The Science of Praise

Four key and actionable insights from the research.

Happy Fourth — I know it’s a complicated celebration for many of us this year. But hey, good news: I’m running a 40% off summer sale that ends today at midnight! This is my biggest discount EVER, so I encourage you to take advantage of it if you haven’t already….

A while back, I went down the rabbit hole of parental praise. I kept coming across scary articles that argued that praising kids is terrible — it is a form of manipulation, it makes kids less self-confident, it undermines motivation. The problem with many articles like this is that they are designed to stoke fear without offering clear, specific explanations or solutions. You read them (or even just their headline) and, no matter how you praise your kids, you feel like you’ve totally screwed up.

Frustrated, I wanted to know what the science really suggested, and whether it was true that saying things like “good job” would set kids up to fail in all the ways.

So I read a bunch of research and talked to some of the scientists who study praise. And here’s my takeaway: Despite all the reductionist headlines, the science on praise is pretty nuanced. Yes, the research does suggest that certain forms of praise can be more helpful than others. But none if it suggests that if you praise your kid “the wrong way,” you’re screwing them up for life. And research finds that more helpful forms of praise can nudge kids in a positive direction very quickly — so even if your praise habits haven’t aligned so far with what the research has suggested, it’s never too late to make tweaks, if that feels important to you. (And if not, that’s totally okay, too.)

I also found that there are specific and actionable take-homes from the research — praise is not categorically bad, by any means (it’s actually really important!) but there are ways to tweak parental praise so that it helps kids stay motivated and feel good about themselves.

Here are four key insights from the research and how you can apply them to your parenting.