ABSTRACT
At the same time that Melissa Kamins and I were studying the effects of praise on kindergarten students, Claudia Mueller and I were studying the impact of praise on older, fifth-grade children (Mueller & Dweck, 1998). We were very interested in the commonly advocated practice of praising students for their intelligence. In fact, we had found in our previous research that 85% of parents believe that praising children's ability when they do well is something that is necessary for children's self-esteem (Mueller & Dweck, 1996). Why might this be?
