The drawing is beautiful! The drawing is incredibly beautiful! How will a child with self-esteem perceive the person’s comment about her drawing? Brummelman, Thomaes, de Castro, Overbeek, and Bushman, attempted to explore the impact of inflated praise of children with low-self-esteem in the article titled ““That’s Not Just Beautiful—That’s Incredibly Beautiful!”: The Adverse Impact of Inflated Praise on Children With Low Self-Esteem”. The author’s literature review investigates how parents motivate their children with the various inflated praises such as “Excellent,” “Amazing,” “That’s incredible.” The authors said that most parents especially those from the western culture find it pleasant to motivate their children with praises as an effective means of increasing their self-esteem (Brummelman et al., 2014). Additionally, the authors also reviewed the reaction of children to approvals where the reported that inflated praises are yet to be investigated, and the impact of a children’s response to recognition depends on the message it communicates to the child. Children are more comfortable to withdraw and avoid challenges since praises make them feel that ability is unchangeable and they are better than the rest. The authors define inflated praise as standard that determines future performance (p. 729); thus it implicitly demands a unique performance. Therefore, how can praises efficiently communicate for the better performance of all children in future? The study investigated the topic to accurately indicate the impact caused by inflated praise on children with different levels of self-esteem.
The study primarily asked one question about what is the impact of inflated praise among children with low self-esteem. According to Dweck, 2006 (as cited by Brummelman et al., 2014), boosted praises are not beneficial to children. The praises make children concentrate on the praises rather than improving to maintain being praised and avoid challenge seeking tests due to fear of failure. Additionally, the impact of praises depends on what the message is communicated to the children (Brummelman et al., 2014). The research identified two hypotheses, which include; the first hypothesis involved the evaluation of whether parents and adults are likely to give more inflated praises to children with low self-esteem than those with high self-esteem. The second hypothesis entailed the testing of whether inflated praises increases challenge seeking in children with high self-esteem compared to the decrease in finding of challenges in low self-esteem children. The authors used three study approaches to explore the hypotheses where the first two were involved in outside laboratory tests while the study 3 was an experimental approach.
The variables of interest involve impact on future performance and inflated praise. Inflated praise is the independent variable while future performance is the dependent variable. The way of delivering praise to a child determines the impact on future performance. The research carefully selected samples which included parents with different ages ranging from 30-60, primary caregivers, and children including boys and girls (ages 7-11) where 712 participants were chosen in the study 1, 114 for study 2 and study three did not specify the number of participants.
The first hypothesis was investigated using study 1 and two while the second hypothesis used to study 3. Study 1 indicated that most parents give more inflated praises to children with low self-esteem than those with those with high self-esteem. Study 2 was a confirmation of Study 1’s answered question of if the case will be repeated with interaction with adult children. According to the results of study 2, the frequency of parents giving inflated praise to lower self-esteem was higher regardless of the gender thus answering the first study’s question. The third study’s results indicated that children perceived inflated, standard and no praise as sincerely equal and both variables of either age or gender interaction did not help in predicting self-esteem.
Both hypotheses were supported according to the interpretation of data in various details. The authors argued that inflated praise still is more likely to be given to children with low self-esteem and the increases praise reducing the chances of the child in seeking challenges regardless of the gender or age. Thus the results affirmed both hypotheses. Data were interpreted using analytical tools such as MS excel as shown by the values or r and p which are usually obtained when performing a regression analysis of data and the tables showing self-esteem against challenge seeking.
The study’s strengths include the use of different critical methodologies of investigation include experimental and naturalistic-observational methods. The research also clearly investigates the variables intensively such as from the focus of incidents and consequences of praises. Additionally, the study had limitations which include the argument that inflated praises decrease challenge seeking by arousing their self-protection motives which are not proved yet. The second limitation entails the authors using the only single context of conducting the third study evaluation thus not all components are considered. To improve this paper, the authors should evaluate the how motives are affected by choice of inflated praises and the study should explore the second hypothesis using numerous contexts to draw reliable conclusions.
The study and evaluation of the topic was a comprehensive investigation empowered by different models of research despite the few limitations noted in the study. It is, therefore, an essential contribution to psychology as it helps educate parents and caregivers on how they should positively deliver praises that aims at improving the child mental growth other than giving inflated praises that may backfire in low self-esteemed children.
Reference
Brummelman, E., Thomaes, S., de Castro, B.O., Overbeek, G., " Bushman, J.B. (2014). That’s Not Just Beautiful—That’s Incredibly Beautiful!”: The Adverse Impact of Inflated Praise on Children With Low Self-Esteem
