"You're Ruining My Self-Esteem!" – Part 1

From Ash:

Since we began our research on praise and self-esteem, Po and I both heard many stories from parents and teachers about self-esteem issues. My favorite was from an English teacher. She'd recently given one of her students a "C," and the mother came down to complain, saying "You're ruining my child's self-esteem." The teacher shot back, "I'm not here to make him feel better; I'm here to make him do better."

At the time, I thought that was an exceptional story – but we've spoken since, and she's had almost the same conversation with another set of parents. Apparently, it's a regular thing.

Another mother I spoke with said that her daughters were so accustomed to the idea of self-esteem building, that if an adult said something they considered to be too negative, they'd tell him, "You're ruining my self-esteem." Which she said they meant as a joke, but always gave the grown-ups pause, since perhaps it was true.

Since then, I've been constantly struck by just how pervasive the idea of building self-esteem is throughout our society. (If you think about it, even the Oscars succombed: since the Eighties, even though you may still think of the phrase, "And the winner is" – they really hand out the trophy with "And the Oscar goes to." A change they explained specifically because the Academy had wanted to event to seem less like a competition.)

The astonishing thing is just how little we know about the supposed-benefits of self-esteem building. Its efficacy has been a truism presumed to exist, like gravity. I think we made the case – that self-esteem building isn't in fact effective and doesn't actually get you much in terms of benefits – pretty powerfully in the article. But both Po and I have been particularly struck by the number of responses about that section, as small as it is, so I just thought I'd fill out the argument with a couple posts. If you're interested in a complete explanation, you might check out Roy Baumeister's Scientific American article, but (besides the fact you'll have to pay to access it) there's so much information in there, on so many topics, I think it's easy to miss some of the more major ideas.

First, consider any dialogue of self-esteem is almost inherently flawed, because everyone – from researchers to laymen – approach the issue in terms of having "high self-esteem" and "low self-esteem." "Middle self-esteem" just isn't in anyone's vocabulary. We don't know how to talk about such a thing, and the scholars don't even study it. (The "Mids" usually are dropped out of a study, because it's easier to study the extremes.) But addressing just the extremes is always problematic. The results skew much more dramatically that they should, and they leave out any consideration of those somewhere in between the two – which is often where the vast majority are.

Then, there's the seemingly-natural assumption that "high self-esteem" is good and "low" is bad, while middle (or perhaps, realistic) seems to be nonexistent.

Which brings me to the next problem is that the measures used to gauge self-esteem levels have nothing whatsoever to do with whether a person's self-esteem is warranted or not. The tests for self-esteem don't distinguish between an accurate self-perception and just complete narcissism. A Nobel Laureate and a serial killer could both have "high self-esteem" – or "low self-esteem," for that matter.

You may have heard about the studies that found people with high self-esteem are smarter, more beautiful, and more successful in their personal relationships than us poor schlumps with low self-esteem. But those studies asked people to rate their self-esteem and then asked them to rate their own intelligence, beauty, relationship skills, etc. And if you think about it, it shouldn't come as too terrible as surprise to learn that the people who thought highly of themselves said they were golden in each of those areas.

But when subsequent researchers asked third parties to rate high and low self-esteem people in terms of beauty, high self-esteem people were no more likely to be considered beautiful. IQ tests revealed they weren't any smarter. And college students said that high-self-esteem students weren't better roommates. Actually, it was the low-self-esteem students who were. Low self-esteem people assume you don't like them, so they work harder to be friendlier – they take suggestions for change more seriously, etc. For person with a high self-esteem, those comments are like water off a duck's back, because he's already sure you like him or that if you don't, that's your problem, not his.

Ironically enough, while tests for self-esteem are often frequently separated from a person's reality, the more a person's self-esteem is actually separated from reality, the more problematic it becomes. (Which brings us to the facts and phenomenon Po was exploring yesterday.)

On the Consequences of Self-Esteem & Innate Smarts

From Po:

This post is about observations that finally have explanations.

1. One of the curious set of facts that Ashley & I have kept track of for the last year is what we've called "The Ambition Gap." In 1976, half of all high school seniors expected to get a college degree – and half did. Their ambition was perfectly in line with reality. Today, 94% of high school seniors expect to enroll in college, but the next fall only 63% will actually do it. That gap – between their planned achievement and reality – has never been higher. This gap is present no matter what specific ambition you measure. 50% think they’re going to get a graduate degree someday; less than 10% will. And 64% believe they will have a career as a “working professional,” when just less than 20% actually will. Clearly, we’ve engineered students to have inflated hopes, but not actually equipped them with the skills to succeed.

For the last year, we sat on this set of facts, wondering why it would be. What could explain such a surge in aspirations, with such departure from reality?

When we delved into the culture of praise and the false promise of self esteem, it was kind of an "aha" moment. This explains the Ambition Gap! Kids are being mislead into believing they're capable of futures they're actually unprepared for.


