Compliments and the growth mindset

You’re very intelligent!
You are a good pianist!

What do you think of the above compliments? Have you ever been on the receiving end of these sorts of compliments? Have you ever given these sorts of compliments? Do you like them or do they make you crunch?

Look at this experiment (which can be found at Carol Dweck's website) and then answer these questions again…

A group of four year olds received one of the two following compliments after having drawn a picture:

“You are a good drawer!”
“You did a good job drawing!”

The subtle nuance between the two compliments is that the first is generic and refers to the person whilst the second is nongeneric and refers to a specific episode. In both cases the children would be happy with the compliment and smile.

However, the response to a subsequent failure was very different for children in the two different compliment conditions. After the children had made a mistake, their was a significant difference between the children who had received a generic compliment and the ones who had received a nongeneric compliment. The children who had received a generic compliment behaved helpless after having made the mistake, they valued their performance much less, they were much less willing to keep on drawing and they chose significantly less to improve their drawing, given the chance to draw again. Children who received a nongeneric compliment responded much less emotional to mistakes and were more motivated to improve their mistakes and chose to draw again.

In summary: subtle differences in language influence the belief the children had in their own abilities and their motivation to perform well.

So, what do you think of the compliments at the start of this article now? If you thought that they were effective compliments, you are not alone. However, as Dweck’s work teaches us, they might not be as effective as you would think.

Basically what is wrong with the generic compliments is that they evoke a fixed mindset in the person who receives the compliment. The compliment refers to something like intelligence and painting as a fixed trait of the person. Some people see intelligence and personality as a fixed trait. Entity theorists, is what Dweck calls them. They have a fixed mindset. This is who I am for always, this is my fixed intelligence level, and there is not much I can do to change that. Others see intelligence and personality as malleable. These people have a growth mindset, as Carol Dweck calls it. They think intelligence and personality are no fixed entities but can be developed and improved. They think effort is the key to getting better. So instead of focussing on “being good” people with a growth mindset focus on “getting better”. This turns out to be the best starting point to actually get better. People with a fixed mindset respond different to failure than people with a growth mindset. Why? Because when you believe your intelligence is fixed and you have failed, this is proof that you are not as intelligent as you might have thought and there is nothing you can do about it, because it is fixed. This conviction results in putting less effort into achieving results and even self-handicapping behaviour.

Want to read more? Carol Dweck's page