WEBVTT 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:12.000 My name is Carol Dweck. 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:17.480 I'm professor of psychology at Stanford University. 00:00:17.480 --> 00:00:22.760 When teachers want to encourage girls in math and science, 00:00:22.760 --> 00:00:30.170 they should put the emphasis on the process that the girl's engaged in and not the outcome 00:00:30.170 --> 00:00:36.530 or the ability that the girl showed in her work. 00:00:36.530 --> 00:00:43.560 There was a belief in the 90s that was generated by the self-esteem movement, 00:00:43.560 --> 00:00:52.350 that you should praise children's outcomes and their intelligence as much as you can. 00:00:52.350 --> 00:00:56.990 This would give them confidence and help them achieve. 00:00:56.990 --> 00:01:04.959 But I had been studying this process for many years, and I thought that that was problematic. 00:01:04.959 --> 00:01:08.370 The students who were most vulnerable were the ones 00:01:08.370 --> 00:01:14.190 who were already concerned-overly concerned-with their outcomes and ability. 00:01:14.190 --> 00:01:19.200 And so I thought, "Maybe this wasn't helpful." 00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:22.140 We put it to the test in our research. 00:01:22.140 --> 00:01:31.400 We gave students difficult problems from a non-verbal I.Q. test. 00:01:31.400 --> 00:01:36.450 We praised half of the students for their intelligence, 00:01:36.450 --> 00:01:43.230 and we praised the other half for their effort-the process they engaged in. 00:01:43.230 --> 00:01:46.500 What we found was really dramatic. 00:01:46.500 --> 00:01:53.180 The students praised for their intelligence did not want to take on a challenging task. 00:01:53.180 --> 00:01:59.750 They wanted to make sure they kept succeeding and deserving that label. 00:01:59.750 --> 00:02:03.960 When we gave them some even more difficult problems, 00:02:03.960 --> 00:02:10.310 suddenly they lost confidence because if they were smart when they succeeded, 00:02:10.310 --> 00:02:13.670 they must not be smart if they didn't do well. 00:02:13.670 --> 00:02:18.310 They lost interest, and their performance crashed. 00:02:18.310 --> 00:02:23.590 The students who were praised for effort wanted the challenging task. 00:02:23.590 --> 00:02:28.710 When they hit difficulty, remained confident, remained interested, 00:02:28.710 --> 00:02:34.940 and their performance increased from trial to trial. 00:02:34.940 --> 00:02:40.740 In our experiments on praise, we brought students one at a time into a room. 00:02:40.740 --> 00:02:46.490 We gave them problems from a non-verbal I.Q. test. 00:02:46.490 --> 00:02:53.100 They were pattern completion problems that are a little like math and science. 00:02:53.100 --> 00:03:00.310 Half the students, after the first ten problems, were told, "Wow, that's a really good score. 00:03:00.310 --> 00:03:03.300 You must be smart at this." 00:03:03.300 --> 00:03:08.400 So they were told that they had high ability at the task. 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:16.030 The other students were told after the same ten problems, "Wow, that's a really good score. 00:03:16.030 --> 00:03:18.990 You must have worked hard on this." 00:03:18.990 --> 00:03:24.130 And that is feedback about effort, about process. 00:03:24.130 --> 00:03:29.030 You wouldn't think one sentence of praise would make a huge difference, 00:03:29.030 --> 00:03:31.380 but it made a huge difference. 00:03:31.380 --> 00:03:37.820 It made such a huge difference that we did the study over five more times 00:03:37.820 --> 00:03:41.360 and found the same things each time. 00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:46.780 The praise for intelligence made students afraid of difficulty 00:03:46.780 --> 00:03:51.650 and it made them fall apart in the face of difficulty. 00:03:51.650 --> 00:03:57.670 The praise for effort and process made students eager for a challenge, 00:03:57.670 --> 00:04:03.400 and it allowed them to maintain their engagement 00:04:03.400 --> 00:04:08.680 and their effectiveness in the face of difficulty. 00:04:08.680 --> 00:04:11.690 One more interesting thing happened. 00:04:11.690 --> 00:04:19.579 After the study was over, we asked students to anonymously report their scores. 00:04:19.579 --> 00:04:25.760 Almost 40 percent of the students who were praised for their intelligence lied. 00:04:25.760 --> 00:04:28.760 What does this mean? 00:04:28.760 --> 00:04:36.190 It means that praising children's intelligence makes being smart so important 00:04:36.190 --> 00:04:38.880 that they can't handle obstacles, 00:04:38.880 --> 00:04:45.050 they fall apart when they don't feel smart any more, and they lie about their score. 00:04:45.050 --> 00:04:51.760 They can't even admit to themselves, I think, that they messed up. 00:04:51.760 --> 00:04:54.130 Is that what we want in our students? 00:04:54.130 --> 00:05:01.100 That instead of going to fix a deficiency, they try to cover it up and run away from it? 00:05:01.100 --> 00:05:02.500 I don't think so. 00:05:02.500 --> 00:05:09.510 But giving process feedback about the student's effort or strategy allowed them 00:05:09.510 --> 00:05:17.620 to confront their deficiency, try to remedy it, and to be very open about it. 00:05:17.620 --> 00:05:19.460 It was nothing shameful. 00:05:19.460 --> 00:05:25.890 That's what we want in our classroom, students who want challenge, can learn from mistakes, 00:05:25.890 --> 00:05:30.610 can tell you about what they don't understand and need to learn. 00:05:30.610 --> 00:05:34.360 And I think this is especially what girls need, 00:05:34.360 --> 00:05:38.900 because many girls-and especially even really bright girls-feel they have 00:05:38.900 --> 00:05:41.540 to be perfect all the time. 00:05:41.540 --> 00:05:51.210 So we want to create an environment in which hard tasks are desirable, mistakes are permitted, 00:05:51.210 --> 00:05:58.650 and correcting the mistakes are things that students know how to do.