2. Another curious fact we've been wondering about: Since the 1970s, psychologists have occasionally given college students a test for Machiavellian beliefs. Students take a short survey with the cool name of “Mach IV,” which checks how willing they are to use deception in various circumstances. Today’s college students have such high Machiavellian outlooks that researchers are alarmed. And these high Mach students admit to higher rates of sex, alcohol abuse, theft, on-campus vandalism, plagiarism, and – oh, yes – cheating.

If students have been raised in a culture of praise and cheerleading, why would they be so manipulative when they get to college?

Then, we realized that these students have been praised their entire childhood, and much of that praise has been subtly manipulative. The praise was showered on them not as genuine accolades, but as social engineering, hoping that positive self esteem would pay off in higher performance. Kids are literally being taught the art of subtle manipulation.


3. Curious observation # 3. When I interviewed 1,000 people for What Should I Do With My Life?, it was plainly apparent that so many of our smartest college students from our best schools are actually very risk averse. Coming out of college, they took jobs where the "track to success" was spelled out and clear. Wall Street, law school, corporate America - there was no imagination or creativity in these choices. And nothing daring about it. Ten years later, many of them were unhappy and unfulfilled. But quitting - even though they had lots of money in the bank - was absolutely terrifying to them. The loss of status scared them; the idea of jumping off a track and freestyling their career was frightening. They didn't want to look not smart. They were afraid of taking a job that didn't broadcast to the world how smart they must be to have that job.

It drove me crazy. Our smartest and brightest, wasting their talent. Why were they so darn risk averse?

Well now we have a theory that can help explain it. Just like Carol Dweck's 5th graders who didn't want to risk exposing themselves on harder sets of puzzles, these Ivy grads are often afraid of scenarios with some risk of failure.


4. The art of praise has been the subject of Ashley's posts this week. But the core mindset Dweck was exploring was the idea of innate intelligence. Praising children for their smarts is only one way we reinforce this destructive idea. In fact, our society is chock full of messages about how some people are born with gifts, and the rest of us are out of luck. I've always been aware of it because by junior high, people started telling me I had a gift for math. By the end of high school I competed in the Washington State math championships on the high school math team. Meanwhile, I was told I couldn't write. Teachers recognized that I had a lot of ideas in my head, but they were generally unclear ideas and I expressed them poorly. These teachers weren't ignoring my talent - because they were right. I showed no talent. In college, I avoided any class that required me to write because it destroyed my GPA.

Yet here I am today, author of five books, so disinterested in math I haven't balanced my checkbook since 1992.

The truth is, math had always come so easily to me that the first time it did not - post calculus - I quit. Meanwhile, having always been told I was a poor writer, I was accustomed to grinding it out, accustomed to rejection, accustomed to the hard work it took to write.

I would love to hear from readers about other ways this idea of innate intelligence is spread and reinforced.

How Not To Talk To Your Kids - Part 8 (tips on effective praise, con't)

From Ash:

Okay, one more, specifically on praise tips. After this post, we're going to then return to some of the issues raised by praise, rewards, self-esteem, etc., on a broader, more thematic level. Which I'm really looking forward to– just some fascinating ideas we can't wait to share. (If you're saying, "No, Mars needs more praise tips," well, I'm sure there will more along the way. Just not necessarily in a list like this. So stick around – I promise, the other stuff will be well-worth reading.)

12. Don't Praise Undeserved Success

One more that I'm probably guilty of with my tutoring kids. If a child gets an "A" but he didn't work for it, that's still not time for a lot of praise. (Dr. Dweck would probably say no praise at all.) Instead, the answer to that should be "That's good, but it wasn't enough of a challenge for you. Let's go find something you can learn from."

I think the hard part here may be knowing when a kid really applied himself or not. You wouldn't want not to praise a kid who worked hard, by saying, "Here's something even harder to do." That would make him feel like he could never do enough. But if it's clear that the kid didn't apply himself, then, I guess that's the time to challenge him further.

13. Know Your Praise Audience

I admit that this is ridiculously obvious, but don't forget to consider the kid you're talking to when figuring out how and when to praise – how have they already responded to praise, are they self-conscious, etc. Consider their ages: remember that a younger child takes your praise at face-value, but as the child ages, praise may become increasingly suspect. By the time the kid's a teenager, no praise at all – just straight unadorned feedback – may be more effective than actual words of praise. (I know we've said that before, but that just continues to blow me away.) Also consider how already sensitive they are, or aren't, to peer-groups/social-standing – how will your praise affect that? (That's one we haven't yet explored in substance, but we will later).

14. Avoid Praise-Inflation

Since our piece came out last week, I've seen a lot of posts where people are relaying a praise horror story – where a parent who effusively praised a kid for doing nothing. I think the real problem with this praise for no achievement is that it will likely force the parents into constantly escalating their praise – they've got to up the ante when and if the kids actually achieve something worthy of praise. By time the kid's still pretty young, they'll have used up all the superlatives – how will they communicate their approval, then?

Also, inflated praise may distort the kid's view of the quality of his work – because the parents are raving about something that isn't necessarily worth that level of commendation.

