand, attributing the child's effort to success ("You must have worked really hard") yields more desirable results.

Here's some more about where this research comes from.

In addition to that interesting study in New York Magazine, Carol Dweck's theories on intelligence are really important to know. Basically, there's an entity theory of intelligence, and an incremental theory.

1. Entity theory. If someone has an entity theory of intelligence, that means that he thinks intelligence is fixed--that what you get is what you get, and that it's an unchanging internal characteristic. Now just imagine how damaging that is to a kid who isn't doing so well in school. She might never try any harder because what's the point? She's not going to get any smarter, and intelligence is what makes you successful.

2. Incremental theory. On the other hand, if a student has an incremental theory believes that his intelligence is malleable and can be increased through effort. How empowering! One of my professional development classes really drilled this in our heads. We did an entire project where we worked with one student and told them in as many ways as we could, "Effective effort leads to success." You wouldn't believe the stories we heard after this project was over! Students were attempting tasks a lot harder than they did before, they believed that they could try harder or use a different strategy the next time after they failed...it was magical.

So if you're working with kids or if you have kids, think about what messages you're sending them, even if you're not talking about this kind of stuff explicitly. This is why we don't say, "You must be smart at this."

Okay. Class over.