[AUDIO LOGO] NARRATOR: So check this out. Carol Dweck and her colleagues wanted to look into the impacts that praise had on children's development. So what they did is they took over 500 5th grade students from all across the nation, and they did a really simple yet interesting study. 

Here's how it went down. They gave all the kids a really, really easy nonverbal IQ test. There were 10 questions, and at the end of the test, they praised all the children in one of two ways. The first group was praised for their intelligence. So they said, wow, great job. You must be really smart at this. 

Now, the second group was praised for their effort. So they said, wow. Great job. You must have worked really, really hard at this. Now, this is a really subtle difference, but the impact it had is incredible. 

So after praising the kids and getting them divided up into the two groups, they gave them all an option for their next test. The first option was, hey, this next test is going to be a little bit harder, but it's going to be a great opportunity to learn and grow. Now, the second option was, this next test will be similar to the first, and you will surely do well on it. 

Now, the interesting thing is out of the group that was praised for their intelligence, 67% of them chose the easier option, while 92% of the kids who were praised for their effort chose the harder test. This is unbelievable to think about, how just the subtle difference in the way that they were praised had such an impact. Carol Dweck explains why this happened. 

CAROL DWECK: The child or adult hears, oh, you think I'm brilliant and talented. That's why you admire me. That's why you value me. I better not do anything that will disprove this evaluation. As a result, they enter a fixed mindset. They play it safe in the future, and they limit the growth of their talents. 

Whereas focusing on the strategies they use, the way they're stretching themselves and taking on hard tasks, the intense practice they're doing-- those are the kinds of things that say to a child or an older athlete, it's about the process of growth. As a result, they don't feel, oh, if I make a mistake, you won't think I'm talented. They think, oh, if I don't take on hard things and stick to them, I'm not going to grow. 

NARRATOR: Next, Dweck and her colleagues gave all the kids a really, really difficult test. It was one that they would surely fail, but they wanted to look at how the different kids attacked this challenge. Dweck noticed that the group that was praised for effort worked harder, longer, and actually enjoyed this test more than the group that was praised for their intelligence. This group got really frustrated with this test and had the tendency to give up early. 

After this artificially induced failure around, all of the kids were given a third and final test. Now, this test was the same level of difficulty as the first one, but check out the results. The group that was praised for their intelligence actually did worse on this test than the first one. Their average score actually dropped by 20%, while the group that was praised for their effort did significantly better, raising their average score by nearly 30%. This is a 50% difference in performance that was caused by a few subtle differences in the way that they were praised. 

This study shows how praise can either make or break a child's development. I mean, we all do it. We all want to be positive with the children we work with, so teachers, coaches, parents, are always looking for ways to support their kids, and tend to praise them quite a bit. So we need to look at research like this and realize, OK, praise is a good thing, and there's nothing wrong with being positive. But we need to be very careful about praising someone's intelligence or abilities, and focus more on the process and the effort.