The Praise Uber-Tip: Be Honest

One of the toughest things that Po and I have dealt with whenever we've talked about praise tips is the fact that a lot of them start with the word "Don't" – e.g., don't overpraise, don't confuse praise with encouragement. In fact, most of the articles I've seen that give advice on effective praising usually seem to be more a list of things to stop doing, than constructive things to do. I think that goes back to the reality that so much of our praise has an agenda – using praise to control for future behavior, etc.

And well, I think a lot of time praise is conversational filler – a slightly more eloquent version of "um" and "er." Praise is the quickest, easiest response to something a kid – anyone, really – does. As we were writing our piece, I kept thinking about the old adage, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" – but the truth is that you have to know someone really well to be comfortable with silence. So we praise.

Really, I think if you're stuck in a given situation, and you're uncertain as to what to say – err on honesty. I think that these specifics are helpful – that's why I've been writing about them – but I think at the core of a lot of them is a call to be honest: if that's your guidepost, then you're probably at least half-way there.

How Not To Talk To Your Kids - Part 7 (tips on effective praise, con't)

From Ash:

Another post on "praise tips" – and I'll do one more, a short one after this (I was hoping this would be the last one, but it got long). After that, we'll go back to discussing other interesting aspects of praise, self-esteem, and other related issues.

9. Timing is Everything

I don't think I've ever heard a parent consider the timing of praise – I know I didn't, at least, not consciously – but the studies show it's a very big issue.

In one of Po's and my favorite studies, college students were given a video game to play. While they were playing, a research would come in to praise them for how well they were doing. Once the researcher had done that, immediately, the students wouldn't play as well. There had been previous studies that had found similar results, and some of those had put forth a theory that once you've achieved some praise, you don't put quite as much effort into something; that's why you don't do as well. That idea has been supported in other studies; however, in this one, done by scholars including Roy Baumeister, they figured out a way to test that part of the theory as well.

And what they found was that the college students were trying just as hard after they'd received the praise – they were just not doing as well. After ruling out most of the other explanations for why that could be, Dr. Baumeister's team eventually came to conclude that the mere act of praise made the students more self-conscious of themselves, more aware that they were being watched and judged. And that heightened self-awareness meant they concentrated less on the task, and more on the others' judgment – the end result being that they didn't perform as well, post-praise.

It's amazing to me how little it takes for people to start worry about image-maintenance. But this is a "tips" post, so let's consider how to apply this research when working with your kids.

Simply put – please hold your applause until the very end.

Don't interrupt a kid who's working really hard to tell him, "You're working hard." Don't cheer, "Way to go, Suzie! We love you!" when she made the first basket at the free-throw line and still has another one to go.

Wait til they're finished, then praise. Interrupting them in the middle will make them concentrate on your opinion, rather than what they need to focus on.

10. Avoid Praising in Public

I mentioned before about how praise is often mis-used to control other's behavior, and how that can backfire. But even if that isn't what's going on, be very careful giving praise in public.

Students are enormously self-conscious, and they're very concerned that praise may make them a target – be it a target for ridicule, or relying on his notes instead of taking your own. If college students are given the opportunity to be singled out in class for a high grade, studies say they'd rather not be. They'd like to know they got the highest grade, but they don't necessarily want anyone else to know.

It's to the point that those who desire public praise – that starts bringing in concerns of narcissism.

11. Don't Praise To Avoid Giving Criticism or Addressing Failure

"Kids can take criticism," said Dr. Baumeister. They like feedback. You don't have to be mean. But you can be truthful.

So for parents who say, "So, you lost the soccer game, you're a good reader," that's a Bad Idea: you're teaching the children that they should only do that which comes easy for them. And that being good at something is all that is important to you.

But beyond that, I think that one of the most powerful comments I read or heard while we were researching praise was Dr. Jennifer Crocker's observation that if you only talk in terms of praise, and never address mistakes or failure, you're sending a message that failure is so terrible, that you can't even acknowledge it. But life's about learning from mistakes.

I was surfing through some of the discussion boards on the New York piece, and I saw that one mom had decided to do some sort of extreme form of positive reinforcement. She only pays attention to what her kids do that she likes; she simply pretends the other stuff never happened and ignores it entirely. She says it's working, but how can a child grow, if he believes he's supposed to never make mistakes or that the appropriate response to them is to pretend them out of existence?

One more "tips" to come . . . .

How Not To Talk To Your Kids - Part 6 (tips on effective praise, con't)

From Ash:

More tips on effective praising.

5. Be Specific

I know we touched on this briefly before, but I thought I'd go into well, specifics, to show you more of what that means.

For example, if you saw that your daughter did an exceptionally good job of cleaning her room, don't walk into the family room to just say, "You're a great kid." She has no idea that that's in reference thinking to her newly-pristine room. So tell her exactly what she did that deserved your praise. Don't make her guess. Because she can always guess wrong. (She could easily think your "great kid" praise applies to something she's doing right then – like watching TV instead of doing her homework.)

The more specific your praise, the better. When a child hands you a story he's written, rather than the global praise, innate ability compliment, "You're a good writer," say something more to the effect of, "I like the way you introduced his character in your story – it's very clear that he's who the story's about."

Hearing these sorts of remarks, children learn to focus on how actions are under their control, rather than attributing achievements to an innate ability they do or don’t have. And they understand exactly what they did right. Now, you haven't just given them an ego-boost, you've given them constructive feedback that they can remember to apply in the future.

