Some parents are blessed with a soul that lights up every time their little precious brings them a carefully crafted portrait or home-made greetings card. I am not one of those parents.
It is not that I don’t love my kids, or that I don’t appreciate the gesture. I rather like it when they come rushing up to me with a big grin squealing “Daddy, I made you a present!” But then I look down at the splodge of crayon and glue in my hand and suddenly I’m possessed by the sour spirit of Brian Sewell. Is this meant to be me? It is … how can I put this … it is rubbish. Really son, my legs do not grow straight out of the side of my oversized head. My eyes are roughly the same size as each other and last time I checked were smaller than my feet. My nose is not blue – and I have only one of them. No of course I won’t pin it above my desk, that’s where I sleep most afternoons, do you want to give me nightmares?
The forthcoming edition of Psychological Science, reports an experiment showing that adults who lavish extravagant praise on children may often be doing more harm than good. Where a child already has low self-esteem, due perhaps to having a dad like me, the more inflated the praise offered to their hamfisted paintings or bad sums, the less likely they are to be motivated to do it again. The kids’ reasoning, quite understandably, seems to be to quit while they’re ahead. Children with high self-esteem, needless to say, suck it up and throw themselves into the next challenge with puppylike enthusiasm. God I hate those kids.
The same researchers reported last year that praise, far from being a universal motivator, is very much context-dependent. Those with low self-esteem will benefit from praise for their efforts and application, but not praise for their personality or essential qualities. It is more effective to say “oh, look what a clever thing you’ve done”, than “oh, look how clever you are”. This is a useful application of what social psychologists call attribution theory. The same principles decree that you will get better results disciplining your offspring by telling him/her that she or he has done a bad thing than that she or he is a naughty child. It is more important for children to learn that we are what we do, than vice versa.
A few years ago, other psychologists found that adults with low self-esteem were not helped by repeating empowering mantras such as “I can do it” or “I will succeed”. In fact it made them feel worse. So despite what the self-help industry and inspirational Facebook memes would have you believe, telling everyone they are wonderful is not always very profitable – unless you work for Hallmark.
For all that, the pursuit of praise remains a powerful human motivator. One 2011 study found that many young adults would rather receive boosts to their self-esteem than engage in eat their favourite food, receive a pay cheque or see their best friend. It may be the pursuit of praise, above all, that drives some to risk ridicule, mockery and abuse by singing or dancing on national TV talent shows and others to risk the same by writing articles on national newspaper sites.
This is the narcissistic age, when even a banal description of a breakfast can be measured in a count of likes and favourites. Against that context, perhaps it would be no bad thing to rein in the temptation to snow future generations with extravagant compliments. Sometimes a brief nod and a grudging “aye, that’s not too bad” is the kindest response we can offer
