Praise and Positive Reinforcement

November 25th, 2008 | View Comments

If you’ve ever thought the pop psychology on self-esteem had the causal arrow pointing in the wrong direction (e.g., self-esteem and success are correlated, so if I praise a kid up the wazoo, I increase his/her changes of being successful), read this and feel vindicated. Money quote:

After reviewing those 200 studies, Baumeister concluded that having high self-esteem didn’t improve grades or career achievement. It didn’t even reduce alcohol usage. And it especially did not lower violence of any sort. (Highly aggressive, violent people happen to think very highly of themselves, debunking the theory that people are aggressive to make up for low self-esteem.) At the time, Baumeister was quoted as saying that his findings were “the biggest disappointment of my career.”

Now he’s on Dweck’s side of the argument, and his work is going in a similar direction: He will soon publish an article showing that for college students on the verge of failing in class, esteem-building praise causes their grades to sink further. Baumeister has come to believe the continued appeal of self-esteem is largely tied to parents’ pride in their children’s achievements: It’s so strong that “when they praise their kids, it’s not that far from praising themselves.”

By and large, the literature on praise shows that it can be effective—a positive, motivating force. In one study, University of Notre Dame researchers tested praise’s efficacy on a losing college hockey team. The experiment worked: The team got into the playoffs. But all praise is not equal—and, as Dweck demonstrated, the effects of praise can vary significantly depending on the praise given. To be effective, researchers have found, praise needs to be specific. (The hockey players were specifically complimented on the number of times they checked an opponent.)

This reminded me of another article I read a while back, on the power of positive reinforcement. Although this one was specifically about marriage, its lessons can be applied to parenting or almost any type of relationship.

The central lesson I learned from exotic animal trainers is that I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don’t. After all, you don’t get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband.

Back in Maine, I began thanking Scott if he threw one dirty shirt into the hamper. If he threw in two, I’d kiss him. Meanwhile, I would step over any soiled clothes on the floor without one sharp word, though I did sometimes kick them under the bed. But as he basked in my appreciation, the piles became smaller.

I was using what trainers call “approximations,” rewarding the small steps toward learning a whole new behavior. You can’t expect a baboon to learn to flip on command in one session, just as you can’t expect an American husband to begin regularly picking up his dirty socks by praising him once for picking up a single sock. With the baboon you first reward a hop, then a bigger hop, then an even bigger hop. With Scott the husband, I began to praise every small act every time: if he drove just a mile an hour slower, tossed one pair of shorts into the hamper, or was on time for anything.

In psychology parlance, reinforcement is something that is supposed to increase the rate of a particular behavior while punishment is something that is supposed to decrease the rate of a particular behavior. Positive means the addition of a stimulus, negative means the removal of a stimulus.

Positive reinforcement:
praising your child for studying hard for a test

Negative reinforcement:
stopping an endless stream of nagging when your child finally does sit down to study

Positive punishment:
scolding your child for not studying

Negative punishment:
removing TV privileges for not studying

The take-home message from both animal and human research seems to be this: when it comes to shaping a complex behavior, positive reinforcement is definitely the way to go. But keep the praise targeted at a specific accomplishment, even if it’s a small one, or risk inflating your child’s ego without seeing any actual improvement.