Specific comments also show the child that your opinion is sincere – very important – and that you're really seriously considering her work.

6. Praise the Process

In Carol Dweck's parlance, what is important is to use "process praise," rather than "person praise." That means tell a kid exactly what he did to deserve your praise. It is the effort he made, but you can also praise the strategies he chose, his concentration-level, the decisions he made. "It was a good idea to finish reading the chapter before playing video games, instead of stopping in the middle." "I noticed you paid attention to the coach through the whole game."

Note that it's very important to know that Dweck's research focused on complimenting of intelligence versus effort; that's because those were the two clearest things they could test for – dramatically opposing concepts, one relating to innate ability while the other related to autonomous control.

But Dr. Dweck and others do not think that effort is the only thing a child should be praised for.

Conversely, if effort is all that's ever praised, a child who worked very hard studying for a test may respond just as poorly to a bad grade as one who's praised for intelligence: the effort-praised child may say that he worked as hard as he could, and still he didn't succeed, so what's the point of continuing?

That's why it's vital to also praise those strategies, decisions, and other aspects of his work.

7. Don't Connect Praise with Promises of Future Success

At the same time, and sort of insurance against the above "I tried my hardest" scenario, make sure that you don't connect praise with promises of future success. As NYU's Dr. Judith Brook explained, if a child studied really hard before a test, compliment him on the studying, but don't add "...and I'm sure you'll do well."

Dr. Brook says she sees the praise-made promise turn sour in her med students who build each other up before a test, and are then stunned when they didn't get the "A" they thought was in the bag. She even sees this with physicians and patients: doctors promising cancer patients full-recovery when it's just too uncertain.

Remember – praise is for achievements that have actually been accomplished, not those to come, which brings us to –

8. Don't Confuse Praise with Encouragement

This is one I myself may have been the most guilty of: I mix my praise with encouragement. I tutor kids who are years behind in their reading and math levels, and I'm so afraid they'll give up. I know they never hear anything positive at home or school, so I've been a cheerleader to make up for that.

So when a kid refused to do a homework assignment or got stuck because it was too hard, I (used to) say, "You're smart; I know you can do this." Obviously, the "you're smart" was a problem, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, the combined praise-encouragement gives a child praise for past performance, but conditions that praise upon future, continued performance.

But the other problem with my reply is that this wasn't the time for praise at all. This was time just for encouragement. Rather than B.S.ing the kid with an empty attempt at boosting his self-esteem, the better thing to have said is, "Honey, I know it seems hard, but we'll work on it together. I think if you work hard, you can get this," or "Just do what you can, and if you're stuck, we'll figure out where you got lost," or even just "You can do it."

No praise. Just letting him see that I recognize his concerns, with some encouragement so that he doesn't give up. Again, sincerity is crucial – and since I've said that I understand and value his concerns (I didn't dismiss them with a pish-posh "You're too smart to be struggling,"), he may even remember that when he has a real problem he wants to talk about.

Still more to come . . . .

How Not To Talk To Your Kids - Part 5 (tips on effective praise)

From Ash:

I don't know about you, but the praise research I've read has left me occasionally tongue-tied when I'm around kids. I either accidentally say something I know I shouldn't ("That's terrific! You're a great kid!"), or I can't figure what to say at all. So building on our previous posts, here is the start of some tips for effectively praising.

1. Don't Offer Global Statements

If a child breaks a vase, most parents would think that the right response would be to say, “That was a bad thing to do,” not “You’re a bad child.” But we do the exact opposite for praise. When kid makes a vase, rather than breaks it, we often say "You're such a good girl! Such a talented artist!"

Compliment the making of the vase – the actual achievement. Don't turn a single event – good or bad – into a global label that the kid can't possibly live up to.

That's not to say that these identity-praise labels don’t work – they do. (One study even found that children who were described as “tidy children” became more tidy than those who were simply given a list of tidy instructions.) The problem is that the labels work too well. The label goes beyond the self-fulfilling prophecy. It goes to image-maintenance.

Studies have shown the pattern from elementary school children to college students: children go to great pains to protect their “genius” or other identity labels they’ve acquired along the way. “Smart kids” won’t ask questions that will risk making them look stupid. If they don’t succeed, they’re more likely to say they will cheat the next time. They’re aggressively competitive – more concerned about others’ performance than improving their own.

These identity-praise addicts choose less challenging tasks, so that they’re more ensured of success. And they become helpless – frozen – when they’re confronted by facts that go against their identity labels.

2. Be Sincere

I'm not saying be brutally honest – we don't all need to become the next Simon Cowell – but too many of us laugh at Paula Abdul's non-existent critiques, then we turn right around and do an unwittingly dead-on impression of her when we talk to our own kids.

Really, we can't overstate the importance that praise be sincere: it's absolutely crucial. Some parents are so intent on protecting a child’s self-image, they seem to feel that every comment they make has to be positive – even if it isn’t true. Kids want you to tell them the truth, and they can tell when you’re being insincere.

