Praising children for being smart increases cheating

A pair of studies from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto, along with researchers in China and the U.S. have found that children who are told that they are smart or that they are high-achieving academic students are more likely to cheat.

Professor Kang Lee from the OISE’s Institute of Child Study (ICS) and his colleagues suggest that although praise is a reward used almost universally by parents and educators, it can certainly have detrimental effects.

“Giving children [the] wrong kind of praise makes them dishonest,” Lee said, according to ScienceDaily.

In the initial study titled “Praising Young Children for Being Smart Promotes Cheating,” which was published in Psychological Science, two phrases were used to reward preschoolers who successfully completed a task.

The results show that children who were praised as being “smart” were significantly more likely to cheat than those who were praised for doing “great” at the task.

In a second study titled “Telling young children they have a reputation for being smart promotes cheating,” published in Developmental Science, researchers showed that preschoolers who were told that they were smart cheated at higher rates in the future.

In the initial study researchers had three-year-olds and five-year-olds participate in a guessing game. Upon winning in the game, the children were praised in either one of two ways.

One group was told, “You are so smart,” while the other was told, “You did very well this time.” The difference here is in what was being praised.

In the first group the children themselves were rewarded for being smart. However in the second, the children’s performance was more directly praised. After the researchers praised the children, they left the room, instructing the children to promise that they would not cheat. While the researcher was out of the room, a hidden camera was able to record what the children did.

After looking at the recordings, the researchers found that despite the difference between the phrases of approval, the children in both age groups who were told that they are smart were more likely to cheat than those who were told that their behavior was good.

Similar results were found in the second study in which students who were directly told that they were smart. This effectively increased their likelihood of acting dishonestly in the future.

Lee explained the rationale behind the dishonesty.

“Praise is more complex than it seems. Praising a child’s ability implies that the specific behavior that is commented on stems from stable traits related to one’s ability, such as smartness,” he said. “This is different than other forms of praise, such as praising specific behaviors or praising effort.”

Co-author of the publication Gail Heyman, a professor at the University of California, San Diego explained in a press release elaborated on the implications of their findings.

“Our findings show that the negative effects of ability praise extend beyond this to promoting dishonesty, and that this occurs in children as young as three years of age,” she said.

Another co-author, Professor Li Zhao of Hangzhou Normal University said that both praising children for being smart increases pressure on them to continue being smart.

This pressure is related to the burden of having to perform well in order to live up to the expectations of others by any means necessary. This, then leads to cheating.

In contrast, she says, praising the behavior does not subconsciously make the child think that he or she is expected to continue producing at such a high-achieving level.

On a grander scheme, Lee suggests that the study could improve the way in which adults praise their children so as not to promote cheating or other dishonest behaviors.

“We want to encourage children, we want them to feel good about themselves,” Lee said. “But these studies show we must learn to give children the right kinds of praise, such as praising specific behavior. Only in this way will praise have the intended positive outcomes.”