I get why, though. Moral actions are choices. Being smart isn't. If you praise a kid for being smart, he won't be able to choose to be smart. Instead, he'll assume he's smart and won't have to work so hard. I suppose praising an innate tendency to work hard might be more effective.
After some thought though I can see it as consistent since when they do something well you can praise them for being hard-working (character).
The interesting part of the article was the quantitative analysis of experimental evidence, not so much that evolution seems to have produced a species that's pretty good at tribal-scale interpersonal dynamics and learning everything by copying superiors. The qualitative analysis seems obvious given the model, so good experimental numbers indicates the popular qualitative model is likely correct.
This sort of gets coupled with the idea of 'work smarter, not harder.' When a child is praised more substantially for trying hard, you get things like staying up all night studying for a test. When you emphasize being smart and not needing to study, the child is more likely to push themselves such that they can land good grades without needing to study.
And this usually manifests as greater attentiveness in class, greater emphasis on figuring out exactly what's going to be on the test, etc. But you also see behaviours like emphasizing getting the right teachers.
And the same thing applies to sports. If you emphasize effort, you might get a child practicing repeatedly something that they are already good at. When they are really bad at passing, you get thought patterns like 'at least I'm trying.' When you emphasize being good, the child is more devastated by the idea that they are bad at passing, and they focus their energy on being not bad.
The point is that things like being 'smart' and being 'good' are things that you can actually learn, and a lot times, working on what's important is much more important than the overall volume of effort.
> When a child is praised more substantially for trying hard, you get things like staying up all night studying for a test. When you emphasize being smart and not needing to study, the child is more likely to push themselves such that they can land good grades without needing to study.
The way I've heard and personally experienced it, kids who get praised for being smart are more likely to procrastinate ("eh, I already get that anyway"), then try to cram everything in in the last minute.
> And the same thing applies to sports. If you emphasize effort, you might get a child practicing repeatedly something that they are already good at.
Similarly, studies suggest that by praising talent, you teach kids to stick to what they are good at immediately ("that's what I'm talented at"), instead of putting in the effort to learn stuff that they don't get immediately.
EDIT: Perhaps it depends on whether you praise below-average, average and smarter-than-average kids?
It depends on how you emphasize being smart. If you emphasize overall smartness, the kid will be more self-conscious about their weak points, which is what I wanted to convey. If you emphasize particular moments where they are good, they will be encouraged to repeat that specifically. It's a difference between emphasizing being good at [subset like shooting hoops] vs being good at [basketball as a whole]. Academically, the emphasis should be on the grades instead of on being good at taking tests. Or if you're more high-level, the emphasis should be on learning what's going to be most useful to you later in life as opposed to specifically effort or grades.
As for procrastination, in my experience the smarter kids procrastinate substantially more. But for the most part this doesn't come back and bite them. They leave exactly as much time as they need to pull off the good grade and most of the time it works out.
I think the real danger with this strategy is that when kids are praised for being smart, they seek out things where they are smart, and avoid things that would require hard work. Most worthwhile things require hard work at some point.
This does not line up with research in the matter.
>This sort of gets coupled with the idea of 'work smarter, not harder.' When a child is praised more substantially for trying hard, you get things like staying up all night studying for a test.
No. Not if you teach balance.
>When you emphasize being smart and not needing to study, the child is more likely to push themselves such that they can land good grades without needing to study.
This is just so ridiculous I can't even comment.