As we mentioned in our New York piece, only children younger than age seven take praise at face value. After that, children become increasingly adept at scrutinizing praise for its veracity. By high school, teens have become so used to hearing insincere praise, that they believe that those who are praised are actually lacking in ability, while those who are criticized are the real talents in a classroom.

3. Don't Use Empty Praise

Before praising, ask yourself if the praise is for a real achievement. I'm not saying never praise, or hold back the praise til your child was won the Nobel Prize. But, as New York University professor of psychiatry Dr. Judith Brook explained, praise a child for achievements that he can make at his developmental level. If your child is supposed to clean her room as part of her normal chores, then is that an achievement worth actual praise? Or will a mere acknowledgement do? If a child loads the dishwasher, is praise required, or will a simple "thank you" suffice?

As Dr. Brook warns, “I wouldn’t ever use empty praise, because, once you do that, your credibility is gone.”

And you don't just lose credibility for your praise, either. A couple scholars have found that children whose parents give them empty praise start believing that their parents simply don't understand the reality of the children's situation, and thus, the children feel that there's little point in trying to turn to them for support or an opinion in any other context.

4. Scale Back the Amount of Praise

For me at least, this is probably the hardest of all. Contrary to what you might have heard, every little thing your child does does not need to be praised. And there are real dangers in overpraise (and we're talking about in the amount of praise given and the overstatements used). First, children may become fixated on getting the praise, so that they are unmotivated by anything other than praise and rewards.

And Dr. Robert Cloninger's research compelling argues that constant praise may literally wire the brain to expect constant rewards, resulting in an inability to persist when the rewards stop coming.

Of course, a lot of parents don't see themselves as overpraising to that extent – or they say they praise constantly, but still, they insist that their kids aren't praise junkies.

Here's the other danger in overpraising – the one that I think is even more of a concern in most families – by using unrealistic or constant praise, a parent may unknowingly increase pressure on a child to perform. Children who get praised a lot believe that they constantly need to do things that merit praise. We're back to children who are more concerned with image-maintenance than growth and development.

An alternative to praise: instead of saying how great something is, just a pat-on-the-back and it's over, start a conversation with the child about her work. "Look at how you used color red instead of green for the grass. Tell me about why you did that." Again, this gets the child to consider her choices for the work, while it shows you're really interested and paying attention.

Much more to come. . . .

How Not To Talk To Your Kids - Part 4

From Ash:

One of the things that Po and I found so compelling about the praise research was the idea that so much of what is passed off as praise isn't really praise at all. Instead of being a genuine compliment, praise is frequently a tool of manipulation – a way of controlling someone. That's particularly true for children. We often use it to control a child's performance or the others who have yet to deserve our praise.

A common praise technique that people use (I know I did it with my tutoring kids... up til a few weeks ago, that is....) is to use a present success to control future performance. For example, if a typically-sloppy child writes an essay that's atypically legible, a parent or teacher may say, "That's very neat: you should write all of your papers like this." Even if it's meant as sincere praise and encouragement, the research shows that's not only an ineffective way to praise. In fact, like praising for intelligence – it can actually damage a child's performance.

Here's what is going on. While the first part of the sentence was positive, rather than focusing on that success, the latter part of the sentence ("You should write all like this") was negative, doubly-so. First, rather than simply focusing on the present achievement, the second half of the sentence reminds the child about all the past mistakes. Second, it's an expression of pressure to continue at this level in the future. But the kid may think that the work he just completed was very difficult, and he doubts he can live up to these new expectations.

Even worse, a child who suddenly wrote more legibly did it on his own volition. But if the praiser qualifies the praise with the expectation of future performance, now if the child continues to perform, he's not doing it because he wanted to: he's doing it to fulfill the praiser's expectation. Basically, the whole exchange kills the kid's intrinsic motivation to improve. Furthermore, studies have shown that children's performance actually may go down: they will even intentionally underperform, just to show that they refuse to follow the attempted control. In other words, yes, they do badly just to spite you.

The better thing to have said was, "This is really neat," and left it at that. That way, the kid sees the praise, and he'll want to replicate what he's done well to get more of that – believing that he's done so because he wanted to. Not because he was forced to.

Another example of controlling praise is when it is used to control others' behavior – for example, when Timmy is praised for working hard while others are not. "Can everyone see Timmy? Timmy, that's great," or even worse, "I wish everyone was like Timmy."

Of course, rather than trying to emulate him, everyone else hates Timmy.

And studies have shown that this sort of public praise can harm children who are praised as well: embarrassed at being publicly singled out, the praised kids actually do worse after this – because they want to prove publicly that they are not a teacher's pet or favorite.

Surveys of college studies found similar results: when asked if they would want to be publicly recognized in their classes for high grades, most said an emphatic "No," – they were afraid it would make them become a target of their peers.

How Not To Talk To Your Kids - Part 3

From Ash:

Po and I are so delighted by the response our New York piece is having, and I just had to share some of it with you. Po and Carol Dweck were on Good Morning, America this morning, and they're tentatively scheduled to be guests on tomorrow's NPR show On Point, while I'll be talking with Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

But what's been really exciting to see are the conversations that have been going on on various blogs, discussion boards, etc. The Wall Street Journal and Boston Globe picked it up: writers in Jersualem and Milan – and I'm not sure what the German comments are, but I'm hoping they're nice.

