Abstract
Most previous research has demonstrated that receiving ability-focused praise (e.g., “You are smart”) negatively affects intrinsic motivation following failure. Surprisingly, a recent study showed that ability-focused praise affects not only the praisee but also the person offering praise, that is, the praiser. However, evidence of the effects on the praiser is quite limited, despite the utility of praise in education. Therefore, the present study employed face-to-face interaction to advance the knowledge of the effects of praise on the praiser. Two experiments were conducted in which undergraduate participants (n = 39 and n = 51) praised a research confederate. We measured attentional engagement using an eye-tracker as a behavioral indicator of intrinsic motivation, as well as self-reported task enjoyment. To estimate the effect of praise, we combined the results of two experiments and conducted a Bayes factor meta-analysis. The results showed that in the ability praise group, participants’ attentional engagement in a task was significantly lower than in the control group. The present finding indicates that ability-focused praise negatively affects the praiser’s intrinsic motivation and suggests that praise should be used with caution in social and educational contexts.
Highlights
Praise has received considerable attention in schools
As for fixation duration, the δ was −0.491, and the 95% Bayesian credible interval was between −0.978 and −0.026, which did not contain zero. These findings showed that attentional engagement in the ability-focused praise group was lower than that in the control group
The results of task enjoyment showed that there was no significant difference between the abilityfocused praise group and the control group, whereas the results of attentional engagement showed that the fixation count and fixation duration in the ability-focused praise group were significantly lower and shorter than those in the control group
Summary
Praise has received considerable attention in schools. In Japan, for example, teachers are encouraged to praise students (Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, 2018) and students are encouraged to praise each other (e.g., Fukuoka-Ken Board of Education, 2015). Kakinuma et al (2020) showed that ability-focused praise negatively affects the praiser’s intrinsic motivation In their experiment, participants read a scenario in which a junior student succeeded (Study 2) or observed another student working on a task through a monitor (Study 3). The results showed that participants in the ability-focused group reported less task enjoyment than those in the control group This finding suggests that peer praise may have the same effect on the praiser and the praisee. Based on the assumption that praise would have the same effect on the praiser as on the praisee (Kakinuma et al, 2020), ability-focused praise would negatively affect the intrinsic motivation for the task measured by the self-report and behavioral indexes. We hypothesized that those offering ability-focused praise would be less intrinsically motivated; they would report lower task enjoyment and would show a lower level of attentional engagement than participants in the control group
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