Effort-focused praise between friends: Effects on mindset and motivation of giver and receiver

Abstract

We examined the effects of effort-focused versus ability-focused praise between friends on individual mindset and motivation, and investigated the effects on the person receiving praise as well as on the praiser. We conducted a scenario-based experiment focusing on an everyday situation based on cooking. The participants were 271 undergraduates who were randomly assigned to six groups, comprising a 2 (receiving or offering praise) × 3 (effort-focused praise, abilityfocused praise, or no praise) design. The results show that both receiving and offering effort-focused praise positively and significantly affected a growth mindset and also had an indirect positive effect on persistence following failure; however, ability-focused praise affected neither mindset nor persistence. Our findings suggest that in daily friendship-based interactions, praise focused on effort over ability encourages adaptive outcomes for both the praised individual and the person offering the praise; therefore, students need to not only praise each other but also pay attention to the type of praise offered.