How Not To Talk To Your Kids - Part 2

From Po & Ash:

When researching praise for our New York article, one of the first things that we needed to understand was the concept of what exactly was praise, and what was it supposed to do accomplish. Essentially, praise is a communication of a warm, enthusiastic response.

But here's where it gets tricky. Is praise a reward? Is saying "Good job, Honey" for an "A" on an exam the same as handing a kid an iTunes gift-card? There are both physiological and psychological factors that need to be taken into account to answer that question.

Each of us, when we are growing up, develops our own motivation personality. Just as you never forget how to ride a bike, parts of your brain never forget what is was like to learn to ride a bike. In our brains is the reward center, the nucleus accumbens. When we learn to do hard things, (ride a bike, earn an A grade, learn to read) this nucleus accumbens gets lit up with dopa. Our brain records what kind of rewards were present at the time - how did I get that dopa? And we kinda wire our brains to expect those same mix of rewards in the future - how will I get more dopa?

Lead by University of Rochester's Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, there is an influential school of scholarship on motivation. Deci and Ryan have argued that motivation can be divided into two types – intrinsic and extrinsic.

Intrinsic motivation is when you do something just because you love it – for the sheer joy and satisfaction of the experience. Extrinsic motivation is when you do something for a reward that comes from someone or something else than yourself.

And while we wouldn't necessarily think of praise as an external reward, if brain chemistry's any indication, it's perceived as being closer to a tangible reward than we might initially consider. Praise then walks a fine-line, then with rewards and their positive and negative consequences on motivation. Research has shown that praise may increase adults' intrinsic motivation, but only if the praise is infrequent and genuine. Praise that is controlling or too frequent seems to become an external reward. And the problem with that is that external rewards are so emphemral, and inherently out of one's control, that those motivated by external rewards become more competitive and more image-driven.

For children, there seems to be some consensus that tangible rewards are destructive for children's intrinsic motivation. (All those read-a-book, get-a-pizza-party programs may be killing a generation's love of reading for pleasure.) But the effects of praise on intrinsic motivation seem less clear. Some of that has to do with the fact that so much of children's behavior is directed by parents and teachers – it's harder to parse out what actually a child wants to do and what he's doing because he's told to do so. Or that he was told to do something so frequently, that he's still echoing that earlier instruction.

But there are some studies that give clues as to the way recognition affects children's motivations. For example, in one study, the findings were actually an accident. Under the supervision of a researcher, children were given activities to do. The kids were having a good time playing, but then the researcher had to leave the room. When he returned, he discovered that the kids had stopped everything: they had just waited for his return. So the researcher left the room again. Again, the kids stopped everything – just waiting for him to come back. It wasn't a fluke. They changed the study, kept leaving the room, and realized the kids weren't playing because they enjoyed themselves – they were playing because they were getting attention.

Even those who haven't yet found praise to affect children's intrinsic motivation still look at the effect of praise on adults – the damage to motivation that can stem from too-frequent or praise as a means of control – and use this for a note of caution. They warn that recommendations calling for increased praise in educational settings are misguided and need to be reconsidered.

How Not to Talk to Your Kids - Part 1

From Po:

Today, Ashley and I unveil our cover story for New York Magazine, "Praise is Dangerous: How Not to Talk to Your Kids."

In the piece, we tackle how parents praise their children – specifically, the idea that, according to a Columbia University survey, 85 percent of parents believe it's important to praise your children's intelligence.

In a very quick overview of what we've discovered, we've found that research by professor Carol S. Dweck and others directly challenges that belief that praising for intelligence is beneficial to children's development. (Actually, it turns out there are even scholars who are making a persuasive case that any praise at all can be damaging, regardless the context.)

Instead, Dweck's research shows that praise for intelligence can be harmful. Kids praised for intelligence can do well, but only while they succeed.

Once they fail, however, it's a whole other story. Because children praised for intelligence attribute their earlier success to their innate abilities. Thus they don't know how to respond to their new failure. Rather than seeing failure as a temporary event, they believe that their failure is proof that they didn't actually have the innate abilities they had been previously lauded for.

Note that there's two separate ideas twined together right there. One is the aspect of praise itself, and how it's used (often overused). The other idea is how praising intelligence (telling a kid "You're so smart") teaches the idea that intelligence is an innate ability - i.e., a fixed ability. You're either smart or you aren't.

Over the next few posts, we'll have much more to say on the topic of praise including: how praise is so often mis-used (it's not really praise at all); how praise affects children's motivation; and do's and don'ts on praising your own children.

