The Effects of Person Versus Performance Praise on Children’s Motivation: Gender and age as moderating factors

Abstract

Two studies were conducted to determine how gender and age moderate the long‐term and post‐failure motivational consequences of person versus performance praise. In Study 1, fourth‐ and fifth‐grade students (n = 93) engaged in a puzzle task while receiving either no praise, person praise, product praise, or process praise. Following a subsequent failure experience, behavioural measures indicated that product and process praise enhanced motivation and person praise dampened motivation for girls, but that there were few effects of praise on subsequent motivation for boys. In Study 2, a parallel procedure with preschool children (n = 76) showed that person, product, and process praise all enhanced motivation, relative to neutral feedback, for both girls and boys.

Notes

1. Statements were pre‐tested on a sample of 28 adults who listened to and rated verbal recordings of two experimenters delivering the feedback statements. Ratings were made on seven‐point scales and indicated that the person, product, and process praise statements were perceived as equally positive and effusive, but that the person praise statement was perceived as slightly less informative (M = 5.98, SD = 1.17) than the product (M = 6.85, SD = 1.48) and process (M = 6.89, SD = 1.24) praise statements.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark R. Lepper

This research is based on the first author’s dissertation, submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Ph.D. at Stanford University. This work was supported, in part, by a Spencer Dissertation Fellowship and a Graduate Research Opportunity grant from Stanford University. Portions of this work were presented at the 2000 meeting of the American Educational Research Association and the 2001 meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. We gratefully acknowledge the cooperation and assistance of participating schools and the research assistants who aided in data collection.