Carol Dweck: The Effect of Praise on Mindsets

[Dweck] We took fifth graders.
We give them puzzles to solve.

So you see these blocks?
Can you tell me what color

-is on that side?
-Red.

Yellow. White. Blue.

What I want you to do
to put these blocks together

so that the picture on top
matches the picture here, all right?

[Dweck] First, we give children a set

of easier puzzles to do.

[woman] Now, here's the next one.

[narrator] When these nine and ten-year-olds
successfully put together the puzzle,

the children are praised
for either their intelligence...

[woman] Wow, you did really well,
you must be really smart at this!

[narrator] ...or the effort they made.

Wow, you did really well,
you must have tried really hard at these.

{\an8}Then we give them a much
harder set of problems.

{\an8}Ones that they might, in fact,
struggle with.

[woman] Here's the next one.

[Dweck]
And we see what happens to...

their confidence.

Do they think, "Oh this means
I'm not good at it after all?"

Do they stop liking the puzzles?

Or do they maintain their confidence

and think, "Well, it just needs
more effort or strategy"?

What happens to their motivation?

Are you ready to go on?

Ta-dah!

[Dweck] We also ask them,

"Well, which problems
do you want to work on some more?

Those easier ones,
or those harder ones?"

And, generally, we find

that kids who've been praised
for their intelligence

really want to go back
to those easier ones

that were kind of
their claim to fame.

[narrator] This is a sign
of a fixed mindset:

the belief that intelligence is innate
and can't be changed.

[Dweck] What we found was that
children thought that that difficulty

meant they weren't smart,
or they weren't good at the task.

So you seem to have
more trouble with this one,

and I want to know
why you think that was.

Probably because I'm not good
at these problems.

A very discouraging conclusion.

[narrator] Other children
show a growth mindset.

[Dweck] The growth mindset is like this:

no matter who you are,

you can always become
a great deal smarter.

They feel smart when they're
working really hard

on something difficult
and making progress.

So, if I gave you some more problems,
would you like more problems like these

that are pretty easy, so you'll do well,

or problems like these, that will be hard,
but you might learn a lot from them?

-These.
-More like these?

Students praised for effort
generally want

those hard ones
that they can learn from.

What I've learned from my research
is that kids, and I think adults too,

are exquisitely sensitive

to what's going on in a situation,

what other people value,
what they're being judged on.

What is that voice in our head saying?

Is it saying fixed mindset things like,
"Oh, you better not make a mistake."

"You better look smart,
people are judging you."

Or is it saying growth mindset things:

"Here's an opportunity.
Here's a mistake I can learn from."

"I feel smart
when I do something difficult."

Ms. Sedgwick, we did it!