Carol Dweck is a charming scholar. Though she recently joined the faculty at Stanford, most of her life has been spent in New York; she was raised in Brooklyn, went to college at Barnard, and taught at Columbia for decades. This reluctant new Californian just got her first driver’s license – at age sixty. Other Stanford faculty have joked that she’ll soon be sporting bright colors in her couture, but so far Dweck sticks to New York black – black suede boots, black skirt, trim black jacket. All of which matches her hair and her big black eyebrows – one of which is raised up, perpetually, as if in disbelief. Tiny as a bird, she uses her hands in elaborate gestures, almost like she’s holding her idea in front of her, physically rotating it in three-dimensional space. Her speech pattern, though, is not at the impatient pace of most New Yorkers. She talks almost like she were reading a children’s lullaby, with gently punched-up moments of drama.

Read our piece and enjoy learning from her research.

Anderson Cooper's Private War

From Po:

Today, February 12th, I actually have two magazine cover stories coming out on the same day. One, on the science of praising your kids, is the cover of New York Magazine. (I'll blog about that in an hour). The other is a profile of the CNN Journalist Anderson Cooper, which made the cover of Mens Journal.

When I took this assignment, I didn't know much about Cooper. I had seen his Hurricane Katrina coverage, and I've obviously known he's been a big name since then. But I hadn't read his book, or even read the coverage about his memoir. He turned out to have quite a fascinating backstory, and a fairly fascinating psychology today. As has been well-told by himself and others, Cooper is the son of fashion maven Gloria Vanderbilt. When he was in college, his older brother committed suicide. Ever since, Cooper has had an almost primal hunger to be near matters of life and death. He was an adventurous war correspondent throughout the first half of the 1990s, and as an anchor at CNN goes everywhere around the world for stories.

I was to meet Cooper in New Orleans, but the day before doing so, he decided to fly to Turkey to cover the Pope's visit. So at the end of the week, he flew into Las Vegas to give a speech to Hudson Booksellers - they run 600 airport stores. I was able to spend the day with him in Vegas. Vegas is far from his idea of a good time. It's entirely unreal and distasteful, which is exactly why so many love it. He never left the hotel. Wait - that line lands a little hard, as if he were afraid to leave the hotel. The truth was, the hotel was connected to the convention center underground, so to get between he could just walk. He had flown in that afternoon from Jordan to London to New York to Vegas, and after giving his speech I wanted five or six hours to interview him. We did that in the hotel too. Afterwards, at about 9 or 10 o'clock, he had a choice between going out with me and his publicists, or finally getting some sleep. He chose the latter.

About twenty profiles of Cooper have already been written - most landed after Katrina or when his memoir was published last year - so it was tricky for me to carve new ground. One of the parts of his life I explored is his high school years, when he took a National Outdoor Leadership School course in Wyoming, and got a taste for travel and challenging himself. His senior year of high school, he graduated a semester early and then went to Africa, and rode on the back of a truck up through Africa for several months.

Once into Zaire, the lorry was delayed at roadblocks with drunk soldiers. The lorry turned north into the Ituri Rainforest, where Cooper spent some days with Mbuti pygmies. (That region is now a battle zone). Then they turned west towards Kisangani. “Crossing the Congo, I had an overwhelming feeling of dilapidation and lack of state control. There was really no government in that part of Zaire. People survived entirely on their own, without help, left to their own devices.” He could easily see it turning into a troubled region – which indeed, it did, over the next decade. His early experiences there are partly why he has such interest in Africa and The Congo today. In fact, in his reporting from The Congo last fall, he crossed into the DRC at Goma, on the same road and the same checkpoint he had done so when he was 17.

Just recently, FoxNews began running print ads saying Cooper was "The Paris Hilton of TV News." This was an exceedingly stupid and incorrect tag line. To those who don't know Cooper, and only know of him as pretty face and a celebrity, he might come across as such. But to anyone who knows the least bit about him - as I too learned - he's a very hard core journalist, having reported from almost every prominent war zone in the last 15 years, including Burma during their revolution, Somalia before the shitstorm, Rwanda before the world was listening. And while he may be a celebrity, unlike Paris Hilton he doesn't publicly discuss anything about his personal life.

In fact I was very interested in why Anderson Cooper talks about his family life growing up, quite openly, but doesn't talk publicly about his personal life today. Why? The more I studied him, the more I could see how watching his mother live her life in the tabloids decade after decade affected him. He vowed when young not to repeat that strategy. Unfortunately, this may be backfiring, and I got him to admit so. Not talking about his personal life today just makes those details more of a "get" for the tabloids.

Already, since the article has come out, the blogs and the tv-news press has been abuzz. Anderson is a good journalist who really likes to travel to stories in person. I think he feeds off the people he meets - they keep him real. Anyway, in the article is a fairly innocuous line about how Anderson, in considering where his career might go, felt that a traditional anchor position at a desk in New York (where he doesn't get to travel much) wasn't for him. In the tv-press, people are speculating what this means (what anchor job? at CNN? at another network?), when it doesn't really mean much. He also told me he wants to be a father, and if that day comes, it will probably mean he won't be able to travel so much. I was more interested in that choice - between work and family, hypothetical scenario. I was glad to hear that his family background hadn't made him scared of having his own family.

Many of the blogs have asked why the photographs of Cooper that run with the article are so somber. "Why didn't we choose a photo of him smiling?" they ask. Well, I wasn't at the photo shoot, but I'm told he didn't smile for the photographer. But he smiles plenty in person and has a quick wit. I've never smiled for a professional photographer either, to tell you the truth. Something about it just feels forced in that setting.

