What you praise matters
From Malcom Gladwell’s book, What the Dog Saw page 368 in my edition:
In a similar experiment Dweek gave a class of preadolescent students a test filled with challenging problems. After they finished, one group was praised for its effort and another group was praised for its intelligence. Those praised for intelligence were reluctant to tackle difficult tasks and their performance on subsequent tests began to suffer. Then Dweek had the children write a letter to students in another school, describing their experience in the study… 40 percent of those students who were praised for their intelligence lied about how they had scored on the test, adjusting their grade upward.
!!! Lied !!!
Other evidence cited in the book suggests that when people believe in that talent is innate they have difficulty dealing with adversity.
Gladwell’s book, Outliers, expands the argument. To be good at something takes 10,000 hours of practice. Having a basic level of intelligence is necessary to success, but beyond that basic level success does not correlate to higher “talent” or IQ. Rather it’s the result of practice, which in turn is strongly affected by opportunity to practice.
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