This Week's Recommended Reading #24

From Ash:

As I mentioned earlier, there's been a spate of education-related articles recently. And none particularly wowed me on its own, but collectively I think they're worth addressing.

First, while the Los Angeles Times did an article about the rise of high schools offering web-based distance learning (oddly omitting any comparison to these programs to home-schooling), the Washington Post featured a report by Education Sector on impact of longer in-school hours on children's achievement. Notably, the report finds that longer school hours seem to help ameliorate students' socio-economic factors. I also found it intriguing that longer school hours are being lauded – but not one person is commenting on the fact that some of these children are going to school for days-longer than an adult can go to work, at least without overtime, complaining about work-life balance, etc. I'm not sure what to make of that, but I do think it's something worth pondering.

Then there's the thing that's almost always on my mind anyway: school loans.

Since my own law school loan pay-off date isn't exactly around the corner (try the year 2029), The Washington Post's recent feature lost me when they featured the couple who was able to put aside $300 a month for each of their two children, after they'd already put something away for their retirement. But then they did have some grimly informative statistics that make my loans look like a joke by comparison, so at least there's that if I want to be a "half-glass-full" type.

Then the LAT did a feature on how Latinos are scrupulously avoiding school loans, to the point that it may be one reason they have such a high college drop-out rate.

But the articles that really intrigued me were the ones about the schools and communities trying to desperately to fix the problem.

AP reported that Oklahoma Wesleyan University decided to auction off a student's tuition on eBay. As of tonight, bidding is at $19,600 – that includes tuition, room and board (books aren't included). That's still about a $4,000 savings, in case you're wondering, so get your bid in now, I guess.

Indiana's Governor – complaining about a state-wide brain-drain – is proposing the state gives its native sons and daughters a $20,000 scholarship (over four years). But there's a catch: if they move out of state within three-years of graduation, they have to pay it back.

Then there's El Dorado, Arkansas, the town that really has turned into gold for its students. If you hadn't heard, for the next 20 years, a local oil company decided to pay five years in or out of state college tuition for all students who have been in area schools for four years prior to graduation. The grant's capped at the highest in-state school tuition, but there are no need or grade requirements to be eligible, and you just have to maintain a 2.0 at the destination college of your choice. I've never been to El Dorado, but I'm an honorary Arkansan (no, really), so for those of you who are now considering a move there, allow me to reassure you that Arkansas is a beautiful state, the people are nice, and the food's yummy.

Although honestly, most of these plans pale in comparison to what I read somewhere is the Australian solution. What I recall is that there, student loan repayment is tied to current income. So if you aren't making a lot, you pay less, if you make more, you pay more. It allows people to get the education they want, forgive them tough job markets, and yes, frees people up to pursue public-service positions that they otherwise couldn't afford.

This Week's Recommended Reading #23

From Ash:

There were quite a few interesting articles in the past week+, most having to do with education, so I'm going to do a second Recommended Reading just on those. But in the meantime, here are some pieces of a more general interest.

Valentine's Food For Thought

Canadian radio show "And Sometimes Y" has an interesting look on the lexicography of love – what's love versus lust, the poet's view of love compared to the psychologist's. I caught the show while broadcast, but, hopefully, the show will be archived on the show's page soon enough.

If you're heading around a mall trying to figure out what to get your sweetheart, uh, no pressure, Guys – but you want to first read this Reuters' piece on how women would rather have new clothes than sex. While Yale undergrads might not agree, this survey found that women would consider the loss of their favorite clothing worse than no sex – perhaps because their clothes last longer than their relationships.

Women's Salaries

The LA Times took a look at how an increasing percentage of women are making more money than their spouses, but I'm giving that piece a qualified recommendation. It's what the piece omitted that's the real problem. First, the increase is just from 17.8 to 25.3% – and it took 20 years for that increase. Which is nothing compared to the concomitant rise of women in the workforce, on the whole. The article then argues that if women make more than husbands, dads will become caregivers – but there hasn't been a full-time father-caregiver rise. At the same time, they didn't try to examine how these financial relationships affect marital stability.

Immigration Overview

The Washington Post has an interesting collection of immigration articles, from different perspectives. Not as jawdroppingly wonderful as the earlier migration series by the LA Times, but still worth a few minutes of your time.

What Parents Fear the Most: The Media

Reuters reported that parents are very concerned about these kids today – but the influence that worries them the most is The Media. More than sex and drugs and rock 'n roll. No, wait, rock 'n roll is part of the problem. What's interesting is that they consider themselves responsible for patrolling kids: they don't seem to be saying that The Media should be forced to clean up its act. But then, given this point of view, it might be commercially reasonable to address their concerns, no?

News You Can Use:

A public service announcement: Congress has moved up the day we all switch to daylight savings time by a whopping four weeks. Last year, it started on April 2. This year, it starts on March 11. Check your TiVo (or if you're a tech-primative like me, the clock on your VCR). (Did you know that it was Ben Franklin who invented DST? And that it's possible he meant it as a joke?)